The titular Boyfriends, clockwise from bottom: Nerd, Goth, Jock, and Prep. Not pictured: the Girlfriends.
"A comic about getting yourself a boyfriend... or multiple boyfriends! Four college students begin a polyamorous relationship and navigate the adventure that is their dating life!"
Boyfriends.
note is a Polyamory Boys' Love Slice of Life webcomic created by Indonesian artist refrainbow, and is hosted on Webtoon Originals.
The comic originally began life on May 7th, 2020, and was available on Tapas and Webtoon Canvas, but went on hiatus in December of the same year. Later in January 2021, it was announced that the comic was going to be brought to Webtoon Originals, and was taken down on the former two platforms pursuant to its mid-April Originals rerelease.
Tropes featured in Boyfriends include:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Episode 53 revolves around Jock recognizing that Goth often hands out headpats to everyone else, and tries to turn the tables and give him some for a change, but winds up getting headpatted himself instead. He succeeds two episodes later.
- The Alcoholic: Downplayed with Prep, who's shown to drink every now and again, but Goth mentions that he had once gotten blackout drunk at a Pride event.
- All There in the Manual: The boyfriends and girlfriends both have "normal names" revealed by the author's twitter: The boyfriends' names are Felix, Vincent, Kevin, and Adrian for Goth, Prep, Jock, and Nerd respectively. Meanwhile, the girlfriends' names are Luna, Stephanie, Alex, and Lala. Also respectively.
- Almost Holding Hands: Prep tries to hold Jock's hand when the two go to a coffee shop, but the latter jerks away when he hears that their orders are ready, not knowing that Prep had ever reached for his hand:Prep (to himself): Dammit! What is this, a fuckin' cliche romance manhwa? I just wanna hold his hand, dammit!
- Almost Kiss: Goth and Nerd are about to have their first kiss in Episode 12, but the former postpones it, saying that he'll save it for after their first real date.
- Animal-Eared Headband: The male Goth and the female Prep both have cat ears on their headphones.
- Art Shift: Chapters 84-86 use an art style with lighter outlines and more realistic proportions, as they are in-universe drawings made by Goth BF.
- At Arm's Length: Jock straightarms her brother in their basketball one-on-one in Episode 87.
- Author Avatar: It's possible that it could be Goth in Episodes 85 and 86, when Jock compliments him on his illustrations for the Nerd girlfriend's one-off fantasy story:Jock: You should, like, apply to Webtoon or something.
Goth: Well.......
...
Jock: You publish with them? That's so cool! What's the comic's name?
Goth: It's a secret... - Beach Episode: Prep brings his boyfriends to his family's beach house for the weekend at one point.
- Bilingual Bonus: In Episode 83 when Nerd is badgered by their male counterpart to write an alternate-universe porn story featuring the male Goth as a gigantic tentacle-monster, they let out a "hay nako" before reluctantly continuing, a Filipino phrase of exasperation/frustration roughly equivalent in meaning to "oh my gosh" or "oh no".
- Blood from the Mouth: A wholly nonlethal example comes from Jock when a thoroughly-soused Prep nuzzles on him.
- Brand X: Various real-world brands are represented by obvious spoof stand-ins, such as "Blackbored", "Guppi", "NASSA", and "Netflux". There're also two Fictional Video Games, "Super Smash Friends" and "Anime Crossing", and a band, "2wice". However, Advil is once mentioned by name.
- Cast Full of Gay: Unsurprisingly, considering the subject matter of the comic. Among the Boyfriends alone, Prep is gay, Goth is trans, gay and asexual, Jock is bisexual, Nerd is pansexual and as of episode 185, possibly under the nonbinary umbrella, and all four of them are in a polyamorous relationship. Additionally, Prep GF is a trans woman and Nerd GF is nonbinary.
- Childhood Friends: Though briefly mentioned and not elaborated upon, Goth and Prep are said to have known each other since they were children.
- Christmas Episode: Episodes 94 through 98 saw the cast observing Christmas, even though the Goths noted that they don't typically celebrate the holiday.
- Cross-Popping Veins appear on Jock's head when his sister accuses him of "getting busy with (his) boys".
- Color Failure: Upon being startled by an amusement park haunted-house employee, Jock turns as white as a sheet for a moment.
- Coupled Couples: Early Episodes focused on Goth with Nerd and Jock with Prep, before they all coalesced into one group.
- Covert Pervert: Nerd starts out this way, but becomes a bit more open about it once he's a part of the poly. He is an otaku after all.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Jock gets sick, Nerd and Goth rush over with soup and smooches... and naturally both get sick themselves from kissing a sick person and eating after them.
- Distaff Counterpart: Later in the story, a group of four girlfriends is introduced, who all share design stereotypes with the fellas.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The female Prep appeared as early as Episode 4, talking to the male Jock at a party.
- Enraged by Idiocy: In Episode 56, Prep hurls a book at Goth after the latter said that he never takes it upon himself to sign up for classes, and that he doesn't even know what a class credit is.Prep: YOU'RE IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR!!! CAN YOU CARE JUST A LITTLE!!!
- Fairy Tale Episode: Episodes 84, 85, and 86 feature an Art Shifted non-canon fantasy tale starring the boyfriends, loosely inspired by The Little Mermaid (1989). This is explained in-universe as a story that the Nerd girlfriend was commissioned to write, and that Goth illustrated.
- Fictional Video Game: "Super Smash Friends" and "Anime Crossing" are mentioned, as spoofs of real-world games.
- Gamer Chick: The female Prep is a prolific livestreamer, and once boasted 25,000 concurrent viewers on a single livestream.
- Get a Room!: Prep shouts this at Goth and Jock when he catches the two making out in an alleyway at the end of Episode 29.
- Halloween Episode: Episodes 79 and 80 see the boyfriends and girlfriends throwing a Halloween party, with everybody in costume.
- Hidden Eyes: Often goes hand-in-glove with Luminescent Blush, but it also appears without it, such as when the boys were beholding Prep's legendary fighting-game incompetence.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Steam rises from Prep's head in Episode 11 after a brief conversation with Nerd, accompanied by Crush Blush.
- Hold Up Your Score: In Episode 3 when Jock gets clocked by someone he accidentally hits with a basketball while trying to make a dunk to impress Nerd, the latter hoists a "10" scorecard heavenward anyway.
- Idea Bulb: One appears over Prep's head when he belately realized that Jock was flirting with him.
- Innocent Innuendo: During Episode 5, Prep overhears Goth and Jock making highly-suggestive-sounding comments to each other while inside his room, just a few scenes after Goth told him that he "know[s] a place with lots of toys that we can play with". Prep barges in, demanding to know what's going on, and is met with the two of them playing Jenga.
- iPhony: In Episode 22, a logo of a bunch of bananas can be seen on the back of Prep's laptop.
- Just One More Level!: After being introduced by Nerd to a game called "Anime Crossing", Prep becomes engrossed in the game to the point of ignoring everything else in the world:Prep: Huh...? But I don't feel like I've been playing that much...
Goth: Well, let's see, you haven't moved from that couch for at least a week, you've flaked on several student council meetings, and you've been sustaining yourself off Doritoes for the past few days.
Prep: H-huh??? I thought... I thought I've only been playing for a few hours!
Goth: Dude, it's been a week.
Prep: WHAT??? - Kaleidoscope Hair: Nerd is accustomed to changing his hair color frequently, cycling between cotton-candy blue, bubblegum pink, and purple, blue, and yellow.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: The Goth girlfriend adopted a one-eyed stray as her Occult Club's mascot.
- Lesbian Jock: The sister Jock plays for her school's womens' basketball team, and is very competitive against her brother.
- Lethal Chef: Somehow Prep manages to set the kitchen on fire trying to boil water.
- Luminescent Blush: The boys' faces flare up with great frequency throughout the comic.
- Malt Shop: The boyfriends visit one in Episode 26, and Goth notes that it's become a Recurring Location for them.
- Medium Awareness:
- In Episode 78, the Prep girlfriend calls out her Early-Bird Cameo by saying that she first met the male Jock in Episode 4.
- In Episode 81, where Prep flips out at her male counterpart for delaying Goth's arrival to a livestream of hers, he merely pushes away her speech bubble.
- In Episode 78
- Miniature Senior Citizens: The Jocks' mother only comes up to her son's collarbone.
- Minimalist Cast: Excepting the Jocks' mother, no character outside of the two main batches has appeared in more than one episode.
- Mr. Red Ink: Prep is wont to throw down eye-poppingly-large sums of money on mundane purchases, but since his family's so rich, he never seems to suffer from it. At one point, he spends $500 on a shirt for Nerd when he spilled coffee on one of his, but his female counterpart eventually talks him out of this attitude.
- Nameless Narrative: Nobody is ever referred to by a name, rather being identified by a design stereotype. This can get confusing pretty quickly when speaking of either group's Distaff Counterparts in relation to them. Even when the characters are speaking about each other, the characters' faces appear in speech bubbles instead of a name.
- New First Comics: Many scenes and lines of dialogue of some of the episodes of Season 1, as well as the entirety of several episodes within, were not in the original runs on Tapas or Webtoon Canvas. Additionally, the first dozen or so comics were originally all in black and white, but were given full color for the comic's rerelease on Webtoon Originals.
- New Year Has Come: Episode 100 saw Prep throwing a New Year's party, complete with a fireworks viewing from a balcony.
- Non-Action Guy: Prep openly disdains sports, and, while playing a Fictional Fighting Game, proved to be more of a danger to himself than his opponent was to him.
- Not in the Face!: Goth shouts "H-hey! Not the face!" when the Prep-lookalike cat tries to scratch at him after he picks him up in Episode 72.
- Oblivious to Love: Prep spends the first few episodes lamenting his lack of a boyfriend while utterly oblivious to Goth's feelings for him and completely missing Jock's earliest attempts to ask him out on a date. It gets worse when we learn that Prep and Goth had actually had sex before, yet Prep apparently didn't realize this meant anything even when Goth went out of his way to be romantic about it.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Jock has to deal with one of these during his first day working as a barista. Prep helps him deal with her.
- Opaque Nerd Glasses: Nerd wears these and is also occasionally seen without them, but every now and again, his eyes can be seen through them.
- Perky Goth: There's nothing very off-putting about the female Goth, who adopted a stray and who offered to repair Jock's relationship stresses with his sister.
- Popping Buttons: While serving as a waiter in his mother's restaurant, a button flies off of Jock's too-tight shirt and cracks Prep in the nose.
- Post-Kiss Catatonia: After Nerd gives Jock a smooch in Episode 27, the latter is completely awestruck for a moment afterwards, and a heart-eyed ghost flies out from him with his whole head as red as a tomato.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Goth expresses a reluctance to join the boys' study group in Episode 38 that was set up for Nerd, Prep commands him to "DO. IT. FOR. HIM."
- Real Men Cook: Jock has prepared breakfast for his boyfriends twice, and also had whipped up strawberry cupcakes and egg coffee. Goth also does some cooking every once in a while, according to Prep.
- Real-Person Fic:
- In-Universe; Episode 83 sees Nerd commissioning girl-Nerd to write a smut fic between himself and Goth, where Goth is a tentacle monster. Goth likes the fic and draws art for it.
- In-Universe; Episodes 84, 85, and 86 put the four boys in a The Little Mermaid type story, written by girl-Nerd and illustrated by Goth.
- School of No Studying: Zig-zagged. While the boys' majors are stated in their character bio-sheets, they're seldom seen doing much in the way of schoolwork for much of the comic, and Goth prides himself on almost never attending class. However, Episode 34 marks the beginning of a brief Story Arc revolving more around the boys' school lives, where Nerd fears for his grades and his ability to juggle multiple classes at once, and thus, the boys form a study group at Jock's suggestion. Later, Goth lampshades this, saying that he never formally signs up for classes, and that he "just show(s) up to class".
- Self-Imposed Challenge: In-Universe; in Episode 64, Goth and Jock play a game called "Super Smash Friends" with each of them controlling one half of one controller. They fail miserably.
- Shout-Out:
- Characters are seen playing on a Nintendo Switch and Nintendo GameCube in some scenes.
- In Episode 19 when Prep appears to drive Nerd to a clothing store, he pulls up to him in a convertible, honks the horn, and quips, "Get in, we're goin' shopping."
- In the first panel of Episode 27, where the boys wonder where to go first at an amusement park, Goth says, "Alright gays, where we dropping?".
- After Goth steamrolls Jock in a shooting gallery carnival game in Episode 29, the latter complains, "That's not fair, you play Siege twelve hours a day."
- The brother Jock dons Jason Voorhees' mask for the Halloween Episode.
- During one of the Fairy Tale Episodes, one scene has a shot of Ariel.
- One of the brother Jock's baby pictures has a Pikachu plush in the background.
- While the brother Jock sits in bed waiting for Prep to prepare something to ease his illness, the former eventually mutters "I sense a disturbance in the force..."
- The movie that the boys watch in Episode 99 isn't shown on-screen, but the following dialogue is heard:
- In episode 181, Prep GF and Goth BF cosplay as "Despair Girl" and "Murder Bear" respectively.
- Show Within a Show: Sporadic mention is made in early episodes of a fictional Magical Girl anime called "☆ Pretty Planet Idol Puri ☆".
- Signature Headgear: Each of the girlfriends, except for Jock, have a piece of headgear that they're rarely seen without. Goth has a flowercrown, Nerd has a yellow beret, and Prep has a pair of Animal-Eared Headphones.
- Sleep Cute: Nerd naps on Goth's shoulder in Episode 8, and Goth furnishes him with a blanket and pillows when he departs early.
- Smoking Is Cool: Goth, the most level-headed of the boys, is occasionally seen smoking a cigarette. This also gets deconstructed by Nerd in Episode 7, when he lights up in an attempt to impress him, but is sent into a coughing fit.
- Additionally subverted. As of episode 158, Goth is officially trying to quit smoking, spurred by Prep drinking less.
- Snowball Fight: Episode 93 sees a brief snow-skirmish between Goth and Nerd, but when a stray snowball from the former hits Jock, he retaliates by flattening him with a boulder-sized snowball.
- Spoiled Sweet: While he can be bratty at times, Prep, who comes from a rich family, frequently uses his family's wealth to spoil his boyfriends.
- There Is Only One Bed: Played for Laughs when the male Jock invites his boyfriends over to his house in Episode 75. When setting up his bedroom, Prep notes that there's four of them but only three blow-up mattresses, and him and Goth immediately start jockeying to determine which of them would sleep with Nerd. The moment he enters the room, the two dump the question onto him, who picks Jock instead.
- Uncatty Resemblance: The Occult Club's cat is basically a feline version of Goth, down to missing an eye to match his bangs. They later adopt a second, who is a cat version of Prep.
- Video Arcade: The boys head to one in Episode 15.
- Wall Pin of Love: Goth is prone to whipping out a kabedon, even in non-romantic situations.
- Wham Shot: In episode 183, Nerd is praised for his cosplay of his favorite Magical Girl character. During the praise, however, he starts to notice that people are all referring to him by different pronouns (some call him he, others she and others they)… and eventually, there is a panel showing an egg cracking.note
