Games of the Heart: BL Stories of Pretence and Prowess
These short BL stories are narrative snapshots, presenting moments captured mid-scene or pages torn from an expansive narrative. They are fragments designed to ignite the imagination, inviting readers to consider what came before each encounter and what destinies lie ahead for the characters. This format encourages a deeper engagement, transforming reading into an act of co-creation.
Boy’s Love, or BL, encompasses a diverse genre celebrating romantic relationships between male characters. Known as Yaoi or Shōnen-ai in its earlier forms, BL originated in Japan and has grown into a global phenomenon, appreciated for its rich character development and emotional depth. It serves as a powerful medium for exploring themes of acceptance, identity, and love, resonating with a vast international audience across various countries.
This collection is part of an experimental research and storytelling program operating at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. The project explores how digital tools can support writing and publishing processes, shaping new forms of storytelling and scriptwriting while enhancing digital literacy skills and workflows. It also comes from a sincere love of BL stories.
This collection features the complexities of Fake Relationship BL intertwined with the competitive world of Sports BL, occasionally set in a Modern Office or Campus environment. These intriguing stories, from Leaf Richards and Jamie F. Bell, explore relationships built on pretense and shared passions.
We invite you to explore these short BL stories. Engage with the characters, ponder their fates, and allow your imagination to complete the narratives, making each reading a unique, personal experience.
Today’s BL Short Stories
The Bag of Salted Pretzels
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Fast-Paced / Pulpy | Genre: Fake Relationship BL
A grey, damp afternoon in a sprawling city park. The air smells of wet asphalt and blooming magnolia. Milo, frantic and socially isolated, uses Julian, a stoic stranger, as a human shield, initiating a fake dating dynamic that sparks immediate, unexpected friction.
The Unlocked Door
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Espionage / Spy Fiction | Genre: Modern Office BL
Callum, a young analyst, is working late in a corporate intelligence firm disguised as a data analytics company. It’s deep winter, dark, and the office is nearly empty. He’s grappling with recent heartbreak and trying to focus on a complex data audit when he uncovers a hidden, encrypted directory that points to illicit activities, drawing the attention of Tobias, a senior operative.
Stay Close
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Cinematic | Genre: Trapped/Survival BL
Terrence and Peter, two teenagers, find themselves deeper in the ancient woods than intended, forced to establish camp as twilight descends. A minor mishap during setup brings them into unexpected, intense proximity, accelerating their long-simmering connection.
The Weight of Wet Asphalt
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Allegorical | Genre: Sports BL
On a damp, early spring afternoon, the university track is slick with persistent drizzle. Jeff, a track athlete grappling with a debilitating past injury and a deeper emotional wound, is attempting a long-distance training run. His coach is absent, but August, a fellow runner, observes him with quiet intensity, pushing him without words.
You Ran
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Comedy | Genre: Contemporary Campus BL
Near the end of senior year, in a quiet, forgotten hallway of Northwood High, Art is confronted by Kenji, the one person he’s spent months avoiding. The autumn light filters dully through high, grimy windows as they’re forced into a conversation to clear the air.
BL Storytelling and the Arts, Skills Development and Digital Transformation
AI-Assisted Storytelling and Automation: Our research at the incubator actively explores AI’s transformative role in creative development, particularly within the dynamic landscape of BL storytelling. These case studies, spanning genres like Fake Relationship BL, Modern Office BL, Trapped/Survival BL, Sports BL, and Contemporary Campus BL, exemplify how AI tools are being studied to address unique BL-specific challenges. We investigate AI’s capacity to assist in intricate world-building, craft compelling suspense in Trapped/Survival scenarios, generate authentic dialogue for Sports narratives, and streamline the overall scriptwriting process, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in narrative creation.
Creative Talent Development and Training: Beyond technological integration, our project examines the evolving skill sets crucial for creative professionals in an AI-augmented future. The iterative process of developing these BL short stories and chapters offers invaluable insights into the future of digital publishing, narrative design, and film production workflows. We emphasize the critical importance of digital literacy, advanced storytelling techniques, understanding process automation, and developing proficiency in managing diverse AI tools, ensuring artists remain at the forefront of innovation.
We’re excited to learn about these new technologies and how they can be applied to expand the boundaries of human storytelling. We encourage you to keep reading, keep imagining, and keep exploring the incredible potential that opens up when creativity meets technology.
About the Project
By design, these stories have no beginning and no end. Many stories are fictional, but many others are not. They are snapshots from worlds that never fully exist, inviting you to imagine what comes before and what happens next. We had fun exploring this project, and hope you will too.
The BL Stories. Unbound. collection is an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment. It is part of a creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. This project focuses on two key areas: AI-Assisted Scriptwriting, exploring AI for generating ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs; and Talent Development and Training, studying the skills and training needs for creative professionals managing AI and immersive technologies to inform future training curricula. Funding and support were generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation, and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research for northern innovation in Ontario.
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