#this is the large large majority of thai bl shows to me

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV, and When Queer Media Goes Mainstream: The Lakorn Corner, Part 2 -- The Incredible Miracle That Is The Miracle Of Teddy Bear, and How Its Performance Speaks to the BL We Watch Today

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I'm continuing a three-part sub-series on queer primetime lakorns in Thailand, this time highlighting 2022's magnificent The Miracle of Teddy Bear.]

TW: child abuse and a few major spoilers. I absolutely urge you to watch this show, and I really don't want to spoil anything, but please know that this show is one of my new favorite Thai queer dramas, so if that means anything to you, maybe watch it first before getting to this piece!

Hello again! Welcome to part two of the OGMMTVC's sub-series, The Lakorn Corner, where I'm examining important moments in television when Thai queer media and themes, concentrated mostly in the niche Series Y/Thai BL genre, crossed over into mainstream spaces -- namely the lakorn, or primetime drama, space.

Last week, I wrote about 2019's The Fallen Leaf, Thailand's first-ever queer primetime lakorn, which focused on the life story of a transgender woman. I posited in that piece that The Fallen Leaf made a number of significant breakthroughs for broadcast primetime Thai television, especially in centering very specific ideas and themes of LGBTQ+ equality that reached a much bigger audience than the shows of the smaller Series Y genre had ever had previously. Important to note is that The Fallen Leaf aired on the One31 channel (which belongs to GMM, an entertainment conglomerate that also owns GMMTV).

Since the airing of The Fallen Leaf, One31 has subsequently aired two more very important (and VERY huge) queer primetime dramas, 2022's Khun Chai/To Sir With Love, and 2024's Spare Me Your Mercy. The wonderful @clairedaring posited in the tags of my post on The Fallen Leaf that the immense popularity of TFL on One31 allowed One31 to widely broaden its scope of experimentation beyond the traditional heterosexual romances that usually dominate the lakorn genre.

This is important for me to note because, a few years later, Thailand's biggest broadcast channel, Channel 3, decided to broadcast a queer lakorn of its own: The Miracle of Teddy Bear. I want to posit right away that one theory I have about Miracle being able to occupy arguably the biggest primetime airing spot on Thailand's broadcast television was due to both the massive success of The Fallen Leaf in the same time slot on a different channel, as well as the explosive and exponential growth of the smaller Series Y/Thai BL genre between 2019 and 2022, which likely led Channel 3 executives to believe that its own broad and mainstream audience was ready for queer content in primetime. I'll get more into this in a moment.

(The Miracle of Teddy Bear is actually -- HA -- the third queer lakorn to have aired in a primetime slot, as the flopped comedy Rak Diao aired earlier in the year of 2022 on One31. However, Rak Diao did not make a large cultural impression on queer media in Thailand as did The Fallen Leaf, Miracle, or Khun Chai, so I'm leaving it off of this list.)

As opposed to The Fallen Leaf (which centers a single transgender female character), I've seen The Miracle of Teddy Bear categorized as either a BL and/or a lakorn. This discussion on Reddit regarding "lakorn BLs" describes the confluence of "new" queer storylines within the long-existent soap opera/Thai lakorn structure, especially with the subsequent airing of Khun Chai (To Sir With Love) later in the 2022 autumn season.

It's important for me to note here Miracle wasn't a typical lakorn OR a typical BL. It was not a soap opera, it was not a historical drama, and it was not a typical romance. It was very much an exploratory and penetrating drama, but it happens to be labeled as either BL and/or lakorn due to its airing time and its themes.

I emphasize these mundane points because I want to highlight, as I said in my review of The Fallen Leaf, that

as opposed to The Fallen Leaf, which centered one queer main character,

The Miracle of Teddy Bear was the first queer drama to air in a primetime slot on a major Thai broadcast channel *that centered same-sex relationships*.

Considering that Miracle focuses a huge part of its dialogue on love and acceptance, rather than a lifespan-focused psuedo-bildungsroman format like The Fallen Leaf, we MUST therefore juxtapose Miracle against the airing of GMMTV Series Y dramas, which air on GMM25 in Thailand, a channel akin (to us in the States) to, say, the WB or MTV, meaning -- a channel that is not as popular and culturally widespread or significant as the broadcast-level ABC/CBS/NBC channels of the States.

AS WELL, Channel 3 was already showing BLs by the time of Miracle's airing, particularly Secret Crush On You, earlier in 2022 and produced by Idol Factory. But Idol Factory's BLs on Channel 3 air in later timeslots, often at 10 pm or 10:30 pm -- certainly not targeted to a much wider primetime audience.

In other words: in every hotel room I stayed in during my trip to Thailand last year, I had Channel 3, but I never had GMM25. International fans that watch GMMTV dramas on YouTube must understand that while *we* have easy access to most GMMTV dramas, thus making GMMTV dramas plentiful fodder for online fandom -- that GMMTV dramas WITHIN Thailand face tremendous competition from het and queer shows airing on more culturally prominent channels, if they're not web-exclusive shows.

As I noted in my review of The Fallen Leaf, I pondered the reasons why One31 executives approved that show's script. One31 is known for being a bolder channel than the more staid Channel 3. But I also wonder -- it may have helped the One31 executives to approve The Fallen Leaf precisely because its transgender main character was NOT centered in a romance (in fact, she was centered in a notorious love tangle involving her uncle-in-law, her father, and her aunt) (I know, I know).

When I think about this, to jump three years later into 2022 and to see that Channel 3 approved of The Miracle of Teddy Bear's script -- I do think, circuitously, that the airing and popularity of BLs previous to The Miracle of Teddy Bear certainly helped Channel 3 to consider airing holistically queer content, partially centered within a same-sex relationship, in a primetime slot. The amazing @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup of @the-conversation-pod, along with the utterly inimitable and dearest @happypotato48, posited recently that the creators of Miracle may have gotten AWAY with getting this show to air, because the premise of the show -- an inanimate teddy bear is alived to become a human -- itself was so absurd as to perhaps be interpreted as comedy.

According to this EXCELLENT reporting and analysis post by @flowerbeasblog, Miracle's ratings were unimpressive, maybe even dismal, as compared against mainstream het dramas airing in the same timeslot. (Here's another Reddit post about Miracle's low ratings as well.) In conversation with @happypotato48, he shared with me one social media post by a Thai fan that read, "i saw the rating and feel so hopeless about this country."

In the podcast linked above, @happypotato48 further clarifies,

For people who didn’t know this show aired on the time slot called ละครหลังข่าว, or after news lakorn, on the most popular channel in Thailand, channel 3, and the rating was not good. It was bad, like really really bad, a lot of the BL girlies didn’t show up for it and the lakorn aunties just think it was too weird and was not ready for any gay leads lakorn. And it’s pissing me the fuck off because this show depicted the queer truth unapologetically and because of that reason that’s why there haven’t been a BL show [on Channel 3] in that time slot since.  

For us international QL fans, however, we should note, again through @flowerbeasblog's excellent work, that Miracle happened to outperform the much-more-niche, Series Y GMMTV dramas by multiple points.

In other words: as compared to GMMTV QLs, Miracle bested them easily. But Miracle vastly *underperformed* when put up against other primetime dramas on bigger channels.

(I will have more to say on QL vs. lakorn ratings in part three of this sub-series, when I review Khun Chai.)

Moving on to the actual show itself, @happypotato48 also shared with me that Miracle had a vocal base of passionate fans who were excited about real exploratory LGBTQ+ content airing in such an accessible time slot and channel for a wider Thai audience.

My amazing writing friends @bengiyo (here) and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea (here) have written fabulous essays about this INCREDIBLE show, both of which dive well into important plot points and the surrounding history of the show's airing.

I was so blown away by this incredible 2022 queer drama, so impressed by the show's ability, as @bengiyo wrote, to leave not a single thread of a storyline behind for the sake of rushing towards a conclusion. Each episode did not contain a minute of wasted time. Each minute of this show was rich in its themes and plots, describing the incredibly difficult lives of queer children growing into adults, and managing the trauma cards they were dealt with by the imperfect, often biased, and sometimes evil adults that raised these children.

I can take a couple guesses myself, as an Asian child of Asian parents, as to why Miracle didn't perform well during its airing. For a much wider Thai audience than the typical girlies that watch BLs -- an audience that certainly included parents and grandparents -- Miracle was a HELL of an exercise of accountability towards underperforming adults who are involved in the raising of queer children.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear took a goddamn SCALPEL to the biases, the trauma, and even the violence that adults commit unto children and other adults, in the name of demanding that children conform to their demands and to societal expectations. If parents were watching this live -- parents who could have either been raising, or had raised, queer children -- and raised them in the context of bias and conformity, than I can only imagine that this show made them squirm in shame. But besides this point about shame, Miracle, as I mentioned before, was also not a typical primetime romance drama. It was heavy, emotional, penetrating material, and a primetime audience may not have been primed to deal with such heavy content at that airing time.

I urge you to read @bengiyo's and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea's in-depth essays on Miracle's plot, but I'll run quickly through it now to get to some important points that I want to highlight.

Our main protagonist, Nut, lives with his mentally impacted mother, Na. She hallucinates regularly, speaking to a man that she calls her husband. One day, Tofu, a teddy bear that Nut owns, comes to life. While Na accepts Tofu immediately, Nut is extremely concerned by the sudden appearance of a strange man in his house (who wouldn't be). The connection between human Tofu and Nut's suddenly-missing teddy bear is not made, and Tofu is eventually accepted by Nut to live in his house and take care of Na.

Over the course of the series, it is revealed that the man that Na hallucinates (Saen) is not actually her husband -- but is the twin brother of her deceased actual husband (Sibmeun), a husband that was devastatingly homophobic and abusive to both Na and Nut while he was alive. Na and Saen had previously been in love, but due to a confluence of events, Na ended up marrying Saen's twin brother, Sib.

This single decision, in all of its intergenerational traumatic glory, is the kingpin to a cascade of horrifying trauma for Nut as he grows up.

Nut knows he is gay throughout his life and is punished brutally by his father, time and time again, for it. Na is blamed and punished separately by Sib for her fault of not "correcting" Nut of his sexuality. Nut is brutally separated by his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, by Sib, who originally learns of Nut's relationship through a homophobic teacher who narcs on Nut and Tatarn after seeing them together.

Tatarn himself is an injured protagonist in a separate storyline, as this generation of children become adults, of how his effort to fight the government against taking over his family's land leads him to a series-length coma. With Tatarn in a suspended state, Tofu is able to come to life through Tatarn's life force, and Nut and Tofu eventually fall in love. I want to emphasize that there's SO MUCH MORE to this series that you must catch up with in Ben's and Shan's/Twig's essays, or, ideally, in stopping everything and watching this show.

The utter BRILLIANCE of this series emanates first with Tofu -- a grown man borne out of a teddy bear, who knows nothing about how the human world functions, thus establishing Tofu as a brilliant and objective narrator commenting on the fallacies of human behavior that he observes around him, Nut, and Na.

Tofu is able to ask the most simple questions about why people act the way they do. He poses these questions like a child.

Where does homophobia come from? Why does it exist?

Nut himself asks, in the BRILLIANT episode nine of this series -- why do people have to disturb our love?

And with Tofu's existence, Nut is able to begin exploring his repressed and traumatic memories, to finally be able to tell the story of his brutal childhood to an objective listener.

He says to Tofu, in episode 10 (I paraphrase here),

"[my parents] ruined it for me. They ruined my self-esteem. They never explained [their homophobia] to me."

Nut goes on to tell Tofu that his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, was the first person in his life that didn't make him feel like an intruder.

This theme (there were so, so many themes in this show, from traumatic patriarchy, to embedded and generational misogyny, omg so much) of internalized homophobia and intergenerational trauma reminded me of an Instagram post I once saw from an older gay man, who wrote about missing his young adulthood due to the trauma of his upbringing. He wrote that it wasn't until his 40s that he could actually LIVE as a gay man, because he spent his 20s and 30s in fear of prejudice, and processing the trauma that he had grown up with. He wrote that his is the case for most queer people -- that one's 40s are the equivalent of a heterosexual's 20s.

We catch Nut fully processing this, after a lifetime of internal and external struggles, with Tofu, to the point of Nut seeking therapy at the end of the series.

There are many more storylines dealing with homophobia (including that evil fucker Jan, FUCK YOU JAN), as well as unfettered support for queer children, as we see through Gen and his lovely family. We see parents changing their views on same-sex relationships, through Song and his father, Anik.

I want to note something for the sake of the OGMMTC syllabus and the history of Thai BL, as this show aired starting in March of 2022. What remarkable show had ended just two months prior?

That's right, GMMTV's inimitable Bad Buddy. (BBS GIRLIES CAN'T LEAVE 'EM ALONE.) As I made comparisons between GMMTV and Channel 3 earlier, I also want to compare what Bad Buddy represents vis à vis homophobia versus how Miracle dealt with it.

We all know that Bad Buddy exists in GMMTV's common No Homophobia Bubble. We all know that Bad Buddy leverages other themes, including intergenerational trauma, school infighting and bullying, and personal and family rivalries, to represent conflicts that commonly arise in situations of homophobia. We all know that the resolutions that Pat and Pran come to at the end of the show are oftentimes compromises that queer couples must make to survive in love and the world.

I believe that one of the reasons why The Miracle of Teddy Bear underperformed in ratings at the time of its airing is because, unlike Bad Buddy, Miracle surgically dissected just about every emanation of homophobia that one could possibly imagine. (TW: child abuse, spoiler) At one point during a flashback to Nut's childhood, we see Na saving Nut's life by slapping him in front of his homophobic father, as a means of distracting the father from potentially killing his gay son.

As I keep repeating, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is not a BL. In the context of the show's conversation about homophobia, the series ACTUALLY COMMENTS ON SERIES Y, brilliantly so, as Nut himself is a Series Y screenwriter, and Miracle demonstrates that Thai BLs are actually GOOD for reaching audiences that may otherwise question same-sex relations.

And Miracle is also not a romance. Except for the re-animated teddy bear, Miracle strikes about as realistic a vision of the difficulties of love and acceptance as I've seen in a fictional drama.

And I drank every minute of it up. It was incredibly refreshing to me to watch a truly queer piece of art just absolutely dissect almost every experience of the trauma of a queer child growing up in a difficult environment, and processing those difficulties in his adult life.

There are a few other pieces on the OGMMTVC syllabus that touch upon this brutal angst. From The Love of Siam, to Gay OK Bangkok, to Dew, to The Eclipse, there is a world of Thai queer cinema and shows, some of which include BLs, that don't shy away from wrangling with the oft-present brutality of growing up and living queer.

As I think about how Miracle performed in primetime broadcast ratings in 2022, I'm thinking about what some of us in critical circles have been discussing regarding the last year and a half of GMMTV shows -- GMMTV being the biggest producer of Thai BLs at the moment. GMMTV shows, since Bad Buddy, have not been as critically incisive into worlds of bias, and shows like We Are or My Love Mix-Up Thailand have actually generated criticism for being too out of touch from the oft-difficult realities of being queer.

I think it's extremely important for us, as a small fandom in the huge world of Asian dramas, to think about what we want to see out of the shows we prefer. I had no prior expectation before I tuned into The Miracle of Teddy Bear, not at all expecting such a thorough and rich commentary into the realities of being a queer Thai man.

I feel that The Miracle of Teddy Bear has given me such a broader insight into the kind of parenting that many young queer Thais likely experienced in their childhood. It's given me a larger holistic view of the issues I need to be aware of when I interact with any of my queer friends. And I think this holistic education into a queer experience should, frankly, be on the list of anyone who considers themselves a fan of queer media, so as to be better educated about the realities of bias that our friends and family may face.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is so brilliant, that we as a fandom need to work on giving it the broader reputation it deserves. It deserves an important spot on the OGMMTVC syllabus as a must-watch, critical exploration of society vis à vis sexuality. For me, it's in my top three with He's Coming To Me and Bad Buddy as my favorite Thai queer dramas, if I'm broadening my criteria out of BLs, and also lands up in non-BL-land for me with the movies The Love of Siam and Dew.

If any of us out there think that we understand the culture of Thai queerness, or even of the trauma that being queer could cause to a child -- check yourself (as I did), watch The Miracle of Teddy Bear, and prepare for a rich and artful education into issues and themes that you may not have even thought of.

[Aaaahhh, I have been waiting for MONTHS to pen this tribute to Miracle, and I'm glad it's out of my system! It's long, but it's absolutely a must-watch.

Speaking of must-watches! My next post in this series is not a part of The Lakorn Corner sub-series, we'll take a quick break from that. I have been waiting, also, for MONTHS to revere over Triage (TRIIIIAAAAGGGEEEE!), the best medical BL ever, ever, ever. I'm just gonna gush in my piece, I hope that's okay with y'all.

I'm watching 2022's Khun Chai at the moment, and I'll review that after Triage, and then I'll take a look at the start of the GL era in Series Y territory with GAP and some preceding shows. My School President is on the horizon!

Here's the latest OGMMTVC playlist for yer pleasure!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (2015) (Thailand’s first serialized GL) (to be reviewed with GAP the Series) 5) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 6) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 7) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 8) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 9) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 10) Together With Me (2017) (review here)

11) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 12) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 13) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 14) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 15) The Fallen Leaf (2019) (not a BL; adjacent to the project as Thailand’s first lakorn featuring a queer/transgender main character) (review here) 16) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 17) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 18) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 19) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 20) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content at GMMTV) (review here)

21) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 22) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 23) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 24) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 25) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 26) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 27) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 28) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 29) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 30) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)

31) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 32) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 34) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 35) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 36) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 37) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) 38) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  39) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 40) Triage (2022) (review coming)

41) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 42) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 43) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships (review here) 44) Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love (2022) (watching) 45) Love of Secret (2022) (a GL that preceded GAP) (I will not be watching this, but it's on the list to precede GAP) 46) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL with a branded pair and ship) (review coming) 47) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023), Coupled with a Speed-Watch of My Love Mix-Up Thailand (2024) to Comment on GMMTV Trying to Make Magic Happen Twice  48) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 49) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 50) La Pluie (2023) (review coming)

51) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 52) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 53) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 54) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 55) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 56) Ossan’s Love Returns (Japan, 2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 57) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here) (I am not finished with this show; I will finish it when I get to it on this list) 58) Spare Me Your Mercy (2024) (thoughts here) (added as the finale of Sammon's medical trilogy in Manner of Death and Triage, and as a major lakorn starring two of Thailand's biggest actors in Tor Thanapob and Jaylerr)]

[talkingbl]

Thai BL Companies: A Brief Guide

My guide to the major Thai BL companies for the BL newbie. I've not included defunct companies (Nadao Bangkok, Studio Wabi Sabi), companies that produce BLs but don't sign actors or companies I'm not as familiar with (Copy A Bangkok, Dee Hup House, iQiyi).

Be On Cloud (BOC)

Production Value: A- | Talent: B+ | Story Variety: C | Writing: B

Notable Series: KinnPorsche (2022), The Hidden Character (2023 Reality TV Series), Dead Friend Forever (2023), 4Minutes (2024)

Notable Actors: Apo Nattawin, Bas Asavapatr, Bible Wichapas, Fuaiz Thanawat, Jes Jespipat, Mile Phakphum

My Thoughts: As a heads up, I did not finish Dead Friend Forever ("DFF"), so please take this into account when reading my thoughts below.

BOC is the place to go for decently high production values, heavier themes, and acting that's a slight cut above the rest. BOC will bring lots of action and sex, with stories that tend to explore the more base sides of humanity.

The company's flagship series, KinnPorsche, is often cited as a good starting point into Thai BL for the average joe, however, I actually think 4Minutes is a better starting point as it takes all of the better qualities of BOC and leaves out the camp you get with KinnPorsche, which I believe is more of an acquired taste for folks who are new to Thai BL. I also think that KinnPorsche, while decent for a first production for a company, has lots of questionable directing/acting/and even writing choices that are largely eliminated in 4Minutes.

To me, the biggest issue for BOC from an artistic standpoint is the way some of their series tend to meander for awhile before getting to the point. KinnPorsche suffers from this in the middle of the series, and DFF also has this problem after the first 2 or 3 episodes. 4Minutes has sort of the opposite problem where it moves a little too quickly because of its short 8-episode run. Still, BOC's storytelling is made more interesting because of the subject matter of its series (KinnPorsche's mafia-bodyguard trope, DFF's...whatever the fuck they were doing in that scary ass show..., 4Minutes' psychological-sci-fi thriller elements).

Business-wise, BOC is a bit controversial to say the least. Their talent pool has been a bit of a mess what with Build Jakapan being forced out after being outed as the worst type of asshole and Barcode Tinnasit leaving for somewhat mysterious reasons, some of the company's key writers and producers turning out to be on a constant power trip, and even controversies surrounding the talent that haven't even had their first roles yet.

Additionally, their promotion tactics have likewise been polarizing. While they don't go full-throttle with their shipped-pair promotions, they do put on these elaborate events complete with fansigns, meet and greets, actor performances, etc. At first, it was a little flimsy (KinnPorsche cast humping the air and singing offkey in front of thousands of people), but I do think it's improving (4Minutes cast actually getting into character to perform songs (still offkey) like a stage musical of sorts, instead of singing/dancing as themselves). So, if you're wanting to get into Thai BL fandom culture, I'd say BOC has more opportunities for you to be part of that community in a way that doesn't ship you straight into delulu land.

Lastly, while I think BOC has a bright future ahead given the success of literally everything they do, I feel like a lot will ride on if they're able to keep Jes Jespipat (who was a known actor in the Thai lakorn scene before joining BOC) and attract more big-name talent. Barcode jumping over to GMMTV after alluding that he didn't want to be signed to a company again after leaving BOC is a bit of a bad look to me and I can imagine other industry talent is keeping an eye on things like that.

Change2561 (Change)

Production Value: C | Talent: C | Story Variety: B- | Writing: C

Notable Series: PitBabe (2023), This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (2024)

Notable Actors: Nut Supanut, Pavel Naret, Pooh Krittin, Pon Thanapon, Sailub Hemmawich

My Thoughts: Before you read the below, I've only watched about half of PitBabe and clips of This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans ("TLDHLB"), so many of my thoughts are colored by brief experiences.

Change is one of the newer companies to pop up on the Thai Queer Love scene. So far, their productions have been received relatively well and their upcoming series have garnered overwhelming support. Because Change is so new and both of their leading BL productions are so different, it's difficult to really point in the direction of a true identity. That said, there is an inkling that Change will be more of a novel adaptation company rather than an original content company. Additionally, Change has adapted/is adapting books that have hooks to them (Pitbabe with the omegaverse theme, their upcoming series The Most Beautiful Count and its strong identity/politics themes, etc.).

I can't really recommend a series for Change since I haven't finished the ones I've started from the company. I do think that Pitbabe is much riskier than TLDHLB, given that it does have an omegaverse element and it switches the typical seme/uke dynamic on its head.

Artistically, Change's direction looks promising, but I do warn that, likely because the company is so new, the talent pool is a bit shallow (same few actors star in each series) and the production quality varies drastically from work to work.

Business-wise, Change seems to be doing the typical Thai BL promotion tactics of fansigns, brand events, and social media fanservice, with their pairs having slightly more distance between them than shipped pairs from other companies.

Overall, I think if Change delivers on the lineup it announced in 2024, it has the potential to shake up the top players in the industry.

Domundi/Mandee (DMD)

Production Value: B+ | Talent: C | Story Variety: B | Writing: C

Notable Series: Why R U? (2020), Cutie Pie (2022), DMD Friendship The Reality (2023-, Reality TV Series), Bed Friend (2023), Your Sky (2024)

Notable Actors: Kong Kongpob, Max Kornthas, Nat Natasit, Nunew Chawarin, Thomas Teetut, Zee Pruk

My Thoughts: Warning that I have never finished a DMD show lmao (but Your Sky looks promising).

Ah, DMD...the long-touted GMMTV dethroner. DMD is a go-to for slice-of-life series that have NC elements but not at the level of BOC. Most of the series produced at DMD are straight up romantic comedies with no other themes explored at all. But within the romantic comedy genre, DMD series explore many common romance tropes (Cutie Pie with arranged marriage trope, Bed Friend with enemies to lovers trope, Your Sky with fake dating trope, etc.). Even with its upcoming series like The Next Prince and Love Upon A Time, we're getting a european royalty AU and period piece. It's truly like if AO3 had its own BL production company.

The company's flagship series is probably Cutie Pie. Though some might argue Why R U? put DMD/Mandee on the map (a la SOTUS and GMMTV). But, really, Cutie Pie was like the 2gether of DMD. It launched the company and its shipped pair, ZeeNunew, into the GMMTV-competitor conversation. That said, Your Sky is the best show I've seen from DMD and it's not even finished yet lol.

Artistically, DMD suffers from incoherent storytelling and mid-acting syndrome. Like Cutie Pie started off okay but I couldn't move past the terribly uninspired acting and all over the place plot. That said, a lot of their actors fit perfectly into established character tropes (tall/older confident and masculine seme/top, shorter/younger shy and feminine uke/bottom), which I think is a huge draw for lots of people. This is not something that affects my viewing experience, however, so I don't count this as a plus.

Business-wise DMD is a shipper's paradise. A lot of the shipped pairs act like real couples even outside of their shows, with some even being suspected of actually dating. They have all the typical shipped pair events but combine it with content out of the ass of the actors flirting, etc. DMD actors seem to have a much more international reach than, say, Idol Factory actors. While both have similar outreach in Asia, I think DMD tries to get their actors and works in western markets, which is a huge plus for western BL newbies. Additionally, DMD actors tend to not really be actors... I mean, they act, but most of them actually want to sing (and some can). This means that shipped couple birthday events are just concerts, fansigns are just concerts, extra video content is just music videos, etc. So, you will not run out of opportunities to see your favorite actors in the flesh in a manner that's (arguably) worth the money if you go down the DMD actor stan rabbithole.

Still, DMD is slightly controversial with allegations of sexism from its actors (stemming from a video released some years ago) and inappropriate pairings. With the rising conversations surrounding age gaps in pairings lately, DMD has come under fire for MaxNat in particular. For those who don't know, Max and Nat have been paired together since Nat was 17 (Max was 26 at that time). Though they were first paired before joining DMD, so most of their critics don't call out DMD for that. Still, some feel that even though Nat is now 22, DMD is wrong for keeping him in a pair with an actor 9 years his senior. The conversation is similar with ZeeNunew. Zee has been under particular scrutiny because of a comment he made about wanting to be paired with Nunew since Nunew first joined DMD at age 19 (Zee would've been 28 at the time).

Personally, I think DMD can't be blamed from MaxNat's pairing before they joined DMD. I also don't think it was necessarily wrong to keep them paired after they joined since, by then, Nat was a grown man. While MaxNat are not my cup of tea, at this point, Nat is 22, and I'm not in the business of trying to tell a grown man what to do with his career. Same with ZeeNunew. I like Nunew a lot and feel he is one of the most talented singers who also acts in BLs. But I never felt like he was showing signs of being exploited. At this point, as long as Nat and Nunew feel safe, that's all that matters to me. Additionally, new DMD pairings do not have these problems, so it's hard for me to call it a company issue.

Ultimately, DMD will likely continue to be successful for as long as ZeeNunew have stans lmao. But, on a serious note, I think the smartest thing this company ever did was DMD Friendship The Reality because it was a great way to introduce fans to new acting talent, build fanbases for the shipped pairs that came out of the show, and get money in the process. Now, ZeeNunew and MaxNat have pairs like ThomasKong and KengNamping who have skyrocketed in popularity to pass the torch to.

GMMTV

Production Value: B- | Talent: B+ | Story Variety: A | Writing: B-

Notable Series: SOTUS (2016), The Gifted (2018), Dark Blue Kiss (2019), Theory of Love (2019), 2gether (2020), A Tale of a Thousand Stars (2021), Not Me (2021), Bad Buddy (2021), My School President (2022), Only Friends (2023), High School Frenemy (2024)

Notable Actors: Barcode Tinnasit, Est Supha, First Kanaphan, Fourth Nattawat, Gun Atthaphan, Inn Sarin, Jennie Panhan, Krist Perawat, Mark Pakin, Mix Sahaphap, Nani Hirunkit, Ohm Pawat, Perth Thanapon, Sky Wongravee, Tay Tawan, Tu Tontawan, William Jakarapatr, Win Metawin

My Thoughts: GMMTV is probably the most prolific production company in Thailand when it comes to producing BL series. They have the most series, the most actors, the most events, the most money, etc. The company's identity is rooted in the schoolboy BL. Regardless of if we're talking high school boys or university men, get used to Thai uniforms if you're going to watch damn near any GMMTV BL produced before 2021, thanks to the SOTUS effect. It's not until the company enters the BL stratosphere in 2020 that we start getting a significant uptick in BLs that don't revolve around doing everything in a school building except learning.

Beyond the school settings, GMMTV is known for romantic comedies, slice of life stories, camp elements, terrible audio quality, empty sets, and 'we definitely shot this on a $2 budget' aesthetics. In fact, it wasn't until about 2021 that GMMTV production quality shot up after the explosion in popularity of 2gether. Suddenly, post-2020, Never Let Me Go was being shot in 4K, ThamePo had boom mics that worked and not just wireless mics that brushed up against the actors' clothes and picked up every sound but the actors' voices, and Sky Wongravee was signing to this broke ass company!!! And at this point, GMMTV's identity is less in its art and more in its business.

But first, the art. GMMTV, by far, has the most variety in its BL lineup. And while they don't push the envelope as much as, say, BOC, they're starting to add in mature themes at a reasonable pace. GMMTV's talent pool has shifted dramatically with so many basement dwellers leaving and very well-known actors signing (Sky, Barcode, Boun, Prem, etc.). This means that while you will occasionally see some of the most struggle acting you've ever seen from Dunk Natachai (love u, Dunk), you will see some of the most moving performances from your Gun Atthaphans. It's honestly a somewhat strange thing to experience in real-time.

Additionally, GMMTV's stories are largely adaptations of popular Thai and Japanese works (think SOTUS, Cherry Magic TH, etc.). But occasionally you will get original series that hit just right (Moonlight Chicken).

Artistically, the biggest issues with GMMTV include the weakest actors getting the most work and the most interesting stories, the inconsistent production quality, the clear favoritism, the focus on money over art, the way many of the most popular pairs clearly hate kissing boys lmfao, and, most starkly, the episode 5 drop off.

The episode 5 drop off is a series KILLER. What this refers to is how GMMTV series are almost always good, sometimes even GREAT for the first 4ish episodes. But by the time episode 5/6 comes around (or whenever the couple actually gets together in the series), we go from really good storytelling to leaning on the shittiest cliches you can imagine, the characters becoming straight up stupid, or random things happening for literally no reason with no context at all and a resolution that comes out of actual nowhere. Like there will legit be episodes of a series where one of our leading men gets shot or hit by a car or whatever, his boyfriend is like super scared and worried he's going to die and it's this big traumatic event. No less than 15 minutes later and it's like nothing happened. The shooting/car accident was literally just there to artificially raise the stakes and waste your damn time. This happens in almost EVERY GMMTV BL. Either that or the characters fake-out kiss like 30 times after they get together until there's 2 minutes left in the season finale when they finally kiss.

Regarding the other points, for example, the company treats Gen 2 (in particular, JoongDunk, PondPhuwin, ForceBook) like they are untouchable gods despite most of the talent residing with the pillars, company-switchers, het series actors, and even Gen 3 actors. Don't get me wrong, I understand those 3 pairs are stan attractors, but I feel like GMMTV is not taken super seriously as a company because the actors in these pairs get like 2-3 series per year while some of the company's best actors don't see the light of day.

Business-wise, if you're a kpop or jpop fan or otherwise into idol culture, GMMTV is probably the most comfortable transition for you. GMMTV treats its "artists" like idols (complete with "triple threat" allegations (LMFAO)); every actor getting their own song that they also struggle to dance to; every pair getting their own official mascot, logo, fandom name, and lightstick; concerts; shipped pair reality shows; etc. Hell, even the non-BL pairs get some of these things so long as they look good together and have chemistry (looking at you, Sky-Nani imina). It's like a fanservice paradise over there (except it's not billed as the pairs are actually dating, but that they're all in the will they-won't they, phi-nong, more than friends but less than lovers, stage). And if you pay close enough attention to the GMMTV pairs, you will notice common trends of how they interact/promote that will quickly unravel any delulu thoughts that you might have at the outset of seeing them together.

But to me, the best parts about GMMTV's business strategy, however, are their international focus and the novelty in their company promotions.

As for their international focus, most of their content is freely available on YouTube and subbed in English. Many of their artists are bilingual. And they're starting to produce events overseas at a high clip (e.g., TayNew recently in Rome, JimmySea in LA last year, GMMTV Fan Fest 2025 in Japan, etc.).

Novelty-wise, they've got several things going for them. They're the ones that started the annual lineup shows where they drop trailers for series coming out in the next year, have performances from their in-house T-Pop groups, and interview the casts and crews of upcoming series. They also have unique events like GMMTV Starlympics (if you're a kpop fan, it's like ISAC but only one company's idols participate against each other and there's musical performances), and GMMTV Company Outing (which is their annual company trip and isn't officially televised, but the artists and their managers always upload videos in real time of the shenanigans that occur at these outings). GMMTV even spearheaded the shipped-pair variety show content mill with mainstay pairs getting their own shows themed after either the actors' names (think EarthMix Space) or their interests (think TayNew Meal Date). These are all pioneering promotional tactics that make GMMTV series and shipped pairs even more entertaining.

Besides the money-making genius at GMMTV, however, there have been so many scandals with this company's actors it's hard to keep track. Everything from misogyny allegations, to homophobia, to people criticizing them for largely platforming straight-presenting (?) actors over out actors, to racism, to abuse (Pawin Thanik, Foei Pattara), to inappropriate behavior with children (think Prom Teepakron), etc.

Despite the scandals above, GMMTV is going nowhere. Having so many artists signed to one company, content where there's something for everyone, and an international focus with a parasocial lens is helping GMMTV maintain its status as the premier producer of BL content in Thailand.

Idol Factory (IDF)

Production Value: A- | Talent: B- | Story Variety: B- | Writing: B

Notable Series: Secret Crush on You (2022), GAP (2022), The Sign (2024)

Notable Actors: Babe Tanatat, Becky Rebecca, Freen Sarocha

My Thoughts: Disclaimer: I've only watched Secret Crush on You (SCOY) from Idol Factory.

IDF is the first company to be spearheaded by a former BL actor (Saint Suppapong). It's a newer company with an uncertain identity as of yet (though, I'd say that they're wanting to be known as an all-things queer love (QL) company rather than one focused on BLs or het dramas).

I don't have much to say about IDF artistically except that it's being well-received by BL audiences. Most of the people who like their dramas like the chemistry between the shipped pairs as well as how seriously the company takes queer stories. At IDF, you'll not only find BLs and GLs, but also stories involving trans characters seeking acceptance (see SCOY), for example.

Business-wise, there's a risk here. While the pairs in these shows are lauded for their chemistry, there's not a lot of variety and some pairs have been entrenched in controversy regarding their offscreen activities. Personally, I don't agree with all the folks making a big deal out of some of the actors dating each other in heterosexual relationships. I just hope it doesn't affect IDF's ability to thrive as a company since they're one of the few taking real chances in their content. Additionally, it's not lost on me that more of their stans hate the fact that the actors are in straight relationships than the fact that Billy Patchanon (leading man in The Sign and SCOY) unabashedly said the n-word...

I think that if IDF can expand its talent pool, it'll continue to find success in the BL world.

Jinloe

Production Value: F | Talent: C | Story Variety: D | Writing: F

Notable Series: Hit, Bite, Love (2023), Addicted Heroin TH (2024)

Notable Actors: August Vachiravit, Jur Vasin, Newyear Nawaphat

My Thoughts: Didn't watch Hit, Bite, Love (HBL) (actually dropped the trailer like 2 seconds in lmao) nor did I have any interest in Addicted Heroin TH (though I've seen many clips on the internet).

Jinloe should probably close and all its actors sign to Tia51. Their company identity is making people as uncomfortable as humanly possible by casting children to do questionable things on TV. I don't think that company is a safe place for kids and I think the content they produce is targeted toward...a specific kind of reprehensible person. If you want to see what I mean, just take a gander at the MDL pages for HBL and Addicted Heroin TH.

I can't really speak on their art because I don't watch their shows.

Business-wise, they seem to make dumb decision after dumb decision. From casting a 15 year old to play the love interest of a 27 year old, to NC scenes involving minors, to not even attempting to build out their repertoire of dramas, this company has no vision nor any direction. They're trying to market NewyearJur as a shipped pair with music videos together and social media posts (since those two are the only ones who seemingly have age-appropriate interactions in Jinloe series), but it's all failing miserably since: 1) people familiar with Jinloe's shady business run when they see that name; 2) neither Jur nor Newyear are particularly talented in a sea of similarly-aged actors actually showing potential; and 3) neither Jur nor Newyear have the clout of others in their age range since they started with Jinloe (as opposed to, say, Mick Metas at GMMTV who got clout from being related to Win Metawin).

Jinloe will probably be the next company to close but I also don't doubt that creeps will keep them open.

MeMindY

Production Value: D | Talent: C | Story Variety: D- | Writing: D

Notable Series: Love By Chance (2018), TharnType (2019), Don't Say No (2021), Love In The Air (2022), Love Sea (2024)

Notable Actors: Boss Chaikamon, Fort Thitipong, Noeul Nuttarat, Peat Wasuthorn

My Thoughts: MeMindY is known for its CEO (?), Mame. Anyone who is familiar with Mame's work knows they're going to get dicey romance stories often centering around university students with at least one scene of romanticized abuse for good measure. Now, I do think the abuse stuff is changing (Love In The Air (LITA) didn't really have any of that), but I can understand why MeMindY has that reputation. Either way, every MeMindY show will have engineering/med school/architecture/some other type of professional school students, actors folks consider conventionally attractive, reluctant bottoms that don't know they're gay, somewhat aggressive tops who are always physically bigger than the bottoms, strict heteronormative dynamics, and sometimes literally insane plot elements (like the Tor plotline that came up in TharnType (TTTS))...

Artistically, MeMindY needs to take a step away from university BLs. While TTTS and LITA kept my interest for a bit, I do think Don't Say No (DSN) felt a bit stale. But I'd say it's likely because DSN didn't have the best acting and its episodic structure made it difficult for me to connect with the underlying story. Particularly, the episodic structure in DSN didn't work as well as it does in GMMTV's ThamePo. Still, I appreciate the fact that MeMindY picks actors that do not seem bothered at all about kissing and portraying sex with other men. It's what makes MeMindY series more dynamic than series from other companies despite the laundry list of issues they tend to have.

Business-wise, MeMindY leans HEAVILY into the shipped-pair dynamic. It's less commercial than GMMTV and, these days, less 'we're actually dating' than DMD, but somehow it comes off as just as in-your-face as DMD and GMMTV. I'd even say that I consider MeMindY a peer company to DMD and GMMTV based on the popularity of its shipped pairs alone. Like MewGulf (RIP), BossNoeul, and FortPeat are all booked and busy. MewGulf did for Mew Suppasit and Gulf Kanawut what BrightWin did for Bright Vachirawit and Win Metawin. Mew and Gulf never have to act in BLs ever again to have success and can solely focus on their het careers and terrible singing. I'd even go as far as to say MewGulf is often considered the blueprint for what a shipped couple can be with folks (not me--zonzons leave me alone) often comparing ZeeNunew and the like to MewGulf. BossNoeul is similar to a JoongDunk/PondPhuwin level of noteriety without nearly the same level of dramas to their name, which speaks volumes.

Because MeMindY can produce 1-2 series per year with the same 4 actors and have people shipping them to the high heavens, I think we can consider it an established company that will continue to thrive barring bankruptcy lol.

Open Label

Production Value: C- | Talent: B | Story Variety: -- | Writing: B

Notable Series: Century of Love (2024)

Notable Actors: Daou Pittaya, Offroad Kantapon

My Thoughts: Open Label is the new company on the block. From my understanding, Daou and Offroad actually formed the company themselves (a la YinWar with YWPB or Saint with IDF). Open Label does not have an established identity because they've produced approximately one show. BUT, they did tell us about DaouOffroad's new series The Wicked Game, which looks to be a bodyguard romance that takes on some of the more mature themes we typically see at BOC.

Artistically, all I can say is that they're off to a great start with story selection. Century of Love (COL) was a good first entry as it has a fantasy/supernatural element that blends Thai folklore and religious practices with its romance. There's also the level of comfortability and chemistry between its key actors (Daou and Offroad) that is hard to come by. Hopefully as the company produces more successful series, budgets can increase and they can attract even more talent.

Business-wise, there is no business. There is only DaouOffroad and a slew of pretty faces we have yet to see in anything. This is a good starting point for any company, however, so we shall see how things continue to progress from here.

Ultimately, I'm optimistic that Open Label will see success.

Tia51

Production Value: C- | Talent: C+ | Story Variety: D | Writing: C-

Notable Series: My Universe (2023), LoveSick 2024 (2024)

Notable Actors: Almond Poomsuwan, Bew Busaya, Krit Ngamtanakijja, NJ Deeprompt, Progress Passawich, Shane Thanatpong, Sky Phasith, Toto Thayawat, Yeepun Purichaya

My Thoughts: I've only watched LoveSick 2024.

Tia51 is not exactly new but, from what I know, they've only produced 2 series. Because of this, they don't have an identity yet.

Artistically, so far, so good. It's definitely interesting to have one of your first series be a remake of an iconic series, and it seems to have been a genius decision by the folks over at Tia51. But, because the flagship series is a remake, the only thing to discuss artistically is the talent pool. The directing in Love Sick 2024 was, at times, very inspired. The actors were nearly all rookies and a good 75% of the cast were under 18 at the time of filming--2 things which do come through quite a bit in the finished product. Still, I found that the lead role was very strong, all things considered, and the changes made from the original to this remake seemingly made a lot of sense. Going forward, it's really just about staying at this level of quality or better.

Now, out of all the companies in this space, Tia51 is the only one I have personal experience with when it comes to the business/fan side of things. While in Thailand, I stumbled upon the premiere of LoveSick 2024. While the event itself could've used a little more logistics planning (though part of the problem here is that my Thai isn't very advanced so I had a little more difficulty getting around the venue), it was overall pretty well-organized, which left a good impression on me.

Additionally, the actors are all hella clouted in Thailand (from my understanding, many of the actors cast in the show actually had fanbases through things like music and social media prior to being cast), which adds to the business potential of Tia51. It also helps that, from my experience meeting the crew and cast, they are all very charismatic and are quickly learning how to be good entertainers. Because of this, I think the business of Tia51 has potential to expand. They just need to not waste Progress's acting talent, Chok and Toto's singing talent, and the rest of the cast's social media clout in order to succeed. This means picking tasteful stories to tell and actually nurturing their musical talent in a natural way (unlike GMMTV platforming non-singers).

Conclusion

If you're coming from western media, I'd say the best place to start is either BOC (they have the more serious vibes you get in western media with few quirks) or GMMTV (they're the most accessible).

If you're coming from eastern media (particularly kpop), GMMTV is probably the best place to start, closely followed by DMD. The fandom experience that is a huge part of kpop, is very similar here. In fact, for kpop fans, it might even be helpful to think of the BL companies in kpop company terms. GMMTV/DMD/BOC = SM Entertainment/JYP Entertainment/YG Entertainment, respectively. MeMindY & IDF are like the smaller companies that still have popular groups like WakeOne and KQ Entertainment.

If you're coming from other BL industries (Taiwan, Japan, Korea), I'd say start with Change or DMD for Taiwan and Tia51 or BOC for Korea. If you're coming from Japanese BL, I don't know what to tell you because jbl stans almost always think jbl is superior to everything else and won't given] anything else a chance. Plus, production quality-wise, jbl productions are very dissimilar to Thai productions in almost every conceivable way lmao so I can't really make any good comparisons.

[bird-inacage]

CALL ME BY FIRE (SEASON 3): Participation of Jeff Satur

Now this has been the most uncanny crossover I never saw coming. A show I've been watching for years, and my introduction to thai BL which initially put Jeff's name on my radar. Here's some context for any fans who have heard of his participation and want to know more.

Call Me by Fire is a mainland Chinese TV competition show. They invite 33 established male celebrities with the goal to form an ultimate "boy band" by the show's conclusion. What tends to be the incredible pulling factor is they'll invite a combination of singers, musicians, actors, dancers, idols, presenters - incredibly well known faces in the industry - many of them hugely respected OGs in their field. (The demographic is usually late 20s+) so there's an intentional sense of maturity, experience and wisdom amongst the ensemble. The emphasis isn't really on forming this 'fictional' boy band, it acts as a mechanism for us to get more up close and personal with these artists. Allowing viewers to appreciate their creative genius, as well as who they are as people.

This show came as a spin off of another series 'Sisters Who Make Waves' which has the exact same premise but for female celebrities. Because it became such an instant hit, they made a male version shortly after.

As a Chinese speaker, I've been watching both shows since they started in 2020. Both are in their third season (with Call Me by Fire broadcasting right now). This year they've decided to include more participants (of mainly Chinese/Asian descent) from America, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand - along with the majority from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Why I find this show both incredibly entertaining and compelling is because you get to watch spectacular collaborations between some of the most talented artists of this generation, and witness them embark on a journey of brotherhood through a shared love for performance (they live, work and perform together for the duration of the show). For me, theres also a massive nostalgia factor, because a large portion of these artists will be people I grew up watching.

There will be a lot of new attention on this show due to the Jeff's involvement (whose dubbed ‘Luo Jie Fu’ in Chinese). We’re only on Episode 2, and he's already making a huge impression, earning one of two MVPs spots after their first live performance - his group ranking 2nd out of 8, and his personal ranking being 7th overall (based on the live audience popularity vote).

The show is uploaded onto Youtube in full (post-broadcast on a Saturday). Just to warn you, the episodes are usually very, very long (sometimes between 2-3 hours in total), but I personally really enjoy that. There are English subtitles but the translations don’t always capture the nuances.

Jeff is doing a superb job so far and he's very brave for taking this on. He brings something distinctly unique in his showmanship and personal sense of style. It's a daunting prospect for someone who can't speak or understand Chinese, but the other brothers are doing their best to help him feel as welcome and settled in as possible.

If anyone has any questions about the show or clips featuring Jeff they'd like to know more about, I'm more than happy to translate.

[virtualpeacenut]

Why I Dislike Women's MLM Fetishism

I know the BL industry was, from the beginning, by women for women. I try not to judge anyone's kinks so long as they're moral. I don't have a degree in gender politics, but I've taken some courses and feel I have a knowledgeable grasp on the dynamics, plus, my own life experience and higher intrapersonal/interpersonal thinking. Though I'll never assume I'm always right, I'm only human of course.

I feel it's safe to assume the apeal for women to watch and read men kissing and being intimate with each other is largely because they're tired of the toxic masculinity that's so prevalent, in all spaces. It's in their daily life, it's even in their porn. Lesbian porn isn't even for women. The flip being men being emotionally vulnerable in these stories, existing in a world largely without these issues. I can understand that, and I also feel it's nice to see certain plots that show a depth of emotional maturity, as it's very popular for men to shut out their emotions. I don't think it's nearly as harmful for women to have mlm kinks as it is for men to have wlw kinks because typically, there is a greater effect that men cause. History has always favored men and their desires, therefor they have always and still do maintain a high level of greed, mysogyny, and violence in their every day acts and thoughts and they get away with it endlessly. This is something we all have to work on.

While I don't think the impact of women in these spaces is comparatively societally harmful, it does make me uncomfortable personally. Here's why.

In my journey to find emotionally intelligent written plots and stories of other gay men like me, there's little to pick from. Most films and shows I've found with characters I like have been indie, those being filled to the brim with tragedy, murder, and SA. While bigger productions of shows and movies have been emotionally void and full of aggressive sexual relationships. So I found this neat little universe of BL, where the characters are varied with their own emotional plots, they're mostly realistic to how gay men act and feel, and I don't have to worry as much about seeing sex that I don't want to see. But therein lies another problem. Half of these stories are written in mind for the object of seeing men fuck, without even giving them the character development to make it realistic or understandable.

I like that women have written men with emotional intimacy and depth that's been absent in Hollywood productions. However, women/fujoshi make up, I'd say based on what I've seen, most of the BL fandom, and this feels much more problematic than simply being a writer and writing characters you'd like to see exist without mysogyny. Though, how it's written and what is done with it is crucial. When most of the fans are women, when a majority of those women will take absolutely anything in terms of mlm intimacy, when these stories get gobbled up no matter how awful or absurd they are because of that majority, that sends a signal to the production companies and writers that it's okay to continue at this pace. Not to mention how horrible it is that fans, especially in the Thai BL world, overstep their boundaries and literally treat the actors like they're their play things.

So, I don't mind that women also want a world without the bs of objectifying women, so do I. I don't completely mind that it even turns them on, if it's moral. I, a gay man, want representation and a safe space in stories written about gay men. Though it does not feel like I am allowed when 80% of the fandom is women, and my estimated guess is at least 60% of those have a sexual fetish with it, because it feels like I am invading a space where the largest voice is that I am not desireable because of my personality or thoughts, but because I'm a gay man. That emotional accuracy doesn't matter at all compared to the visual appeal of the kiss and sex scenes. That the actors feelings and contract conditions don't matter so long as they give the audience something sexy, and overshare about their personal lives by force. That the writers and studios can keep producing problematic plots with lack of understanding because there will always be a demand for anything mlm at all.

Again, I'm not saying every woman that consumes BL content has a mlm fetish, but it is common.

It feels like when you encounter somebody in person and they find out you're gay, for them to get excited and say something along the lines of "oh my god, I love gay guys!"

So, I recognize that this space was originally not for me, and that it's not entirely harmful for women to desire these emotional men on a small scale, but goddamn do I hate feeling like the characters and plots are only popular because they're fucking.

What can we do?

You can be mindful of the plots, studios, and characters you're investing in. The more attention the toxic writing gets, the more it will continue. You can be more considerate with how you interact with the fandom and the feedback you leave about shows/characters/actors. You can start supporting male written novels/stories more, and encourage studios to pick them up. It can be a space for all who appreciate it, but that doesn't mean we need to continue at this pace. Gay representation should not just be for the people who get off on it, but for those who need to see emotional maturity in their tv, so they know they're not alone, that they're not a freak, that their pain is valid. If they, gay or questioning men, feel like the space is not for them, or feel even more alienated from how gay men seemingly interact, they'll continue the misogynist cycle because they don't know there's a better way.

Side note: Dani, in sense8, wtf was that? She did not belong in that relationship.

Leaving this here for clarification. I pulled it from reddit, credit to the writer.

Love to all, no matter what.

[kafkaoftherubble]

Okay. Bro. /inhales deeply

I ordered a normal meal and you gave me a full-course meal?!

YOU ARE SPOILING ME, CLAIRE!!!

I can't believe you even realized what incident I was referring to despite my limited context. Was that a seismic "controversy" at the time?! Hmm... I kinda think it's also because you're just that knowledgeable about this stuff!

I mean, you actually have citations and references. This is a genuinely compact essay with good points and reporting. Bro, this is high-quality high-effort stuff, and I learn so much about this side of the BL culture and the window it provides into Thai entertainment culture. I didn't know it's that easy for entertainers to sue people, for example!

I'm quite relieved to hear that delusional fans aren't the majority or the loudest in the response, unlike those heydays of K-pop fandom when my sister and best friend were really into it. If a large group of clear-eyed fans, possessing Monk Dol's wisdom, is always there to push back against these delusional ones, then one can still hope that this fervor doesn't worsen into extremism or encourage profit-hungry companies into adopting predatory marketing behaviors/fan events.

Oh yea! I asked about the companies because Korean entertainment juggernauts are notoriously opportunistic in milking the worth out of their celebrities. I learned about them from my sister and best friend's telling too (I also asked questions like these back then ahhahahahaha). They definitely deliberately cash in on the fans' delusions and actively work to cultivate such delusions.

I wanted to know if such extremities are already found in blossoming entertainment industries such as Thailand. I also wonder if it's the inevitable endpoint for every model powered by the beast of capitalism. I think this is one of the developments I'm most curious about!!!

"Brand pairing" is a really new term to me! I didn't know this is how you called such a practice!

I still find the accusation of deception the most preposterous, and it's probably the worst representation of parasocial interaction. Actors are, by their trade, selling you entertaining deceptions. They are acting. It's not real. That's their job, and we audience engage with them per this contract that everything on screen is made up. When a character dies in the show, the actor isn't actually dead! Pup isn't really a monk! James isn't really an Elon Musk type! Stuff like that.

So to accuse actors and entertainers, broadly, for duplicity is as ridiculous as accusing a boxer of being good at boxing. Or accusing potatoes of being carbohydrates.

---

On your man JJ Krissanapoom!

Honestly, my brain auto-saw the names as "JJK-rissnapoom" at first. Because I still have that Jujutsu Kaisen brain cells in there, BWAHAHAHHAHA!

I will be really surprised if an actor who's been seeing someone for seven years is still getting flack for "not being authentic" or "posing pictures with your girlfriend instead of your pair." The dude has his girlfriend before he has this pair, man.

And the premise actually sounds interesting enough even for someone who's not into romance. I wonder how gritty it might be! If it's also a good crime thriller, I think I'd love to see it too!

Okay, so the original post you wrote has been a while and I saw it by ghost-reading (this is when I read someone's blog without signing into Tumblr. I'm only signed in on a specific browser on my laptop to prevent mindless scrolling).

If I recall correctly, you mentioned being ready to protect a Thai actor because he's some BL actor but is married to a wife (or has a girlfriend). That reminded me of an incident my best friend told me while we were chatting.

She said there was this time when two pairs of BL actors (she coded them as Pair A + B, and Pai C +D since I don't know them and their names weren't the point) got massively flacked by fans because B kissed C on camera when the four friends were hanging out. Fans apparently saw it as a betrayal of the "BL pairing," even though all four of them were just vlogging their activities not as characters they play.

I wanna know more about this phenomenon out of curiosity!

Is it as common as my best friend put it? Or is she just unlucky enough to be caught in such a storm?

Why do fans think this way, when these are just actors and not the real characters? Is it similar to the issue of fans of Kpop, Jpop, or even Cpop artists who cannot accept their idols marrying or dating anyone?

What do the companies hiring or signing these actors do to mitigate such an issue/protect their actors?

Or... Do the companies cash in on this sort of fanatic fervor, such that they encourage fans to believe this illusion, or mandate their actors to uphold such an illusion even when they are being themselves outside of acting?

How does an incident like this usually get resolved?

What are the major stances of Thai BL fans on this issue? Not all of them support this sort of fervor, right?

Lastly: what do you think, personally, is central to this sort of incident?

Sorry if it sounds like some college assignment, but I really wanna know what you think! I'm so curious as an outsider to all of this...

Thanks!!!

Hiiiii Lyn \(￣︶￣*\))

You have no idea how happy I am to receive this ask because I've been wanting to talk about that couple incident that you're referring to since forever but I've never gotten the chance to properly collect my thoughts about it. Thank you for allowing this opportunity to ramble about this and for your very introspective questions.

So firstly to give some context to it, I think it's a bit more important to cover some background information of the two pairings that you're talking about.

OffGun and TayNew are some of the oldest pairings in GMMTV. They are known to all be good friends with each other (if not to say they're each other best friends). They've all done non-BL works with different actors but in terms of promotions, OffGun and TayNew have always been regarded to be the 'pillars' of GMMTV (their company) branded pairings.

Even though the four people are close with each other, Tay is particularly close with Gun (and this is public fact known by everyone who follows them), often teasingly calls each other pet/master and have some hangouts/vacations with just them two.

In the case of TayGun, I think their playful kiss being caught unexpectedly on livestream caused so much reactions was because it's a private moment between them. BL fans are too used with using private moments (re:clips of casual skinship between actors during work events and non-work livestream) to prove the existence of their closeness or togetherness -> so when New accidentally turned his camera to show Gun playfully kissing Tay during livestream, I think many (outraged) fans falsely equated that TayGun kissing in private like that means they're romantically involved to a certain degree.

Even though Tay has come out to explain that it isn't the case and that Gun was just playfully teasing him, there were still so much flacks thrown his way. Even with clarifications from both sides, you can basically see from the comments section of these Tiktoks (1, 2, 3, 4) that there is a considerable portion of OffGun and TayNew upset and disappointed (even though there is no reason to). I'll just translate some of the Vietnamese ones because those are the comments that show up first for me.

For those who follow [OffGun], you'll already know that Gun has been avoiding skinship from Off since 2022, fans used to think that he was shy but now we get it 🥲

10 years is just a number =)))))) (t/n: OP is insinuating that OffGun has been fooling their fans for 10 years)

What kind of 'friends' kiss each other on the lips?!

Now I can't watch OffGun series anymore 😇 Can they please give us a TayGun series 😌

Have I been blind all this time because how can everything has been so clear yet I still don't know it 🥲🥲🥲

Is it as common as my best friend put it? Or is she just unlucky enough to be caught in such a storm?

I think it's both common and not. So 'common' is in the sense that whenever one half of a branded pairing or 'koojin' is close and intimate with another person or displaying any possibilities of them being involved with said person in real life, it always trigger these reactions from shipper fans to immediately deny that possibilities or to attack the actors in the branded pairing as if they have 'deceived' their fans.

This has infinitely lessened in recent years with actors actively taking a stance against their fans harrassing their colleagues over ships but in general we still see it now and then with popular/rising/active ships or inactive ships but with astronomically huge fandoms (see: reactions of brightwin fans to bright's dating news).

I'm also saying it's uncommon for 'two halfs of two different popular BL pairings to get rumored to be together' but in 2024, it has already happened twice so who knows what's real really 😅 Aside from the case of TayNew/OffGun, there's also the case of actors Mew and Tul (who were both parts of ships with HUGE fandoms MaxTul and MewGulf) confirming their in real life relationship but their news was more well received internationally as neither of their old ships have been active in having series together for a while (i still see flacks for both of them here and there but that's because i'm vietnamese and vietnamese negative reactions are always the ones i see first to any dating news of one half of a BL pairing).

Why do fans think this way, when these are just actors and not the real characters? Is it similar to the issue of fans of Kpop, Jpop, or even Cpop artists who cannot accept their idols marrying or dating anyone?

I think there are several reasons like actors and companies contributing to the delusions of shipper fans and fans not being able to separate real life actors from the characters they play on screen, which have been extensively discussed in these Reddit threads (1, 2) so I won't delve into them. I'll just focus on a common reason i've seen from vietnamese fans being the combination of emotional and financial investment in these ships.

Similar to Kpop, Jpop or even Cpop idols as you've mentioned, there's a large degree of parasocial relationship involved between a CP/idol and their fans. Rather than the Kpop idol feeding fans the delusion of them being an attractive yet attainable, relatable, single person, these 'koojins' offer CP fans the image of a beautiful friendship/'will they/won't they'/'ambiguous more than friends, less than lovers' relationship -> so once there is a strong emotional attachment to the actors who are part of a pairing, fans will inevitably have strong feelings about their romantic life aka whether the CP is really together or not.

Even though branded pairings or 'love teams' have been an age old phenomenon since the dawn of television (not just in Southeast Asia but in Hollywood as well), I think this phenomenon has flourished particularly in Southeast Asia with many successful stories of actors having on-screen to off-screen real life romances (see: KathNiel in the Philippines, NadechYaya in Thailand...)

What do the companies hiring or signing these actors do to mitigate such an issue/protect their actors? and How does an incident like this usually get resolved?

I think one of the most interesting things about Thailand entertainment industry is that it's so easy for celebrities to sue people for online defamation. So rather than making any statements to 'save' their branded pairings or to resolve any confusion, the company doesn't do anything (which I understand because the artists are already clarifying themselves to the nosy press about any 'possible scandals that happened'). In the case that online commenters are getting too toxic, the artists can just screenshot the toxic tweets/posts, send them to the company's legal department and those defamation cases get resolved by the police.

But even then, that hasn't really stopped fandoms that are too large in size, too delusional in mind to do the crazy things they do even after a branded pairing has stopped working together, such as showing up at the fanmeeting of one actor, wearing masks of the other actor in that inactive ship. In this case, the company can't do anything since... well those people paid to attend the fanmeeting and get a photo with their idol. The most a company could do is probably to 'officially announce the ending of the ship' but... their comments section are still full of obsessed fans til this day so i doubt that announcement made any difference to the fully obsessed and delusional cp fans.

Or... Do the companies cash in on this sort of fanatic fervor, such that they encourage fans to believe this illusion, or mandate their actors to uphold such an illusion even when they are being themselves outside of acting?

Companies have always generated as much revenue from brand endorsement, brand promotions fanmeetings, concerts, selling merchs of these pairisings as they do from producing and airing these series if not more, so I've also felt a sense of these companies capitalizing upon their branded pairings and the volatileness of delusional fans.

If you're interested here and here are two interviews with P'Tha, the CEO of GMMTV company which TayNew and OffGun are under, I think his sharings in these interviews are very insightful into how the companies view these branded pairings (the main source of income for these companies basically).

I wouldn't say that the companies mandate or force their actors to act a certain to create an illusion of an ambiguous/are they aren't they ship for any branded pairings, but i DO think that being in an environment where two people (who are part of a branded pairing) are constantly being shipped or teased by co-workers and sometimes even the ceo himself... that does make shipper fans more delusional than they normally would. it's like as if you were in a class and everyone around you start shipping two people or pushing two people to be together, you'd be questioning what the others know about those two that you don't... it's 'sus' as the cp fans will say 😂

What are the major stances of Thai BL fans on this issue? Not all of them support this sort of fervor, right?

I think there's all sorts of opinions that pops up whenever there's news of someone dating surfaces, there are no consensus on it because the feelings of the fans rely largely on how emotionally invested they are in the actors/real people. There are fans who will take the news harder (feeling tricked, deceived, all that jazz) and there are also fans who will feel like 'oh that's normal' or they would rejoice in the happiness of their favorite actor having an in real life parner. Also it's probably important to note that the stance of Thai BL fans do not necessarily align with the stance of general Thai audience, for example when Thai actor Bright revealed his girlfriend Nene, basically the entire Thai netizen is supportive of him whereas his previous branded pairing fans are divided between supporting him and feeling 'betrayed' by this reveal.

Lastly: what do you think, personally, is central to this sort of incident?

Personally, I think it's fans' expectations. Similar to what Monk Dol told Dear about not holding on to things too tightly, I think fans often hold on to the romantic stories portrayed on screen more strongly than they do with non-romantic stories. Therefore, the reality of an actor having a real life partner often dispels this illusion of a 'screen-to-life' romance stories that fans may have concocted in their mind for any pairings not limited to whether they are in queer love or straight love stories.

I feel like it's just much easier for fans of straight pairings to move on since they don't get paired repeatedly as leads together every 1-2 years and they often don't have couples' work (like promoting brands togethers...) long after the ending of their series together, contrasting with branded pairings in BL/GL series who still get brands work together after the ending of their series -> allowing their "ship" fanbase to grow and the fans to have even larger expectations of the actors to have future works together.

Again it might be a lot of me to ask that these dedicated fans not to have expectations (which may eventually lead to their own suffering) because logically these fans do pour in not just emotional investment but also like HUGE financial investment so having expectations are really inevitable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ perhaps they should watch สาธุ and learn to let go of having any expectations for a ship or an idol which will benefit all parties involved 😅

Anyhow before I end this, please let me ramble and promote my beloved actor, JJ Krissanapoom whom you've mentioned first in your ask.

JJ Krissanapoom is a prolific Thai actor whose works I've followed really early on in my journey of Thai media consumation. He's starred in works of different genres and he's had queer love-adjacent projects before like Diary of Tootsies (with Paopetch aka Monk Ekkachai in สาธุ) and Great Men Academy (with James Teeradon aka Win in สาธุ).

But JJ has been in a highly publicized long term relationship with his girlfriend Thanaerng for seven years now, so I have no fears/worries about the reception of Thai fans to his upcoming queer love work Spare Me Your Mercy.

That being said, I'm still very worried about any negative reactions from delusional shippers because even if the actors have nothing to insinuate that they're together or even if they're both actors with in real life partners, the delusional fans always have the following comment templates to bash the drama/actors

I can't see the chemistry between the actors, probably because they both have girlfriends.

Why is the actor posting pictures with his girlfriend instead of promoting his own series?!!?

Why does the actor have an event with his girlfriend rather than an event with his co-star??!?!?!?

things like these... i'm already expecting.... and praying they won't happen... also if they do... i wouldn't be very surprised... and i'm actually very parasocially attached to jj and thanaerng's irl relationship so i feel like i'm even extra protective of their relationship than i already do.

and i'm definitely going off track here... but yes i'm very much looking forward to having jj krissanapoom on my screen again, in this BL series about a cop solving a series of murders of dying patients, to which his doctor boyfriend is the no.1 suspect of.

and here's a cute recent clip of all three people jaylerr, gun and tay to end my lengthy incoherent ramble

[absolutebl]

I’ve been watching BL for about 3+ years now and consumed my fair share of series and I have to say the actors’ responsibilities to their characters/series off set is starting to feel very “gay for pay”. What I mean is the majority of the actors, in my opinion, seem very obviously straight but the shipping culture, rabid fans delusions on their personal lives, and requirements to always appear like a couple when In public (fan meets, interviews, reaction videos of their work, variety shows, selling products on live, etc.), make it so that they must always be “on” even upon wrapping their series and this makes me veryy uncomfortable and I feel bad for them. It takes the artistry or this is work element out of what is clearly just a job. I for one try to avoid most of the “IRL” stuff actors do outside of the series itself bc it’s makes me just so uncomfortable and embarrassed…. On another note, it seems like many of these actors take on BL to break into the industry. Is there much success in a popular BL actor pivoting into “mainstream” or non BL celebrity? Bright Vicharawit seems to be doing well and Mew Suppasit. Although I hate to say Mew’s career pivot rubs me entirely the wrong way bc I feel like he didn’t bow out of BL gracefully but used BL and the popularity of his shipped couple and dropped it all like a bad habit trying to erase its existence from his history... I’m sorry my bitter might be showing on that last bit haha. I hope I made some sort of sense. Thanks!

Yes, it's weird, creepy, and exploitive - from all sides. That's why I avoid all the fan service stuff.

With respect to Thai actors? I actually don't know if BL can be seen as "breaking in" since BL the big guns of the industry there. Where else is there to go? Het dramas are less popular, at least outside of the country. Not sure what's going on internally.

Presumably, Mew is getting this chance, and it's a big one, because he looks, well, like Mew (very appealing to a Korean aesthetic), and also I'm assuming speaks Korean well enough to get by. Also, he was always a very very ambitious boy, that one.

I won't blame him entirely for anything tho, MAME's actors seem to have it the worst.

I have my reservations about Korean BL too. I think some of the boys *think* they are getting a leg up but... still too short to ever be leading men material (by Korea's standards). Especially the idols. (”Ieg up” ... see what I did there?) And I think doing BL there can still do more harm than good because of the homophobia (like what happens in China). I think some of the working actors who happened into BL (like the To My Star Boys) seem to be realistic and have fun about it, but they're both established in themselves as people and as actors BEFORE the fandom happened to them.

Japan and Taiwan it's just another job. There seems to be neither weight nor stigma (these days, it was different a decade ago). You can gain a bit of international cred and some sweet modeling and sponsorship deals (see the Cherry Magic boys) and maybe a follow up gig in the form of a movie or whateves, but that's more like just... being part of a successful show.

I don't know, kids becoming celebrities. It's never gonna be pretty, that gruesome combination of performative ego, accelerated attention and wealth, parasocial relationships the then add.... fake dating the same sex in a largely hostile society.

Can't imagine any of these youngsters come out not borked in the head.

Now the ones like MaxTul or even, maybe, MileApo who clearly talked about this and how to handle it with each other, and have some kind of game going on (with each other and us as fans), and entered the situation more grown up aware and mature age-wise (and therefore somewhat fixed in ego and personality) - I don't worry so much about them.

But mostly, since PerthSaint went south what, 4 years ago was it? Yeah, it's ALL creepy.

That's enough of this kinda gossip.

(this post from this one on my reservations about pair branding)

[superlocktvd]

KinnPorsche

On April 2nd lives changed, we finally got KinnPorsche after almost 2 years of wait. At that point episode 14 seemed like a dream so far away and today as I write this I am forced to think where did 3 months exactly go. In these three months I have seen this fandom grow leaps and bounds. The tag alone on tumblr has come from 4k to 40k. 

These 3 months I have witnessed one of the best made Thai dramas not just in terms of being BL but in general. The production value, the acting, the screenplay, the cinematography have been nothing but chef’s kiss. I am neither a film major nor do I know details or intricacies of filming but the stage KinnPorsche was and how far it has come and the roar it has caused across the globe is result of the hard work the entire team has put hence I don’t wish to complain even if I wanted something else or wanted something more or felt I wish they had shown this too. To critique is one thing, to complain is another at least for me.

Special thanks to Mile because man you need guts to invest a figuratively large sum and dive into something you are doing for the first time alone on the feeling that this is something good and will work. No wonder you’re a businessman. 

I have seen a lot of complaints and negativity too but honestly I wonder if its worth to crib over if the other option was that I never would have gotten the series. Hence I don’t really care that much about small loopholes or if someone feels the story is that or the character should have done something else. At this point I would love if I had episode of them eating so really it doesn’t matter to me.

KinnPorsche has set a standard not easy to match much less surpass, of course there will come a time where some show will be at the same level or above but I don’t really see it happening soon at least if there is an independent production (not taking into account Netflix because they have money money).

KinnPorsche not only introduced me to these wonderful actors but also how kind the people are in real life. Mile and Apo are truly the definition of, “Why should I lower my standards when such men exist”. I have come to appreciate little details of scenes and how so many small things add up to large intentions. The metas have not only opened my eyes and expanded my vocabulary but also allowed me to view the content in such a different way than before. It has helped me appreciate how much work gets put into every scene and when every cent is being counted how much more important it becomes.

KinnPorsche is a fandom that even with tonight’s episode has fair share of content coming through in the upcoming months. Things will slow down yes but I I am fairly certain those who have enjoyed the series will stick maybe little less active but definitely here for whenever this fandom needs backing and support.

I have so many more thoughts but for now that’s all I can type without getting emotional so, Lastly, I am grateful for those who followed me in these last few months, appreciated my thoughts and were riding alongside this roller coaster. Let’s end it on high note and hope for the new announcements and content to come through. For now it is the last KINNPORSCHEDAY!!!!!!!!!

[chaos0pikachu]

I don't go here, as in, I ain't watching We Are cause I'm lazy and have 100+ episodes of One Piece to catch up on but I do find the discussion around "slice of life" as a genre to be interesting.

It's a pretty flexible genre, and in my experience, it can be both mature and immature, having a plot and not have a plot, though a majority of slice of life manga/anime (which I would argue is probably what most influences Thai creators take on the genre rather than something like idk Lady Bird) don't have A Plot and is mostly about vibes.

In my experience slice of life tends to have a lot of crossover with romance and/or comedy.

Example, Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki is a slice of life that is just about a fat orange cat named PoyoPoyo. Nothing else, just that. No plot, just comedy, vibes and cuteness.

It's so cute in fact, I've literally seen people cry over how cute it is. PoyoPoyo was published by Takeshobo in their seinen (manga targeted at men 18 - mid 30s) magazine Manga Life/Manga Life Momo.

School Babysitters/Gakuen Babysitters is another slice of life & comedy series, published in the shojo magazine LaLa (which also published Ouran High School Host Club which is not considered slice of life); while A Man and His Cat - also slice of life and comedy - was published by Monthly Shonen Gangan (the same magazine that published Full Metal Alchemist, variety!). Also gotta shoutout Way of the Househusband probably one of the most popular slice of life comedies on the market, published in Kurage Bunch (another seinen) magazine.

None of these these series have "plot" they really just have jokes, sincerity and vibes.

Then you have the romance stuff.

Love Hina is considered slice of life, but also a harem manga and "the plot" only happens in like the last god damn movie of that stupid show in between loads and loads of fan service.

You also have something like Maison Ikkoku (one of Rumiko Takahashi's earliest works) which is comedy, slice of life, and romance in that order (imo anyway lol). It has more plot than Poyopoyo or even Love Hina, but is still pretty comedy driven in between softer more emotional romantic moments.

For a BL comparable, a ton of stuff by Yamamoto Kotetsuko counts like Honto Yajuu, Bokura no Negai, and Omairi Desu Yo.

[Maison Ikkoku was also published in a seinen magazine, Big Comic Spirits (check out THIS 2007 cover whew), while Love Hina was published in Weekly Shounen Magazine (yup same magazine that published My Hero Academia and Naruto lol).]

On the flipside of all of that you have series like Kids on the Slope, which is slice of life, romance, and coming of age which has a more melancholy tone to it (which makes sense, it was published in a josei magazine Monthly Flowers).

For me, given the flexibility of the genre and how often it crosses over with comedy, romance, and coming of age slice of life is really just a genre that prioritizes lower stakes, characters and their dynamics with one another, in a (majority) real world setting. Which is why it lends so well to school settings, home life/work settings, as well as comedy, romance, and large casts of characters.

There's a lot of fun and comedy to be had in the mundanity of normal every day life.

Idk if We Are fits those parameters in any way, but it sounds like people are having a good time with it either way and kudos to y'all spark that joy I just found the discussion on "what is slice of life" as a genre interesting bendicions 🙏

“we are has no plot” skill issue the lack of plot is the plot

[disaster-j]

Learning (through your reply) about the Thai entertainment industry still being quite homophobic was so disheartening. Do you think things are slowly getting better in that regard, though? (I'm asking because I'm new to Thai series so I have nothing to compare the current situation to) Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like at least the actors of the younger generation (the zoomers, if you will) wouldn't bully another actor for being gay (like it happened to the one actor you mentioned), most of them seem quite open-minded to me (in the "live and let live" sense) based on what I've seen of them. There's also a number of openly queer directors in the industry currently so maybe the execs are less homophobic than they used to be as well? Or am I totally off and things aren't progressing at all? I know the Thai government once again shut down a marriage equality bill but governments (especially authoritarian ones) don't always reflect society at large.

Yes, it's getting better. There are more and more queer and allied artists and creators actively becoming involved in the BL industry and working towards making more BL content catered towards actual queer people and not the fetishist mobs. This movement is slowly changing the environment of the industry as well as the fandoms to the point where we're seeing more and more people acknowledge the toxicity and even try to fix things in their own ways. Openly queer actors in the thai industry are collaborating with queer and allied creators to create positive change but that change is gradual. We see it reflected in little things, in the ways that casting becomes less stereotypical, or stories become more representative of queer people than cishet fantasies. We see it in how the actors who benefit from BLs are becoming more and more vocal about supporting queer rights movements even when it opens them up to criticism. It's far from perfect of course and it will likely be a long time before we are in a place where we can look at BL industries and say yeah these are largely wholesome and not mostly toxic. But we are on our way to that future so don't be too disheartened yet!

Also, the coming of GLs has major potential for positive change in the BL industry as well! GLs attract almost exclusively queer and allied audiences and industries are highly influenced by the consumer demographics, so the more queer dominated the audiences the more likely it is that the industry will change it's MO to cater to the majority group. What we need to do is show that there's more demand for actually positive queer representation than frtishist fantasies and force the industry to comply to demands of inclusivity and positivity and let go of the toxic norms currently prevalent in the industry.

Here's some anecdotal evidence that things are changing-

A friend on twitter did a poll a couple years ago asking if BL watchers support queer people irl or only like seeing mlm ships is bl and the majority (around 70% if i remember correctly) voted for the latter. The same person did the sane poll sometime early last year and the results were flipped with the majority of almost the same percentage voting for the former. The fans have the power to hold these artists and creators responsible for how they treat queerness in these shows as well as irl, at the same time these shows have the power to influence people to understand queer struggles and make allies out of the youth audiences. There needs to be a cycle of fans demanding better, the industry complying and then fans in turn learning from that improved content.

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

[talkingbl]

The Good and Bad of Not Me

SPOILER WARNING. Also spoilers for S3 of Attack on Titan anime???

The Good:

The plot. You mean someone made an anti-establishment hit piece that touched on nearly every major social issue affecting Thai politics? I'm seated.

The message(s). Just a couple of themes I picked up on: equality for all, triumph over betrayal, the thin line between love and hate, etc. like I just- And the social issues discussed: class struggle, LGBTQ+ acceptance, democracy, racial injustice, etc. It's like this show knew it needed to happen in 2021/2022. Name a single BL series out of Thailand that hits on such important topics with the level of care we got with Not Me. I'm damn near certain you can't.

The acting. I could go on for days about Gun ATP and First KP, but I want to say that Off took another leap with Not Me. Of course, he wasn't perfect and I'm skeptical of how much more he can/will improve from here, but he's come a long way from his P'Pick days and I'm glad to see it. But even beyond these 3 performancess, the entire cast was relatively competent (especially Sing). So much so that I'd elevate Not Me over normal BLs to say that it exists somewhere between higher-end BL experiences (like MODC and TOL) and outright cinematic BL experiences (like ITSAY and Love of Siam). Of course, I'd place it much closer to a TOL than a Love of Siam, I'm just noting that, acting-wise, it's well-done in its own regard for all that it attempted (largely because of ATP's distinguished performance as Black and White).

The twin thing. Listen, when little Black told little White to promise him that he'd fight back when others tried to take advantage of him, I knew I was in this twin shit for the long haul. I love that they basically had a psychic connection. It added so much depth of feeling to the story when we finally got the first face-off between Black and White as adults.

Representation. From the more minor types of representation (short king Black with tall queen Eugene lol), to the more transformative types (positive female characters, Nuch as a transwoman, Gram as a het man who'd dated a trans woman, Yok's mom as a deaf person, etc.) we saw much more diversity on screen than we usually get in BL. I'm especially in love with how no single character's story was reduced to their gender/sex/ability. Instead, Yok's mom dealt with issues of classism and workers' rights, Nuch was a leader in her community and a future lawyer/politician, White and Black's mom was a successful judge who only wanted the best for her sons, etc. This is the type of representation that people want--not representation in name only.

The tone & direction MADE the show. Not Me is tonally the best BL I've watched outside of ITSAY and a couple others that straddle that line between BL and LGBTQ+ cinema. P'Nuchy did the damn thing. We are no longer in cheesy romcom territory, we don't play the OST everytime the leads look at each other, we don't resort to slapstick or toilet humor whenever the situation gets too serious. Instead, the show took itself seriously, treated its viewers like adults, and did would it could to resemble a project made for the silver screen (for the most part crisp film, subtle acting/writing, strong sound design, and great character-development). Without these elements, I think Not Me doesn't feel as gritty and its themes don't come across as powerfully.

The unshakable chemistry of Black's gang. Every single character worked well with the others and their relationships all made sense. And even to the romantic relationships that had developed, those all worked on a level I hadn't seen yet and haven't seen since in BL.

Black. The shining star of the show, to me, was Black. He was cold, calculated, and ruthless, yet vulnerable, idealistic, and trusting to a fault. The way he treated people reeked of arrogance but also exposed an underbelly of extreme loyalty. It was so obvious to me that he cared about Sean, Yok, and Gram, but his way of showing it was often destructive--to everyone else and himself. Above all, though, he was cool as fuck lmao. Like he did what he wanted, fought for what he believed in, didn't take any shit, and was like the mysterious anime protagonist everyone wants to emulate. His character was only bolstered by Gun's portrayal. I loved every second of Black on screen and would do unspeakable things to relieve my first moments watching him in action.

Tod and Black's weird chemistry. I swear to you, Gun had chemistry with fucking everybody in the cast, including himself. But what stood out most about Tod and Black is that they both wanted to kill each other but loved each other (platonically) too much to actually follow through. It was a real tortured feeling. --ATTACK ON TITAN SPOILERS BEGIN-- Reminds me a lot of S3 pt. 2 of Attack on Titan where Bertholdt says to the rest of the 104th that they're all his friends (and good people) but they still had to die. --ATTACK ON TITAN SPOILERS END-- Like, that's such a deep and complicated feeling to portray and Sing and Gun nailed it.

The Bad:

Bad guys still dark-skinned.

The absolute refusal to canonize GramBlack. I'm sorry but GramBlack just makes so much sense to me, but like in a one-sided unrequited love kind of way. Gram being down abysmal for Black would've been that subtle element needed to really make GramEugene even remotely interesting and it would've given Black a lot to consider.

Gram. Literally fuck him lmao fucking snake. Also fuck Mond as an actor.

[arya7stark]

Hi, I'm not your mutual because I don't fully understand this hellsite so I generally only lurk but I like your blog and want to answer!

I came to BL through Western queer media via youtube. Was never into anime or manga, though quite a few of my friends were. My only Asian connection is that I have studied Chinese language and philosophy. Anyway, I was into queer stories starting in middle school. At the time this was largely based in Harry Potter fanfic, but I definitely wrote about Brokeback Mountain (the short story, not the movie, which wasn’t out yet) and the rural American gay experience for my 9th grade English class. Borrowed Queer as Folk on DVD from my friends in high school. Stumbled upon the queer fantasy novel Swordspoint and was delighted, although it would take me years to find anything else in that genre that I thought was worth reading.

When I started college in the not-quite-stone age of 15 years ago, I started seeking things out through the library (Israeli queer cinema of the mid-2000s was pretty good) and also took several queer studies courses. At the same time, youtube was invented, and that allowed me to search for queer content outside of the academic arena. German soap operas had some great queer stuff going on at the time, and I was a German major, so that worked out nicely.

Because I regularly sought out queer content on youtube (whether looking up specific shows/films or just searching “gay” or “lesbian”), the algorithm fed me new things. I think this is probably how I found the HIStory series back in its first installment, although I don’t remember for certain. I followed HIStory for the next few years and found it reasonably enjoyable, but didn’t get involved in fandom. It was also fun to see how much (little) Chinese I could remember!

Then in March the youtube algorithm fed me a fairly extensive fanvid of Until We Meet Again, and I was so taken by the storyline that I found and watched the entire show.  I craved more, so I looked up 2gether, which various tumblr people had been obsessed with a while back. Pleasantly humorous, felt like I was learning some things about Thai culture. Then I sought out rec lists, which led me to Gameboys and Gaya Sa Pelikula, which was probably what truly hooked me.

I’m still kind of figuring out exactly what draws me to the genre. Obviously I like queer media, and have identified as bi since freshman year of high school. Language and culture fascinate me as well (I’m writing my dissertation on drama translation), so it’s a lot of fun for me to read discourse on translations and double meanings and little cultural tidbits that just can’t be translated effectively. And I think I was just…getting a little bit bored of Western queer media?

So anyway, that’s how I got into BL.

So I'm curious about my BL moots...how did you get into BL?

20 years ago when I was a college freshman back in the Stone Age, a new friend (now an old friend) who was into a lot of Japanese media (jpop, manga and anime especially) introduced me to it all. I'm not really into any of that but I was curious about yaoi because I was and still am a romance addict. Never really got into yaoi in the end but I was aware it existed. I was also big into Harry Potter and LOTR fandom on messageboards and LiveJournal, so I was aware of slash culture and slash fanfic/fanart.

Fast forward to 2019, I fell into Kdrama in a serious way because it became accessible to me via Netflix and then Viki, and it gave me the kind of well produced romantic stories I craved and wasn't really getting from western media anymore because it has gotten so cynical. I love love stories and it doesn't really matter to me whether they're gay or straight or whatever so when ITSAY started popping up on my radar via YouTube FMVs and the like late last year I went looking for it (it was IMPOSSIBLE to find if you didn't know where to look) and in hitting the BL tag on Viki in my search stumbled onto Life Senjou No Bokura instead. After that I did find and watch ITSAY, and then HIStory 3: MODC, and then Gaya Sa Pelikula, and then it was over for me. I'm officially hooked. I'm a series/movie/novel girl exclusively though. The Behind the Scenes (Bad Buddy source material) novel is my current obsession, along with the show.

Tell me your BL origin stories in reblogs or comments or asks if you prefer the anonymity! I'm fascinated!

[waitmyturtles]

Pain, Suffering, and Narratives in Some Asian Dramas/BLs (An Utterly Un-Scholastic, Highly Personal Big Meta)

I’ve been meditating on the topic of pain and suffering in dramas over the last few weeks, as conversations across Tumblr have been taking place regarding the success (or not) of the Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars episodes. I can’t help but connect these thoughts to some of the fabulous older shows I’ve been watching in my Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist project, where I’m catching up on older Thai BLs in order to better understand the fabulous works that we’re seeing airing now. This Big Meta in part comes out of my having just watched He’s Coming To Me and Dark Blue Kiss, but I was also very deeply inspired by a Japanese BL that many of us here have fallen in love with, Our Dining Table, that features a poignant moment recognizing that feeling pain is a necessity in feeling love for another person -- that accepting pain and suffering is a part of the life we decide to live, from an Asian cultural perspective.

I’m using some big generalities here, so let me explain where I’m coming from. During certain large portions of my life, I’ve explored either becoming a Buddhist, or at least practiced Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism. While the world of Western capitalism has unfortunately taken up the majority of my current time/life, I do still have a desire to learn more about the history of Buddhism and try to incorporate some kind of practice in my daily life.

The reason why I offer that caveat is that a core of teaching in at least the spaces of Buddhism that I’ve been privy to, is the recognition of pain and suffering in one’s life. Suffering is a core tenet of Buddhism, one of the Four Noble Truths, and one that a human being does good deeds or makes merit in light of (as we see quite often in our beloved BLs) in order to receive “good” karma for a happy existence in this life or the next. (Again, mad generalizations here, but you get the point.)

I’ve been thinking about this because I often wonder if us Western viewers (I count myself as one, as an Asian-American) are too demanding for linear, clean, direct, and/or happy communication, narratives, and endings, particularly in the realm of Asian BLs, in regards to either romantic love and/or love from one’s nuclear parents/family. I think about this very much in the context of the Asian BL genre, where queerness -- as accepted, OR NOT, in Asian societies, friend groups, and families -- may indicate an existence that is not necessarily a happy one. 

There are other issues by way of demands from fans that often determine the outcome of a BL script, such as shipper demands for overtly sexual content. What I’m proposing here is that, in my opinion, some of the best dramas/BLs from Asia are rooted in a reflection and acceptance of the tenets of suffering as a natural part of Asian life and, subsequently, Asian art. I further propose that because of that acceptance of suffering, that we — Western viewers — are often left potentially feeling unsatisfied or unfulfilled by a particular ending of a drama. I posit that the linear/binary/clear outcomes that Western audiences so often demand are limiting in comparison to the non-binary, non-linear journeys and conclusions of art that Asian filmmakers can reach in their work, vis à vis à general cultural understanding that pain and suffering are a part of daily life.

Before I give a drama example, let me use one from real life, that is so very often reflected in art: filial piety. I wrote about filial piety quite a bit in my reviews of Double Savage, a non-BL from Thailand that focused on the plight of a discarded son who was judged by his father as a jinx.

When I try to explain to Western friends that Asian parental love is very often conditional (I myself have experienced it, and my experiences mirror those of my friends), I experience a lot of denial.

“There is NO WAY your parents don’t love you.”  “There is NO WAY your parents will ever give up on you. Even if they treat you badly, they love you.”  “In the West, we ALWAYS end up loving our children. That’s what society demands of PARENTS. We’re CONDITIONED to be like that.”

A major cultural competency issue that Western therapists face with Asian clients is when Western therapists say to Asian clients who are having family issues, “why don’t you just talk to your parents about what you’re feeling?” Talking to Asian parents about a child’s feelings, in MANY instances, is not realistic. The language of that kind of emotion may not even exist. AND, there are unspoken social boundaries AGAINST children having those conversations with their parents in the first place. To have those conversations would very well ROCK the foundation on which Asian families are structured.

My parents may love me — the dad in Double Savage mayyyy have loved his son? — but an Asian parent like that, so rooted in their JUDGEMENT AGAINST an offspring, will often not budge. Time and time again, my Asian friends and family will talk about how they felt unloved as a child -- especially if their skin was darker, if their siblings were more successful in school, if they were a middle child, etc. VERY often, our Asian parents don’t know what us children do by way of work -- my parents don’t know anything about my work, for instance.

The Western perspective and social demands for a STYLE of loving one’s children in a very particular, involved, and empathic way -- those cultural expectations don’t necessarily exist in Asia. So we see parents like, say, Non’s father in Dark Blue Kiss; or Korn’s father in Double Savage; or ESPECIALLY Uea’s mom in Bed Friend, a fantastic example of an Asian parent who takes PERSONALLY every aspect of her son’s social and sexual “differences,” blames him for those differences, and accuses him of ruining HER life vis à vis how he was born to be the way that he is.

And yet, at least for Korn and Uea -- we see those children, for the majority of their dramas, continuing to devote themselves to their parents. Because filial piety -- the Asian cultural and social demand for RESPECTING one’s parents above all else -- is existent and EXPECTED of almost EVERY living Asian, no matter where you live on the continent or your various diasporas. 

The equation is: even if you suffer at the hands of your parents, even if you don’t receive unconditional love and empathy from your parents, you must sacrifice in order to respect and serve your parents. You can imagine how much therapy even one individual would need to process that -- if that individual even ALLOWED themselves to think about what was happening, which oftentimes doesn’t even happen. 

I’m not saying that filial piety EQUALS suffering. What I’m saying is that the practice of filial piety will almost always ASSUME a level of suffering that one must undertake to participate in the practice of honoring one’s parents.

Where I felt this *assumption* most strongly and recently was in my viewings of three Aof Noppharnach shows: He’s Coming To Me, Dark Blue Kiss, and Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars, but I think Double Savage and Bed Friend also fall into this category as well. Very quickly:

1) HCTM was rooted in storytelling around the practice of Thai-Chinese Buddhism. Thun’s suffering was apparent: he was fatherless, he was gay, and could see ghosts. AS WELL, Med’s suffering was that he didn’t know how he had died, and why he was being held in purgatory before moving on to his next life. 

2) Dark Blue Kiss was rooted in internalized homophobia. My big review of DBK is coming next week, but quickly, between the two main couples (PeteKao and SunMork), you had internalized homophobia playing various roles of emotional INTERPLAY, that AFFECTED the external emotional demonstrations of the character -- particularly in Pete, who was viscerally working on becoming a calmer person, but was triggered by Kao’s internalized homophobia to not be open about their relationship, and Pete’s jealousy subsumed him. DBK is the only show I’m mentioning here that has a clean happy ending for all couples involved, but more on that in a second.

3) OS2 x BBS x ATOTS, on the Pat and Pran side, was rooted in a clear but indirect conflict between Pat and Pran about openness and independence. If Pat and Pran had been open about their relationship (à la Pete and Kao) -- would Pat have needed to sound tough to his engineering friends that Pran *depended* on Pat to close loops? And on the Tian and Phupha side -- there is plenty we don’t know about Phupha’s past to make judgements, but I think it’s safe to say that he grew up in such a rural environment in Thailand as to make him assume that coming out and meeting his partner’s parents was an non-reality for the majority of their relationship, until the end of the OS2 series. The journey to get to the point of the ring was a tough one, particularly for Tian, who wanted more openness.

4) Both Double Savage and Bed Friend seem to end happily, especially for Uea and King in Bed Friend. But: Uea loses his parent. Yes -- he NEEDED to lose his mom, because of how toxic she was. But from an Asian family structure perspective -- he only has his sister by the end of that traumatic journey, which is not necessarily an IDEAL or complete ending. The bonds among Korn, Win, and Rung are permanently affected by the behavior of Korn and Win’s dad in Double Savage. The ending is a copacetic one -- they have survived, and will learn to survive together, after all the trauma they have lived through. But it’s not necessarily a HAPPY one. Both of these endings do not necessarily reflect the holistic ideal of the Asian family structure.

I emphasize all of this because, as I said earlier: I think a Western demand to CLOSE LOOPS in Asian dramas is unrealistic.

In Asian life (big generalization, but let me roll with it): you are angry at your parents, and you process it internally, very often without any help, and after a couple days, things go back to the way they were. The children do not demand change from their parents.

In OS2 x BBS, what I DIDN’T SEE -- and, from this framework, what I argue that I DIDN’T *NEED* TO SEE -- were any clarifying conversations between Pat and Pran about how either of them would CHANGE for their relationship. The biggest confession we got was Pat telling Pran, “without you, there is no me,” and Pran quietly agreeing (thank you to @lurkingteapot and @dimplesandfierceeyes for the incredible post on the improved translation of “I can’t live without you”).

But throughout the episodes, we saw their existence together, and arguably, their conditions -- how each of them has organized himself to comport to the other’s immediate needs. How Pran’s larger burden of keeping in the closet to keep his nuclear family structure stable kept them from being totally out, and how Pran designed fibs to be able to have at least one public demonstration of love between him and Pat on stage. They know they cannot solve intergenerational trauma in the span of a series. They’re still closeted two years later. And throughout all of this: how Pat digests Pran’s needs, and keeps his (Pat’s) own needs for openness at bay. We know he feels pain, too, when he makes his confession to Pran in Pha Pun Dao. We know he’s watching Pran as Pran hesitates to put on the bruise cream.

I feel that Pat’s acceptance of this existence is both heart-rending and utterly beautiful from the perspective of seeing Aof’s work as *Asian* art. I feel like, as an Asian, that I KNOW, that PAT KNOWS, what Pran has to lose. Pran has A LOT to lose. And so, Pat -- instead of demanding for outing and openness -- will hold what Pran needs him to hold. He knows when Pran is grumpy, and needs to be grumpy. And Pran’s got a lot to deal with. He’s got so much that he’ll need to go to Singapore, likely to get separation from his mother -- and that will result in him and Pat being separated (and I’m intentionally not analyzing Pran’s need for space from Pat here, but I think we can safely argue that, too, as Pat’s helpful attitude may smother Pran at times) (and there’s also the issue of the nuclear pain that Pat himself may feel at losing trust in his father for his father’s past foibles). 

After the OS2 episodes, I didn’t need to know THE REASONS, the stark REASONING for why Pran needed to go to Singapore -- because, indirectly, it was already very clear to me that these young men were already holding tremendous burdens. Singapore, for Pran AND for Pat, could have ultimately been a motivator for growth. But I don’t need to know this. All I know is that they continue to have various levels of pain that they will be dealing with in their nascent adult lives.

While Dark Blue Kiss ULTIMATELY had happy endings -- how it got there was PAINFUL. Kao was ROOTED in fear that he would upend his family’s stability, while being the breadwinner. He was held back by extremely traditional role expectations of an older son. And he had no communication with his mother about straying from those roles. Pete’s dad served as the first -- and, I’d argue, maybe BL’s first -- paradigm-breaker as a parent, being SO open about his son’s queerness as to encourage healthy sex practices. But what I argue in this thesis is that up until the very last, bitter end, Kao was relegated to ASSUME that he would live in pain. His expectation was that Pete would ride with him. Pete couldn’t take it anymore and bubbled over. And Kao was forced to make a decision, for Pete’s sake, literally, to BE open, and to save the relationship. That shit ain’t easy.

Lots of folks who have read my posts on this site know that I appreciate a good Asian drama rooted in family and/or community trauma, like 10 Years Ticket. It’s the way in which Asian filmmakers depict this trauma that speaks very much to my life, my culture, and my viewpoint on what’s realistic in this world, and how that reality can be depicted in art. What I’ve found in watching Asian dramas is... I don’t always want clean endings. I don’t always want loops closed.

Sometimes, Asian kids can’t talk to their parents (Pran, Kao). If you grow up like that, you don’t immediately learn the language of intimacy for your family members, your friends, your lovers (Pran’s struggles after BBS/ep5, Thun’s coming out and not knowing the words for it). It might be EASY, or culturally UNQUESTIONABLE, to not argue with your parents about the ways in which they engage with their children (Korn, Win, Pran). Sometimes, to make a break in order to survive, you need to leave a toxic family member behind, which is NOT an ideal scenario (Uea). 

Sometimes, you lose the love of your life (Ueda-san in Our Dining Table). Sometimes, you fall in love with someone — and you find that you can’t *exist* without them (Pat to Pran). And you have to live with the pain. I might even posit that the risk of that pain makes the love you have, either for the person living or the person passed, that much more meaningful to you.

I watch Asian dramas because I don’t feel like Asian filmmakers are subject to the Western demand to clean up all emotionally questionable loose ends. This is not When Harry Met Sally. Harry and Sally should have only remained friends, and not gotten married -- even Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner knew that -- but they also realized that Western audiences would not accept such an ending.

“The script initially ended with Harry and Sally remaining friends and not pursuing a romantic relationship because she felt that was "the true ending", as did Reiner. Eventually, Ephron and Reiner realized that it would be a more appropriate ending for them to marry, though they admit that this was generally not a realistic outcome.”

If I don’t get clean clarity in Asian dramas, I’m okay with it. My mind switches to the pain POV, that relativity mindset. Everyday life in Asian cultures can handle the weight of the painful and sufferable unknown. And that’s why I love these shows. 

And, OF COURSE, not ALL Asian dramas are like this! Cherry Magic ended wonderfully. Old Fashion Cupcake ended beautifully. KinnPorsche ended sexily, if not a little confusedly (are they related? kinda? or not? whatever?). Minato’s Laundromat ended happily -- although we’ll see their relationship pain points in the upcoming second season. And we see relationship pain points in the ongoing drama of Shiro and Kenji’s relationship in What Did You Eat Yesterday -- all while they share their happy nightly meals together at their kitchen table.

Life is complicated. I posit that Asian dramas, for my taste, satisfaction, and cultural relativity, do a much better job at depicting that complicatedness than the West can ever do, and that’s why I stand so often on my soapbox to encourage Western viewers to understand these Asian cultural touchpoints more -- to learn about how we’ve accepted pain and suffering as an automatic given in our Asian lives, from our cultures, our spiritual practices, and from living amongst each other.

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: 2gether and Still 2gether Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I tackle the impact of GMMTV’s biggest BL, 2gether, and its companion follow-up, Still 2gether.]

Alright! We have reached a major milestone in the Old GMMTV Challenge. This entire project started off on the backs of two now-seminal posts (for me! and I hope for you, too!). The first one was a dialogue I had with the ever-lovely @miscellar regarding how Bad Buddy had addressed BL tropes and turned those tropes around for a singular drama experience. At the time of my asking @miscellar about this, I hadn’t organized myself to do a chronological exploration of Thai BLs as a genre -- I was picking and choosing what to watch, and I knew that what I had watched in Bad Buddy was formative. I wanted to learn more.

@absolutebl had caught the scent of this discussion, as others were sending them asks of this historical nature as well, and they penned this post that listed out the three dramas that they thought best explained how GMMTV came to its current state of programming -- GMMTV’s apology tour, as we called it back then, with Love Sick, SOTUS, and 2gether listed as the three dramas one needed to watch to understand the state of GMMTV’s BL programming now.

So with that, I dove in, and publicly began building out the OGMMTVC, with major help from @absolutebl, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @lurkingshan, @miscellar, @nieves-de-sugui, @solitaryandwandering, and many, MANY others along the way (@manogirl singlehandedly introduced me to MaxTul, for which I say, FUCK YEAH, FRIEND, THANK YOU!). 

And the milestone that we’re celebrating today is that I’ve crossed the 2gether and Still 2gether threshold -- 2gether being the last drama on @absolutebl‘s original list. And, of course! I have thoughts on 2G and S2G.

(Before I dive in, I just want to say that I’m saving some juicy, juicy analysis of the pain/suffering/separation type for a separate meta that I’m hoping to publish later this week, offering a comparative analysis of Still 2gether to Bad Buddy and Until We Meet Again. I don’t want to unwind this here, because I want this post to focus in large part on 2gether’s media influence, but -- stay tuned, I’m headed for more pain meta shortly, tee hee!)

So, yeah, 2gether -- wow, right? Haha. 

No, not quite, I’m just sort of joking. I’ve had EXCELLENT dialogue with the fabulous @bengiyo and @so-much-yet-to-learn​ about there being some shining spots in 2gether, which I agree with them about. (For both 2G and S2G, @bengiyo​ and @so-much-yet-to-learn​ shared with me some incredibly moving reflections on what it meant that Bright Vachirawit, in particular, was so emphatic about Sarawat being identified as gay in the show -- and how that spoke to the queer community during 2G’s prime. Thanks to you both for those timely comments.)

I think those of us who watched this 2G installment of the franchise know inherently what its major issues are, including a lack of chemistry emanating from Win Metawin, and an overabundance of pure talent and eagerness from Bright Vachirawit that wasn’t met at his level, à la Krist and Singto in SOTUS.

Besides the 2gether series itself -- which I’ll get back to in a minute -- I just want to note the external landscape of the show’s airing. We now all know that this show premiered in the very early stages of the COVID pandemic emanating out of Asia. 2gether’s popularity has long been attributed to people being at home to watch shows, many of whom likely were watching Thai BLs for the very first time. According to 2gether’s wiki, the show reached 100 million views by April 2020 on LINE TV ALONE (thank you to @lurkingshan​ for dropping the data!). Both Bright and Win have MASSIVE social media followings now, FAR outnumbering the other stableholders at GMMTV (Tay, Off, Gun, Nanon, etc.). And, 2gether’s continued success in and out of Asia is mostly attributed to the nostalgia that first-time viewers may have about 2gether being their first BL. 

I thought this was all interesting to note in a recent Instagram post that Toptap Jirakit, who plays Type in 2gether/Still 2gether, posted. He hit the streets, interviewing Thai fans on their favorite BL series. I think it’s likely convenient for his own career that most of the interviewees listed 2G in their top three lists -- but it made me think. 

I know, especially from discussions with @bengiyo and @lurkingshan, that there was a LOT of BL fan dismay about the ending of 2G. To be UTTERLY honest, I TOTALLY MISSED the ending high-five, because I was looking for, like, something BIG at the end, and, lol, the high-five totally went over my head. I guess that’s a good description for my feeling of the entire series, which I’ll dive more into in a bit.

First, I want to offer another, but supporting, theory on 2G’s popularity. Taking into account that Toptap IG video (again, acknowledging the self-promotion within it), as well as Bright and Win’s massive popularity, I want to meditate on the wider fandom of BLs vs. non-BL dramas in Asia. BLs in Japan, for instance, are often relegated to midnight-or-later airing times on television. And much of GMMTV’s content is online-based first. I don’t know, as BL fans, if we’re routinely and globally aware that the fandom for BLs -- which is big, maybe even huge -- is dwarfed by, say, the fandom of a mid-sized K-drama. The BL industries in Thailand and Korea are still relatively young and nascent, while other non-BL drama machines are well-oiled across the continent.

In other words -- yes, because of COVID did 2G find a much bigger audience. But I also want to offer that 2G’s...chastity? chasteness?...may have also HELPED this particular series gain such wider appeal. In other words: Asian audiences of a larger mass, outside of established BL fandoms within and outside of Thailand, may have responded more favorably to 2G BECAUSE of 2G’s lack of sex, a lack of innuendo, a lack of insinuation. 

(Remember: in majority cishet society, sex is judged. And queer sex? Forget about it. I’ve established in this OGMMTVC that queer sex is even fodder for creating discriminatory material WITHIN the BL genre itself. Sex AND queer attraction give many people the jibbles. Audiences going to non-BL dramas may be doing so because they want to consume specifically het content. Same-sex romance just might not be their thing. And those non-BL drama genres are GIGANTIC -- from funding to viewership, etc.)

In that Toptap video, many fans list Bad Buddy, A Tale of Thousand Stars, and others as their other favorite BLs. Putting BBS aside for a second -- because there WAS intimacy in BBS, just not an overabundance of it -- we can consider ATOTS as another example of a BL that happens to be quite popular in Thailand, demonstratively, while also being subject to similar criticism by BL fandom as 2G in having a lack of intimacy. 

While us in the BL fandom will readily make fun of 2G for not having intimacy at all, I do think, for Asian audiences not accustomed to an abundance of sex and/or same-sex sex in media -- the way that us Western viewers have in our majority media -- that 2G was accessible. It wouldn’t have to make your non-BL fan, new to the genre, uncomfortable -- especially to see same-sex intimacy. 

(The wonderful @telomeke​ made a similar point last week in a conversation about queer acceptance vis à vis Thai politics. I wonder if our devoted BL fandoms lull us to think that an ENTIRE COUNTRY might be accepting of the queer community and queer politics and policies. It’s definitely not a reality in any single nation worldwide. There are always going to be complicated dichotomies of acceptance in every single society that humans exist in.)

When I got to the end of 2G, and saw that there wasn’t going to be any kissin’ or huggin’ -- it made TOTAL sense to me WHY this show was popular OUTSIDE of the already-established BL fandom, particularly in Asia. It ain’t my cup of tea, but it was a show that I could see, like, my Asian cousins watching, as an introduction to queer revelations and engagement. And then, if they stuck with the genre, I could see them going to, say, an ATOTS, before going to a BBS, a show that really addressed the development of queer intimacy between men. Numbers-wise -- yes, COVID explains 2G’s popularity. Content-wise? Content-wise, 2G stays in people’s hearts, partly because I believe it didn’t PUSH those hearts, as a same-sex starting gun to their first exposure to BL. 

I could get well into an analysis of how sex, generally, is perceived in Asia, and ALL of the cultural nuances and biases AGAINST sex in Asia (cc @neuroticbookworm​, as we have talked about potentially writing meta together on this topic from our shared South Asian lens). But I happen to think that some of our beloved BL filmmakers -- P’Aof Noppharnach, Jojo Tichakorn, New Siwaj, Cheewin Thanamin -- have actually addressed it, and beautifully so, and continue to do so. For instance, the ending quote placards in Dark Blue Kiss touch multiple times on Thailand needing more sex education. Just to offer a personal example -- I’ve had to talk to Asian relatives well into their thirties, as an American, about their first exposure to sex, to explain that sex is not... a bad thing. It’s the cultural and social judgments that accompany sex that colors a person’s worldview on sex. 

2G didn’t challenge ANY OF THAT. In fact, in casting Win, they chose a dude who was VERY CLEARLY not INTO that -- to me, à la the casting of Krist Perawat in SOTUS.

No sex? No moral challenges, no ethical quandaries, no uncomfortable moments with a same-sex acting partner. Just two dudes dating, cute cute, holding hands at the Scrubb concert (or whatever). 

Of course, for my tastes, as y’all know, I desire something more complicated. And I understand that GMMTV HEARD the feedback that many established BL fans had about that 2G ending. And P’Aof Noppharnach, at the time of 2G’s ending, clearly said something to the effect of, not on my watch, I’m actually going to take this franchise AND FIX IT, MY WAY, which, fuck, COULD I LOVE THIS MAN MORE? No -- but YES, I found a way to love him more.

And we got Still 2gether -- a show rooted in its QUEERNESS. QUEERNESS AND INTIMACY AND INDICATIONS OF SEX. I mean, look!

Not just rainbow shirts! Rainbow shirts on multiple people. And rainbow TABLES. P’Aof was like, WE ARE NOT MISSING A MOMENT HERE, PEOPLE. We’re going to fix this. We’re going to claim BL for the queer community who actually serve at the mercy of the audience that consumes BLs.

Before I dig further into S2G, for which I have reams of notes, as opposed to 2G (obviously) -- some quick positive notes on 2G. Wat’s romantic confession in the shelter bus in the forest was seriously heart-warming. It was romantic as fuck. And we see a NUMBER of tropes that make their way into BBS -- bringing over a beverage to someone who is joined by another potential romantic partner; how everything needs to be a competition or a “deal”; all the singing and writing of songs; make-up remover/micellar water (hi @miscellar​, ha!); the keeping of a guitar for someone else. I loved seeing those tropes in 2G. I love when shows talk to each other.

Most of all, 2G established Sarawat as committed to his pursuit. Bright was UNABASHED in his role as Sarawat. It was Win/Tine who could not meet Bright’s level -- seemingly out of, what, disinterest? Repulsion? Maybe even a lack of acting talent? It wasn’t obnoxious, per se. It just seemed like Win didn’t know HOW to respond, or even what to respond TO -- all while Bright/Wat CLEARLY SIMMERED in his role. (Like I said earlier, @bengiyo​ has shared that Bright was emphatic in interviews that Sarawat was gay, while Win was less forward about Tine and who Tine was.)

And I think S2G absolutely grabbed Bright’s talent and spotlighted it. I am deeply glad that the ending of S2G had a such a STRONG sexual insinuation, à la AePete’s SIMMERING attraction in Love By Chance, and even in moments throughout the show as well, and I loved how S2G leveraged Bright’s fabulous acting as Sarawat IN those insinuations. Because -- contrary to how my Asian parents raised me, and how many Asians are TAUGHT to THINK about sex, which is to say, to try to ignore it or laugh at it -- PEOPLE HAVE SEX. And sex, and QUEER SEX, are things to be celebrated. Sex is beautiful, and BELONGS in stories of romance and love. To have had it essentially...deleted?...from 2G removed a huge sense of reality from that piece of drama art.

S2G also focused on a thing that many in the BL fandom actually pooh-pooh: it focused on a committed, ongoing relationship. My favorite BL in the world, Kinou Nani Tabeta?/What Did You Eat Yesterday? is focused on two middle-aged guys in the middle of their years-long relationship. I’m a married mom. I want to see the struggle. I love first love in BLs, don’t get me wrong -- my Cherry Magics, my BBSs, my Old Fashion Cupcakes. But I also don’t mind the struggles. Give me a Minato’s Laundromat, season 2, any day.

I think P’Aof was offering a subversion to Thai BL expectations by showing Tine and Wat in their settled relationship, a year in, where even Sarawat admits -- the sweetness of the relationship has worn off. The guys are working together, living together, working on their relationship together, eating instant noodles together, instead of the green curry and simmered pork and eggs that Tine lovingly made for Sarawat in their early days.

I feel like I’ve said this before, but let me say it again: I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR MEDIA TO SHOW QUEER COUPLES IN LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS. Queer partners are FAMILY, TOO. I had ongoing FABULOUS conversation with @chickenstrangers​​ (THANK YOU, FRIEND!) during my 2G and S2G conversations, and dear @chickenstrangers​​ pointed out to me the nature of a conversation that Sarawat and Earn (FILM FILM FILM!) had, in which Earn complemented Sarawat on his courage in being in a same-sex relationship. And Wat corrects her. (Sorry for the massively bad screenshots, it’s bumbling mom hour around here):

Like I said earlier: 2G gave potentially sex-and-queer-love-averse audiences a BL they could chew on. Win Metawin gave them enough by way of the portrayal to allow audiences to feel like they could be at arm’s-length while observing a same-sex relationship.

S2G, and Sarawat himself, strike to the HEART of queer existence and queer love. Sarawat corrects Earn: I do not love Tine because I’m courageous. I love Tine because I love Tine, because I am a human who loves another human. It’s nothing special. It’s just love that myself and my partner have, that other couples have. 

I think what P’Aof did, by way of observing what was going down in 2G -- what was being NORMALIZED in 2G -- was to pull a switch and turn the tracks around, and say, I have got to normalize ANOTHER PATH for these fans that are paying extremely close attention to Bright and Win right now. And he did it, with rainbow tablecloths and shirts; with Tine’s homies, Fong and Ohm, holding Tine down; with Sarawat’s homies, Man and Boss, exploring their OWN loves simultaneously with Sarawat and holding Sarawat down with love and support. 

Oh, and, of course. What P’Aof did with Green. Green was arguably a worst-case scenario of a gay character being misused for comedy in any of the dramas I’ve seen on the OGMMTVC in 2G. I honestly do NOT know what GMMTV was thinking when they allowed that characterization to air.

And Green just becomes... SASSY, and EQUAL, and really fun and slightly conniving towards Dim in S2G, and it was FABULOUS to watch (OMG. Guy and Guy’s chemistry and comedy? HILARIOUS. P’Aof ABSOLUTELY knew what he was doing there!).

Watching S2G was another fabulous P’Aof moment. It was like putting on warm pajamas and snuggling in for the smart ride of a drama. Every bad drama should consider having P’Aof come in to save the day (except for The Promise and Step By Step -- let’s never utter those titles ever again, ever). 

But, I do need to give 2G credit. 2G opened the door for something: it served as a misstep for GMMTV to learn from. I don’t want to be SO summarizing like that -- again, because very important experts in @bengiyo​ and @so-much-yet-to-learn​, who analyze shows from a very important queer lens, have spoken on the bright spots of 2G. 2G allowed for S2G to exist, for Sarawat to exist as an openly-in-love man with a boyfriend who he doted on. 2G allowed for fans of 2G to then walk the road in S2G, to be exposed to P’Aof’s CRITICAL and EMPATHIC eye in developing queer content, and to be exposed to a Sarawat that was much more able to LOVE and to receive love. 

I’ll giggle and laugh at the foibles of 2G. But I saw how Bright, and even Win, improved in S2G. I saw how a director in P’Aof, and his screenwriting team in Pratchaya, Bee, and Au, took a thing that wasn’t representing the queer community healthily enough, and turned it into yet another gorgeous representation, not just of queer love -- but of GLOBAL LOVE, a kind of love, between Tine and Sarawat, that all of us humans who WANT to love another person, can strive for. I will always appreciate 2G and S2G for that journey.

[Alright, we keep truckin’! If you’ve been following my blog in the late-night space, well -- you know where I’m at, psychologically, at the moment. I was ALL KINDS OF MESSSEDDDDD UPPPPPPPPPP over I Told Sunset About You. GEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZ. I am really going to enjoy my ITSAY write-up, and will definitely serve up some comparative analysis between ITSAY and other shows, as per a request from the legendary @lurkingshan, I gotchu, gurl. I see some really important moments from the OGMMTVC journey in ITSAY and cannot wait to get my pen on them.

And speaking of wild and crazy mindsets, I have started YYY -- more on THAT in the liveblogs -- and then after YYY, a return to dear MaxTul. We’ll definitely honor the end of Tul Pakorn’s career as I watch Manner of Death for the first time. Tul’s been a real homey in the space for a while, and I can’t wait to celebrate him.

Here’s the status of the watchlist -- as always, I’ll take any feedback ya got!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 17) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020)  18) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review coming) 19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (watching) 20) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 21) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 23) Lovely Writer (2021) 24) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 29) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 30) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 31) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 32) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 33) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 34) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 35) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 36) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

[acequinz]

as much as i hate to say it .

the fetishism of the  boys in bl couples.

its a lot in certain asian countries , the ones that i know most are about thailand and Japan.

even though they are bls most of them are usually written by women , if you see all the novels that have been made into series , have all been written by women not for the queer but for other straight women.

like not all of them are bad , but a lot of them have their own problematic aspects which many times the show cut out , which i am very thankful for ,and many times they don’t cut it out.

this was about Thai novels ( I have a lot more opinions on this but this is enough for now )

in Japan the amount of yaoi comics is huge like huge , now people will read it because hey gay stuff , but most of it is again made by straight women for straight women , which is why they often contain a lot of problematic aspects that you wouldn’t see in a straight couple .(rape tw : the main protag will rape the other guy and somehow it will be okay with 0 problems they will end up a happy in love couple.) its bullshit really.

BL series are very popular with straight women , who are the larger part of the fandom , like seriously , thailand makes a large amount of BL shows but how many GL shows?

Thai media isn’t really too open minded but it just that they make what sells.

and BL sells , because fetishers.

Now i am not saying only straight girls watch these , they have a nice  amount of queer following too , but the majority is the straight girls who these are aimed at.

if you are someone who reads the english translation of the novels or have tried to read it , you know how wrong a lot of stuff is in the novels  even TharnType is super problematic , I thought i would like it just as much as i loved the show but no , it’s not good at all, i couldnt get to even half of it without getting majorly uncomfortable .

even 2gether novel made me uncomfortable.

so at the end , just because it looks like a show about queer people doesn’t mean it is being made for the queer people.

I do love most of the shows if not all , but like they are just marketing.

it makes me a bit sad(and very angry) , knowing all this but like i will take what i get .

I find it super interesting that Thailand produces the most BL shows ever, but the couples in them are often portrayed as being afraid of demonstrating their relationship in public in any way(holding hands/kissing/etc). It implies that there's plenty of homophobia in Thailand(gay marriage still isn't even legal there), yet they churn out BL shows the way the US does procedural cop dramas. Anyone have any insight as to why?

[talkingbl]

My Thoughts on BL from every country...almost

China. Most of my Chinese BL consumption has come in the form of MXTX's novels. Having read Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Founder of Diabolism), watched the donghua and the chibi donghua, as well as having watched season 1 of the Heaven's Official Blessing/TGCF donghua, I can confidently say that MXTX is a genius that deserves to have her work circulated worldwide in all world languages. She knows how to balance romance with an interesting (high historical fantasy) story in a way I have yet to see elsewhere at such a high level. Her work hard carries the Chinese BL "industry". That said my main gripe with Chinese BL is that outside of MXTX's novels, there's not much of an active industry at all..

Europe. Because I don't have much to say about each country, I'm grouping all European countries together. The best thing about BLs out of Europe is their realism and "LGBT media" slant. Shows like Young Royals give very real looks into the lives of gay teens and help spread a more forward-thinking and less fetishy view of gay couples. One thing to note about these BLs is that due to their arguable classification into another category altogether (one that is not BL), they are less plot-based and more character arc-based and it is something I greatly appreciate.

Korea. Some of the most interesting manhwas and manhwa concepts come out of South Korea. Whether you're a Cherry Blossoms After Winter type of person or a Painter of the Night (PoTN) person, there's something for everyone. My main issue with Korean BL (especially live-action Korean BL) is that the plots trend toward scant, regardless of the intrigue of the premise. The live-action works suffer most from this issue (actors with 0 chemistry and no plot to cover up that fact), and in my experience, Korean BLs are generally all ideas and little substance.

Japan. Japan gives a little bit of everything. However, of all the major live-action BL markets, Japan feels like the largest one I have yet to explore in-depth due to the lack of connection I feel with a lot of the (truthfully interesting) work. Mangas tend to be well crafted story-wise but I prefer Korean artwork. Now, of all the animated BL out there, Japan does it best. Between the fact that there's actually an animated BL industry that isn't just glorified bromance, and the fact that Japanese anime is just some of the best animation in the world story-wise, you get some rare gems out of Japan. Some of my favorite Japanese BLs include Junjou Romantica and Junjou Egoist.

Philippines. I felt like I had to include this one because it is one of the Big 4 in Asia. However, I've never actually seen a Filipino BL smh

United States. The US doesn't produce BLs per se--at least not like how we're used to seeing it in Asia. It's a lot like Europe in that regard. However, I must note that the US has some of the best boy love representation of all the major industries. Not only are characters raw and gritty (much like European BLs), but their romantic relationships are huge parts of their respective stories and those relationships tend to be interesting, loving, warm, and all the fun stuff you expect from, say, Thai BLs. On top of that they're usually well-acted, non-tropey, diverse, and have very large budgets. My favorite pure BL from the US is Queer as Folk (yes, it's better than the UK version, and no, I'm not separating it out into an LGBT category). For novels, I highly recommend Madeleine Miller's The Song of Achilles.

Taiwan. It seems that Taiwan is widely recognized as the best BL industry in the world. When it comes to production quality, variety, story premises, acting, actor chemistry, etc., Taiwan is consistently ranked above all other industries in the BL department. Well, I kind of agree but also disagree slightly? Don't get me wrong, I love some Taiwanese BLs and generally think they're all a cut above say, Korea in the story department and China in the actually having an active industry department, but I can't rank it above my top industry. Taiwan has a lot to offer for sure but there's something about the cinematography I really dislike in Taiwanese live-action BLs. Like, the actual cameras used in filming give off this uncanny, hyperrealistic yet daytime sopey feel that I'm not into at all. That said, go watch HIStory3 MODC and HIStory4. MODC is one of the best BLs put to film and HIStory4 stars Anson Chen lol.

Thailand. The moment we've all been waiting for lmao. Thailand has by far one of the most prolific BL industries of all the countries mentioned. It is like the anti-China in that regard. And I have to say, despite how problematic it can be, how ridiculous and over-the-top tropey it can be, how plot-thin and pretty face-thick ONLY it can be, Thailand is home to my favorite BL of all time and some straight up classics, and is, in fact, my favorite BL industry of all. The fact that Thailand has both a focus on casting charismatic and/or naturally beautiful actors, and one of the most aggressive fanservice cultures,\ that basically turns BL actors into overnight celebrities, means that its fanbase can grow and mutate into very interesting (and sometimes dangerous) places. The interesting mutations inject another layer of fun into watching these shows/movies. If you are new to BL and are looking for a watchlist, go watch Theory of Love and Manner of Death. They're worth whatever tropes you'll inevitably have to sit through in either.