• Dude if that's not a nod, I don't know what is! I love this though, and totally agree re: not shaming fan-culture.

  • Kageyama has his crown on in this match.... The Goody Two Shoes comment really got to him. Poor bb crow!!! It'll be interesting to see what happens... Hinata looked so calculating at the end of the recent chapter, so i can't help but wonder if he'll play a role again.

  • This comment is awesome and amazing and I love everything you said! It all makes so much sense and works so well T_T The nature of who Damen is standing between Laurent and his acceptance, and how he kind of "splits" Damen... I like that concept. Good stuff!

  • I'm sorry it took me so long to response! An impromptu beach trip came up, lol.

    I agree with a lot of what you said! Makes so much sense, and really highlights Pacat's ability to stage a story, to pace their romance.

    The only thing I disagree with, I think, is the point at which he is about to come to terms with the fact that he is in love with his brother's killer. I feel like the night that they spend together at the end of book two is the point where he's like - I can't kill this feeling, though I do think he fell during their "vacation," lol. When they make love, Damen takes down those defenses almost effortlessly - thinking back to what Jokaste said to him about speaking the truth when Laurent observed of how the way Damen made love to him. I certainly think that his identity hanging between them prevented him from any sort of open acknowledgement or pursuit of a relationship, and that he had to work out a punishment for himself and Damen (with the horrid way he treats him at the beginning of KR) before he could finally see just how much Damen has lost, and how much he's given Laurent. He accepts "the exchange of brother for lover" (shoot me in the face). Of course, that happens with the knowledge of Jokaste giving Damen's son to the regent, and I think you nailed his thought process there.

    I would LOVE to see more Laurent POV. Let us hope!

  • Sorry this took me so long to respond too, some friends and I took an impromptu trip to the beach, and I was the driver.

    I think there was definitely bonding in that roof top scene, for sure. I think that was the turning point to lead them to become friends - to trust each other - but I agree that they fell in love later. And I love the point you chose, where he gets that Damen, well, GETS him. That Damen understands that kind of loss and how it was the straw that broke Laurent's skillful composure. He understood that the Regent had killed someone for the sole purpose of messing with Laurent's head, especially as Laurent identified with and so badly wanted to help Nicaise. By presenting him with Nicaise's head, he said, "There is no way out for you, or anyone you try to help." A huge blow. And for Damen to be there, to understand... That may have turned him from platonic to romantic love in his eyes.

  • Oh no, you can post all you want! It won't bother me. It doesn't bug me to the point where I can't even look at it, it's just that it's not something I felt comfortable actually reading/pursuing. No worries, I know a lot of people love the series for their own reasons, so I won't be upset if you post it :)

  • I don't remember how I stumbled upon Chintsubu... I think it might have been just perusing manga online, and being like, "Wtf?" at the summary. I had to read it! I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was, either. It was great how she incorporated the ridiculous concept into actual solid story-telling. I loved it!

    Thanks for looking that up - I was on my phone and lazy, lol. You would think I'd remember the mangaka after reading Brilliant Blue a zillion times, but oh well. I'll have to look into the other mangaka you mentioned! I'm so bad about remembering their names, which is so terrible of me, lol.

  • I feel exactly the same re: Abe Miyuki. I tried to read Super Lovers and just forget about how young the uke character was (which, I know, is terrible of me, but the art is so good), but she DREW him so young that you can't just set it aside. It got way too shouta-ish for me, and besides that, being around the seme's age and even THINKING of touching a 15 year old just... disturbed me. I couldn't get around that.

  • Color is so good!

  • Yoooo I just realized that Scarlet Beriko was the mangaka for Jackass! Don't Touch, which is one of my favorite manga! I wasn't familiar with her work before reading that. I'll have to check out Jealousy.

  • I love cheese! Thanks for the rec!

  • Thank you!

  • These all sound amazing! Thanks so much!

  • Stiles/Derek from Teen Wolf is probably the best example. There are a few from Haikyuu!! (not sure how familiar you are with it): Kuroo/Kenma (loud, confident, and extroverted paired with painfully introverted and shy), Asahi/Nishinoya (glass-hearted and calm paired with over-excitable, loud, and brash). A good example of a canon!unilkely pair is Connor/Oliver from How to Get Away with Murder, where you've got a suave, confident character with a nerdy self-deprecating guy.

    That list has a lot of different personality types, but I hope you can kind of see what I mean.

    Actually, I did read an m/m novel like this! I think it was called "Drawn Together" and it was about a feisty (edited because I found the book) Japanese man a (I think I remember him as) much more laid-back Southern dude.

  • This isn't so much a trope, but I'm a huge fan of unlikely pairs, people with completely different personalities coming together and falling in love. To be honest, I haven't read a whole lot of m/m books (mostly just fanfiction) because the ones I did read tended to be... Not great, but this community has given me lots of recs to try and look forward to! I saw that because I can't give any recs related to that trope :(

  • Came in here to say the same thing! Enemies to friends to loves makes me so unbelievably happy in all its manifestations. I can't get enough of it!

  • Omg, I was trying to think of Yamato Nase's name and the name of "Chintstubu" but couldn't remember the mangaka or the title, but YES that is one of my faves! So hilarious! Also her authors notes on that series is too funny as well. Ah, I may have to dig that up and re-read it!

    Setona-sensei mostly does doujinshi, but the manga I mentioned above emotionally destroyed me. I have trouble re-reading it because it's just so intense, but it's amazing.

    I've got a few other manga that are dear to my heart, like Brilliant Blue (gotta love a stupid uke, lol) but I can't remember the author off the top of my head.

  • I've always wondered about his internal struggle, and I know he must have wavered many times throughout the whole thing. The way that his betrayal was uncovered and when he confessed to all of it just screamed to me like he was desperately trying to justify what he'd done in the face of all the evidence that it was the wrong thing; but he was just too damaged to see past that, or perhaps kept telling himself that it would be worth it. Even if I hadn't gotten that feeling from the confession scene/Laurent verbally eviscerating him, "I'm sorry, Jord" told us way more than just what those three words read T_T

  • Reading that Aimeric/Jord short story is going to be like walking over hot coals while being bitten by a thousand fire ants, but at the same time I NEED IT.

  • Thanks! My KINGDOM for someone to stream No. 6 legally though!

  • Overall, it's really hard to say, but for genre? Comedy has to go to Yamamoto Kotetsuko (Hontou Yajuu, Omairi Desu Yo, Brothers, DokiDoki Renai, Konya mo Nemuranai are all SO GOOD), though Tanaka Suzuki's "His Favorite" is also classic. As far as favorite drama, I'd say either Takarai Rihito (Seven Days, Ten Count, Only the Flower Knows), though I have a really solid, broken place in my heart for Mizushiro Setona's "The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese" and the sequel. I also really like Lily Hoshino's work. Those are (more-or-less) off the top of my head, but I've read some really good things recently that were by mangaka I wasn't familiar with.

  • Awkward Silence is one of my favorite BL manga! So cute~

  • Yay! I look forward to it.

  • For now, just so you have a point of reference, my discussion topic idea was the question: When do you feel that Lauren first fell for Damen? What was the turning point for him?

    And kind of mention some key points in the books as a frame of reference for those who might be a little rusty on them to jog folks' memories. I could send you the complete post on tumblr or something if you'd like to see all contained therein? Let me know!

  • Thundercats was great! Now that I think about it, probably my first fannish-type obsession was the Animorphs book series when I was in elementary school. I used to haunt Barnes and Noble for a new release, and I remember staying up super late reading in the bathroom with the doors shut so my parents wouldn't know I was awake, lol. I do remember logging on to an Animorphs website at some point, but I must have been using someone else's computer because I don't think we had the internet until I was 10 or 11.

    As far as community, I don't think I talked to anyone until much, much later, but I lurked on ff.net for a very long time, leaving reviews.

    I've always wanted to get into the X-men comic verses, and even have had people give me good places to start, but I just never did do it.