#but the more chen yi confesses

[heymeowmao]

Kiseki: Dear to Me E12 ° Ai Di during Chen Yi's confession

#kiseki: dear to me #kiseki dear to me #taiwanese drama #taiwanese bl #louis chiang #ai di #i made these for the middle row🥺 #the way you can see ai di trying to remain indifferent #but the more chen yi confesses #the more his walls break down #meowmao gifs

[respectthepetty]

considering the convo we were having in your comment section yesterday, when slayer mentioned that it's a good thing dad/boss didn't return chenyi's feelings, it got me thinking: do you think dad/boss knows about chenyi's feelings? do you think he realized it one day and, to discourage chenyi, started being stricter on him? i wonder!!!!

@bitacrytic, before I get started -

TLWR: I don't think the dad/boss was aware, and "boss" is code to Chen Yi.

I loved the conversation that happened on your post and within the comments of mine about Eddie x Chen Yi's brother-ness, and the inclusion of their boss/dad into their relationship.

Without getting deeper into the mud about found family's dynamics, I don't think the dad was aware of Chen Yi's feeling. He is their boss, but he very much treated them like sons, and told them to call him dad several times.

He wanted to celebrate their birthdays with them, but Eddie didn't, and when they had their family dinner, he specifically made spicy food for Eddie.

Yet both boys continue to call him "boss"

I've watched this show eighty million times on each streaming platform because the subtitles are strangely different, yet all of them keep the "boss" label.

So while their boss is trying to be their dad, they are linguistically enforcing a hard limit with him - he will ONLY be their boss.

I write all of this to support why I think the boss was unaware of Chen Yi feelings since Chen Yi is king of linguistic boundaries.

Chen Yi establishes his relationships with their adjacent labels regardless of his true feelings. He loves Chen Dong Yang, but he labels him as "boss" not "dad." Chen Yi loves Eddie as well, so he calls him "brother."

Chen Yi has no romantic feelings for Eddie, so he can establish that familial bond through language, but he believes he has romantic feelings for the boss, so he doesn't want to establish anything familial with him. Yes? NO!

Rui told Chen Yi he needed to realize the difference between admiration and love, and physically, Chen Yi does. He tells Eddie he cares.

He confesses his frustration about not being able to contact Eddie.

And he constantly shows Eddie how much he loves him.

We don't see much of his interactions with his boss, but he makes sure to show no level of affection. Most of the time, Chen Yi doesn't even look him in the eye. And he always calls him boss. Because he looks up to his boss. He respects him. But he doesn't love him.

So how would the boss know that Chen Yi likes him when he is so cold and distant? Chen Yi is possessive of Eddie. He drags him off of people and out of bars. He wipes blood off his face and goes into a murderous rage if someone hurts Eddie. But to his boss, nothing.

Because, once again, the labels are important to Chen Yi. He loves Eddie. Eddie is family, so he can use "brother," but he thinks he loves his boss differently, therefore, he can't use "dad." He believes he wants this to be romantic, but in his need to create that distinction, he created a physical boundary as well that would be difficult to read as anything but diligent underling. But with his brother, that physical boundary didn't exist.

Which makes it far more interesting that when he picked Eddie up from jail, he didn't call them brothers. He said he was Eddie's "boss." And we know that Chen Yi makes that distinction between "boss" (someone he is allowed to have romantic feelings for), and family (someone he can't have romantic feelings for).

And it's even more interesting that when they are arguing, Chen Yi makes that linguistic distinction AGAIN.

The man Chen Yi has consistently called his "boss" and never admitted to the fact that he RAISED them, now openly states it because the boss IS family. He is their dad. He has no romantic feelings towards family members, but he can have those feelings for people he works with.

Chen Yi never showed his boss he cared. The label he gave him showed he didn't see him as family, but he never psychically demonstrated that, so the boss probably had no idea. But he always showed Eddie physically that he loved him, and now he is using the language to tell him that as well. Chen Yi isn't Eddie's "brother"

He is Eddie's "boss"

And to Chen Yi, the label changes everything.

#kiseki: dear to me #chen yi x eddie #all roads lead to them #the boss never knew #because Chen Yi admired him #he didn't love him #this had a point #and that point was Chen Yi is boss now #not brother

[patr0nsa1nt]

Movie - Do You Love Me As I Love You

A girl, Xiao Xiang (Chen Yu) who trusts tarot cards more than her own feelings loses the chance to confess her feelings to her childhood friend Zhu Hao (Tsao Yu Ning) when he publicly announces his love to their mutual friend Yi Jing (Patricia Lin). Yi Jing, then challenges him to complete the MI List to be worthy of her love.

#asian whump #tw kidnapping #whump #cdrama #stabbing #sacrifice #Tsao Yu Ning #Chen Yu #Patricia Lin #Do you love me as I love you #Mission Impossible List

[bengiyo]

Kiseki: Dear to Me Ep 12 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Bai Zong Yi ran the emotional gauntlet of consideration for whether he wanted to be with Fan Zhe Rui and told everyone who challenged him that he only wanted Zhe Rui. They finally reunited in a very tasteful bed scene. Chen Yi attempted to flirt with Ai Di via gifts (unsuccessful) and we left at a knife being put to his throat.

Thank you, ladies, for expositing about the strawberry day for Zhe Rui.

Yes, give your man what he wants: a reliable handgun and a short-barrel shotgun.

Chen Yi in this prison flashback like:

I love Papa Bai so much. The regard he has for his son is incredible.

The rituals between Ai Di and Chen Yi I swear.

I was expecting a whole lot more drama before Chen Yi confessed. The birthday cake montage was really good.

Is this girl still mad about high school? He went to prison! Move the fuck on!

Hot damn, it's the Plus & Minus boys!

Ai Di looks so much more lacked after finally getting dicked down.

GUN! Now who the fuck was that?? Was it that girl?!

Oh, this show. The actors continue to work so well together, and there's an emotional core to every interaction that rings true even if some of the surrounding circumstances are hard to follow.

#kiseki: dear to me #Taiwanese bl #bl series #Ben watches

[halliescomut]

Kiseki Ep 9

So I don't have proof, but Ai Di was planning to leave. He used the 'orders' from Boss man as an excuse, but I think even if he hadn't seen that text he would have just up and disappeared. I think he took that conversation with Zong Yi in ep 7 to heart and thought that it would be possible for him to leave and not see Chen Yi, and that if he was gone long enough his feelings would die.

I do want to know what Chen Yi is thinking though. Because after we pop back to the present and he brings Ai Di home...it feels like he's trying to get Ai Di to admit he has feelings for him and that's why he took advantage. And if he gets that confession it means that he can confess too, because I think he remembers that night and has now had his feelings for Ai Di change, or perhaps they've simply become clearer. For all the brother stuff, Chen Yi not wanting to see Ai Di being potentially romantically involved with anyone feels a lot to me like jealousy more than a brotherly interest in keeping your freshly 18 'brother' from sowing his oats. I don't know. I do 1000% think that despite all of the depression drinking and Chen Yi still answering to Bossman, I don't think he has the same level of adoration anymore. I think Bossman using Zong Yi and then sending Ai Di into the prison AND promising Ai Di that he could be free of the gang broke ALL of that.

The Ai Di stuff didn't make me cry, but it was so close. Because that 'love scene'...that was clearly Ai Di knowing he was making a choice he wouldn't be able to come back from and thinking that even if all he has is a memory that will be enough.

And Zong Yi... that's what made me cry. Seeing him reunited with his family, but it's never going to go back to how it was even though his dad is okay and now they have each other. It was so sweet and so sad. Like, the poor sister blaming herself, and dad blaming himself, and Zong Yi blaming himself, it's so fucking sad.

The Jhe Ruei stuff was rough to see. Knowing what we do about how Jhe Ruei came to the Fan family and what he gave up, and the lengths he was going to hide his true self, and failing in some aspects. Seeing the 'Old man' (who I don't know if he's Jhe Ruei's father or grandfather tbh) talk about how they can't trust him fully because he's different after suffering MASSIVE BRAIN TRAUMA AND LOSING HIS MEMORY made me want to knock some sense into him. Like how the fuck????

But also what was the point of the Fan family wanting to take Zong Yi out when he was already in jail?? Like what was the purpose...is he just an old-fashioned homophobe, or is he worried Jhe Ruei will remember and leave the family for Zong Yi? Because, dude you barely want him there, so what do you really care?? And it can't really be about 'appearances' when he's an illegitimate heir and isn't going to be given any sort of position of power. I really don't know what's going through the old man's head.

I'm confused, I'm worried, I'm a little sad. So I guess we'll see what happens next week.

Also if you weren't aware there is a 'bonus episode' like episode 8.5 that's up. I watched it on bili, but it gives a bit more insight into the whole Teng and Dragon Gang debacle. It's not really SUPER necessary to follow the general story, but it does give more info. But if you watch MODC, then you may have a bit of a PTSD reaction to watching it...as a warning.

#kiseki dear to me #chen yi x ai di #jhe ruei x zong yi #ze rui x zong yi #zerui x zongyi #chenyi x aidi

[zaobitouguang]

Chinese Ethnic Minority Literature

I just finished taking an incredibly eye-opening class about Chinese ethnic minority literature. China has a thriving minority literature scene, and it's absolutely fascinating and full of interesting works, so I wanted to share some of the authors that I learned about this semester! This is, obviously, an incomplete list-- it's pretty heavily biased towards what we read about in class, and there's probably a lot I've missed!

For any authors with full works that have been translated into English, I've listed it under their names. Some other authors may also have poems or short stories published in translation online or in anthologies.

Hani 哈尼

Mo Du 莫獨 (b. 1963) - poems

Hui 回族

Huo Da 霍達 (b. 1945) - novels

The Jade King: History of a Chinese Muslim Family (1992)

Zhang Chengzhi 張承志 (b. 1948) -novels, short stories

The Black Steed (1990)

Korean 朝鮮族

Jin Renshun 金仁順 (b. 1970) - novels, short stories

Jin Wenxue 金文學 (b. 1962) - novels

Manchu 滿族

Duanmu Hongliang 端木蕻良 (1912-1996)

Lao She 老舍 (1899-1966) - novels, short stories, plays

Rickshaw Boy (1945, 2010)

Miao (Hmong) 苗族

He Xiaozhu 何小竹 (b. 1963) - poems, novels

Shen Congwen* 沈從文 (1902-1988) - novels, short stories

Imperfect Paradise (1995)

Border Town (2009)

Mongolian 蒙古族

Altai 阿爾泰 (b. 1949) - poems

Bao Liying 包麗英 (b. 1968) - novels

Baoyinhexige 寶音賀希格 - poems

Chen Ganglong 陳崗龍 (b. 1970) - poems

Guo Xuebo 郭雪波 (b. 1948) - novels, short stories

The Desert Wolf (1996)

Malaqinfu 瑪拉沁夫 (b. 1930)- novels

Naxi 納西族

Sha Li 沙蠡 (1953-2008) - novels

Yang Zhengwen 楊正文 (b. 1943) - novels

Qiang 羌族

Qiang Renliu 羌人六 (b. 1987) - poems

Yangzi/Yang Guoqing 羊子/楊國慶 - poems

Tibetan 藏族

Alai 阿來 (b. 1959) - novels, short stories

Red Poppies (2003)

The Song of King Gesar (2013)

Tashi Dawa 扎西達娃 (b. 1959) - novels, short stories

A Soul in Bondage: Stories from Tibet (1992)

Yangdron 央珍 (b. 1963) - novels

Uyghur 維吾爾族

Alat Asem 阿拉提·阿斯木 (b. 1958) - novels, short stories

Confessions of a Jade Lord (2019)

Wa/Va 佤族

Burao Yilu 布饒依露 - poems

Yi 彝族

Aku Wuwu 阿庫烏霧 (b. 1964) - poems, essays

Tiger Traces: Selected Nuosu and Chinese Poetry of Aku Wuwu (2006)

Coyote Traces: Aku Wuwu's Poetic Sojourn in America (2015)

Bamo Qubumo 巴莫曲佈嫫 (b. 1964) - poems, academic articles

Eni Mushasijia 俄尼·牧莎斯加 (b. 1970) - poems

Jidi Majia 吉狄馬加 (b. 1961) - poems

I, Snow Leopard (2016)

Words from the Fire: Poems by Jidi Majia (2018)

Jimu Langge 吉木狼格 (b. 1963) - poems

Lu Juan 魯娟 (b. 1982) - poems

Ma Deqing 馬德清 (1952-2013) - poems, novels

Na Zhangyuan 納張元 (b. 1966) - essays

*Shen has both Miao and Tujia ancestry, as well as Han. However, I see him listed most frequently as Miao.

More Resources on Ethnic Minority Literature:

Altaic Storytelling: The blog of translator Bruce Humes (translator of Confessions of a Jade Lord, among other works). Has a fairly broad focus, but he's written a lot about ethnic minorities.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Ethnic Literature: China has a thriving infrastructure to support the writing of and research into ethnic minority literature, and this is one of the larger institutions. I believe their research focuses more on oral traditions, but they have some information about contemporary writers as well.

Chinese Women Writers on the Environment: An anthology of eco-fiction by female ethnic minority writers.

Golden Horse Award 駿馬獎: This is an annual award for ethnic minority literature. The wikipedia link lists all the previous winners.

The Leeds Center for New Chinese Writing: Again not specific to ethnic minorities, but features several ethnic minority authors.

Paper Republic: This organization is devoted to translated Chinese writing and isn't specific to ethnic minority literature but has information about and translations of some of the writers on this list.

Poetry International: This website isn't specific to ethnic minorities or even to China, but many of the poets on this list have pages there with a few poems translated into English.

#chinese #mandarin chinese #langblr #studyblr #books #my posts #literature #ooh boy this is a long one! #i'll reblog a version with my own commentary in a few

[verysinglepieceofbread]

okay so the birthday thing. in the confession bondage scene (gotta love saying that), chen yi says "did you celebrate my birthday without me all these years". i haven't seen the original subtitles but from what i'm hearing it's 我的生日，too.

i'm betting ai di didn't know his own birthday because he's an orphan, and chen yi shared his own with him. and then stopped sharing.

also now he will be giving ai di all the gifts he didn't give him before, more than just the dog tags

#chen yi #ai di say meow #he's not returning ai di's gifts through the years btw #all his babey #kiseki: dear to me

[nattawinlove-andmygaytea]

Since we are not getting an episode of Kiseki: dear to me this week...... I finally found a translation for the novel.❤ Thanks to some amazing people, it's in Italian and with the chrome translation to english it can be well read 👏🏻

The novel is complete now.

( I deleted the post by accident, so I'm reposting it for people who wants the novel.)

I looked so hard for it, cause I want to buy the book but I can't read in chinese😭🙏🏻

If someone wants the link ask me.

I recomend the reading if you like Fan Ze Rui and Bai Zong Yi 😍 But I warn that who wants some Ai Di × Chen Yi, theres not much. They are side characters, very secondary indeed...Not hint of them falling in love. I was expecting this since this author does not have a good progress of secondary couples by exemple the other 2 couples in We Best Love.

I hope the series can get them a good end (something, anything, please.)

There's some changes in the plot, most of them it's clearly to get Chen Yi and Ai Di more participation on the series.

I think it's worth to read and see the evolution (that it's not so rushed in the novel) and intimate moments of Zong Yi and Ze Rui...

Spoilers; let me vent:

We know Zong Yi, but once he falls for Ze Rui, he's a menace! Poor Zerui didnt have any chance against him 😅

My favorite part may be when Zong Yi confess to Zerui and after one month without meeting each other, Zerui goes to the school to find solace in the high school boy, and gets surprised that his boy's voice changed so much (cause he's still a growing boy 😅) and he's even taller! (like how that's possible?)

Delightful...

And no, Ze Rui didnt forget his boy, how could he? He's faking memorie loss so his family dont hurt Zong Yi more.

Bai Zong Yi remembers too! he has a problem with his short-term memory, but after all and 4 years later they're still in love ❤.

I love them.

-The last chapter of the novel is out and...

spoilers ;

About getting married:

"If wedding vows excite him so much, I'll record them for him and play every day"

Ze Rui about butter:

"Damn... I'm not a cake!"

...devoured as a dessert in his lovers cake shop kitchen! 😋🔥

"Even if he forgot, he would remember him again because of love" ❤

#kiseki: dear to me #kiseki dear to me #I accidentally deleted the post #so I'm posting again to people that want the novel) #bai zong yi #fan ze rui #zong yi x ze rui #taiwan bl #bl novel

[heretherebedork]

Do you think one of the themes or "moral of the story" for Kiseki, is admitting your feelings before it's too late? Cause we seem to have a lot of what appears to be unrequited love, but only because the ones with the feelings, aren't saying anything. Ai Di to Chen Yi, Chen Yi to Dong Yang, Zhang Teng to Ze Rui, Juan to Zhang Teng, The only person to admit his feelings so far, is Zong Yi to Ze Rui. And despite a minor bump in the road, they ended up together because of it.

It might be a theme but I actually think it's much more focused on being honest with yourself about your feelings and what you believe can happen and acting on them but also it's about the fact that some thing take time.

If Ai Di had spoken to Chenyi about his feelings before jail, I don't think anything would have, or could have, happened. Chenyi still looked at him as a child comparatively and would have dismissed his feelings. There would have been nothing and it would have been devastating in a different way entirely.

Zongyi confessed his love to Zerui and still got rejected because it wasn't the right time and the point where they finally were both on the same page was also the day that everything went horribly wrong.

Sometimes, it's the right person and the wrong time and sometimes it's the wrong person but the right time and sometimes you and your lover had opposite kinds of amnesia and you spent four years in jail learning to bake for him while he lived an aimless and passionless life without a memory.

Um.

Which is to say... I think this is more about timing and the pain of love and the work is takes to love than anything else about admitting feelings.

This is a story about what happens when memory is fallible and when you have to find love not just in memory or in moments but somewhere in your heart you might not even know you had.

Juan and Zhang Teng are just teasing us because those two are never allowed a happy ending. But they're also about the fact that, sometimes, you love the wrong person at the wrong time and nothing you do can change that for you.

#kiseki dear to me #asked and answered

[sunshinechay]

So I waited to watch ep8 of Kiseki so I could pretend there was a new episode today instead of having to wait and I will say I hate the promo so much.

It is going to be even more angst for Ai Di and Chen Yi I just know it, especially considering Ai Di ends up in jail and is pretty pissed off to see Chen Yi when he gets out.

Chen Yi is not going to take any of confession from Ai Di well is he?

#kiseki dear to me #chen yi x ai di #ai di x chen yi #chenyiaidi #😭😭😭 #i just want my baby to be happy #instead he’s probably going to get rejected and then go to jail #also my phone autocorrect pissed to puddled #and i just want everyone to know that so they can laugh too #cap watches kiseki #cap speaks

[respectthepetty]

Pet! It was the highs of the highs but also the lows of the lows 😭

How am I (we) supposed to wait a week?!?

I kept saying to myself, they're not going to do it to us. They're not. Not after MODC. They can't.

But I wasn't able to fully believe it.

But then I realised there is something I can trust.

Ai Di.

I don't have screenshots but in the preview for next week Ai Di is too calm. He's pouty. He would be much more rage-filled feral murder bunny if anything happened to Chen Yi like that. Especially after their *ahem* confessions. (Their 'father' is also too unaffected).

I have to trust that.

And I will hold your hand and help you trust that too 💛

DADDY! The only thing keeping me together is the existence of this scene.

Knowing that I will get this scene regardless of how episode 12 ended is what my last shred of hope is tightly hanging onto because this episode came for my entire life!

I was fucked up all day. Yoga? Useless! Grading? Fuck them kids! Gay Christmas? It happens every year LIKE CHEN YI AND EDDIE'S BIRTHDAY!

But much like you, I'm thinking Eddie looks annoyed and their dad/boss is looking . . .

smug? Like he is happy that his kids have finally worked it out?

But Daddy, I'm shocked that you of all people didn't mention THIS!

What are our two dads doing?! Are they behind some of this?! AND WHO WAS ZHANG TENG TALKING TO?!

Because this chick went "to the dumpster" to throw out the glass she broke

And somehow, a gun is being pulled.

If this is Zhang Teng's sister, our dads better not be in on it, and crying about this oversight.

That's all I know.

hold my hand, pet my head, tell me I'm pretty Chen Yi x Eddie will color match next episode

#kiseki: dear to me #eddie x chen yi #they did match their colors this epsiode #and I took that personally #what is going on with our dads?! #they have been mia and now they wanna be crying in cars! #that girl is sus and if she shot chen yi . . . #I hope Eddie goes cats gone wild

[leofiat-bunny]

ChenYi/AiDi from Chen Yi's POV

As mad as I'm going to be at Chen Yi, I do have some symapthy for him:

Unattainable DILF who saved you, you seek the approval of, and is always around makes for obvious baby gay's first crush

The first time "best friend" and "desire" share space you run away at warp speed because 3 years is a lot at that age (and if somebody else your age tried something with him they'd still be finding pieces in 20 years)

Run right back to the safety of first crush and settle in comfortably

Genuinely seeking his approval and being jealous of his relationship confirming to you that you're "in love with him"

Best friend pokes fun at your feelings? Obviously that indicates a lack of interest so there's no need to acknowledge that thing that never happened then and has never happened since and look at your feelings for Boss - you know what love is really like, so don't worry about it (just don't notice how much it looks like he wants to cry when "poking fun")

Hell, he's even moving away from you; he's refused to spend your birthday together for 4 years now (you've avoided spending it alone with him for 4 years, but that's totally different). Now he's gone off alone and dropped out of contact. He seems to spend more time with A'Ruei than he does you.

Possessive over him? No you're not. He's just annoying you, you just have to protect him, you're just helping them by taking him off their hands

And NOW:

WHY DID A'RUEI HAVE TO SAY THAT?

"Tell me, how can I get him?" Have you figured out who "him" IS boy?

And Ai Di's response is to stop "tucking him in" 🥺

You've kissed him, he hated it. Drop it

He's dissappeared. How could you fuck up so badly

Chen Yi gets injured on his first "mission" without Ai Di. "Useless" indeed... I just can't decide if:

he was distracted by Ai Di's abscence (though he knew Ai Di was with A'Ruei by this point),

Ai Di is that important to him in a fight (he's screwed while Ai Di is in prison) or

he kind of LET himself get a litte bit injured because "ways to get Ai Di to come back 101"

"I prefer you dressed like this" "What?" "Nothing." Shit. STOP DOING THAT

"I thought you didn't treat me as a brother anymore" - please Ai Di, forget I did that, let us go back before I screwed everything up (and that I only just realised how this looked from Chen Yi's POV just shows how strong Ai Di's POV is, it's overwhelming 😅)

"Do you want to keep going to school?" - I can let you go / it will keep you safe; please be happy / safe / don't leave me completely. You have to know I'd give you anything ("If you like it, it wouldn't be work." 😉)

Boss is dissappointed in you

You must prove yourself

he left. he's in prison. he didn't say goodbye. he's chose someone over you. he did say goodbye but you didn't understand. he left. he's not here. he left. how could he leave? he left

How does Ai Di's confession fit into this?

Either there's at least a modicum of leeway for misinterpretation or - I think -

Chen Yi has so fully committed to having slammed that door that it's not so easy to pry it back open.

Possibly even seeing A'Ruei and Zongyi's situation has him wanting to push Ai Di away from gang life (away from him)

(We should take the fall... yes, the gang should. But not Ai Di. Never Ai Di. If protecting Ai Di means letting him go...)

#kiseki: dear to me #chen yi x ai di

[bengiyo]

Kiseki: Dear to Me Ep 7 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Ai Di joined the infiltration team and is now playing classmate to Bai Zong Yi. Ai Di also bit Chen Yi’s lips in an unsexy way when he kissed him. Bai Zong Yi was revealed to be 17, which threw me off, and he’s being so brave about his confessed crush on Zhe Rui. Zhe Rui is struggling with his moral compass and how his superiors don’t think he’s hard enough to be a gangster.

Besties, I do not remember how Bai Zong Yi got hurt last week. I think it had something to do with the rain and Zhe Rui rushing to take care of him.

Ope! This is a bad idea, but I really liked the choreography of this first time.

The “I checked online” comment made laugh out loud. Good job, Scarleteen and Teen Vogue (and porn)!

“Make it better next time.” Sir!!

“Would I be here if I didn’t?” is not a great response to “Do you love me?”

Aftercare?? In my BL?? It’s more likely than you think. This is actually a big deal that a first time wasn’t great and that a younger and more inexperienced person sought out health resources and make specific purchases prior to engaging in the activity.

Love Bai Jing Yi’s “shoot your shot” energy.

Okay, but why are Bai Zong Yi’s dad and sister even here?

Fan Zhe Rui and Kusakabe Ritsu commiseration hours.

Oh, this trauma sharing is heavy. Bai Zong Yi’s mom used to beat him whenever it rained.

Wayne is back with his knife, and death flagging with someone other than Chun Chih.

Look at Bai Jing Yi seeing them have a moment and just walk away. Love that.

Yes, thank you for confirming that we’re still getting the costume contest even if the school drugs plotline is over.

They are Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. I am losing my mind.

I don’t care if they didn’t actually enter the contest. I get to see Ai Di running to Chen Yi in the costume.

Oh it looks intense next week

This show is a bit odd, but I’m into it.

#kiseki: dear to me #taiwanese bl #bl series #Ben watches

[halliescomut]

Oh do I have FEELINGS about the new ep of Kiseki Dear to Me (Ep 5)

Y'all already know I'm invested hardcore into Ai Di and Chen Yi...I need both of them to confess immediately and kiss and make up about 17 times. They are the new generation of murder husbands and I want to see them in domestic bliss ASAP.

But Jhe Ruei...I was never off of him, I just suffer from second couple syndrome on the regular, but like...he's an interesting character. His observations of Ai Di and Chen Yi were immaculate. But also his interactions with Zong Yi are kinda throwing me off. Like...he likes him, he knows it, but our preview for next week shows him turning Zong YI down??? What's going on there? And I don't disagree with his reasoning, Zong Yi is 17, that is the correct response, but...then why was he putting himself in the situation, as the adult in control? You know????

Because this isn't just a case of it came out of nowhere, like I guess he realized he liked Zong Yi kind of out of the blue in like ep 1/2...but he flirts with Zong Yi. That's him doing something on purpose. And he came back. Like they could have left it at he's a substitute teacher now, but Jhe Ruei keeps being the one to get close.

Like, is this a bad guy suddenly grows a conscience situation?? I'm willing to bet at the very least there's some sort of misled noble reasoning behind him turning Zong Yi down that's based on more than just his age. Like he doesn't want him too close because it could be dangerous, or he doesn't want Zong Yi to risk his potentially auspicious future as a doctor on his lowly criminal self...you know, that BS.

Either way this was a VERY interesting episode to watch. We got a lot of very interesting insight into all of our main players. Also if you haven't seen it, you need to check out this post about Chen Yi and Ai Di's costuming...immaculate.

The storyline could use some sharpening, I agree there, honestly that seems to be the theme of a lot of recent shows at the moment, they needed a script doctor (I'm looking at you BMS, Dinosaur Love, and Love Class 2).

#kiseki dear to me #taiwan BL #Taiwanese BL #Chen Yi x Ai Di #jhe ruei x zong yi #Ze Rui x Zong Yi #ZeRuei X ZongYi

[emotionallychargedtowel]

For the BL trope ask game: 4 and 13

Thanks for the ask, dearie! (And for getting this ask game started to begin with.) These tropes are very much up my alley.

Long-Term Pining (4)

I’m a big fan of long-term pining, as I'm sure you know and as is probably abundantly clear to anyone who reads my tumblr or talks about QL stuff with me elsewhere. I’m not sure what’s so especially compelling about it for me. Part of it is how special it is for someone to be that loyal and committed. Staying constant over a long time without encouragement is one of the biggest indications of the strength of someone’s feelings you could have. I also relate to it in some ways, because when I have serious feelings for someone they don’t ever really go away. Not to mention all the hopeless crushes I’ve had in my life. 

A lot of my favorite BLs/QLs involve a significant amount of pining, so I had plenty of ideas for this trope—if anything, I had too many. I decided to go with my new blorbo, Ai Di from Kiseki: Dear to Me, because his pining takes a really interesting form. 

According to something Louis Chiang said in a behind-the-scenes video, Ai Di has liked Chen Yi since he was six or seven years old, which would have made Chen Yi nine or ten. By the time of the second part of the story, Ai Di is 22 and Chen Yi is 25. That’s sixteen years of pining.

The thing I find most interesting about Ai Di’s version of pining is that it has a really paradoxical quality. Because of a combination of circumstances and his personality, he doesn’t respond to things in the way we would expect for someone who’s pining for someone else. (I guess it’s no wonder I got obsessed with Kiseki after watching it a couple weeks back, since I seem to have a thing for paradoxical relationship dynamics.) Basically, Ai Di is pining for someone while pushing him away and even rebuffing advances from him, things you wouldn’t expect someone deeply in love to do. 

Ai Di gives Chen Yi a hard time about how "his eyes gave him away" when he looked at their boss at this meeting, but what about this?

In the 2019 part of the story, Ai Di often pushes Chen Yi away and even pushes him toward their boss. He passes up invitations and complains about Chen Yi including him in things, repeatedly makes fun of Chen Yi for being a virgin (according to Ai Di) and says he’s impotent, and tells him again and again to confess to or hit on the boss, practically daring him to at times (albeit in a derisive way that wouldn’t be a great approach if he actually wanted Chen Yi to make a move). When Chen Yi kisses him, he bites his lip hard enough to make him bleed (after only hesitating for a microsecond). After he has sex with Chen Yi when he’s drunk, he distances himself in the biggest way yet. Partly out of guilt about this, and fear that Chen Yi will hate him when he realizes what he did, and partly out of his usual desire to protect him, he voluntarily goes to prison for four years in order to protect Zongyi (whose imprisonment is Chen Yi’s responsibility). 

From this point on, Ai Di pushes Chen Yi away even more than before. When Chen Yi comes to visit him in prison on their shared birthday and brings a cake like the ones he used to get for him, dropping massive hints that his eyes have been opened now, Ai Di is incredibly cold and tells him never to visit again. When he’s released in 2023, he continues to push Chen Yi away with all of his might. He avoids him, tells him repeatedly that they should cease all contact, and returns gifts Chen Yi sends him. The most hurtful thing he does is probably the way he talks about the night they had sex, claiming he did it “just for fun.” He goes on to rebuff two more advances from Chen Yi despite continued hints that he has come to understand and even return Ai Di’s feelings. 

If your prospective partner has to put you in a double kabedon, you're hardcore about avoiding them.

Chen Yi’s next attempt is successful. He ties Ai Di up, since he apparently has to be physically restrained in order to hear Chen Yi out. Chen Yi finally tells him more explicitly that after Ai Di went to prison he’d figured out how he felt and how much he’d done for him, that he knew it was him when they slept together (at least, after a certain point), and that he’d realized that he actually returned his feelings. 

This is an epic amount of avoidance for a long-term piner. In some cases, his avoidance is probably for the best. When Chen Yi first starts to put the moves on him, he hasn’t begun to sort out his feelings about the boss. Giving way could easily have made everything worse. But once Chen Yi starts to understand his feelings, it would have made sense for Ai Di to start to let his guard down. Yet he pushes back against Chen Yi’s overtures way harder at that point. 

When asked in an interview (translated here) about what advice he would give Ai Di, Louis Chiang said about Chen YI, “you have to go after him relentlessly, don’t let go of him, don’t let go of your own love for him, keep looking at him persistently, and make him look back at you.” Ai Di pretty much does the opposite of this, so there’s no wonder Chiang thought he could use this advice. 

Why would someone behave this way? There’s actually a good psychological explanation. It has everything to do with the adverse experiences he had as a child. We don’t know when the boss started taking care of Ai Di, but he was definitely with his birth parents or some other parental figures for some time before that happened, and according to him, his parents “went crazy because of drugs,” implying intense use of serious substances. Even if he was under the boss’s care at a very young age, his most formative years would have been spent in a very chaotic environment. It seems like he experienced severe neglect and he may have seen any number of things a child shouldn’t. Like a lot of people with this kind of early experience, Ai Di appears to have a disorganized attachment style. Which is something I could go off about, but that should probably be its own post. 

For now I’ll just say that I think the paradoxical way Ai Di behaves given his devotion to Chen Yi is one of the things that makes him such an interesting character. 

Grumpy/Sunshine (13)

I'm a bit partial to this trope, too. I have a few favorites. Ji Woo and Seo Joon from To My Star are right up there. But for this post, I’m going to talk here about another grumpy/sunshine pair I love: Mamoru and Issei from Kabe Koji. 

How much more grumpy/sunshine could they get?

When it comes to BL protagonists, Mamoru is about as grumpy as it gets. He approaches the world as if disappointment and provocation are so inevitable that he may as well get angry and resigned now and skip the part where he makes an effort. And it seems like he’s had his share of experiences that led him to have these expectations. He deals with homophobic bullying on a regular basis. His rare sources of happiness are really tenuous, like his vacillating popularity with readers of independent comics. And his selective, biased memory of what happened with Issei serves to justify his worst views of life and humanity. Yet in the face of all of this, he has a remarkable, stubborn insistence on following his dream, and though he compromises it at times, he usually listens to his creative voice in an admirable way. 

Issei, meanwhile, is such a sunshine boy that he dances right up to the line where toxic positivity starts. But he doesn’t cross it. He's not always great at sitting with his own negative feelings, though he manages to grow his capacity for that as the story progresses. But it comes pretty naturally to him to sit with other people’s negative feelings. It’s one of the reasons he keeps winning people over wherever he goes--he's able to join with people in their fear and distress and still hold on to a thread of sincere positivity and compassion.

The trouble with Mamoru is that the negative filter he applies to everything is too extreme and he applies it so rigidly. It’s wild to see how much his brain is able to twist anything into something bad. Studying psychology and doing some training placements as a therapist definitely showed me firsthand that human beings have a remarkable capacity to twist things to fit their existing beliefs and expectations, so the fact that I was frequently blown away by Mamoru’s negative filter is really saying something. 

In his gentle, good-natured way, Issei forces Mamoru to look at things differently and open himself up to new experiences and relationships. It’s amazing gift to be able to do that. I don’t think I could pull off being as sunshine-y as Issei in a million years, even though I have some low-key Pollyanna tendencies. But I wonder if I could learn from the way he relates to people. Sometimes he handles other adults in ways that remind me of things I’ve read in parenting books. I guess this is because he makes it a priority to validate others, and that’s an important parenting skill. I don’t think he infantilizes others, though. It’s more that Issei is the kind of person who would treat a kid with as much respect as an adult. And really, the things that kids need from interactions with their parents are almost always the same kinds of things we all need from one another. 

And again, so grumpy, so sunshine.

It’s interesting that Mamoru is able to provide something to Issei that he can’t get elsewhere. It’s been a while since I watched Kabe Koji so I could be off here, but I think it has to do with the one little idealistic piece of himself that Mamoru has guarded with all of his grumpy defense mechanisms–and the fact that Issei ended up as a sort of patron saint of that part of him, a symbol of hope in the world. If he only saw Issei this way, that would be a big problem. But he’s still able to see him as a person–if anything, he understands his personhood and respects his feelings more than anyone. I guess he’s cynical enough that an idealized image of Issei as a perfect ray of sunshine wouldn’t be believable or appealing to him anyway. Sometimes his image of Issei gets a bit disconnected from reality, like what happens when he doesn’t interact with him in real life for a long time and just sees him doing idol things on TV and stuff. But as long as he’s around him sometimes, he continues to really see him in a way that few people do. 

It really doesn’t get better than someone who really sees you for who you are and still thinks what they see is exceptional. Or when someone you think is truly exceptional sincerely loves you back.

#bl romance trope ask game #bl meta #kiseki: dear to me #kabe koji #kabe koji nekoyashiki kun desires to be recognized #psychology of bl #japanese bl #taiwanese bl #louis chiang