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Alright I’m doing my PhD in media studies with a focus in BL and have gotten like 5 messages telling me to off myself for saying this is expected, so I’m going to explain this trope and what it means to eastern BL readers because yes, this was expected, just not for you, because you are not the target audience.
So. First off. There’s this idea in media studies called an imago, which means that not everything in media directly correlates to its literal counterpart. There’s a dissonance between the fictional representation and IRL understanding. In the context of romance this means that the love interest’s implied facets are what appeals is, not the literal. If there’s a murder mafia guy, chances are IRL we wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who kills people, but in fiction the imago is that he’s a capable protector and responsible. Irl he’d just be an organized criminal, but the implications of the fantasy in fiction mean different things to readers within the context of the fantasy. If he pushes a character up against a wall against their will and says “you’re mine” while the person says “no”, the imago fantasy is that someone will still want you/love you despite your protestations—not that someone harasses you. When working with children’s media it’s important to make the imago have direct correlation, but with adult media we already know right from wrong and can explore these ideas.
Now, about this comic. Raising your top/gong. Incredibly popular trope in China and Japan that involves a mentor figure of some kind, whether it be shizun, teacher, or a situation like this story, mentoring a younger person who eventually becomes obsessed and in love with them. Mentor usually doesn’t reciprocate at first, but after urging from the character starts to see them as an adult and comes to love them later. It is distinctly not grooming, because that mentor character doesn’t have romantic intentions—you can say it’s weird, but what frustrates me when people use that word bc it dilutes the actual meaning of it. This trope is as widely loved and beloved in east Asia as enemies to lovers is in the west. Why?
The subtext here builds off of a few things that are culturally different from western counties—a history of how East Asian queer people socialize and historical media prioritizations. The first one can essentially be boiled down to queer marriage—in countries where it isn’t legal, to get the same rights one person in the relationship will legally adopt the other so they can share the name. In the eyes of the law, and the public, they will be seen as father and son or mother and daughter. But to each other, they know the truth. There’s an inherent implied queer romance to the opacity of legal or societally perceived bonds. The other facet is cultural lodestones—in the west we have Shakespeare so a lot of our media reflects Romeo and Juliet dynamics. Chinese media has had the shizun/disciple relationship for a long time, and so there’s historically been another layer of romance to the sort of mentor-mentee relationship. It also follows the same pattern—reluctant shizun and eager disciple, as a way to invert power dynamics and add interest.
Combined into one is how you get the papa wolf dynamic; it’s one that’s been replicated in Chinese BL for as long as there has been Chinese BL. People in the west tend to not perceive it that same because our cultural foundations are different.
In China, some media groups view enemies to lovers as extremely toxic and unhealthy, and if you’re looking everything without the facet of imago, who’s to say they’re wrong? But the west has foundations that emphasize that trope, so we think it’s weird that they might think that. But because we all have media literacy, we can look at this and understand not everything means something else directly. Shed your Eurocentric and americentric mindset and try to consider this from that perspective. You don’t have to love it, you can be personally squicked by it, but you do have to understand that if you’re bitching about it happening it’s like watching a rom com and complaining that the people with rival cupcake stores ended up falling for each other.
End rant. If anyone has questions feel free to ask.