#bl watcher

[fanatic-freakshow]

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE

[slugfishh]

been playing the watcher (more color versions under the cutoff)

[arminthada]

RESET: The Rebirth Of A Star will air on CH3 and iQIYI in EARLY JUNE & NEW POSTER

RESET is one among the seven QL series that has won the grant funding from THACCA. It is an iQIYI original series that will air on CH3 for television viewers, and on iQIYI exclusively online.

source video of Pan spoiling the release time at the Book Fair today, credit to Twitter user skzsnsd

i am simply too excited for this gahhhhhh

my personal guess is that due to its maturity nature, Reset is gonna air the 10:30/10:45 PM slot on Friday or Saturday. There is a chance of it going into Wednesday slot like Reverse With Me but CH3 has too good a friendship with Broadcast Thai TV (the production company) to slot them into a weekday.

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

All the love and respect to Top Form's casting director and their team, for not only hiring the perfect Jin and Akin in Smart and Boom, but also--

Why Toey Pongsakorn is the perfect Jade:

I'm not BS-ing here, I knew Toey long before I ever heard of either Smart or Boom, because Toey is a famous lakorn (drama/soap opera) actor under Channel 3 in Thailand. I'm not Thai, but as a neighboring Asian we often receive shows from there as part of our airing rotation. Just before Top Form, I watched Toey in A Cunning Destiny, a het series with his very own branded pair, Cheer Thikumporn:

And just last year, I saw him again as the lead in the lakorn Invincible:

And of course, in the movie Paradise of Thorns by and with resident BL superstar Jeff Satur.

In Top Form specifically, Jade is portrayed as a producer with a special pulse on entertainment politics: knowing what sells and what doesn't, hiring the perfect cast and crew for projects, harnessing the power of fan culture, and successfully establishing brands for artists.

Jade is also Akin's oldest friend, and is the true key to Akin's successful branding. He vets prestigious projects for Akin so the latter can court critics' praise, only hires directors and castmates guaranteed to help frame Akin as a serious artist, and allows him freedom to refuse regular celebrity PR and fanservice activities without damage to his fanbase. Jade's here to ensure Akin's longevity in the business. But best of all, Jade gives Akin the freedom and privacy to love who he wants to -- a luxury in the entertainment industry, where actors are often dictated by their producers and managers to debut celebrity lovers in public, to sell more merchandise (e.g. Jin and Judy from Sigma).

Toey as a person and artist relates to this in many ways. He's an advertising communication graduate of Bangkok University. He worked on promoting channel dramas before formally joining Ch. 3 as an artist himself, after he won the reality talent show "Idol Project 2". Toey actually put his degree to good use when he joined Idol Project 2, as he was able to create his own brand and fanbase organically (he had no family/industry backing. Just himself and a dream to join showbiz). He didn't just create a brand-- he's been working non-stop as a lakorn lead since 2011. I'm sure WeTV hired Toey for Top Form specifically because he had the following neither Boom nor Smart had. Toey is the Akin in this scenario.

But most of all, Toey relates to Akin's story in a specific way:

Back in late 2018, paparazzi caught Toey out and about with his non-showbiz girlfriend. At the time he was promoting a series with a koo-jin (celebrity branded pair). In the nasty tradition of branded pairs, Toey was selling the idea of being in a relationship with his acting partner, before the fantasy came crashing down.

Toey laid low in the media for a couple of weeks, before doing an interview in February 2019 where he admitted that he broke up with his non-showbiz girlfriend already. He didn't cite any reason-- just that something happened that "changed" their relationship forever.

Toey hasn't been seen with anyone ever since, nor admitted to being in any new relationship. Surprisingly, he also tries to avoid any koo-jin promotions that go beyond his current projects.

So yeah, Toey is the perfect Jade. He's the only one, real or reel, who could understand what Akin needs in the industry.

(Disclaimer: I got this from some very basic research of poor-to-mid-quality English-translations of Thai articles. I remember watching this story on TV years back, but I never knew it would come back to me for this specific purpose. Any Thai natives here, I'll be super happy to hear your feedback/corrections)

[ellsieee]

Oof. The tension and simmering desire. *chef's kiss*

Only acting right? Sure. This brought the feels.

[gwenniesqueals]

My other best friend attempts to pair BL couples, they have only ever watched one episode of the Heart Killers.

"They both are staring into my soul". Yeah, valid, I did not pick the best photos.

"The guy in the tank top looks like the only man who could top the guy in the black open shirt." I died.

"Their backgrounds and their hair." Listen, I warned you that backgrounds don't mean anythinggggg.

"They look like they were styled by the same person, and touched by the same makeup brush." Yeah, well, thats one couple correct.

"They'd just look cute together." It's the lips, isn't it?

"Maybe it's the hair, but they both look like they'd be good in bed together" Uh....

"They give me the same vibes." Well....no. Not really.

"They're the only ones left." I mean, It's not bad, it's just not right.

[yeonbam]

a lot of people are insisting on viewing jack and joker purely as romance for some reason and getting upset that it is not... and as a result their opinions are so disturbingly disregarding of essentially the whole show because the society as portrayed in it is so so important to jack and joke's relationship and background like do you think the whole four horsemen lore was just for fun??? do you think the temple and the people it houses is just some insignificant nonsense? do you think Suphanimit is just where tattoo lives? do you think Jennie's death was just a silly shock value???

do you think it's a coincidence that the main leads include a rich kid who steals for the poor and a poor kid who is strongly against theft???

romance is OBVIOUSLY difficult in their circumstances like have you met the average economically underprivileged gay person in an underdeveloped part of a developing country??? it's a love that inherently becomes 'different', stitching within it the social 'other'ness of the main characters. that's what people just can't digest. being used to seeing things as this or that, black or white, good or bad, has choked people out of the ability to perceive flawed individuals learning to love and choose their families despite not knowing how to love or protect in the right way, despite the world constantly closing on on them, despite the impact threatening to rip them apart.

[lugarn]

PSA on honorifics and kink

Projecting the idea that people are inherently doing kink onto cultures that are just using their normal honorifics is weird and ethnocentric.

Honorifics can be part of kink, but they're mostly not, the same as sir and ma'am.

It's not only incorrect to say characters are doing kink by using honorifics, but it's a racist microaggression. Stop doing it.

[thebroccolination]

THE 2025 SOTUS WATCH PARTY (SCHEDULE DECIDED)

Hey, hi, hello!

Are you familiar with these two?

That's Krist Perawat as Arthit Rojnapat and Singto Prachaya as Kongphob Suthiluck, the leads of the groundbreaking Thai series SOTUS (2016) and my all-time second-favorite fictional couple after WinTeam. \o/

So like…

Have you not seen SOTUS? Wanna see it? \:D/

Have you seen SOTUS? Wanna see it again? \:D/

Then do I have excellent news for you! I have formed a Discord server and I plan to host a watch party starting in late January and going until the end of March!

KristSingto's comeback series "The Ex-Morning" (teaser here) is set to air in 2025, tentatively around March, so it's an excellent time to experience or relive the series that launched them into superstar status!

>> And the Discord server is now open! <<

Come on in, have a chat, ask your KristSingto/SOTUS/Ex-Morning questions! I'd love to build a welcoming li'l corner for KristSingto fans on Tumblr, so feel free to stop in ahead of time. <3

[absolutebl]

BL recs (from any country) that don't have any s*x scenes? I'm too ace to enjoy them at all. Happy ending preferred, angst v welcome:)

BLs Without Sex Scenes

Oof, this is a hard one. Is a dead fish kiss okay? I do have a heat sorting on the spreadsheet of doom, and there are some with no kissing at all, but a dead fish kiss is in most of the HEA ones.

BLs with No Kisses

21 Days Theory (Thailand, YouTube) - the only thing I didn't like about this pulp was the fact that they don't kiss, so... yeah, this is my first pick for you. Very YA first love angsty, fantastic queer rep and side characters. RECOMMENDED

My Esports Genius Brother (China, Gaga?) - it's hella odd censored bromance but enjoyable. No real angst tho.

HIStory My Hero (Taiwan, Viki) - basically a BL with no sex or kissing, but also body-swap so is it BL? I can't remember the end but I think it's happy?

Silhouette of Your Voice AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan, ????) - this 2017 yaoi adaptation is a full on BL just no kissing at all. The source manga (I Hear the Sunspot) is a favorite of mine and the casting was decent. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for you (but not in general). Grey only.

Love of Siam (Thailand, ????) ALL THE ANGST, I'm pretty sure the most they do is hug, I could be v wrong though because too sad for me to ever rewatch. Very formative to the Thai BL industry.

The Lover (BL cut) (Korea ????) sometimes you can find the BL cut on YT, it has slapstick comedic sexualized moments that are maybe a little homophobic (or something), no actual sex or kissing, but no angst at all. (Korea's working some shizz out with this early offering.)

Kabe Koji AKA Kabesaa Doujin Sakka no Neko Yashiki-kun wa Shounin Yokkyuu wo Kojirasete iru (Japan, Viki) - I watched this and I was excited about it before it aired, but I seem to have expunged it from my memory and kept no screen caps in annoyance, so that's all I got.

Love in Spring AKA Spring of Crush (Korea, ????) - a crossdressing historical that flew utterly under the radar. I decided it just wasn't really BL, but it has BL aspects and it's kinda a little queer... or something. Grey only.

Evening Cafe (Thai pulp, YouTube) - No heat and no kisses, but a decent lead pair, about a boy who works in a cafe and the new employee who has a crush on him. That’s it, that's the whole story.

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea, Viki) - Has no kissing and many people found it really good as @isisanna-blog reminded me, thank you). It certainly has ALL THE ANGST. (I did not like it at all, but I'm a terrible judge of this kind of BL.)

What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Japan ???) - this is such a lovely show, very warm and comforting and slice of life. There is very little angst, they too old for that shit, but little to no sexual content either. It's very warm and loving. A safe extremely yet queer show - and oh boy do we not get many of those. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Censored Bromances

So No Kisses (TM) for the gays but the hets might do stuff I didn't pay attention to. All these from China. Some happy, most not.

The Untamed

Word of Honor

Guardian

SCI Mysteries

Stay With Me AKA Addicted 2.0 (I never watched this so there may be rough play)

Mr CEO Falling in Love With Me

The Fairy Fox

Youth in the Breeze

Precise Shot

Advance Bravely

His Cat AKA His Cat Boyfriend

The Male Queen: Han Zi Gao

The "Ghost Boyfriend" series

Past Youth

I Go To School Not By Bus (Hong Kong short)

Recommended Shorts with no kisses, but cute & fun

The 8.2 Second Rule (Japan YouTube)

One Last Order (Korea, Gaga)

Love Advisor (Thailand, YouTube)

BLs with Dead Fish Kisses (maybe? only one, if any)

His the series: I Didn't Think I Would Fall In Love (Japan ????) - (NOT His the movie) this one has all the angst you could want in your whole life. ALL OF IT. Japan wins at emo, it's their THING.

Cherry Magic AKA 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard AKA 30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii AKA Cheri Maho (Japan ????) - there's sort of some bed tussling and implied sex but you could imagine them just being snuggles for the mains, the sides have dead fish kiss. In general there's some angst but not much. It's fluffy and great. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Bonus: overt ace representation for one of the side characters.

Meow Ears Up (Thailand Viki) - sides may kiss? I enjoyed this pulp especially at the start, the premise is fun. I think my biggest complaint was lack of kissing.

My Love Mix Up AKA Kieta Hatsukoi (Japan Viki), a case could be made for a demi seme in this BL. So much frenetic angst around bisexual identity crisis. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

My Ride (Thailand Gaga) - my favorite Thai BL pulp the sides have a good kiss and the mains do kiss but it's v dead fish, not at all sexual, and it comes at the very end. Otherwise extremely chaste, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this BL, queer and complex and engaging.

I Want to See Only You AKA Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai (Japan ????) - This is a beautiful piece of cinema well acted, about two boys who are opposite personalities and grew up together. The only kiss is the one pictured above, v dead fish. Full review here.

Nobleman Ryu's Wedding (Korea WeTV) - 12th Night goes BL in this cross dressing historical that ended up feeling like a Cinderfella fairy tale, lightly dramatic and utterly charming. Full review. There is one dead fishy kiss at the end but it's otherwise aggressively pure.

If you like this last style of KBL (with a kiss at the end being okay, I have quite a few more to recommend). Until 2022, most KBLs only had one dead fish kiss in them, so you are pretty safe with pre 2022 KBLs. They tend to be quite chaste and de-sexualized. Other good examples: Wish You, Light on Me.

That's all folx.

Some of the above I may be misremembering (since I don't rewatch this kind of BL and my memory is shit). And I may have forgotten some too, so I hope comments with jump in.

Others to consider:

(source)

[that-bl-bitch]

I think Reverse 4 You is going to be my favorite GL I ever watched, sure is it only half way through? yeah, Is it maybe to early to tell? Maybe, is it possible it could be all downhill from here or the ending could totally blow and ruin the whole thing for me? No, i refuse to believe that, personally I just feel like that would kill me and I'm hoping the universe is on my side and doesn't want to see me dead, every ending of every episode makes me ponder ending it all, this show and its cliffhangers will be the death of me, it deserves more than 8 eps at the very least 12 c'mon now

Seriously if you're still on the fence about it please give it chance, you won't regret it

[fanatic-freakshow]

Welcome to My World

I'm Cookie — Ravenclaw by house, Aquarius by star, so yeah, double the cool factor!

This is my cosy corner of the internet, where I dive into all things BL. But don't be fooled -- you may find some Harry Potter magic, Supernatural monsters, or sprinkles of other fandoms flying around.

I'm a certified and unhealthy book dragon, a towering TBR a little too tall for my own good. Lately, I’ve been devouring M/M romances, so if you’ve got any recommendations, throw them my way. Or on second thought, better not.

If you’re interested in my creative side, take a peek at my fanfics below (click it!)✨

A Far Cry From You

OhmNanon | Ranked E for explicit scenes | 14 chapters | Triggers: Anxiety, Panic Attack | Friends to Friends with Benefits to Lovers / Family and Friendship / Personal and Relationship Growth

Déjà Vu

PatPran | Ranked M for nudity and elaborated conversations | 5 chapters | Amnesic Pat / Bringing back the amnesia trope, but in a fun way / Pran is a tease

The Lovebird's Showdown: A Family Meeting Catastrophe

PatPran | Ranked T because of language | 1 chapter | Family Reunions / Pran is hurting / Pat and Pran fight

Now, if you are interested in your creative side, give my Bad Buddy prompts a chance: Prompt 1, Prompt 2 and Prompt 3.

You can follow me on Instagram.

Tags to explore: #cookie rants (for reviews), #cookie quotes (for quotes), #cookie watching bl (for gifs from bls), #cookie reading (for quotes and miscellaneous about books)

Ready to explore? Let's get started!

[arminthada]

MOMMY I LOVE YOU มามี้ที่รัก — 2022, dir. Tor Supacha Krutnark

[sunshinechay]

I feel like so many newer bl watchers may not realize that Japan is the reason a lot of tropes that Mame uses are so popular.

Mame as she exists right now wouldn’t exist without early Japanese yaoi manga.

So why can’t Japan adapt Love In The Air? There is no reason to suggest they won’t do an amazing job

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Sato Ryuga in Kamen Rider Geats - an overview for non-toku folks

Now that Living with Him (Kare no Iru Seikatsu) has premiered has a couple of episodes out and is getting a good response from a lot of the folks I know on here, I thought it might be a good time to do one of those posts I do sometimes. I should probably have a name for this. Like, a tokusatsu actor overview post? My imagined audience for posts like this is made up of BL fans who haven't watched toku but would like to know more about their favorite actors' pasts in that genre. But I hope they're interesting for others as well.

The tokusatsu-to-BL pipeline has been getting shorter lately, with a lot of recent toku alums getting into BLs within the first year or so after their toku series has ended. Sato Ryuga falls into this category. He was on Kamen Rider Geats, which stopped airing last August. His costar Kan Hideyoshi, who played the lead rider in that series (Ukiyo Ace, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Geats), made the leap so quickly that the BL he was in, Although I Love You, and You? a.k.a. Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka, finished airing a while ago. That show had its moments but was a bit on the lackluster side (through no fault of Kan's--I thought he was charming, funny, and showed an admirable commitment to the role). I'm a lot more hopeful about Living with Him. In addition to its promising start, it was written by the screenwriter of Old Fashion Cupcake and directed by the director of My Personal Weatherman.

But even if it weren't for these positive indicators, I would have been excited to see Sato in a BL, or just about anything. He was really impressive in Geats. He showed a lot of range on that series, handling action, high drama, and occasional comedy really well. And it doesn't hurt that he's cute as hell.

By the way, I'm going to keep the spoilers vague in this post, but I can't really avoid them entirely while doing this type of overview. If relatively mild/general spoilers don't bother you, you should be OK to continue. And of course, if you don't think you'll ever watch Geats, you don't have to worry either way.

Sato and Kan together during Keiwa's villain era.

Sato's Geats character was named Sakurai Keiwa. Keiwa starts out as a sort of proxy for the audience. The premise of Geats involves a high-stakes competition called the Desire Grand Prix where the winner gets to magically change the world. Most of the time, most people don't know this competition is going on. It's already in progress when Keiwa encounters the players for the first time and he has zero context. As he learns about the game, and ends up joining in as Kamen Rider Tycoon (a pun on the fact that his suit form is modeled after a tanuki), the audience learns about it alongside him. Keiwa comes into the story as an idealistic sweetheart so it's easy to root for him right away. (This is less true of the other characters. Geats's biggest weakness, to my mind, is that it starts out conspicuously lacking in any sort of bonds between characters or truly relatable characters other than Keiwa. This gets a lot better by the latter part of the series, but I found it somewhat rough going to get to that point, and it took longer than it needed to.)

One interesting thing about Keiwa is that you can tell a lot about what's going on with him by his hair. You'll see what I mean. I didn't notice this until I was doing screenshots for this post and then it really stood out to me.

So, here's Keiwa as a naïve newcomer. Check out the cute mop.

It doesn't take long for him to get kind of intense when he's in a fight and about to henshin (transform into his armored suit form).

Speaking of which, for the first part of the series, his pre-transformation move involves a sort of determined fist gesture, which will be important later.

This is a later example of the henshin fist, but it gets the point across.

Intense henshin face notwithstanding, he's still Mr. Nice Guy for a lot of the series. He might get a bit of a hair part but he's basically a floppy-haired cinnamon roll.

And then something bad happens.

This thing is really hard on Keiwa, and he has a dark night of the soul. He gets estranged from the other lead characters.

The hair is already going a little haywire here.

He does some creepy shit.

Then he gets into an even darker place.

Keiwa switches up his henshin move. He starts snapping his fingers, which is part of Ace's signature move. Ace is a total badass who has won the Desire Grand Prix repeatedly. He's a perpetual contender, the guy everyone else is always gunning for because he's the most likely to come out on top. I mean, his name is Ace. Adopting the snapping part of his henshin move has significant symbolism. It's like Keiwa is saying he's the new badass in town. He also has a new, stronger suit form to go along with this change.

There's a difference in the way Keiwa does the snap that's worth noting. Ace's snap move starts as a fox head hand gesture (think the rock'n'roll devil horns gesture but with a pointed snout) because Geats takes the form of a kitsune when he goes into suit mode. Keiwa's snap starts with his hand upraised, fingers up, the back of his hand facing outward. It's reminiscent of an American-style beckoning motion (the "c'mere" finger thing and its multi-finger equivalent), which I gather is considered extremely rude in Japan. This calls back to the henshin move of a favorite toku character of mine, Sawatari Kazumin/Kamen Rider Grease, who Takeda Kouhei played on Kamen Rider Build. Sawatari just straight up does the rude beckoning motion before transforming. It's a very antagonistic, cocky thing to do.

As you can see, Keiwa's hair is really going haywire at this point.

Keiwa ends up facing off with Ace more and more, including in some scenes like the one below. It doesn't really come off this way to me when I'm watching the scenes, but when I look at these screenshots, these two look about as likely to smooch as they do to come to blows.

Keiwa's hair starts to get a little less poofy at this point but the cute mop hasn't returned. Instead, his hair is almost ready to go into bad guy mode!

Finally, Keiwa tips over into full-on villain territory. This is signaled by his hair getting a defined part. He also starts wearing an earring, just for extra bad boy hotness points.

(I’ve seen this earring thing happen in Japanese media quite a few times and it always seems funny to me, because an actor will have had a very visible hole in his earlobe for a whole series and then when he puts something in it we’re supposed to be all surprised Pikachu about it. It’s an interesting commentary on the cultural significance of earrings on dudes, I guess. Now I’m trying to think of nice boys in toku who get to wear earrings in their highly visible ear holes. Kaito from Zenkaiger is one, at least. I assume there are others?)

He keeps snapping/beckoning.

The beckoning thing is clearer here, and it has that flipping off the audience energy.

He adopts some pretty cold-blooded expressions.

In some scenes, like the one seen above, he seems to have subtle makeup on. I don't know if this is because villains are supposed to be hotter or because they're supposed to be more gender non-conforming. Or both? Well, it suits him.

As you would probably guess, Keiwa doesn't stay bad. The stuff that sent him off the deep end gets resolved and his relationships with other characters get repaired. He also gets his mop back (it's only intermittently messy) and loses the earring. He goes back to his original henshin move.

There you have it! Hopefully this gets across a good bit about Sato's Geats character and some of the shifts he goes through. Of course, I've left out plenty of stuff as well. Anyone who's really curious should definitely check out the series.

[gwenniesqueals]

I asked my non BL watching friend to make pairs and I'm laughing and hurting.

I saw this on tiktok and had to recreate it

"They look average so I put them together" Girl what?????

"He got paired with him because I don't know" This killed me

"Just because the background" I mean...I prefer them with their partners, but they wouldn't be too bad.

"White hair needed someone good looking out of who was left." Ma'am what.

"I only had four left to pair and I didn't want the one with the beaded necklace with the guy wearing the red line"

The only one she got right. "I didn't like either of them and they are on a similar look level so they got paired" HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE THEM

I asked for chaos and got it. I will be doing this again.