Korean Bl - Tumblr Posts
The literal message of Love for Love's Sake is that letting people love and support you can be the best way to show someone how much you love them and that you cannot make people happy by loving them without letting them be there for you as well.
Love yourself and let yourself be loved because if the only way you know how to love is by giving and never receiving you will hurt yourself and the people who love you.
It's the way Love for Love's Sake says 'you love your flaws in other people yet hate yourself for having them' and then shows all the love that he has for the people who struggle the way he does and then says 'can you learn to love yourself through them?' and the only answer is yes.
Plus & Minus just ended and I have to say, there are very few, if any, Taiwanese BLs that I haven’t enjoyed! The most recent, prior to P&M was DNA Says Love You. These series are more understated, more thoughtful, and very fresh, and I would compare them more to Korean BLs than to Thai BLs, (but oftentimes with better sex, or certainly deeper kisses)! Don’t miss them! I, also, appreciate the fact that Taiwan studios don’t force fake relationships onto their actors, or make them do all kinds of appearances together.
Honorable mention, here, to 49 Days With a Merman, which isn’t a true BL, but more like a “Buddy” series.
Addendum: About Youth!
Here is a, not-so-complete, list of Taiwanese BL series:
https://blwatcher.com/bl-series/taiwanese-bl-dramas/
This list has GROWN since this original posting; it has also changed and evolved.
You said I can ask you if there's anything I don't understand, right? Then please teach me. How to kiss.
THE TIME OF FEVER (2024).
I just watched all this tonight and I loved it... such an easy watch as the leads were soo good... I need more though
semantic error + the height difference <3
You've Never Yelled At Me (Choco Milk Shake fic)
Summary:
"Why would I yell at you?" "...you wouldn't. You're a good boy, you...you wouldn't do that. You've never done that, even when you got mad and I was in trouble. Even when I scratched you on the side as a child, you never yelled at me." "Are you upset that the boss got frustrated with you and yelled at you, Milk?" "....He's supposed to be trustworthy, he's good to me and to you and you like him and he's your family too. But he...he was so loud and he was so upset, but I just did what we always did."
The Time of Fever (Ep. 1-3) visual analysis: The Metamorphosis
Ho-tae: "I woke up to find myself transformed into a monstrous insect, lying in bed"...What is this? A story about a guy turning into a bug? Dong-hee: If I turned into a bug one day, would I still be Kim Dong-hee or just a bug?
From this piece of dialogue and the cinematography alone I know The Time of Fever is going to cause me a lot of pain. The only way to describe its style is palpable.
The moment our two main characters, Kim Dong-hee and Go Ho-tae, appear together, we can see the friction and unnamed longing between them.
Notice how often the first episode uses shots with three distinct compositional layers to provide depth and complexity to the relationships portrayed on screen:
In most of these shots, the composition places Dong-hee in the background with Ho-tae on another layer completely--they're distant and never quite aligned on what they want out of the relationship. Despite how these two characters were brought together by their mothers' friendship--I love how the second screenshot uses their bodies in the foreground to frame Dong-hee and Ho-tae--it's that very connection that also creates a wall between them. Although Ho-tae is excited about rekindling their friendship after moving away two years prior, Dong-hee doesn't want to betray his aunt's trust by admitting his romantic feelings for him.
And so he recedes into the background, alone and inscrutable.
The fact that Dong-hee also compares himself to Gregor from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis hits like a sucker punch.
Like Gregor, Dong-hee lives a sort of transient and almost functionalist lifestyle. After being kicked out of his home by his abusive father, he focuses on his school work and trying to get by. He is isolated and his queer awakening only makes him feel more disoriented and misunderstood--he feels like Gregor in his insect form.
And yet we still see moments where he allows himself to yearn for something more and how Ho-tae begins to do the same.
(Side Note: I love love love the show's use of backlighting to highlight the lines of the actors' bodies. It's so simple but intimate and erotic as if the camera is acting like Dong-hee's artist-eye trying to memorize Ho-tae's muscular beauty.)
One of my favorite stylistic choices of The Time of Fever is how it uses close-ups to represent the characters' subjective POV and desire.
Like Dong-hee's sketches, these shots are the fragments of everyday life that are so small yet feel oh so significant while on the path towards self-discovery.
They're gloriously tactile, the shallow depth of field eliminating extraneous detail, allowing us to experience the heady excitement of accidentally grazing your crush's skin or looking into their eyes during a rainstorm.
I don't think I've seen desire that achingly displayed in a hot minute.
And so it makes sense that as Ho-tae begins to undergo his own metamorphosis and understand his own feelings, we see more and more visual parallelism in how their desire manifests.
(Side Note: The second screenshot above is such a gorgeous shot. That inky black negative space not only showcases Ho-tae's gaze at Dong-hee's lips but also his reaction to the realization that hits him. Great 2 for 1.)
I can't wait to see what visual storytelling the next three episodes bring.
Yunje and Jaejun have great chemistry 😭😭😭 like I’m blushing watching them interact
Sooooo....
I'm a little confused. I've not watched a lot of Korean bls, other than maybe 4 (The Eighth Sense, Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, Love for Love's Sake, Where Your Eyes Linger; loved every one of them. ).
I keep seeing gifs of The Time of Fever. I want to watch it, but I keep seeing tags of Unintentional Love Story and I wanted to know if I need to watch Unintentional Love Story before I watch The Time of Fever. Please if one of you can help me out that'll be great. Also, feel free to suggest any other Korean Bls if you think I might enjoy it.
Oh no!
I think I've seen this film before
the age gap between jaewon and jihyun is honestly such an important thing in the drama.
jaewon used his seniority to help jihyun feel more included in a place that was new and scary to him. he made sure that people acknowledged him and that he felt welcome. since jaewon already had a built reputation, he used that to protect jihyun.
as for jihyun, he helped jaewon feel young again. because of his depression and his relationship with eunji, i bet jaewon felt like most of his years in college were wasted. he was in an unfaithful relationship, went to the military, and had to deal with the burden of his younger brother. when jihyun came into his life, he essentially found someone that allowed him to have a fresh start. he didn’t have to waste time pretending to be someone he wasn’t. he could live life with jihyun more carefree since he was a new freshman with less worries.