#Thai fandom

[thaifanfests]

Coming Soon: Thai The Knot 2025!

The Thai King has signed same-sex marriage into law, making Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize queer marriages.

The new law will go into effect in 120 days, meaning the first legally recognized queer weddings can start on January 22nd, 2025. Thai Fan Fests will celebrate with a series of educational posts related to weddings and marriage over the next few months, then a fanwork event leading up to the big day!

Exact dates TBD.

Sources: Tumblr, SMCP, CNA

[k9effect]

Tiktok's censorship of words like rape, kill, murder, abortion etc. etc. as well as censoring hard to hear topics, over the past few years has deeply contributed to the sanitisation of the internet and therefore directly resulted in the birth of "fandom purists" and the destruction of old fandom culture (the death of "don't like, don't read", "ship and let ship" mindsets as well as safe spaces for dark and "immoral"/unethical storytelling i.e "dead dove: do not eat") in a way that has fundamentally changed the mindsets of people who are new to fandom spaces and now view these such topics as wildly inappropriate for any social space as well as deeming anyone who is intrigued by them narratively or creatively as "immoral" and a bad person. In this essay I will

[nyxelestia]

(Usual caveat: I'm South Asian diaspora, but neither Thai nor Thai diaspora.)

i had brought up Christmas specifically in part because we just recently passed it, but for kinnporsche (the specific fandom where my eye was twitching over the Christmas fics), there are elements of Christianity in the story in some of the room props and Porsche’s parents having Christian graves, the latter of which is meant to stick out. but the boys themselves are very distinctly Buddhist! they visit temples to pray, they reference Buddhist beliefs and religious concepts, etc. their Buddhist roots are far more prominent than any Christian roots in the show, but people will especially overwrite those with their own Christian beliefs and/or culture due to either ignorance, laziness, or prioritizing the in show Christianity references over the Buddhism ones.

I occasionally want to make jokes about reverse cultural appropriation as a type of dark comedy, but I hold back most of the time because I'm pretty sure if I ever actually let loose, a lot of fans would take that as, "oh, that means it's okay!" when it really…isn't.

Because on the surface, sure, it's hilarious to compare non-Christian characters wearing cross jewelry because it looks pretty to white people irl who wear Buddhist and Hindu symbols and motifs because they're pretty…but strip back this aesthetic layer and you'll find VASTLY different histories of colonialism and religious oppression.

Thailand was never directly colonized by a European power, but it was still extraordinarily influenced by Western culture, had to concede to Western economic interests, and is still somewhat beholden to Western military presence past and present. Thailand's sexualized reputation abroad is directly resultant from American military presence (or, depending on interpretation of Cold War politics, military occupation), SEATO was based in Bangkok, and over a quarter of all Thai workers have been hit hard by American agricultural subsidies.

You'll pretty much never find a white person in a white-dominated country who went to a Hindu school or Buddhist school because that was the most affordable education for them, but the reverse - attending a Christian school, even though you are not Christian and never will be, because there either is no public school, or what public school exists sucks - is incredibly common across many parts of Asia.

My mom grew up going to Christian school in Kolkata, and her family was the equivalent of middle or upper middle class. She learned about the cross in its cultural context and the history behind it as part of her education throughout her childhood, and her parents came of age when India was still under British colonial rule. Lots of Indian celebrate Christmas even when they're not Christian…but most do so with about as much gravitas and sincerity as Americans have for Cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick's Day: funny decorations and maybe an excuse to party, but otherwise it's not taken seriously, present exchanges are rare or nonexistent, and nobody is traveling or taking time off work for it.

The existence of fics with Thai characters celebrating western holidays isn't an issue in isolation…but it sure is a big fucking issue when contrasted with the dearth fics of Thai characters celebrating Thai holidays. Sure, some characters might stay up until midnight on Dec. 31st - but I guarantee that way MORE of them will be taking time off work and traveling to splash each other with water on April 13th. You'd think a collection of fandoms that love their wet tee-shirt jokes would make more of an effort to get in on this holiday in their fanfics. 🤷

For me, that disparity is the frustrating part; it's not the presence of western cultural mores that irks me, it's the comparative absence of Thai ones, or even Asian ones in general.

one of my most formative fandom experiences was a comment i had gotten on a fic i wrote for a halloween themed fandom event.

this was for a manga/anime, so the fic was a general ghost story obviously set in Japan. the beginning of it involved a pizza delivery and while writing it, i had spent like 30 minutes just double checking tipping customs and the types of pizza they serve and even fell down a wikipedia rabbit hole looking up the history of pizza in Japan.

now, i just like the research part of writing, i do stuff like this because i have fun doing it. and while i was writing this particular fic, i had laughed at myself for my 30 minutes of googling that amounted to 2.5 offhand lines in a 3500 word fic. i didn't think anyone would care about or even notice those particular details except for me, especially since none of them were relevant to the ghost part of this ghost story.

except, when i had sent this fic to a Japanese friend, the first thing she said to me about it was "OH MY GOD YOU GOT THE PIZZA RIGHT"

and that was the moment when it had really clicked for me. what had just been 30 minutes of effort on my part had become a moment of relief for her. my friend was far more used to reading ethnocentric fic that ranged from unintentional ignorance to outright superiority against part of her culture (the original story's culture no less). and even with the "innocent" ignorance (heavy quotes on that) far outstripping any outright maliciousness, that's still so many people saying her culture was not worth learning about. the pizza in my story was a small detail, but i had cared enough to put in some effort to check it. and for her, coming from a fic experience where her norm was bracing for hundreds of inaccuracies born of ignorance, especially at that time after a flood of stories centered around "Halloween as a cultural holiday in the US" premises instead of the "Halloween is a commercial gimmick in Japan" reality, seeing someone put some effort even for minor story details meant something to her.

this also throws me back to the discourse that arose in a french show fandom a few years ago because there were a lot of fic authors that wrote 'dollars' instead of 'euros'-- but when people brought this up as a prevalent issue across the fandom but an easy one to fic/watch out for, many of these writers instead pushed back to complain that they were posting stories for free and it wasn't that big of a deal. which really upset a lot of people, but then this upset was met with a new wave of indignation that people needed to 'get over it' because they're writing fic ~just as a hobby~. but, even if 'dollars' instead of 'euros' wasn't a big deal, by digging in their heels about the issue, they were saying "your culture isn't worth even five minutes of my time or effort."

I've been thinking about these things lately because the ethnocentrism in Thai drama fandoms is...staggering. just over the turn of the year, there were waves of Christmas fic for Buddhist characters. and just. Christmas in Thailand is a tourist thing at best. sometimes a pop culture gimmick for international audiences or maybe an offhand high school thing to blow off steam between midterms. it's not a cultural thing. and even if a character is a part of the Christian minority, a Christian Thai's holiday customs and culture are going to be vastly different than a Christian's customs in the Americas or Europe. and while the Christmas fic is at least finished for now, I'm already bracing myself for the Easter fic wave that also seems to pop up for Thai dramas. it's so frustrating to see this sort of cultural overwrite all the time, especially since most Thai drama holiday works aren't about Thai holidays.

but the thing that really got me bristling about all of this again was i saw a post the other day where op said that they weren't going to write [thai drama] fic because they don't know much about thailand.

what an absolutely appalling statement to make.

google is right there. wikipedia is free. you don't even have to leave tumblr or AO3 to learn more because there are Thai natives in fandom who write essays to explain common elements of their culture. hell, even just watching these Thai stories and considering the values and messages imparted by the narrative framework and story lens tells you something about that culture. the audacity to look at a culture different from your own and say "this is not worth my effort or time to learn anything more about," are you kidding me?!?

the messages and values of a story tell you about the writer's values, which are going to carry their cultural values, beliefs, and biases. Thai culture is going to be heavily relevant to any Thai story, even the ones that aren't explicitly about Thai culture/customs/etc. (hell, Thai bl/gl as a genre alone-- just the fact that queer Thai writers are making these stories in Thailand's current political climate is highly political, even the "fluffy" ones that don't seem to make outright political statements.) to approach any story like it was made in a vacuum is to remove the writer(s)' culture and values and to overwrite them with your own.

especially because this is fandom. these are the lowest stakes to learn! it sucks to see people say things like "but i'm scared i'll get something wrong" and hold up that fear as a shield to justify their ignorance. no one's expecting anyone to get every detail right, especially not for a culture that isn't theirs, just make an effort to learn something new about it. pick out something that caught your eye as different to learn more about and see where it leads you.

and for the record--making a mistake trying to broaden your horizons is a far, far better thing to do than to superimpose your culture on everyone else's because you're scared to confront your ignorance.

[happypotato48]

This Is A Gay Asian Rant About BL Comments Made By Some Queer Westerners I See Sometimes.

So you know of those gays (usually white) that made dumb tiktok dancing to list of countries that legalized same sex marriage and list of countries that discriminate against LGBTQIA+ poeple as a way to say something racist. yeah i kinda got the same vibes from some comments regard how asian BL is homophobic just cause they don't live up to queer western standard. look, i'm not saying that some BLs and their creators don't deserve criticism regard how they capitalized/exploited queerness for an easy cash grab.

But people need to understand that Asian countries despite recent progress are still very much culturally conservatives. so when people says that thai bl is homophobic and all the characters looks like bunch of straight guys, which is true for some olders thai BLs i'm not gonna denied that. but after all this time and newer BLs generally being very queer and most of creators being out queer themself and poeple still making these comments, i'm annoyed.

And don't get me start on the actors. you don't know them! why are you making assumption and calling them queerbaiter just cause they acts in bl. like maybe they're straight, maybe they're not but what they're definitely doing is making queer content for you know, queer people here. so when you made halfass comments about their sexuality what do you think that made other queer people who still in the closet feels. and when you add the nationality to that, "these thai bl pair are this and that, this korean actor is so ungrateful for his bl past", etc. when our societies are still very much still in progress regard LGBTQIA+ acceptance. it make us living here feels fucking awful like somehow we're lesser queer than people in the west just cause we don't have citibank at pride or some shit.

And the shittiest in my humbled opinion are comments regard censored chinese bls. people do know like, that the creators making these bls are risking their livelihoods for this. that these shows getting make at all are miracles. yes it sucked that they're censored but they're still very much queer shows making by queer people who want to express thier queerness despite the chinese government being the chinese government. when people dimissing these shows as not belonging in queer media, you're also dimissing their creators and audiences as not belonging in the community.

Look what i want to say is that we're trying our best over here, and maybe our best are not up to your liking. the ways we talk and express our queerness maybe still can be perceived as problematic by western queer standard. but these media are our house and you're the guests. for people aren't shitty we appreciated that you're here engaging and loving our media, this is your home too and you're welcome in it. i can speak for myself that i very much love being here on tumblr and interacting with people from all over the world who love BL. but for people who are being shitty sometimes about asian bl.

YOU'RE THE GUESTS, BEHAVE!

[bunnakit]

gif making is like therapy for when a show makes you feel so many tumultuous emotions against your will

like get over here you beautiful piece of media i will now dissect you frame by frame and immortalize my love for you

[zamjd]

Yippeee!!

Winged dca au by @crystalmagpie447

Your Sun design is so subtlety detailed! Like it's almost unnoticeable at first because of the somewhat similar coloring but when you take a closer look you can admire the patterns!! :D

I want to keep that same vibe but I think I emphasized it a little .v."

-ALSO I AM IN LOVE WITH HIS PANTS DESIGN!!! LIKE LOOK AT IT!!! IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT BUT IT JUST SCRATCHES MY BRAIN SO WELL SIEKJDJWKDJJWKXKWK

[fan-fricking-fiction]

the way you KNOW

in his mind he was like

[hitwiththetmnt]

The boys! My sweet blorbos!!

They are so silly and I am so happy to see them get an amazing movie

🥓🍳🧀

[swiftmitsu]

*places Nightmare in your hands*

Here is your King, my liege 👑✨

[thebroccolination]

So like. Fourth was traumatized by reams of hate because he joked on April Fool’s Day that he and Gemini were dating, Krist chose to leave social media because fans refused to stop harassing him for posting photos of Gawin to one (1) of his multiple platforms, Tay had to explain that it’s not his place to dictate who his mother is friends with after fans raged about the unfairness of her befriending a fan’s mother, Ohm and Nanon had to pose uncomfortably at their solo events with fans wearing masks of their former partner despite making it clear that they’re not interested in continuing their partnership, Freen was blackmailed and victim-blamed after someone stalked and photographed her in her private time, Tul’s gotten death threats, Chimon’s withdrawn to address his worsening mental health, and that’s just off the top of my head.

Fans are making this fandom uninhabitable not only for other fans but for the actors themselves.

[thaifanfests]

We're Planning Our Next Event, and We Need Your Help!

In case you haven't heard yet, Thailand's marriage equality bill passed the House of Representatives back in March and also recently passed in the Senate! The bill now awaits the Thai King's royal endorsement. From there, it will be published on the Royal Gazette, and finally, it will become law after 120 days. Love wins!

To celebrate this historic moment, ThaiFanFests is planning our next event. But we need a little help naming the event!

*Why yes, this blog was formerly SongkranFest. We've rebranded to ThaiFanFests to include future Thai fandom events. Be on the lookout for future changes to our Discord, Carrd, and Tumblr!

[rythyme]

Introducing the Thai Drama AO3 Trends Dashboard! (Beta) 🇹🇭

Over the last several weeks or so I've been building an auto-scraping setup to get AO3 stats on Thai Drama fandoms. Now I finally have it ready to share out!

Take a look if you're interested and let me know what you think :)

(More details and process info under the cut.)

Main Features

This dashboard pulls in data about the quantity of Thai Drama fics over time.

Using filters, it allows you to break that data down by drama, fandom size, air date, and a select number of MyDramaList tags.

You can also see which fandoms have had the most new fics added on a weekly basis, plus the growth as a percentage of the total.

My hope is that this will make it easier to compare Thai Drama fandoms as a collective and pick out trends that otherwise might be difficult to see in an all-AO3 dataset.

Process

Okay -- now for the crunchy stuff...

Scraping 🔎

Welcome to the most over-complicated Google Sheets spreadsheet ever made.

I used Google Sheets formulas to scrape certain info from each Thai Drama tag, and then I wrote some app scripts to refresh the data once a day. There are 5 second breaks between the refreshes for each fandom to avoid overwhelming AO3's servers.

Archiving 📁

Once all the data is scraped, it gets transferred to a different Archive spreadsheet that feeds directly into the data dashboard. The dashboard will update automatically when new data is added to the spreadsheet, so I don't have to do anything manually.

Show Metadata 📊

I decided to be extra and use a (currently unofficial) MyDramaList API to pull in data about each show, such as the year it came out and the MDL tags associated with it. Fun! I might pull in even more info in the future if the mood strikes me.

Bonus - Pan-Fandom AO3 Search

Do you ever find it a bit tedious to have like, 15 different tabs open for the shows you're currently reading fic for?

While making this dash, I also put together this insane URL that basically serves as a "feed" for any and all new Thai drama fics. You can check it out here! It could be useful if you like checking for new fics in multiple fandoms at once. :)

Other Notes

Consider this dashboard the "beta" version -- please let me know if you notice anything that looks off. Also let me know if there are any fandoms missing! Thanks for checking it out!

The inspiration for this dashboard came from @ao3-anonymous 's AO3 Fandom Trend Analysis Dashboard, which I used as a jumping off point for my own data dash. Please give them some love <3

[nigeluvzbl]

"Fort and those bites are a whole vibe! Absolutely iconic! 🥵🔥

[scarefox]

Haven't watched anything KristSingto recently but he's right

You can think of fanservice what you want. But the moment you want to police or censor it, it turns into something really problematic. And this stance comes from 2 or even 3 different oppinioned sides but they ironically melt into the same outcome.

But at the end of the day most people forget / ignore, regardless of anything, fanservice still helps normalising public queer affection. And let's be real, most of the stuff in those stage and event shows are that... a show or even a performance! Do you protest at your local theater when they have queer characters kissing? Do you notice how this sounds in a sentence? Yes actors are real people and not characters but especially BL actors & idols still perform stage shows and kind of have a public enertainer persona. You notice how different they are on stage vs. in their personal live streams + nowadays most actors are even very honest about just doing fs for show & fun and often genuine (platonic) affection towards their acting partner but don't pretend to be actual dating (and the ones who do will most likely not lightheartedly come out with it like that... apparently there are exceptions but I have not enough insight on them to judge). You should watch some serious interviews or live stream (translations) of your favs now and then maybe to learn more about them and the industry, they are more than just pretty faces... Actors in just my bubble who talked open about the fanservice topic as far as legally possible at least: JamesSu, Perth Nakhun and I guess we can count Pavel and Nut as well.

What fans make out of it is a whole different story.... and one of the reasons people want to shut down fanservice as a whole. But imagine how lighthearted, fun and easy going this whole thing could be if we didn't had all these toxic naive fans who think every interaction is proof of actors dating (or worse: cheating) in RL. That mindset of "we are BL fans of course we are delulu" is not a joke anymore among some of them. They srsly take pride in that... babes you are part of the problem, stop encouraging it!

Then on the other side, being critical of some of the practices of the industry is one thing but it should not lead into backwards queer censoring... but that's what some are swaying to with their "real people queerbait" agenda or getting the cringes when (samesex) people interact romantically or erotically during live events (that's a bit of a you thing my dears. not necessarily in a queerphobic way but in a purity / shy way and that is a you problem to deal with not anyone elses problem)....

And a lot of people don't even understand or get what most people criticise about fanservice and just jump onto the ban-fanservice train. Without understanding the nuances nor the actual industry circumstances. Like one main argument here isn't even true. Lot of people assume actors get forced into fs. Which is not true (source: one of Perth Nakhuns Q&A vids, the 2. vid i think). BL actors usually know what they get into by entering the industry, decide with eo how much they want to do. Now that can still cause internal personal conflicts like one going over board or not playing enough but that's human miscommunication. Or companies can still be bastards but it's unfair to generalise it over the whole industry when we nowadays have companies who give their actors that freedom.

There are still some points to criticise, definitely. Like I personally dislike how MCs and sponsors sometimes treat actors during events or how fans scream at every little move or glance like crazy.... But the topic is a bit more nuanced (as always in this world) than how most people look at it. I just mean it really always sticks out when you talk with people about their reasons why they are anti fanservice that they just repeat after another with no sources or without actual up to date information or only look at it from one side.

I personally am in the middle. I only like fs when the actors have fun with it and are transparent about it. In the end it comes down to actors consent what they want to give to the audience (reason why it annoys me when people write "i feel like i am interrupting something here / am intuding their privacy" the actors consented! they want you to watch if you want to see it! consent babes! it is fine)

(when i see someone coming in with "but Krist is a homophobe" I will bite you. I am not even his fan and already researched what happened back then when I first saw those accusations when I got into BL 2021ish. It is really not that hard to look up the source and reports of people who were live pressent at the time to understand what went down back then. Ya know instead of believing rumors that twist and lie for rage bait)

[silverquillsideas]

Hello! My friend is doing her masters research on BL fandom experience in India. It would be a great help if you could spare a few minutes to fill out this survey below!! ❤️

Please reblog and share!! ✨