you put those tags on this post where they belong

Queer Specificity in Thai BL: Say Gay edition

When I first started watching Thai BL, it felt like everything was in the BL bubble - everyone dated men, there was no homophobia, no one had to come out of the closet. The more I watch, the more evidence I find of a rich variety of ways queerness is expressed and represented in Thai BL.

That being said, here is a non-exhaustive tribute to some of my favorite moments of characters stating it clearly.

Also see my list of fun, messy, and political moments of queer specificity.

I'm Gay:

Khemjira (2025), Ep. 12: "I'm gay. Jet's also gay. We're crazy in love." I got second-hand embarrassment making this GIF

Your Dear Daddy (2026), Ep. 7: "Gay? Why hesitate to say that word? Just say it. No need to be scared. You've always been a coward."

Tale of 1000 Stars (2021), Ep. 5: "You like men, then that means you're gay. But I'm ok with it because you're my friend."

Love By Chance (2018), Ep. 1: "But I'm gay na krab." "So what?"

Moonlight Chicken (2023), Ep. 7: "Even if Li Meng stayed with his mother, he would still be gay no matter what. What era are we in? No one looks for a reason people are gay anymore. Look at me. None of my friends are gay, but I am." (Editor's note: Wen should get some gay friends)

TharnType (2019), Ep. 1: "Are you gay?" "Yes." Asked and answered!

He's Gay:

KinnPorsche (2022), Ep. 4: "You wanted me to be shocked to know Kinn's gay?" Kinn looks on, pleased.

TonhonChonlatee, maybe? I have a vague memory of Chonlatee's mom saying he's gay, but I couldn't find it when I went looking.

I'm Bi

Love in the Air (2022), Ep. 1: "Are you gay?" "To be honest, I'm bi."

Only Friends (2023), Ep. 8: "You're bi? Me too."

I Like Men/I Don't Like Women:

There are quite a few examples of characters saying they like men or don't like women rather than using a label to describe their sexuality. Here are a few of my favorites:

Ticket to Heaven (2026), Ep. 3: "I like guys... I like you."

That Summer (2025), Ep. 4: "Why are you brave enough to say you like men?" "Because it's not a big deal." One of the strengths of That Summer is that it shows four gay men each with different relationships to sexuality and identity and each navigating very different obstacles in their paths to love and/or self-acceptance.

He's Coming to Me (2019), Ep. 6: "That's when I knew I'm not into girls." Sorry I kissed the girl you have a crush on. Also I'm in love with a man who just so happens to be a ghost.

Perfect 10 Liners (2025), Ep. 18: "It's normal for men to date, right? I'm normal, right?" One of the more interesting coming out scenes in Thai BL, because we've spent the first 17 episodes of this series believing that we were in the homophobia-free BL bubble, and now we realize that Wine hearing the stories of all of these happy same-sex couples has been part of his trajectory towards self-acceptance.

Never Let Me Go (2022), Ep. 5: "Mom, are you ok with the fact that I like men?" "Neung, you can like whatever or whoever you want. This is your life. What I expect is to see you lead a happy life, and live the life you choose."

The Heart Killers (2024), Ep. 5: "But do you know what he did? He tried to set me up with another mechanic at the garage."

Bad Buddy (2021), Ep. 9: "I like them all."

Century of Love (2025), Ep. 4: "Let them gossip if they want... Besides, I don't mind being with a man. Actually, I dated both women and men."

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

ALT

(ID in alt)

Approximately one THOUSAND felonies

ever since i was a child ive had a headache

i love you archival work. i love you alphabetizing. i love you sorting. i love you reshelving. i love you document restoration. i love you shelf reading. i love you inventorying. i love you analysis. i love you archival work.

human and bug relations will change by the end of the century

Bridgerton Siblings:
Desire 🤝 Love

Hannah Waddingham as Judith Burton in Ride or Die, Season 1 Episode 1. THE black dress

MyShane was DEVASTATED when "Ilya Rozanov Best Hits Compilation" by Hockey_Guy435423 disappeared due to copyright claims. It only had like 200 views and 100 of them were Shane watching with his dick in his hand.

There are others from SportsNet and ESPN but that one just had a certain je n'ais ce quoi that got Shane going. Shane DMs Hockey_Guy435423 but doesn't hear back and goes on a deep dive trying to figure out if there's a way to recover deleted youtube videos and he never does but it's okay because in the process he finds like 5 more Ilya Rozanov fight compilation videos from small creators. He meticulously downloads these to a special folder just in case and adds them to the regular rotation.

not naming names but some of you are so creative and talented it's an honor to have you in my phone

you make one fucking post where the point is “women are encouraged to develop disordered eating from a very young age and that impacts how we view the ‘natural’ size and shape of women” and too many reblogs later i am being accused of saying short people wouldn’t exist if they ate better growing up. i’m sorry but if you genuinely think i was saying that you are just a buffoon. i cannot and will not sanction your buffoonery.

thing I am proud of: when the doctor started going on a weird rant about long covid not being real I paused and listened to his nonsense for a bit and then very calmly said, in a polite and curious tone, "you don't believe in post-viral illness?" and he like. stammered a bunch and was like OH WELL I'M NOT SAYING -- I DON'T...I just think ..! and backpedaled awkwardly while I just sat there like :3c interesting :3c thank you so much for clarifying your stance on this :3c

an important skill for chronically ill people to develop is the ability to treat the doctor as though they are simply a person you are interviewing to find out how much they know about your condition.

Holy shit op this is LITERALLY in the book 'Never Split The Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depends On It'. Written by a guy who did hostage negotiation and then tried doing business negotiation, and mopped the floor with industry experts.

I'm fortunate enough to have a primary care doctor who knows about hEDS, but it's occurring to me that the skills in this book could be medically life changing for chronically ill folks of all kinds. Like. Literally a matter of life and death, especially for BIPOC and/or fat and/or young people who are having their issues dismissed.

HMMM interesting!! will have to check this out

all that remains

queen of hope