Beth. Old. Likes wine. Just here to enable my Kpop habit. I also love dramas of any kind. I will post all types of things that amuse me or that make me think. This should be pretty random, so buckle-up!
As someone living in Minnesota, if you think both sides are the same, and Trump is only doing openly what Obama did quietly, I will simply say I don’t remember minority-owned businesses having to keep their doors locked during the day to stop ICE from coming in and taking everyone.
why aren’t there more mysteries that take place in nursing homes & retirement communities. i want to watch a group of deranged retirees-cum-amateur-detectives combine their powers of:
decades of life experience
boredom-fueled busybody shamelessness
access to the most gossipy next-door-neighbors in existence
“I am too old to be arrested and/or give a shit” attitude
and solve crimes. this should be an enormous subgenre.
Brindlewood Bayis a roleplaying game about a group of elderly women—members of the local Murder Mavens mystery book club—who frequently find themselves investigating (and solving!) real-life murder mysteries.
Honestly one of my favourite mystery mechanics is in this game - the Theorize move, which allows the players to come up with the answer to the mystery and then roll to see how correct they are!
Obachan Panic is a quick, easy-to-teach, easy-to-learn ttrpg about grannies and aunties saving the world. They saved your home and country countless times from alien invasions, government conspiracies, untold monsters, the singularity, economic collapse and deflated soufflés—AND made it home in time to make you that casserole you like.
This game comes with playbooks that you can print, cut out and paste together - a little arts-and-crafts scrapbooking session to go along with your storytelling game! It even comes with art for your characters!
Gold & Girl is a game about retirees, divorcees and widows all rooming together in their sunset years. Deal with problems like Nosy Neighbours, Rising Rent, and Thin Walls - using only two stats! Mysteries should be no problem with this game, just give your Girls something to be nosy about!
Grandmothership, by Armanda, is currently in development but it’s a sci-fi setting about old ladies figuring out why the lights keep going out, why the robots are acting up, and what is going on with recent random disappearances. It’s inspired by Brindlewood Bay, Honey Heist, and Mothership.
I love that the power of elderly women solving mysteries continues into the far future! The feeling of this game is that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, which very much is the way elderly women might think. You can check out the link for the preview!
i got the PERFECT show for you op
After a failed robbery, a gang of 3 noble thieves: Zuza, Kinga and Alicja hides in a quiet nursing home. While the police are on their heels, the gang continues their activities at the center, giving its elderly residents a second youth.
Chinese BL is back and it brought with it some seriously toxic reinforcements. They just picked up where they left off in 2017 with all those same tropes and rough edges. We were unprepared but game, and they served.
Apparently BL’s last decade of sporadic but consistent evolution towards consent, safe sex, actual queerness, and other trappings of modernity did not phase China.
Well, to be fair, look at Cdrama het romances, it’s exactly the same bullshizzle there.
We are scared and scarred.
Please sirs, may we have some more?
What Happened to Korean BL?
It felt like there was a decrease in production of KBLs (especially at the start of the year) but that turned out to be a decrease in QUALITY KBLS. We got quantity.
We had 30 KBLs release in 2025, 14 of those had a total run time of over an hour. (I qualify anything under an hour of fresh content - trailer and teasers not included - as a short.) That’s actually the same or more KBLs than in previous years.
But we also saw a spike in KBLs on YouTube as shorts and/or other platforms as verticals. This actually increased Korea’s over all output but decreased quality.
We also witnessed the reuse of several actors in those shorts, occasionally with multiple BLs (of the same type) airing at the same time featuring the same actor! It was a bit difficult to keep track of, frankly.
A lot of these were closed locations (apartments, cafes/bars without customers) and very small casts. Basically we are seeing Korean pulps increase and prestige KBLs decrease.
I am not sure if this shift (back) towards shorts will continue or simply even out. (For those who don’t know, Korean queer content started with shorts back in the early 2000s.)
Increased production quality over all BL.
On the whole, we are seeing higher levels of production than previously in the BL world (as certain film technology becomes cheeper, and background staff and talent becomes more experienced).
There are fewer outright mistakes in makeup and wardrobe (although some intentional choices remain questionable). Boom mics have fewer guest appearances, and even the sound quality in Thai BL seems a little improved.
A little.
Along side we are getting historical settings (expensive in location and wardrobe but good for soft power and culture propaganda), crime fiction adjacent concepts (like The Heart Killers, expensive in training and manpower) and BLs with strong horror and paranormal elements (expensive in makeup and special effects, like Khemjira). In Thailand production has gotten more confident over all.
One wonders, with the success of shows like Revenged Love and The On1y One if Japan will actually begin to dip into the well a little bit more, and if we will see increases in border-crossing IP adaptations.
That said, Korea’s mass production in pulps, and Thailand’s entrance in the vertical market has had a dampening effect on overall quality in terms of story and turnaround times.
Increased content variation (sub genre expansion)
This is a pre-existing trend that continues to expand, but is also a marker of a maturing genre.
We have firmly left high school and are graduating from university.
For Thailand this has to do with their aging pool of bankable co-branded pairs aging out.
Korea is simply finding it cheeper to do home and workplace pulps.
Taiwan and Japan always had a wider interpretation of the genre.
Sure we had a few school BLs, but these used to dominate the field and are now in the minority.
This trend is likely to continue.
BL has grown up.
Because they are now heavily set in the adult sphere, BL production houses are becoming more far reaching and considered in concept. In addition to historical, horror, and paranormal we are likely to see more and more slipped and skewed reality (Boy Next World, Caged Again, Love Begins in the World of If) as well as isekai, parallel universes, magical realism, and omegaverse. This is because these are mature high concept but cheap in setting (office, house, dorms).
Rise of Celebrity BL
Celebrity BL was quite popular this year including sports stars, actors, singers, and idols as one or both of the leads.
We got: ThamePo, The Sparkle in Your Eye, My Bias is Showing, 10Dance, Love Sea, Top Form, Reset, The Ex-Morning, Ball Boy Tactics, FC Soldout, Punks Triangle not to mention I Became the Lead in a BL 2 and At 25:00 in Akasaka 2.
I’m not sure if this is a trend that will continue to rise, but I don’t see it decreasing.
Speaking of celebrity…
Sports BL Goes for Gold
Sports BL started it’s rise last year but seemed to really reach its stride in 2025. Knock Out, The Bangkok Boy (kinda), Summer Indigo (vertical), Ball Boy Tactics, FC Soldout, Pit Babe 2, and more all featured sports settings (if not any actual game play).
I’d like it if we got more sports team friendships (band of brothers style) and rivalries. That’s what I enjoy about sports BL, but so far the focus has been on the individuals. I assume that is because of casting expenses.
I think this trend will hold steady, but not increase much. It’s popular to set in but it’s not particularly popular with BL viewers (yes, despite the success of Heated Rivalry).
Rise (and Fall) of Thai Historicals
After (some of us) begged for years, 2025 saw 3 major Thai historicals drop, none of which performed to expectations (I’m The Most Beautiful Count, Memoir of Rati, and Love in the Moonlight). Oh some of them were good, but none of them made waves.
I think this places the sword of Damocles over the proverbial heads of any other Thai historical BLs currently in production (Love Upon a Time and Love Destiny spring to mind).
Please Sir May I Have a Horror?
We got a lot of ghost stories this year.
We have always had ghostly BLs. I mean China used “my ghost boyfriend” as a regularly appearing trope back in the pre 2016 days. But there were more than usual in 2025: Mission to the Moon, My Secret of Seer, Secret Ghost, andKhemjira.
We also got a lot of vampires, goblins, and other paranormal creatures. BL went with a Halloween theme for 2025.
I mean, so did the rest of the world. Pretty horrific out there.
LESSER TRENDS
Masterbation can be fun!
So masterbation is a pretty rare thing to get in BL yet it came out to play a lot this year:
Revenged Love,
The Heart Killers,
My Stubborn,
I Promise I Will Come Back,
GelBoys,
When it Rains it Pours,
Secrets Happened on Lichi Island,
Love Sea,
Reloved,
Golden Blood,
Revenged Love,
Sangmin Dinneaw.
Yes we’ve had masterbation pop up before (pun intended, always) for example IFYLITA, Don’t Say No, Big Dragon, Love is Better the Second Time Around, Playboyy. But 12 in 2025 alone is exceptionally high.
I think I could probably count on one hand the times I’ve seen it in BL before 2023. So this increase is a trend.
Now could we get some increased rep for h-jobs, b-jobs, and a-play prior to (or instead of) penetration?
And yes, I’m aware of Khemjira’s bid for exceptionalism in this arena. Good for them.
Girl Snap
Queens, femmes, and gay bitch behavior. There still aren’t a ton of these goddesses, especially not in leading roles, but at least we are finally getting SOME.
The Most Beautiful Count lead the charge but there was also Secrets Happened on the Litchi Island (China, recommended), Situationship in the City (VBL, not recommended), MuteLuv: Diva Deva Mata, Knockout, Suntiny and few other Thai pulps. It was great to see some femme gays on my screen. More please.
So much kidnapping
Both the standard old “kidnapping for love” trope, but also just regular kidnapping to move the plot along. There was just a lot of kidnapping this year.
Oh, I forgot
Drop that amnesia trope BL. Back away slowly. No one will get hurt.
Next Prince, Reset, Desire, Knock Out, DogBro, and side references in a few others all had boys collared and lead around, some got to be blind folded. Fun fun.
Even Korea decided to dabble in kink this year. Who tf knew that was gonna happen? And I do mean dabble. One wishes they’d had the ballgags to dive in for a full swim, but they just waded in the kiddie pool.
Guys + gardens = boyfriends
Memoir of Rati, My Magic Prophecy, Revamp, and The Proper Way to Write Love all featured our boys mucking about with flowers as a metaphor for cultivating love.
Thailand is especially poor at fight sequences. We got okay fights in Bangkok Boy and Knock Out (they cast boxers, so yay!), not to much else (side-eyes Next Prince, Revamp, and The Heart Killers) but we can’t have everything.
2026 & Beyond… PREDICTIONS
1 We friends now?
I think we will get lots more combo country productions. China, Thailand, and (likely) Taiwan will co-produce when possible. Japan might even get in on the mix occasionally.
We are going to see countries sharing locations, and in some cases, talent. I hope we get some bilingual actors in the mix.
We may also see more adaptations of cross-cultural IP.
2 Historicals Won’t Last
Expect a pull back on historicals. They under-performed across the board (read: none did as a well as IFYLITA) and they are so expensive.
Much as I personally enjoy them, and wish they would continue to infect BLs in other countries (side eyes Japan), I just don’t think production houses are going to find historical BL practical from a profit margin perspective.
With no major historical hits in 2025, I expect this sub-genre to contract significantly over the next 2 years.
3 More Horror
The success of Khemjira in Thailand will spark more horror Thai BLs.
That’s not why this show was so successful but production houses see what they wanna see. And Thailand loves a ghost story.
We may even see trickle over into other countries.
4 Japan holds steady
I think about 20 BLs out of Japan per year is the new normal. They also seem to consistently load the back end of every year with their best stuff.
Since they have the biggest back catalogue of yaoi content, I don’t see them slowing down anytime soon. I would like them to dip into the well a lot more, but adaptations are challenging because IP law is very stringent there. It’s likely we aren’t getting some of their more famous 90s yaoi (Target the Finder, Brothers, Kizuna, Sky Over My Spectacles, Desire) because the rights are impossible to obtain or tied up in litigation.
5 Korean BL Continues to Decline in Quality
My suspicion is that KBLs simply are not performing to expectations in-country. We will not be seeing longer form, high prestige, or adaptations of Japanese IP in the KBL sphere. (Insert sad face. RIP my 16 ep gay remake of Descendants of the Sun.)
I’m calling 2023 as peak Korean BL.
It’s been downhill since then, even tho we are getting more shows they aren’t better shows. I don’t want to say it, but someone has to.
KBL has officially had its heyday.
Oh please prove me wrong in 2026, Korea. This is one trend where I really wanna eat my words.
Y'all, Jira won the ‘I find red flags hot’ jackpot in these two men. They’ve got all of them and some to spare! And that is why poly is the only REAL answer.
