tagged by @watchthisqqq over a year ago and i completely forgot about it, but i still wanted to do it, so i'm taking a trip down memory lane and evaluating 2025's year of bl!

📷 ball boy tactics 🏀

god i loved this one so much. incredible chemistry, a recently awakened but unapologetically and openly bisexual, and a great lesson in confidence, resolve, and starting over.

👪 chosen home 🏠

the most underrated ql of 2025. incredible story about belonging and contentment centering around an unconventional chosen family, told through hysterical—and at times absurd—humor and moments of quiet seriousness. it has many (srsly, many) b-plots that all got beautifully resolved and fit together within the general moral of "home".

🔄 khemjira 🧟‍♀️

khemjira has everything: spectacular cinematography, great writing, endearing characters, horror, the supernatural, reincarnation, lesbians, period drama, and incredible sex scenes.

🤫 secret relationships 💔

one of the greatest pieces of media ever. i am genuinely so blown away by how well made it is. truly ART. best possible way to watch it is going in completely blind and bingeing the whole thing, trust me. made my irl best friend binge it blindly with me and he couldn't stop thinking abt it.

🎬 top form 🍯

incredibly well acted, surprisingly sweet, and with great heat. such high quality stuff that it surprised me and became one of my faves of the year, thus on this list.

🔪 the journey to killing you 🔫

oh japan, you are so so good at this specific type of toxic, tragic yaoi. yakuza members with a power imbalance, assassination plot, and surprise (to them) romance. chef's kiss 😙👌

🍑 peach trap 3️⃣

what a surprise of a kbl, truly. i hate love triangles and the plot sounds so basic, but it's incredibly well done and captures you so completely. i couldn't believe it gripped me the way it did. all three potential love interests are, well, interesting! you really root for all of them fairly equally, but in a way that doesn't make you sad for the two not chosen. to me at least, the right choice was made and it was done so deliciously, too.

👑 kill to love ☣️

thank you to china for making another uncensored historical bl. filled the toxic period cdrama hole that myatb left, but with more darkness and tragedy. follows the same incredible structure as myatb of the first half being a fun romcom sprinkled with little flakes of deception and depth that hit hard to flip the genre to angst, politics, and tragedy. and the ending is so masterful and hits hard as well.

🚩 revenged love 😈

the show that brought china's brand of toxic yaoi to the masses and just generally took everyone's summer by a storm. the epitome of dead dove, do not eat. for those that can handle this type of dead dove, it is a fantastically well done commitment to toxic yaoi. also one of the best premises ever: taking revenge on your classist ex-gf by going gay and seducing her presumed new bf.

[DISCLAIMER: "dead dove, do not eat", contrary to popular misinformation, does not mean that the contents are necessarily dark or taboo, but that the story is accurately tagged/described and you as the reader must pay attention and not blame the content for being exactly what it said it was. you opened the bag labeled dead dove, you can't be mad when you find a dead dove. thus when i say revenged love is the epitome of this, i mean that it's called toxic yaoi and it v much follows through. it is problematic on purpose, if you are gonna watch, don't be mad at that.]

🚨 to my shore 👔

talk about china committing to and excelling at toxic yaoi. rich kid with trauma turned powerful business man weaves the most intricate webs to catch supposedly saintly prey to corrupt and manipulate just for the fun of it and to prove his cynicism correct. already fantastic, but then his web of lies leads him to the love of his life and to his own downfall??? absolutely delicious. dead dove, do not eat with this one too. when i say toxic yaoi, i well and truly mean that.

👬 secret lover 🦕

i didn't say it was good, i said i liked it. but i think it's fairly good, too!! hyperfixated on this one hard and consider it one of my absolute faves of the year despite it not being objectively one of the best. childhood friends to lovers, established relationship, boy/boy/girl friendship trio, great kisses, and a liiiittle side gl sprinkled in with a funky fun female character. i loved it. and the one scene of jun xi heatedly checking out his boyfriend fueled my 'let bottoms openly and enthusiastically express desire' agenda nicely.

👬 head 2 head 🔮

it's like if we best love: no. 1 for you was about doomed psychic yaoi. it's like reverse bad buddy (families are super close friends, sons are enemies) but they're in a fashion school friend group. turned me into a seakeen fan. ending could've been stronger, but i thoroughly enjoyed

👨‍🏫 my bias is showing!? 🎤

this one is a pretty underrated kbl, but i liked it a lot and i wish more ppl would give it attention. based on a manhwa of the same name, it's a super cute and super sweet story abt a secret boy group stan slash high school teacher and his bias who becomes his temporary coworker and seduces him. such a fun romcom plot! plus it stars the 4th omega x member to be in a bl and this time he actually kisses his love interest! yay for omega x specific progress, lmao

📚 school trip: joined a group i'm not close to 🚎

this was another surprise favorite of the year. i don't even have the words to describe what makes it so good, for all intents and purposes it's a fairly basic and simple show. the premise—kid gets pulled into the popular boys' group and finds love and friendship—is so simple and the execution is nothing crazy, but it's just so sweet and so good. it's not even particularly compelling, but it made me read the novel it's based on and i loved watching the show!

👬 stay by my side after the rain 👔

incredibly sweet second-chance romance about letting yourself be happy in spite of obligations, family expectations, and society.

🧷 punks triangle🔺️

the ending fell so flat to me, but otherwise i absolutely loved this one. i don't think i've ever seen punk characters in a bl show, and it was so fun to watch this cutie fashion student simultaneously live his y/n fantasy with the punk model he stans and learn how to let ppl in with the model's loser fashion student alter ego.

🔎 fight for you 💖

like. it's not great. but it's not bad. it's a little all over the place, but the chemistry is SO good and the romance is so sweet and the side couple (and ex side couple) are very interesting. i would recommend it for enjoyment rather than quality.

rules: Go to pinterest and type in “[your name] core aesthetic” and create a moodboard using the first nine images. No need to reveal what your name actually is!

thanks for the tag @mangoslixes!! <3 it came out v pretty!!

Tagged by @succulent-pup to share 7 pics that apply to me from my phone, here is my lame attempt lol

Tea tag collection.