You’re Allowed to Let Fictional Men and Werewolves Heal You a Little

There is a weird, droughty, dead-desert period that can happen when life gets too loud.

You stop watching BL. You stop watching K-dramas. You stop watching J-dramas. You stop doing the little things that normally bring you joy because, somehow, your brain has become a full loading bar and there is no room for anything else. Not because you do not love it anymore. Not because you have suddenly become boring. You are just tired. Like, mentally tired. Your brain is in a little corporate prison after work and all it wants to do is lie down flat and stare into space.

I feel like I had one of those periods for the last two months, maybe. I barely watched anything. And for me, that is alarming, because BL, K-dramas and J-dramas are my happy place. This is my life. This is my joy. This is the little bubble I escape into when the real world is being deeply annoying. But I dipped my toe back in with My Beautiful Man, which is one of my comfort shows. One of them, anyway, because I have many and I will not be apologising for that. And honestly? It helped pull me back.

Sometimes you do not need a brand-new drama with sixteen episodes, political intrigue, tragic backstories, thirty-seven characters, subtitles you need to properly focus on, and a man staring moodily into the distance because his family has ruined his entire life. Sometimes your brain cannot take it. Sometimes you need the story that already knows you. You need familiar characters. Familiar scenes. You need to put something on and go, Okay. I’m safe here. I know these idiots. I know what happens. Nobody can hurt me. Well, not in a new way, anyway. My Beautiful Man did that for me. It reminded me why I love BL, K-dramas and J-dramas in the first place. 

Also, weirdly enough, my Devotionwear has been keeping me in the bubble as well. I have been carrying my Song Hye-kyo tote, my Seo Ye-ji tote, and today I wore my Kim Young-dae tribute. I went to work. I felt good. I looked good. And it just brought me back a little bit. It is such a small thing, but wearing something connected to someone or something you love can genuinely change the vibe of your day. You are still doing your boring adult responsibilities, obviously. You are still at work. But there is a little part of you going, Yes, but Kim Young-dae is with and that is enough sometimes.

Yesterday I recorded an episode about Kim Young-dae and talking about him took me straight back to other favourites: Song Kang in Nevertheless and Love Alarm, all those dramas that made me feel something when I first watched them. And Nevertheless? I am sorry, but people have talked so much shit about that drama and I will never forgive them. The vibes were immaculate. The longing was longing. The bad decisions were bad-decisioning. Everybody was hot, miserable and making questionable choices. What more did you want from it?

Not every drama has to be technically perfect. Sometimes a show just gets you at the exact right moment. It becomes attached to a version of you, a season of your life, a summer, a winter, an awful work period, a crush, a breakup, whatever it was. You remember how you felt while watching it. That matters more to me than somebody doing a ten-part thread about whether its narrative structure was strong enough.

I am not a professional critic. I am not about to sit here and give you a cold academic breakdown of character arcs, cinematography and plot points. Babe, I am here for the feels. I am a lover girl. I like watching people fall in love. I like watching directors, writers, producers and actors put a world together so well that you finish an episode and are staring at the wall afterwards like, well. That did something to me. That is my review style. If it moved me, it moved me. If it made me giggle and kick my feet, we are giving it flowers. If it made me go back and replay one look seven times, then we are having a conversation.

Today I did not know what I wanted to record, and then I realised I did. I wanted to talk about being away from this world for a little while, even though my heart was still very much in it. I still want to catch up on the BLs I am behind on. There are so many J-dramas that have come out while I have been in my little drought. I have K-dramas that I started and never finished.

I have also not been on Twitter properly, where all my mutuals are. And the BL mutuals on Twitter? Sorry, but they have the best recommendations. They know what is coming out, what is worth watching, what has gone left, and which three-second trailer moment is about to ruin everyone’s lives. But if you are not a Twitter person, that is fine. I would recommend the Boys’ Love subreddit on Reddit. There are always updates about new shows, shows that are about to come out, and you can find other people who completely understand why two fictional men glancing at each other for three seconds is serious business.

I feel like I am back now. Or at least, I am coming back. I want to finish the BLs I put down. I want to catch up with the K-dramas I missed. I want to get into the J-dramas that have been waiting for me. There is a K-drama on Netflix that I want to watch The East Palace, but do not quote me because I may be mixing it up with something else.
 
But if I am being completely honest, I will probably put on Netflix's The Order first. Because sometimes I do not need to start a big new drama. Sometimes I need vampires, werewolves, magic, secret societies, supernatural nonsense. Give me The Order, Teen Wolf, The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural…all of that is comfort television for me. I need someone to be dramatically running through the woods. I need a centuries-old vampire to make a terrible decision. I need a werewolf to take his shirt off for reasons that do not need to make sense.

That is where I am right now.

And I am excited to get back into BL, K-drama and J-drama world. I am excited to watch things again, talk about them again, and come back here to tell you all what I think. Not a proper review, mind you. A feelings review.

Anyway, wherever you are, whatever is happening in your life, whatever you are carrying, do not feel weird about leaning on your BL, K-dramas, J-dramas, comfort books, old films, vampire nonsense, whatever makes you feel held for a moment. People make incredible work that makes us feel things. You should not feel embarrassed about loving it. You should not feel embarrassed about returning to it slowly when life gets heavy. Your joy is still there. It has not gone anywhere. It might just be lying down, waiting for you to press play.

So tell me: what is your comfort show? What do you watch when life gets too loud?

Fly your fangirl flag high until you are 80.