[ SECRET POST #6159 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6159 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Markiplier TV/Markiplier Egos]



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04.
[The Great British Bake Off]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #880.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. https://i.imgur.com/QWqQucl.jpg

[scissorsevered]

I haven't read any published yaoi, like ever, actually, but I totally can see this. I'm sure it's mostly because peoples tastes just changed towards "cute, fluffy" yaoi, but I'm sure that the whole "only healthy relationships should be written about!" crowd had at least a minor effect on this.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah I feel like there's gotta be middle ground between 'only healthy fluff!' and the stuff we were reading growing up where it was buckets of red flags lol.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't exactly know the current trends in Japan, but my gut feeling is that it's not what's being published, but what's being localized. Makes sense since western sensibilities are very prudish right now.

[(Anonymous)]

What sort of titles are you looking for, OP? SuBLime has published a couple of not-so-fluffy titles. And some that are still ongoing ended up going in a direction that I wasn’t expecting.

I kinda like that we’re getting more variety in published BL because back in the 2000s, it was a lot of “no means yes” and unhealthy dynamics, which is fine and all, but it got really boring because it was all so same-y.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to admit I miss the slightly weirder ones that were on the scifi/fantasy side or just silly elements to it (or anything with vampires or a gothic vibe to it). Equally I do love some angst and/or hurt/comfort ones too.

I'll have to look more into SuBLime. I use to pick random June titles off the shelf back in the day and admittedly, that wasn't always the best idea since like you mentioned there were noncon stuff that was not at all fun.
I could go either way with unhealthy relationship dynamics entirely depending on the individual stories - not the stuff where a bad relationship is painted as 'good', but idk darker stuff or the drama of 'I know this person isn't good for me, but-'. Its hard to say because sometimes it can be handle well and other times it gives me the ick.
I don't even mind fluff sometimes, but a lot seems so bland these days - like Old Fashioned Cupcake which had a pretty good start to the story but kind of fell flat near the end (I did laugh at the fact there's a warning for explicit content and what's actually in it is about two pages of the very bare minimum).

[(Anonymous)]

Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I read any sci-fi or fantasy BL. Most of the stuff I see is rooted in reality. I read one called Biting a Vampire, but it wasn’t very good.

The closest I’ve read with a fantasy element is Cherry Magic, which I really enjoyed, but it’s just the main dude being able to read minds because he’s a virgin. It also has an explicit warning label, which definitely made me laugh ‘cause it so wasn’t explicit at all.

Given has some unhealthy dynamics (not in the main pairing, but some of the side characters) that are portrayed as not good, but the characters can’t quite let go of each other until they have to.

I Hear the Sunspot definitely has angst, but the release schedule has been a little sporadic. I totally forgot it was still ongoing until I saw the newest volume in the bookstore.

I used to subscribe to Futekiya when they had their half off promotion and liked it because you could filter by tags, but they merged with Manga Planet and now they want you to buy points to read anything, which really sucks. Still, I think it’s worth checking out because their back catalog can be accessed with the subscription and it has a couple of good titles. Just wait for the half off promotion. They just did one recently, so the next one might not be until summer.

[feotakahari]

I always rec A Cruel God Reigns as a darker angstier one. It begins with the death of the rapist antagonist, then flashes back to show the impact he had on the protagonists. It’s very Gothic, but at the same time nothing in it is unbelievable. The characters react to their pain in realistic, often detrimental ways.

[(Anonymous)]

It's aimed at teens and they are obsessed with 'purity'. In my day yaoi was aimed at young girls at least.

[(Anonymous)]

That's BL, yaoi was always 16-18+ on account of being, you know, porn.

[(Anonymous)]

In my day no one paid attention to the 18+ ratings in fandom, and didn't disclose their age.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, yeah, obviously, but that still doesn't mean the intended audience for 18+ porn manga was young girls. Because it wasn't.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there was no porny yaoi manga... There was anime like Ai No Kusabi and others but the 18+ mangas was all het or horror. All 18+ yaoi was on scanlation sites.

I think OP talks about non vanilla dynamic regardless of smut content. Something like FAKE maybe or Yami No Matsuei? No smut but all unhealthy.

Other commenters say that you can buy some interesting yaoi, idk. Personally I just read webtoons nowadays.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends on what time we're talking about. But yaoi as a genre has always been ages 16 and up, plenty came out as 18+. And stuff like Kizuna and Viewfinder is from the 90s/early 2000s and was plenty porny. Though I have to say I'm not from the US and don't know which of the porny series were published there but I know there were at least some.

Wait, I may remember wrong but wasn't FAKE pretty damn fluffy/found family cute? It was basically a gay buddy cop comedy for the most part, I don't really remember it being particularly unhealthy?

[(Anonymous)]

FAKE has some weird thigs regarding horny/pure dynamics and some yandere undertones. Not too toxic tho.
I'm still surprised seeing yaoi on sale. I used to read mostly shonen-ai, and some were available, like Clamp work. I guess it depends on the country. I bought mine when I travelled to UK.

[(Anonymous)]

"Young girls" younger than "teens"? So girls 12 and under? How old are you that that's true?

[(Anonymous)]

Not the anon above, but I remember getting invested in finding the Yellow manta series at my local library when I was 11.
Obviously for intended marketing that's not the case, but 11 year old me definitely got interested in gay (definitely remembered being disappointed when I could never find any Yuri equivalent at the library and didn't want to ask the librarian because I knew that I wasn't suppose to be reading them lol)

[(Anonymous)]

*manga

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really buy yaoi manga anymore but I get newsletters with the newest manga publications from my comic book shop and from what I've seen yes, there's plenty of fluffy slice of life you but there's also the good old rape stories, plenty of omegaverse, isekai porn, silly PWPs, weird pschological stuff that's kinda dark at times and some tragedy stuff on rare occasions. But yeah, the fluffy slice of life stuff is kinda the biggest group.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh the psychological stuff sounds up my alley! - does your comic book store have a website or a list?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm unfortunately not in the US so I'm not entirely sure which manga are officially published there. But there are several lists on sites like myanimelist (For example this one https://myanimelist.net/stacks/21172) where in the descriptions, it's usually mentioned if the manga are officially published in English.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the link!

[(Anonymous)]

Try Ten Count. You can thank me later.

[(Anonymous)]

I am out of the current yaoi loop but liked Bad Boys Happy Home. Three books, set in modern day Japan, there is fluffy domesticity but one character's backstory is nasty. It has silly moments but also stuff that would make the purity brigade scream about problematics, so..

[(Anonymous)]

lol I barely read yaoi anymore, I just go straight for the korean BL webtoons, not only am I more guaranteed more body diversity, but I'm also guaranteed either a) an extremely fucked up plot, b) insanely gratuitous smut, or c) a combination of both