Smug Shi Lei Is The Best

i can not tell you how happy i am these 2 are together they deserve all the cute and happiness 

not so quick pitch 

Light on Me (2021 - Korea) 

Rating: 10/10

Foundational Romance Trope: friends to love triangle

There were some who thought this BL slow, and I get that, but really it’s just subtle and quiet. With Light on Me, Korea gave us an honest to goodness high school set BL with some classic old school yaoi tropes almost like they were doing a bit of a, 

“now that we’ve hit our stride, let’s perfect the vanilla sheet cake BL style.” 

It was great, of course, but very refined and elegant which some found off putting. It made me think of something like this… 

It’s what Korea does, repackage and perfect vanilla cake into this pretty glowing confection of precision joy. I’m cool with that. By all means, please include BL in the Hallyu take over. This is the K-pop of BL En-Hyphen style, manufactured super-powered cute but… restrained. 

But that doesn’t make it any less gut wrenching to watch. In fact, it makes every subtle tentative movement of care that ShinWoo attempts that much more telling. It makes every fear of exposure that prevents DaOn from taking action that much more traumatic. It makes every moment of TaeKyung’s brutal honestly and blunt communication that much more powerful. 

It’s like that intense moment of focus on the hand flex in an Austen adaptation - we are awaiting every crack in the sugar sculpture with bated breath. 

The filming in this show was precision engineered. The frame was kept uncluttered, characters appeared exactly in the center, there was little visual noise, and the lighting was full on, even in night shots. To me this reflected the character of TaeKyung - honest and almost stilted in his mannerisms. I feel like the director filmed this series as if the show itself were TaeKyung: careful and clear and specific. 

This may come off as one-note or simplistic to a casual viewer but it’s actually quite difficult to film something so precisely and still make it interesting to watch. It forced the viewer to focus almost entirely on the actor’s faces, their nuanced emotion, and their interpersonal relationships to the exclusion of all else. Lucky for us those actors served the lens beautifully. 

There is literally NOTHING distracting about this directing style. It’s like the camera was a neutral white room, a well-lit gallery in which the narrative hung suspended for us all to stand and stare at in hushed silence.

A love triangle has never before looked so perfect or been executed so perfectly, and it never will again. All BL love triangles that come after Light On Me (and we will get them now) are going to be unfavorably compared to this show. 

When I posted about Korea’s history with BL, I talked about how strategic and clever they are with tropes. Light on Me is a master class in how to use tropes to manipulate audience sympathy so they can’t decide which pair they prefer. Korean BL never just throws in a trope without purpose - they calculate its impact on story structure. Basically, LoM used this technique to infect fans with Second Lead Syndrome. It’s SO GOOD.  

So yes, Light on Me was cleverly engineered, but it was also SPECIAL, and here’s why:

This show gave us a small cast of beautifully acted complex and sympathetic characters and dwelled on their different motivations, communication styles, and narrative roles. It gently explored not what it means to love, or even be in love, but what it means to act on love, and what that says about integrity and emotional courage. In doing so, it managed to treat its characters with integrity too. And not just the three main characters but the mentor, the faen fatal, and the best friend support characters too. 

This show felt very fair. Fair to its characters. Fair to its story. And fair to us, the watchers. 

For me this BL was classy, a real winner, not the least of which because they NAILED the landing, including the final kiss. Korea is DOMINATING 2021. Like seriously. What’s going on here?  

Full analysis of the love triangle trope under the context of the second half fo this BL here. 

Bravo, Korea.

(source)

We were just kids. BAD BUDDY (2021)

Someone on Instagram pointed out how Ohm plays a game when he tags Nanon. So I went to his insta to see for myself too. Check these out ( even if you have already noticed some, trust me, see them all!)

Yes we get it, Nanon belongs to you 🙄

BUT WHAT IS THIS OHM??

????

Either the tag placement was really not thought about or thought out too well 😂😂😂

BONUS:

Someone played along 🤩

Can you believe that Gaya Sa Pelikula talked about so many lgbt+ related issues as openly as it did? 

Can you believe that it gave a lesson about euphemisms and how it is not shameful saying the word gay out loud? Can you believe it talked about allyship and how it’s not always done right, but that if people are willing to listen to lgbt+ people and are open to learn it is valuable? When was the last time you saw a show saying microaggression? And especially, related to how people assume that passing privilege is a good thing and shame more feminine lgbt+ people. When was the last time you heard that “you don’t look gay” is NOT a compliment as explicitly as gsp did? Can you believe it also talked about how Vlad devalued those little mundane romantic things like prom because as lgbt+ we feel those are still out of reach for us because of the hateful societies we live in? But then immidiately showed us that we can have those experiences as lgbt+ people. Can you believe how they also highlighted that coming out feels like coming home, or all the talk about Boca del Cielo which is a place that doesn’t feel real but in the end it is found, and how the show values finally being able to express yourself as lgbt+ as something to celebrate and dance to? Something freeing and beautiful?

I CANT WAIT 💚❤️

Goodbye COLOR RUSH : Favorite shots of some of the places Yoo Han taught Yeon Woo about colors

That whole bit, the way the show handled that scene and the way est absolutely nailed it was amazing to me. Like the delivery was so in character, the way Po was just not able to get words out because he was trying so hard to hold it in. And the way he only completely broke down in his room by himself, away from thame cause he knew he didn't have the resolve to walk away if thame continued to console and beg. Oof yep this scene is gonna be talked about in bl history for sure.

Est's delivery on "Thame, aren't you tired?" might just be one of the best bits of acting I've seen in a while