BL Cheat Sheet

New to BL? Totally confused by all the BL shipping terms fans are tossing around like confetti? Don’t worry—your BL lingo crash course starts here! By the end, you’ll be turning BL lingo into bingo.

But first—what exactly is “shipping” in BL? Well, it’s definitely not the package you’re hauling to the post office (even if the counter clerk there is, ahem, distractingly cute).

In BL fandom, “shipping” means pairing two people—often BL actors—into a “couple” you love and root for. The fun twist? The actors you ship don’t even have to be co-stars in an actual BL series. Sometimes fans create “ships” between stand-alone actors who’ve never shared the screen, purely because they think they’d make the perfect match. In short, shipping is pairing two people—real or fictional—with the intention of sparking excitement, interest, and endless fan squeals over their potential chemistry.

Now that we got that part out of the way, let’s dig deeper, there are actually Six Types of BL Shipping: Bromance – typical of mainstream Korean dramas, in BL when you say “They’re just doing bromance” it means that you can’t expect one of them to instantly slip on another guy’s arm, and after a minute of just staring at each other and doing nothing, they’re suddenly the instant BL couple of the series. Bromance simply means “strong male bond or friendship” No kissing or whatever cute and funny business involved. No. Nada (Spanish for nothing). For real. But here’s the kicker, even if the two guys are technically on their Bromance shoes, fans can still romantically ship them which sorta broke the boundaries of Bromance, don’t you think so? Slow Burn – is like watching a series that you have no idea how it started and how you got sucked in to that story, the romance in BL takes its sweet time to develop and thus BL shipping also takes time to go and glow. Fake Dating- happens when BL characters pretend to be a couple because of whatever reasons whether justifiable (to get rid of his crazy stalker who thinks that she’s his girlfriend) or weird (one of them decides to fake date for no reasons at all) only for the couple to find themselves in total connection, that’s when BL Shipping alert fires up. Friends to lovers and Enemies to lovers- No explanation needed, either both characters start off hating each other or they have a connection from the past like childhood buddies or college roommates, at the end of the day they will realize that love is definitely their undeniable magnet. Shipping them is totally fun because BL fans are aware of the end game, they will be in love with each other, and there’s a process involved that built this connection and love. And lastly Crack Ship, it simply means that BL fans are shipping the two guys for reasons unknown. There’s just no basis for their connection but they are shipped anyway. Weird right? Now, for the quick BL Shipping terms let’s break it down clearly:

Fan Service – Happens when two actors holds hands, stares at each other, does “Kabedon” if there’s some kinda wall behind them, piggyback ride each other to the tune of screaming BL fans or or recreate any romantic scenes on their series with one goal: to cause global fan screaming, yes, that’s called fan service.

Skinship – Technically is everything in BL Shipping, this involves any form of Physical closeness between actors whether it’s hugging, leaning at each other, picking up an imaginary leaf on another guy’s perfectly curated salon hair or just plain holding hands. The key word is “physical contact”. So why this form of contact matters? For obvious reasons, it fuels shipping.

BL Games – This is the highlight of any BL fan meeting, reports says that BL fans comes out of BL fan meetings in total scream mode, they just can’t stop screaming. Ok we’re exaggerating. But basically BL games are fun activities that involves reenacting BL romantc scenes from their series, playing couple games that involves stickers and stuffs. BL games are fun and are uniquely BL, like technically.

Ship Name – The combined name of the pairing (e.g., “BrightWin” from Bright and Win in 2gether). Ship name is basic to any BL Shipping and are usually great for the actor’s branding and promotion because Ship Name creates an instant connection and name recall. At the same time, the Ship Name gave BL fans the BL rallying cry and united feeling of connection as they’re all rooting for the same couple.

OTP (One True Pairing) – Is the heart of BL Shipping. This represents the ultimate favorite couple, the ship you love above all others. The unbreakable ship that will live in your hearts and mind for like…forever.

Canon and Non-Canon – Ok, when you say canon this does not involve any Civil war canon stuffs, but rather Canon means that the relationship in the BL story is for real, like the actors are seriously dating in real life while Non-Canon means that it’s just sadly work for them, the actors in real life are not dating and their relationship only exist in the wild and imaginary minds of BL fans.

Endgame – Happens when the BL couple that are shipped (whether through gossip, fan imagination) ends up together in the official storyline of the BL series.

Parasocial Relationship – In all honesty, this is technically a real BL fan situation, let’s be honest, the relationship that a BL fan has towards his or her favorite BL actor is really a one-sided emotional connection between a fan and a public figure. That’s it plain and simple. The rest are just “fan dreams” like, for real.

Delulu – Short for “delusional”, Delulu is used when fans imagine their ship is real, which is far from reality, this type of shipping is called Real Ship. The Delulu and Real Ship behaviors fuels “BL fan wars” also known as “Ship wars” where conflicts within the fandom happens because of different pairings and the mechanics of Delulu and Real Ship at play.

Multishipper – A fan who enjoys more than one ship from the same show or actors is usually called multishipper.

Ride-or-Die Shipper – Someone loyal to their OTP or One True Pair, no matter what happens in canon.

And lastly, when someone says I’m loving their OST Moment, it means that the BL series theme songs are playing on the background as the BL actors connects to each other whether it’s just for fan service or for real.