□ a bl sideblog, because yes, it reached that level◇▪︎ ♡🏳️🌈☆
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Latest Posts by enemies-to-friends-to-lovers - Page 11
Thank you, Noh Shin Woo. I’m serious. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve collapsed on the street from crying. You’re exaggerating.
Mr. Seo giving more gems of advice on a teachers salary.
Crying today because I learnt that -
if someone lets you go because of lack of courage and not being able to take a stand for themselves, don't worry. Because there'll definitely be someone out there who'll always be there to lend you a shoulder or open their arms to comfort you.
happy end. ❤️
It’s Psychopath Diary - The Actual Rom Com Edition: Alternate Diary of Seo Inwoo @ Ao3
when he wants to give you something, but you’re a dumbass
I posted a fanfic for the first time in like 10 years if not more (it's more for sure, shhh), I'm very stressed. 👉👈 BUT The Devil Judge managed to get me to that level of obsession and I couldn't help it (also I started writing this before last weekend and I can't handle other eps airing and making me edit stuff ok).
Here's a lil Yohan/Gaon fic I guess?
Yohan calls him in many different, often infuriating, ways. There's only one that Gaon asks for. When he's ready.
⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ 𖥻 ♥︎ : the best story. 🖇️
We meet by chance all the time
The Best Story - episode 2
Love Triangles & Tropes
I have to talk about love triangles for a moment and it is all Light on Me’s fault.
Most BLs don’t employ true love triangles. Instead they throw in a faen fatal as a plot device who is obviously not a real threat to the main couple for various reasons:
They’re an underdeveloped character with little back story.
They’re the wrong gender.
They enter late in the narrative and/or have very little screen time.
They engage in no significant romance tropes with the lead.
With a faen fatal we all know that our two boys will end up together.
A love triangle is different.
In a love triangle the audience actually believes the second lead has a good chance of winning over the main character. The second lead is given back story, is the correct gender to be competition, and has significant screen time. And, of course, tropes are used to make the burgeoning romance believable.
Guess who is great on love triangles and even better at giving audiences bad cases of Second Lead Syndrome?
Why yes, that would be Korea.
When I posted about Korea’s history with BL, I talked about how strategic and clever they are with tropes. I think this is one of the reasons they are so good at believable love triangles.
But so far they haven’t given us a love triangle in BL… until NOW.
Light on Me is the Perfect Love Triangle
For the purposes of argument (and because of various elements like the lingering gaze, romance narrative conceits, focus of the camera lens etc) I am going to go with the following:
TaeKyung = our POV or main character (uke*)
ShinWoo = Lead (seme)
DaOn = Second Lead (seme)
* In addition to specializing in soft low heat BL, Korea likes a slow burn romance and a weak seme/uke dynamic. So we are going back to the original definition of uke: basically the character the others are pursuing and want to take care of.
Light on Me is using heavy hitting BL tropes to weight TaeKyung’s options fairly. Almost every time the director doles out one significant trope to SinWoo they will then give the same trope to DaOn or vise versa. It’s so smart and fun to watch I started keeping score.
Crash Into Me AKA Proximity Alert
(Camera then shows ShinWoo watching this, when it’s a trope he already got to have with TaeKyung.)
Messy Eater
(Camera then shows DaOn watching this, when it’s a trope he already got to have with TaeKyung.)
Meet Me In The Library
Head Touch
(Honestly I am Team ShinWoo solely based on this neck grab.)
Wound Tending
Light on Me is a master class in how to use tropes to manipulate audience sympathy so they can’t decide which pairing they prefer. Basically, this is how you infect fans with Second Lead Syndrome. It’s SO GOOD.
Also, did you notice how they spaced this flip-flopping out at first, but then it got closer together? Crash into me with seme 1 then not with seme 2 until a few episodes later. But as the series progresses and the tension increases, the same trope for one seme comes closer in time to the same trope for the other seme, until finally at the end of episode 8, both semes want to wound tend TaeKyung in the same scene! Which mean’s this show is also pacing its tropes to amp up love triangle tension.
This is clever enough to be mind boggling. I can’t even.
On the other hand, they will dole out specific tropes to each seme (that the other one doesn’t get to have). So ShinWoo got to tie the shoelaces. But DaOn loaned the umbrella. SinWoo gets to grab and physically demonstrate interest. DaOn gets to flirt and verbally indicate interest.
Partly this is because TaeKyung is on an enemies-to-lovers arc with SinWoo, but on a friends-to-lovers arc with DaOn (see True Beauty). But also it’s because the two semes are very different personalities.
Similarly the narrative parcels out TaeKyung’s responses accordingly.
So TaeKyung collar grab’s SinWoo. This is a trope that is always uke to seme in an agro relationship, because when an uke acts aggressively you know something is going down. It’s commonly used to give uke agency for the first kiss (see We Best Love). TaeKyung also rescues ShinWoo from bullies and gets hurt in the process, another aggressive move with relation to this particular seme and more common in enemies to lovers (see PeteKao in the Kiss series).
Since DaOn is on a friends to lovers track, TaeKyung is a lot softer with him.
In fact TaeKyung keeps trying to take care of DaOn, and even performs some seme acts of service (even though he’s the uke character), which is Korea being unbelievably clever with their love triangle. I mean how can we not root for them as a couple?
Look, I’ve seen the seatbelt trope a million times but only PeteKao have ever flipped it so far as I can recall, and that’s just because Pete keeps getting beaten tf up. This is the kind of proprietary behavior (see also buckling on a safety helmet) only performed by seme on uke.
Also TaeKyung took care of DaOn when he was sick, remotely, but still he used the umbrella to tell DaOn who was doing it. This is playing with the idea of mutual responsibility and partnership which is very unusual in BL, and makes me like them as a couple all the more because they act on an equal footing. Mutual care is adorable. (See Oxygen for more of this kind of exchange.)
The interesting thing about DaOn as a second lead is that we know more about his back story than we do our mains. We know he is a neglected child, a people pleaser, and the ultimate caregiver. We watch him fall in love with TaeKyung because TaeKyung is the first person to give DaOn care back. Of course he wants to hold onto that. Also it makes DaOn very very VERY sympathetic to watchers.
It got bad enough in episode 8 that I begin to wonder, despite all the many narrative clues, if DaOn actually might win TaeKyung in the end.
See what I mean?
Second Lead Syndrome!
I know this has been a praise post, but flipping heck do I hate a love triangle. Because ARGH I want them both!
Bravo, Korea.
TEACH ME YOUR WAYS SEONSAENGNIM
Taekyung's neurodivergance is actually central to the story that Light On Me is telling. If he weren't different, if he didn't miss social cues or misunderstand people's reactions, he wouldn't be pursuing this friendship with Shinwoo. If he didn't have a single-minded focus that nothing could shake, he wouldn't insist on their friendship. None of this would happen if Taekyung understood social cues or the way other people think. His different way of thinking drives the entire story, all his relationships and all the ways he's helping the people around him. The same things that kept him isolated are now winning over the people he's coming to care for and that's beautiful.
" I want to say thank you. " (Ears turn red)
- Shinwoo
as an asexual aromantic person i should be allowed to want to kiss someone. i should be allowed to want to hold hands with someone and sleep in the same bed as them. i should be allowed to do intimate things with someone i love and i should be allowed to have partners that aren't inherently romantic or sexual and have those relationships be respected. i should be allowed to have romantic thoughts and do romantic actions without experiencing romantic attraction. i should be allowed to be asexual and aromantic and live as i want to.
Constantly stuck between “Let these characters be friends! Platonic bonds are just as strong as romantic, and not everyone needs to be dating in order for them to have a valid, close relationship” and “eheheh gay”
“we didn’t have the intention to redefine masculinity, but it feels good that we can have this positive effect or influence” — namjoon talking about breaking masculinity standards
I just cannot get over how BAD Yu Zhen is at romantic communication.
It's definitely related to his trauma.
But he just... he's absolutely terrified of putting words to his feelings.
There have been at least two direct occurrences of him using his knowledge of exactly how soft and caring Shi Lei is to manipulate him into giving him affection.
We've seen him ease into affectionate looks and initiate touches and clutch Shi Lei tight to him because he craves that contact so deeply.
But he never uses words.
He steps into the coffee shop after taking a deep breath and still only manages to point at Shi Lei.
Shi Lei asks for time to himself and Yu Zhen panics so hard he fakes an allergic reaction just to bring Shi Lei back to his side.
He cannot bear the thought of their separation but also cannot face the peril of putting words to feelings, of saying what he feels.
His pride, his fear, his control, his past... everything is catching up and crashing down around him.
Shi Lei can only do so much if Yu Zhen won't tell him anything. And he'll really only do so much without the words he wants, without the confirmation of their relationship.
Three more episodes and the pain has begun and I don't think will be going away any time soon. Each young man sleeping in their own room next episode... ooof.
Yu Zhen & Shi Lei always ending up in bed together
Ever tried to break your own rules only to get walked in on by someone that you're keeping from their own happiness with your rules?
Oh no, it's natural consequences!
