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miss-ariella · 2 years

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The History of Love: Part 9 - Professor Andy x Student Reader

Warnings: Professor x Student relationship, smut

Word Count: ~2100

Author's Note: It's been a while, I know. The end of the school year fried my brain and it's taken me this long to be ready to write again, but it's finally here. I will be adding one more part to this, hopefully in the next week or so. Thank you to all of you who patiently waited for me to get back to this. I hope it was worth the wait.

Part 8 Masterlist

After making up with Andy, the two of you spent the rest of the weekend in your own little world within the walls of his house.

Sunday evening found you curled up with Andy on his couch. You were laying between Andy’s legs while he watched a football game on tv. You had no idea how football worked, and Andy had tried to explain it to you but got distracted by the action of the game. That was perfectly fine to you, it was much more entertaining to watch Andy watch the game than actually figure out what was happening.

As the game went to commercial, Andy reached for the remote and turned the volume down. He cleared his throat slightly before whispering in your ear “I love you.”

Your face breaks out into a smile as you lift your face towards his and press a quick peck to his lips.

“I love you too,” you whisper back to him.

“So tomorrow?” Andy asks, before trailing off. You know what he’s referring to. Tomorrow is Monday and after a week of hiding out in your dorm, you need to go back to class. That includes back to Andy’s class.

“Tomorrow, I go back to my dorm, back to my classes and we act like nothing is going on while in public,” you sigh, before dropping your gaze and playing with the tassel on the gray throw blanket Andy had draped over your laps when you sat down.

Andy wraps his arms tighter around you before placing his chin on your shoulder.

“I know it’s not ideal, but just for a little while longer,” he reminds you. And he’s right. There are only four more weeks until the end of the semester. After the break, you and Andy agreed to go to the dean together and inform the school of your relationship. Apparently, student and staff relationships weren’t against the college’s handbook officially, but they were highly frowned upon. Andy had suggested fudging the details of when you had gotten together so as to not run the risk of getting either one of you in trouble.

“But after school and on the weekends, you’ll come here and everything will be fine,” he reminds you.

That was what the two of you had decided on, after spending hours discussing your relationship that morning. You had both laid everything out on the table, all your insecurities and worries. All the stress of keeping your relationship a secret. Everything. Then you had come up with a plan; get through the rest of the semester without anyone finding out (except Kay), spend some time over the holiday break together, and then inform the college of your relationship several weeks into the spring semester. In the meantime, Andy had given you a key to his place and invited you to stay over whenever you wanted.

“It’ll be okay y/n,” Andy quietly reassures you.

“I know.”

After returning to campus on Monday, you were surprised by how easy it was to fall back into your normal routine. First, you had to tackle the mountain of make-up work after missing a week’s worth of classes. There was a quiz to make up for economics, a paper you had to scramble to finish on time as well as a boatload of homework to make up across your four classes.

When Andy had seen your pile of schoolwork that evening as you worked at his kitchen table, he felt a little guilty. It was his fault after all you had missed a week’s worth of classes.

“Hey,” he greeted you as he pulled out the chair next to you and sat down. “I’ll excuse your missing work for my class, okay? Don’t worry about it, you’ve got enough on your plate here,” he tells you as he gestures to the organized chaos in front of you.

“Andy, no,” you start. “It’s fine, I need to do it.”

“No, it’s really okay. It’s my fault anyway that you missed class, the least I can do is take a little bit off your plate and excuse you from the assignments in my class.”

You look at the man sitting next to you and sigh before reaching for his hand and grasping it between yours.

“It’s a very nice offer, Andy, really, thank you. But, if you do that, and the dean finds out you gave me special treatment it could backfire. Remember, we have to make it look like this relationship started after the semester was over and I was out of your class.”

Andy drops his head onto his chest and sighs. He knows your right.

“Okay, okay,” Andy agrees. “But what if I accidentally left the answer key lying around and you just happened to find it,” he suggests with a grin.

“Andy!” you admonish him, playfully smacking his arm before turning your attention back to your work. Andy laughs, before pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head and going off to make dinner. He figures he can do that at least while you slave away over your homework.

Two weeks before the end of the semester and you find yourself having a hard time focusing in your Wednesday class with Professor Barber. The heater was broken in the lecture hall, stuck on high, and everyone had peeled off their warmer outer layers, including Andy.

You were chewing on the end of your pen as you admired his trim figure in the dress slacks and white button-down he was wearing. Andy had rolled the sleeves up to his elbows and all you could think about as he wrote on the whiteboard was how much you wanted those arms holding you down while he fucked you.

“Y/N!” Kay hisses at you, breaking you out of your daydream.

“What?” you furtively whisper back.

“You’re drooling again,” your best friend teases. You roll your eyes at her and try to focus on the notes you are supposed to be taking about battles of the Revolutionary War. Though the image of Andy’s arms holding you down while he rams his cock into you doesn’t stray far from your mind.

Instead of waiting for Andy in the lecture hall at the end of class, you head straight for his office. It takes about ten minutes before Andy makes his way down the hall toward you. If he’s shocked to find you there it doesn’t show as he calmly greets you, unlocking his office door and ushering you inside.

Andy barely has the door closed before you’re on him, pushing his suit jacket off his shoulders and undoing the buttons down his shirt.

“Y/n,” Andy moans, grabbing your wrists as you try to undo the last few buttons.

You give him the best innocent look you can as you look up at him, “Yes professor?”

“We talked about this,” he warns, making you sigh. The two of you had agreed no more hanky-panky while on campus, though it’s kind of hard to take Andy seriously when you can feel his hardening cock pressing against your stomach.

You stretch up onto your tiptoes before whispering in his ear, “Do you know how hot you looked up there today? How much I wanted to have those arms holding me down while you fucked me into the mattress?”

Andy groans as your hands finish the last button and begin untucking his shirt from his pants.

“And while yes, I could wait until later tonight, I thought it would be such a waste not to put that couch of yours to use,” you continue, sliding the crisp dress shirt off his shoulders and onto the floor.

“Fuck it,” Andy growls, easily picking you up and carrying you over to the couch. You quickly strip down to your bra and panties as Andy undoes his belt and pushes his pants down, freeing his cock.

Your mouth waters at the sight of him standing there in front of you. His monstrous cock draws your eyes up to his toned abs and thick arms. For being forty years old, Andy is still the hottest man you’ve ever seen.

Andy pushes you back until you are lying on the couch, one strong arm coming to rest across your collarbone holding you in place, while the other reaches down into your panties.

“Wet for me already,” he notes as his fingers gently rub up and down your slit. You bite your lip to hide a moan, making Andy smirk. He quickly withdraws his fingers, pulling your panties off and climbing onto the couch above you.

“Is this what you wanted?” Andy asks as he lines the head of his cock up to your entrance. “For me to hold you down and fuck you in my office?”

“Yes!” you cry out as Andy plunges his cock into you.

“Still so fucking tight,” Andy groans as he sets a punishing pace, his cock thrusting in and out of you. He moves his hands from where they’ve been holding onto the armrest above your head and grasps onto your shoulders, causing a gush of wetness between your legs.

You reach a hand down toward your pussy to rub your clit but Andy smacks it away.

“Nuh-uh, if you’re going to cum it’s going to be from my cock alone,” he tells you, pushing you further into the couch as he pounds in and out of you.

“Oh fuck,” you moan as Andy repeatedly hits that magic spot inside of you. There was no denying that sex with Andy was amazing. The man knew just how to rile you up and make your pussy gush. Being held down on his couch and fucked hard and fast like this was winding you up higher than ever before.

“Andy,” you whine, your hands clenching around nothing where they are being held down by your side. Andy grins above you, knowing that you must be close. He pulls your arms up over your head, holding both your hands in one while the other one reaches down and undoes the front clasp of your bra.

“Are you gonna cum for me?” Andy teases as he begins tugging and twisting your nipple with his free hand. “Are you going to make a mess all over my couch with that sopping pussy of yours?”

You frantically nod your head as a moan escapes your lips. You can feel your pussy begin to tighten around Andy’s cock along with the rest of your body. Something about this feels different than normal, more than normal. Like all the usual sensations of an impending orgasm, just heightened.

Andy moves his hand from your nipple and slaps your clit, making stars appear behind your eyes as your body explodes and your pussy squirts for the first time in your life.

“Holy fuck,” Andy exclaims in amazement as your cunt gushes around his cock and onto the leather couch below. You whine as Andy watches liquid expel from your pussy, a shit-eating grin on his face. Your hips finally relax back into the couch as you come down from your orgasm, your heart racing like crazy inside your chest.

“Andy,” you moan from oversensitivity as his cock begins to push inside of you again.

“Such a good girl squirting for me like that,” Andy praises as he leans down to kiss you. “Now just relax and let me fill you up.”

You nod as Andy kisses you again, continuing to thrust in and out of you. It doesn’t take long before he stills above you, flooding your pussy with his cum.

The two of you lay there on his couch for a while, Andy’s cock still buried inside of you. You run your fingers through his messy hair, trying to straighten it back into some semblance of order and chuckling as it flops back over his face.

In the distance the old clock tower on campus begins to chime, informing you of the time.

“Oh shit,” you gasp as you realize you’re about to be late for your economics class. “Andy get up, get up, I have to go!”

The two of you scramble up off the couch as you begin to frantically redress yourself. Andy puts his own clothes on again before picking your bag up off the floor and moving toward the door of his office.

“Tell your professor we had an advising session and I kept you long,” Andy instructs as you throw your hair up into a messy bun. You nod as he opens the door with a quick glance down the hall.

“I’ll see you tonight,” you tell him, pressing a kiss to his cheek and running off toward your class.

As Andy watches you run away, he can’t help but think that the end of the semester can’t come soon enough.

Like I said, there will be one more part to wrap up this story. Until then, thank you for reading!

Tag List: @struggling-goddess777 @missaprilt23 @silknostalgic @linaaaaaasposts @darkjellyfishcoffee @breezykpop @ajeff855 @knifevsstageprop @stormy-s-also-not-mum @isthistrue @jennamarieee623 @0mrs-evans0 @johndeaconshands @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @before-we-get-started @liecastillo @xuxszx @worksby-d @nunuland @saranghaey @fangirlfree @buckyinluv @lunarxeclipse @21stcenturywitchcraft @coverupss @schweiz92 @crying2thecure @oceansandblackheartslibrary @avoyen1998 @moonie-brbs

#chris evans #andy barber #defending jacob #defending jacob fic #defending jacob fanfiction #andy barber fic #andy barber x female reader #andy barber x you #andy barber x reader #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fic #chris evans x reader #chris evans x female reader #chris evans characters #miss ariella writes #series: the history of love #miss ariella fics #teacher x student

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lockedtombmemes · 5 months

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sometimes i think about how profoundly harrow would hate all of us

#we hold her and say 'look my little baby'#and she has a storied history of loathing anyone who loves her #SHRUG #not gonna stop holding her #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth #harrowhark nonagesimus #locked tomb series #nona the ninth

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spirk-trek · 1 month

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Companion Fanzine | Pat Stall, 1978

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chronurgy · 7 months

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Gortash designs and builds mechanisms so I imagine he has to be able to sketch fairly decently in order to sketch his projects and designs. And I'm imagining a pile of charcoal sketches of Durge, done over their entire acquaintance, starting out with sketches of them in battle and then slowly becoming more detailed and intimate and as they do, the titles changing from things like "The Bhaalspawn" and "Bhaal's Chosen at Their Bloody Work" to "The Chosen in Contemplation" and finally just Durge's name

#it's speculated that the individual pictured in these sketches is [name] who was thought to have resolved the absolute crisis #But the existence these drawings may suggest it was merely a hoax to improve their reputation #Idk man I just love the idea of Gortash keeping this series of sketches of durge #I admit a crazy fic idea I've been rotating is the idea of an art history commentary set 100 years after the events of the game covering #The art found in Gortash's estate after his death and how people would interpret it and their potential relationship #And link to first hand descriptions of the time and academic papers and all that #Stuff like “see Elerrathin et al for analysis on the class dynamics of formal portraits and new money during this period” or something #enver gortash #dark urge #dark urge x gortash #durgetash #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 spoilers

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itsanidiom · 10 months

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OFFICE BLS RANKED BY THEIR ABILITY TO MAINTAIN THE VENEER OF APPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOUR

Because I saw @sorry-bonebag's tag and had to.

Here we go! Disclaimer: I'm not going to list every Office BL™ these are just the ones I've seen. Sorry if your fav is missing! Let's start with our lowest scorer that definitely sets the tone for the bottom of the barrel.

CHECK OUT - The veneer is tracing paper if not completely transparent. Fucking in the office. Yeah. That's an HR violation for sure. Thankfully your company is too small to have an HR department. But you're definitely getting fired by your boss who is also your boyfriend who you are also cheating on.

BED FRIEND - The veneer is only considered opaque because everyone else in the office is blind as hell. HR is pretty sure you two fucked in the office bathroom, but they have no proof so could only give you a warning.

LOVE MATE - Veneer is 1-ply. I mean, if the whole office ships it, is it truely an issue? HR thanks you for keeping things PG.

WE BEST LOVE: FIGHTING MR. 2ND - The veneer is definitely paper thin, but it's 2-ply. At least you avoided fucking in the office. Just a good smack in the face and some mutual sexual harassment. HR win...I guess.

HISTORY4: CLOSE TO YOU - Veneer is getting a little thicker, but depends on the light. Rooftop and in-office grandiose love confessions aside, HR thanks you for keeping your higher heat make out sessions off business hours. Still, gossiping about your romantic interests with your coworkers is grounds for a warning.

OUR DATING SIM - Veneer is about as thick as the space between your legs through which HR can see that you're literally holding hands in the office right now, stop it.

STEP BY STEP - The veneer is solid. Mainly office stuff happens in the office. HR approves of this boring as hell vibe. Still, you get marked down slightly because you did almost get down in the company parking garage.

CHERRY MAGIC - The veneer is a wholesome thickness, but no kissing in the company elevator. HR slap on the wrist for sure. We don't care how quickly the doors closed. There is CCTV in that elevator, sirs.

JUN & JUN - The veneer is currently in the process of being painted on so we'll have to wait and see, but it's looking pretty thin so far. HR has their pens ready to write up the report.

OLD FASHION CUPCAKE - The veneer is solid, but HR saw you hugging in the coffee station. Thank you for waiting until you were off work hours to make out, I guess. Enjoy your fancy desserts.

ROOMATES OF POONGDUCK 304 - The veneer is there. HR heard some weird noises over the zoom call, but we're just going to ignore those for now.

#bl drama #office bl #Are you in the HR department for a BL Drama that I did not mention? Please feel free to add #lol #roommates of poongduck 304 #step by step #old fashioned cupcake #cherry magic #check out the series #bed friend the series #we best love: fighting mr. 2nd #love mate #our dating sim #jun & jun the series #history 4: close to you #I have thoughts about Office BL Dramas

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wanderlust-in-my-soul · 6 months

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It doesn't always have to be the kisses with minute-long slow-motion approaches and dramatic music. It's these little everyday ones that make relationships seem realistic. (Part 2/?)

Moonlight Chicken

History 3: Trapped

The New Employee

Kiseki: Dear To Me

Happy Merry Ending

Our Dating Sim

Love Class 2

Love Mate

History 4: Close To You

My Secret Love

My favorite bl-tropes collection, as most of the times in no particular order.

#bl tropes #multi bl #multibl.edit #casualkissesforthewin #kiss #moonlight chicken #history 3: trapped #the new employee #kiseki: dear to me #happy merry ending #our dating sim #love class 2 #love mate #history 4: close to you #my secret love #myedit #bl drama #bl series

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nativehueofresolution · 2 months

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this is the silliest post i've made in a while but. imagine a series of unfortunate events type au where louis and claudia move from city to city, and armand and his theater troupe follow them around like count olaf and his troupe. armand keeps doing different disguises and romancing louis under all of them and claudia has to keep uncovering him before louis marries him.

#lestat is the parent who died under mysterious circumstances #that armand may or may not have played a role in #and claudia uncovers his secret history with armand as the series goes on #daniel is like mr poe with sarcasm and keeps helping louis move thinking it will eventually make louis fall in love w him #but he'd rather die than say anything so instead he's just forlorn a new armand character shows up and louis forgets he exists #he never believes claudia about the disguises but every time there's a reveal he tells claudia he'll investigate armand to stop him for real #he never gets far bc he's a useless adult but claudia can sometimes find clues using his connections #this is my vision #kaitlin speaks #iwtv

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piningintrovert · 4 months

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e·nig·ma /iˈniɡmə,eˈniɡmə/

the rarest type of gender; they bow to no one and they cannot be submitted; they can dominate every gender, alphas included, and will win every challenge or fight

#they DEFINITELY have history #pit babe #pit babe the series #pete x ken #garfield pantach #ping obrnithi #pitbabeedit #userpharawee #userspicy #user25shades #thai bl #thai drama #bl drama #bl series #raemakes #s:pb #omegaverse #just let me love queue

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smittenskitten · 10 months

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(+) Elevators Are Gay

Love Mate (2023) The Director Who Buys Me Dinner (2022) The New Employee (2022) Oh! My Assistant (2022) GAP The Series - Teaser (2022) First Love Again (2022) Bad Buddy (2021) Samjin Company English Class (2020) Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (2020) HIStory3: Trapped (2019)

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nieves-de-sugui · 11 months

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A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet.

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki.

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai.

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other.

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form. It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi.

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso - 90′s

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women.

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes:

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship,

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine),

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex,

older and more masculine men start to appear

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL.

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.

more on this on another post

Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s

By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre.

Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:

Junjou Romantica 2002 Koi Suru Boukun 2004 Love Pistols 2004 Haru wo Daiteita 1999

all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones

We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc...

However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).

Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.

It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series.

The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s

Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:

characters that identify as gay or some type of queer

discussions about homophobia

more mature themes about life and romance

At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:

Love Stage 2010 Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011 Kieta Hatsukoi 2019

More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:

Blue Sky Complex 2013 Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias) Given 2013 (suicide) Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)

And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)

Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters) Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society) Strange 2014 (relationships between men) Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay) Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉) Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)

As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa.

Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.

For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:

Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc...

And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:

CTK, ZAKK, Jyanome, Cocomi, Hidebu Takahashi, SUZUMARU Minta, etc...

Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others.

ie: Tamekou,

or Asumiko Nakamura

The curious case of Webtoons

With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.

However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:

Killing Stalking 2016 Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017 Painter of The Night 2019

Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.

With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020).

more on this in my japanese live action BL post

What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?

It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?

As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred.

Conclusion

BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn't. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.

It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it's flourishing in many ways.

The genre feels old and new at the same time.

We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea.

BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn't it exciting?

A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post. As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.

#history of bl #bl post series #I feel like I left too much stuff out #I hope it makes sense #honestly I would really recommend reading some of those manga #they're super interesting #soon it'll be 20 years since I started reading BL #my gosh #if theres anything anyone wants to know more about #I'd love to write more :)#yaoi manga #bl manga

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