Steaming Hot

Originally a sideblog for Yuri!!! On Ice. Oops BL dramas ate my brain.

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

Blog Links

Watchlist page Old Tags

This is a sideblog!

General tags: original posts/liveblogs- #potato speaks | specific show liveblog - #[show title or acronym] watch (ex: #khemjira watch or #TNP watch)

No show/actor/company/etc. negatively here! We are here to have fun and enjoy pretty people on tv smooching etc. :)

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

KNOT: here are the toxic family dynamics in this setting :)

Me, cracking open a text document: mmmm could be worse

[peatchsoda]

Q1 - Q5 babe bts of his new sitcom glam department

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

Something that I find very frustrating with the whole "is xyz actor queer or not" debates, aside from them happening in the first place and prying into people's personal lives, is the whole "well you can't know someone's sexuality by looking at them or how they dress!". Bc like. Yes and no. Yes there are plenty of looks that are queer coded looks that have been absorbed by the mainstream. But the queer community internationally has a long, long, history of using fashion and self expression as a way of communicating/signalling to other people in the community, so if someone chooses to dress in a way that purposefully flags as gay, that shouldn't be excused away. They are telling you something about themselves even if they don't say literally "yes I am gay/bi/queer/etc.".

Like currently, there's a rash of "straight allegations" being made about various DMD actors, one of this week's is Otto. Has he ever said "I am gay"? Not to my knowledge. Is it very obvious that he is very gay? Yes. Bc he dresses and acts in ways that communicate that, and he's finding the hetero accusations hilarious bc he knows that he is visibly a gay man (textbook definition of a twink). "But a twink could be straight" By definition they cannot be. Like. Words have meanings.

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

Begging people in the BL/GL/QL fandom spaces to learn fanfic posting ettiqute bc I am straight up starting to block people on ao3 for trivial shit out of sheer annoyance.

[chokuns]

Boys please

Credit

[rinbylin]

2026.03.02 li pei en + jiang heng weibo

[crispywizardtale]

[firstkanaphans]

Nut: Handsooooome

Thor: 🫪🫪

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

Your Third Ep.3!

The sheer delight Max so clearly has with playing Sarm makes his character that much funnier.

Me 🤝 Sarm: ready to fight the mf who dared lay hands on Jam

Ohm is so pretty. Thank u to whoever styled him as Song bc. He is so pretty.

Omg bad guy Mark??? 👀👀

Nat baby we have got to get you a show where you don't get drowned every few episodes.

Sting by a sea urchin and washed up on the rocks with barnacles and shells?? Ouch. Poor baby. Jam sweetie this is not worth whatever you are being paid by bossman.

The sound/voice effects are killing me lmaoooo 🐅 〰️wow〰️ 👹JAM👹

Msnfnnf the sneak attack cuddles

Jam and his magic backpack. How did that get here lmao

Now shave his mustache and faux goatee. (Sorry Max I know you loved having the facial hair, but I am not a fan.)

I suspect it will not be that easy to leave the island lolll

[tlematimun]

Are you sure about this? It's a whole new world, you know?

TUTOR KORAPHAT as INTHA and YIM PRARINYAKORN as OENG in ChermChey the Series (2026)

[ my coloring savior: @deokmis , inspo: ★ by @thereigning-lorelai ]

[lattekims]

"Where else does it hurt?"

+

the patient:

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

"why is phatsa so ignorant about the world he so obviously lives in?": A defense of my adopted son Phatsa's stupid ass.

(Note: this is not a defense of the show writing or production level, just how omegaverse tropes work in relation to their world building.)

This got long so under a cut we go:

_________________________________________________________

Tropes within a trope-based genre:

Omegaverse itself is a trope originating in kink memes. Within the OV genre, there are sub-tropes. One of the most common ones is the "I didn't know I was an omega!" story, where main character A is put in a situation that causes/forces a secondary gender manifestation or presentation. Typically the character thinks they are a beta or a regular human, with another trope layer of being unpresented (either knowing about secondary genders or not) sometimes employed. This changes when the character either "presents" by having a mating cycle (heat/rut respectively, or not in the case of betas) as a normal course of puberty, or exposure to alpha pheromones, or specifically their fated mate (more on that later).

In KNOT they go this route with Phatsa- he doesn't know he's an omega and, up until he unknowingly crosses paths with Nakhun, he's functionally unpresented.

The fated mate/soulmate trope: what's on the tin, but done most commonly with once they meet, it's necessary for physical and psychological well-being to stay in close proximity. This can be mean dealing with something as mild as instincts and discomfort, to actual pain, illness, or risk of death. In A/B/O Desire, this is expressed with compatibility of pheromones, and rejection by the other party can drive their compatible mate into Mate Seeking Syndrome where they are compelled to find their mate to the point of madness and obsession.

In KNOT we see that Phatsa and Nakhun also fall on the more extreme end of the spectrum of this trope. They need to stay in close proximity to stay healthy- Phatsa nearly dies trying to defy the biology of their bond.

Being able to feel each other's pain is a kinda delightful extension of the soulmate trope, but not specific to omegaverse settings, it's an overlap with the soulmates trope. Soulmate identification tropes in fanfic range from sharing a birthmark or a mark aquired at some point in life, often with coming into contact with said soulmate, or shared pain/injury, writing on the skin appearing on the others as well, timers counting down to the meeting time, etc.

Another critique I've seen a lot is questioning why omegas are treated as so much lesser than alphas and why no one seems phased about Phatsa being effectively trapped. Well. It's a parallel world critique of sexism and misogyny. Also, from the start of omegaverse existing, dubcon/noncon is simply baked into the base layer (this often comes from the older trope of Fuck Or Die). KNOT is doing something very interesting in actually addressing this and how it would be experienced! The thread of exploring what consent and bodily autonomy means is a thread running through the show.

Now based on what we know in-show (and hoping the subtitles are accurate enough) what we can be sure Phatsa knows is only what has been said to him on screen. (Not including anything extra from the novel bc I haven't read it and this is going off of what's in-show.)

Ongsa tells him about the origins of alphas/betas/omegas, which presumably would be something someone raised within the community would learn about as a child. Crucially, this is clearly the first time this topic has come up, prompted by Phatsa saving Sangnuea.

So the argument of "people talk about secondary gender stuff all the time openly" falls flat to me. Public discussions of alpha/omega stuff happen at Ongsa's cafe, owned by a member of the community who's family is well known. So that's a safe place for those conversations to happen. The only other place we see conversations about secondary dynamics happening is at Nakhun's family house. Again, a location within the community.

"but even kids know this stuff!" All of the kids who are aware of a/b/o dynamics are all children in the a/b/o community. Japan is a son of a business acquaintance of Nakhun's family, Ongsa's barista (sorry buddy forgetting your name) is clearly part of Ongsa's/one of the families, the girl that talks to Phatsa sees an adult bonded omega and knows what that means, so clearly she's also a member of the community.

The only people we see discussing secondary gender in a public space are Sangnuea right after Phatsa saves him (and he seems just generally kinda shameless lmao) and the guys who try and kidnap Phatsa, and they don't even use the word omega, just merchandise. (Omega trafficking is just common enough in OV that it's an understood to exist.)

None of the members of the a/b/o community seem that shocked by Phatsa not knowing about them/these traits, or presenting an an omega in his early 20s, and are perfectly at ease informing him when they realize he doesn't know something. There are also clinics for secondary sex/gender health and testing is available fairly easily. This means that late secondary gender presentation is common enough that it's not shocking and needs testing to be available (at least in the area where they live). My guess is that betas tend to marry/procreate with other betas and regular humans. There is probably a good contingent of betas out in the world that don't even know they are betas, thus carriers for potential alphas or omegas. (unless this is a universe where certain combos only produce certain combos. i.e. betaxbeta always = beta. but it's not clear if that's actually the case in KNOT's universe.)

"why didn't he just look it up? he must just be oblivious." Phatsa's dad purposefully kept him in the dark. (What his plan was there exactly idk). And it is surprisingly easy to look past information you don't know- think of all the people from high control groups that get to college and realize that they are missing some really big pieces of common knowledge (like. basic biology. for example.). The a/b/o community is also fairly close and closed off to outsiders, plus very wealthy and powerful. We've been shown how much power they have over law enforcement etc. If they don't want information out there for the public, it will not be out there to find.

I'm sure there's more to be chewed on here, but that's all for now folks.

[froma2zee]

@horseintheshadow is such an excellent example of no matter how niche something may seem: if you build it, they will come

cause tell me why i jumped up in my seat pointing at my screen like i'm rick dalton from one upon a time in hollywood when this popped onto my screen?

ep. 7 - 33:01 for this glorious close-up shot

[alienwlw]

It's true that I hate Charlie, but I never thought of hurting our team. I built X-Hunter together with you and Alan. I couldn't hurt my own family.

[athoroughlybakedpotato]

One of these days I'm going to finish my writeup about why it makes perfectly fine sense that Phatsa doesn't know jack shit about the a/b/o side of his universe.

Also @ all the Nakhun haters:

[mewsthumbring]