Since we've gotten news that Wu is coming to Gagaoolala, and we've only been told that this is a bromance, we have arrived at an impasse.
If this show is actually just BL bait, GMMTV will have used a queer media platform to shore up a non-queer project. That will be unforgivable, and I will block GMMTV and all of their shows past and present going forward.
Back in my day there used to be a Mark Pakin in every Thai show you watched. Every show. Every genre. You’d turn on GMMTV and there he was—didn’t matter if it was a romantic drama or a cooking competition, he’d just be there, like some benevolent spirit haunting Thai lgbtq+ media. We didn’t question it. We just accepted it. That was the world we lived in. It was beautiful.
It’s time for my annual post reflecting on all of the shows I watched this year and how I’m feeling about the genre. I’ve been doing this for four years now, and you can go back to read the posts from 2024, 2023, and 2022, , but I’ll warn you that it might make you sad because I did not have that great a time this year by comparison. In typical years, I engage with well over 80 productions. This year I ended at 56, with 40 shows complete and 16 dropped. It’s hard to ignore how the state of global politics has affected culture, and especially the funding of niche media like BL. Let’s get into it.
Japan Delivered Mostly Losses This Year
In a strange observation, Japan made up more than half of all shows I completed, but I can really only say I liked two of them this year in The Summer Hikaru Died for its handling of queer grief and Even Though We’re Adults for its exploration of divorce and lesbian homewrecking. Most of the shows this year felt extremely underbaked or incomplete. Worse, many showed shades of better shows from previous years.
In 10 Things I Want To Do Before I Turn 40 we hoped and failed to find the things we loved in Old Fashion Cupcake, only to be completely disappointed by a completely implaccable protagonist. In Love Begins in the World of If we hoped to tap into similar feelings of Perfect Propose, only to be completely let down by a rushed conclusion. In School Trip: Joined a Group I’m Not Close To we hoped to find some resonance with I Cannot Reach You, only to meet a dull show whose protagonist could not react to the weirdly intense energy coming from his seme.
To make matters worse, we had four (4) terrible sequels this year in A Man Who Defies the World of BL Final, At 25:00 in Akasaka Season 2, I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama Season 2, and Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! 2nd Stage. Every single one of these shows betrayed their characters and their themes. I wasn’t expecting Minato’s Laundromat 2 to be a prelude of things to come!
Looking at my overall ratings, the Japanese BL I liked the most this year was tied with Stay By My Side After the Rain and Punks Triangle, and I unfortunately found both of these shows to be undercooked and missing key moments of growth with our protagonists. This is not a banner year.
The most interesting Japanese note of the year is actually in how much we had access to that wasn’t traditional BL. Though we are still reliant on fansubbers for many of the best works like When I Was a Child Everything Was Fine, we had all the kinds of educational dramas we never see in BL land like Chosen Home, Two Husbands One Wife, Your Divorce is Served!, and Kita-kun Our Shared Love.
I’d like to say I hope this year will be a blip in the long run, but the current situation in Japan does not bode well for the future of queer media there.
China is Up, and Everyone Else is Down
China is back with multiple projects this year…none of which I felt compelled to watch. The backlog of toxic danmei has been pushing through and it just doesn’t appeal to me. As such, I’m not sure if I’m exactly happy that Chinese teams have been skirting the rules to get their projects published.
As for the rest of the wider region, we had a pretty cool show about actors come out of Singapore with The Sparkle in Your Eye.
From Taiwan, I really enjoyed Fragrance of the First Flower Season 2, which finally gave me closure. I also really enjoyed the friends to lovers story in Secret Lover.
Finally, I finished six BLs from Korea, but the only one I enjoyed was made in 2023 in Heesu in Class 2. It was apparently controversial to like the Korean drama about the coming out experience, and I will remain salty. Unfortunately, Heesu is the best thing Korea released this year by a longshot, and I’m extremely concerned by the complete disaster of works coming out of Strongberry at this point.
Thailand’s Consolidation Continues Apace, And It Sucks
If I were to sum up the state of Thai BL this year it would be, “GMMTV sucking up all the talent in the industry and then doing absolutely fucking nothing worthwhile with it.” They’ve achieved a stranglehold on the industry, the quality of all of their work continues to drop as the pushes to monetize increase. I only finished seven shows from Thailand this year, and only one of them was from GMMTV. Despite the 20+ shows they release each year, I have felt absolutely no FOMO about this.
The biggest disappointments of the year for me were Shine and The Wicked Game. I’ve grown tired of the wealth worship that dominates Thai BL, and I can no longer continue to support Be On Cloud’s work. Shine was the last straw, and I am really disgusted by the politics of the show that they went out of their way to position as political. With The Wicked Game, I just reached a point where this particular brand of stupid melodrama just doesn’t work for me anymore.
On the positive end of this mixed back we have Khemjira and Gelboys. I really loved the casts in both of these shows, and I especially loved the cinematography in Gelboys. That they shot all of Gelboys on iphones is giving me hope about what is still possible in Thailand. I wanted to mention both of these shows together because I think these two used their onscreen intimacy really well to tell us about their characters.
Of special note this year is Mandate. This political drama is still the most compelling thing I saw from Thailand this year, and I will keep mentioning it in all of my posts about this year. Ignore all the talk about the politics of Shine and their making of a queer work and not a BL (lies). Watch Mandate and grapple with Thai people’s angst about their parliamentary system.
Canada Takes the Win This Year
Without Heated Rivalry, we’d have little positive m/m or BL media to talk about at the end of 2025. I will be classifying this show as Canadian BL, and the earnestness and sincerity of this show makes it the overall winner of the year. It’s so funny watching some of the commentary around this show, because we’ve seen versions of this commentary around BL for decades.
I admire a lot of what Jacob Tierney has done with this show, and some of the things people say about him aren’t that different from the kinds of things people said about Aof after Bad Buddy, or Boss after I Told Sunset About You. Like with most of the good BL adaptations, they made good changes to the source material, and honored the things readers enjoyed the most. They got super enthusiastic newer actors, and weren’t embarrassed about the work.
As a result, we had a really fun show in the English-speaking world. It’s been a lot experiencing the kinds of discourse that Asian queers likely experience over every big BL in their home countries, and so it’s made me even more sympathetic for the out queer fans we have in our English-speaking BL spaces. I’m eager to see what two more years looks like for this show, how much the viewership changes, and what kinds of projects follow from this. There have been many adaptations of m/m works before, but this is the first one we’ve really seen blow up for being this earnestly horny.
Outro
Well, that will wrap us up this year. I think this is definitely the worst year I’ve ever had with BL because I’ve gotten spoiled by the previous six years. Hopefully next year’s review is more upbeat.
With 2025 over, I wanted to do my final blurb since I never checked in after the October update. I’ll do a follow-up post on this one to complete my full review of BL for 2025. For now, let’s talk about the few shows I’m watching, the finales of shows from the fall, a last-minute GMMTV pickup, and the dismal end to a bad year from Japan.
Off is the Only Thing Holding Burnout Syndrome Together (6/10)
Genuinely, one of the most disappointing things of the year is having to report disappointment in Gun Atthaphan. I am a Gun Atthaphan Simp First and a Human Being Second, and I’ve been so dismayed by how stagnant Gun’s acting feels in these past few years. In this show, Jira shows little drive as a character, and so his relationships with Koh and Pheem feel empty of narrative purpose. They want us to believe he’s a starving artist, but he mostly comes off as a brat. Moreover, the genuine lack of chemistry Gun has with Dew is not helping the cause. We’ve had four episodes of wheel-spinning in this dynamic, and it’s so boring! Each episode has ridden on one solid performance from Off. As with every would-be toxic romance from GMMTV, they constantly undercut it by making rich people sympathetic, and quickly steamrolling over any edges with sappy pouting. It’s a loss.
Reloved Has Devolved Into Irredeemable Melodrama (5/10)
When this started, I was really excited about the potential of the adult second chance after a college breakup. I also really liked seeing James Rusameekae in a role as an intense-but-dedicated boss in an advertising company. James is a favorite, and I had a lot of fun with the constant chanting of “BEYOND PERFECT: HOUSE OF PERFECTION!” in every episode. I thought the flashbacks to college were a good choice for the production so the viewers looking for familiar BL beats had something to enjoy.
Unfortunately, the plot around the initial breakup and ghosting gets more egregious and unforgiveable the deeper we go into this show. The show also enjoys implying the worst outcomes for everyone’s behavior. At this point, I am sitting with Akin ghosting his boyfriend because he was jealous, only to then take on the role of surrogate parent to a kid he thinks might be his ex’s? He’s also now mad that Than got emotional comfort from someone else after Akin rejected him for the umpteenth time? It’s never good when a show has me rooting against the couple. I’m also finding the side couple more than a little ridiculous. They have a lot of sex, but if I was the type to fast forward shows I would genuinely skip their scenes.
Japan Began 2026 with “Fuck or Die” in Isekai Office Worker: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (1/12)
Besties, I am not making this up. You’ve got a fairly typical isekai here. A self-described “corporate slave” gets pulled into a fantasy world when he sees a teenage girl being pulled into a portal. On the other side, the monarchical state apologizes for kidnapping him as well, but promises to feed and house him. Protag-kun is a workaholic and asks for a job, so they put him in their accounting department. There, he gets addicted to fantasy energy drinks while his modern fiscal senses push him to conduct a full-scale audit on the kingdom. He warns the teenager about the shady lies of the kingdom, and eventually poisons himself from the energy drinks. We left the first episode with the hot, purple-eyed military leader coming to assist Protag-kun.
When I looked up the blurb for this show, I learned that Protag-kun has to have sex with the military guy or he will die…because magic. I couldn’t help but laugh. China is back with all of its worst tendencies, and Japan was like, “I guess that means we can bring back ‘fuck or die’ in 2026 from a series published in 2018.” I am still interested in seeing where this one goes, but I can’t help but laugh at the weird place BL is in right now.
Completed Since October
Let’s move on to the shows I finished since October.
Love Sea Japan Lacked Some Spark
I can’t say that I enjoyed the Japanese version of Love Sea. For a story in which the sex tells so much of the story, I dont’ think the leads sexual development fit the arc very well. The actors were enthusiastic, but it sometimes read to me like they were trying very hard to play up their earnestness. It may also be a cost issue, but I also felt like the Japanese Mahassamut analogue didn’t feel as connected to his home island. That being said, I did enjoy the ladies in this version more. I guess we’ll call it a wash?
Final Verdict: 7, Recommended With Reservations. I think shows like this are important for advancing the cause regarding the depictions of sex in BL. I like that many of MAME’s stories feature people having sex for fun and not just as a way to express love or control over someone.
Rearrange Fumbled Its Finale
Like many of the Thai shows, I find that they’re quite shy about sad endings. I don’t want to begrudge a queer fantasy story that wants to save the gay boy from death, but I am always fairly uncomfortable with stories that imply you somehow failed in your first go around when someone died from a medical crisis. It just feels a bit cruel to me (with the understanding that I have my own trauma around this). I don’t think the show delivered on the themes I thought it was setting up originally, and so I was left feeling more than a little disappointed.
Final Verdict: 7, Recommended With Reservations. I think there is some value in meditating on some of the themes about making the most of your time with people you care about, but I think the required happy ending muddles a lot of that.
Love in the Moonlight Betrayed Pin
I am a Make It Right apologist, and I will always support Peak Peemapol in BL, but I cannot in good faith pretend like this show actually delivered on his queer narrative. I genuinely struggled with Sasin’s unbelievable levels of stupidity. He lacked survival instincts in a way that I just cannot fathom. Moreover, this show ends up redeeming the Bad Dad when he should have died. I am also going to be forever salty about how this show disrespected Pin in the final arc. Her concerns about her personal and financial security were valid, and the show was more concerned with making sure we knew that Saenkaew was still rich when this was over than making sure that Pin was taken care of. We’re apparently supposed to see this BL pair again, so hopefully their next attempt is better.
Final Verdict: 6, Just Watch To Sir With Love Instead. It’s from the same team that made this show, and basically executes the same story but way better.
The Journey To Killing You Played Weird Games With Sex
I wanted to like this show a lot more than I did, but I didn’t like how the show started off with complicated sexual themes, but then reduced itself to a rather simple love situation. The people yearn for a compelling crime BL. There was good potential in the succession battle here, but like many other shows this year this one refused to let its criminals be genuinely bad when it came time for the romance.
Final Verdict: 7, Recommended With Reservations. I just think it’s hard to have a show begin with sexual assault then not really do much with those themes. The show has some excellent aesthetics, but the narrative and themes are weak.
Khemjira Has A Beautiful Cast With Excellent Chemistry, But Quite a Bit of Misogyny
I am quoted pushing back on expectations from viewers hoping for compelling and deep female narratives in BL, as I don’t think that’s one of the primary goals of the boys kissing boys genre. However, I do not think that means BL shows get a free pass at misogyny in their stories. Khemjira has genuine concern for the male friendships and romances, and cares a lot about the cultural contexts of its plot beats. However, almost every plot beat they added from the source material relies on truly tired stories about violence against women in ways that I did not find compelling, and which I don’t think added depth to the conflict with the ghost at the heart of this story. I also just think this show is way too long; one episode is a full two hours. Still, I enjoyed the themes around spirituality, and it’s one of my better experiences with reincarnation romances I’ve had in a while.
Final Verdict: 8, Recommended for the Sex Scenes. Genuinely, this series has some of my favorite lovemaking scenes from the year. If not for Heated Rivalry, this would be the show I talked about the most for the types of acts they choreographed. Additionally, I was genuinely compelled by both romances after things finally got moving for the leads. In terms of cast chemistry, Khemjira is probably the best of the year.
Takumi-kun Series was Horrible
Final Verdict: 5, Do Not Watch. For years we have warned you not to watch this. That recommendation stands. It’s a bloated mess with ugly handling of intense themes.
A Man Who Defies the World of BL Final Betrayed Mob
In yet more disappointing news, the BL parody show about a guy who dodges BL flags was forced into a horrible BL flag at the end. This slapped-together final season reintroduced almost every old character with minimal coherence, quickly ended multi-season storylines, and then blandly dumped Mob into a BL flag as if it were the rote expectation. Truly, I am baffled about how the show that spent literal years joking about how vapid many BL tropes are failed to bring compelling human connection to Mob finally falling for someone. What a dubious end to this project.
Final Verdict: 6, Not Recommended. This show of all shows letting us down in 2025 is so telling about the state of the genre.
Punks Triangle Was Alright, Mostly
The funniest part of this show was having a fashion student not recognize the model he was obsessed with for years. Like most BL, I couldn’t take it seriously on the fashion front, but I was able to have some fun with the ideas about dating someone with dual identities. Why I can’t say I fully enjoyed this mostly comes down to this shows intensely horny energy that it was completely unable to release. So many moments in this show speak to a real desire to depict a sexual relationship between the leads that perhaps broadcasting rules prevented. Unfortunately, I just find it quite frustrating when horny works get sanitized on TV.
Final Verdict: 7.5, Recommended With Reservations. The show wants to be hornier than it is, and the plot requires you to accept some silly things.
At 25:00 in Akasaka Season 2 Completely Failed
In heartbreaking news, I must report that 25 ji let us down pretty badly. The ongoing problem with BL is that the types of stories it is focused on are all about people getting together, and not people staying together. In what started as an interesting look at two public figures navigating queerness and dating devolved into Shirasaki benign a jealous, bad partner. By the end of the series I could no longer root for their relationship, and felt like he really let Hayama down multiple times across the season.
Final Verdict: 6, Not Recommended. There is some decent sex in the first episode or two, and some good queer moments in the beginning. There just isn’t a lot of good worth sticking around for. As with every other season 2 this year, this one betrays the themes it established in its previous season.
School Trip: Joined A Group I’m Not Close To Was One of the Most Alien BL Experiences I’ve Had in a While
One of the biggest hurdles with trying to get queer cinephiles into BL is often the extreme unreality of BL itself. In School Trip, we had two actors who have previously worked in BL play characters younger than their last outings, and play into the weird kinds of spaces that shows in the BL bubble often like to exist. I genuinely struggle with shows that imply the existence of homophobia without that being a part of the world, and Watarai’s aggressiveness never got the kinds of responses from Hioki that I think it warranted. This show also ended up being far too chaste for how desperately horny it insisted its lead was.
Final Verdict: 6.5, Recommended Only for Chaste BL Fans. I originally hoped this show would be closer to something like I Cannot Reach You, but I cannot insult ICRY by pretending this show comes even close to how compelling the dynamics were in that show. This show will be my poster child for why it’s so hard to get gay people who like gay media to watch BL.
Therapy Game Should Have Let Minato Be a Demon Twink
Repeating myself again, but damn if it isn’t another show that promised more complex dynamics only to devolve into sappiness. I had hoped for complicated developmental cycle for Shizuma coming into his own queerness, especially with it starting off with dubious sex. As usual, though, the sex didn’t actually happen, and they went with Minato being far more fragile than I wanted from what started off as such a powerful twink. I guess I’ll just settle for being glad I saw Sato Ryuga and Konishi Eito again, but this one left me feeling extremely mild. I was hoping for the kinds of desperation for a twink energy you can find in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Final Verdict: 7, Recommended with Reservations. I think this one is fine, since there are some decent gay ideas in this one, and they at least have sex. However, it’s not an all-timer.
Love Begins in the World of If Should Have Been The Show of the Year
Of all the shows on this list, this one is probably the second biggest disappointment for me. Daigo Kotaro was probably my favorite performer of the year as Kano, and I really loved the way the show used the parallel world concepts. The themes around how we treat people informs the world we live in, and rejection of the “perfect” Ogami in favor of the one that respected Kano like an equal was actually so great. Unfortunately, they rushed the relationship at the end, and then made some truly dubious decisions around the sex.
Final Verdict: 6, Recommended with Reservations. The cinematography, music, and performances in this show are actually so good, but I have to take off major points for absolutely collapsing at the very end. I had hoped this show would join Perfect Propose and Old Fashion Cupcake as one of my work burnout shows, but alas it is another sad dud from this year.
ThamePo was…Boring
I’ve stopped watching GMMTV shows live because they too often fall apart around the middle, and then it’s a month and a half of being annoyed once a week. I also find the stan energy around GMMTV shows to be a bit tiring. I will say that I am quite glad I didn’t watch this show live, because it felt like this show actively wanted me to dislike LYKN. Few of the decisions made by the management of this company felt grounded in reality, this show really thought it was a good idea to tell us that members of its premiere boy band cannot sing, it once again tried to say something compelling about idol privacy while sidestepping homophobia, and as such Po being a gay man felt like it didn’t really matter. Moreover, I just completely struggle with the idea that a gay man whose close friend is a superfan would think it would be okay at all the date any member of the band she was obsessed with.
Final Verdict: 6.5, Recommended for Visuals? I am not that taken with William and Est, but I can see why people might have been. This show’s primary appeal seemed to rest of the fact that both of the leads liked to pout a lot, but I really struggled with the serious lack of meaningful stakes in this show. I want more people to watch BL, and it’s a bit frustrating when some of our best looking shows fail to take their plots and themes seriously.
Mandate Was Compelling, But Not Really a Romance
Like @waitmyturtles I really enjoyed Mandate. However, it is not a romance. It is a political drama with queerness inside of it. I was eager to check out this show because I like Ben Benyapol (Step by Step) a lot, and I’m glad we were able to watch this one. With so much of BL existing in a fictional world that often worships rich people, it was refreshing to experience a Thai drama with a real chip on its shoulder about the world itself. Mandate does not exist in the saccharine space of BL, and has real ideals about the Thai government and its politics. The commentary about the way power corrupts, and how so much of politics relies on hype before turning into backroom deals and public sniping at each other.
Final Verdict: 9, Highly Recommended. This is one of the best things I’ve seen from Thailand in a while, and it’s a worthy watch to sit with for cultural reasons.
Heated Rivalry Is The Show of the Year
On a positive note, I can happily say that I thoroughly enjoyed Heated Rivalry. It was refreshing to see a show built on sincerity with full commitment to its story and themes. It was also a real relief to experience a show that wasn’t being precious about sex. Moreover, the queerness wasn't an afterthought to the dynamics between all of the characters.
While I have some qualms with the writing and pacing, it's been a lot of fun seeing people new to m/m romance presented this way in live action reacting to it. I've also appreciated BL fans being so consistent in the comments and reactions about how this show is GOOD but it is not NEW. It's important to me that we not treat this show like a unicorn when there have been over 1000 pieces of m/m media like it in the last two decades.
Final Verdict: 9, Highly Recommended. I cannot stress enough how familiar all of the storytelling beats are in Heated Rivalry, but after a year where most projects seemed ambivalent towards narrative and thematic cohesion, I must praise a show for actually delivering on the story it set up. Moreover, I love the bittersweet place they ended the first season. I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what happens to western fujos after this.
Dropped Shows
Here are all the other shows that didn't make the cut:
The Wicked Game (5/10) - I love Daou and Offraod. I traveled all the way across the country to see them. It saddens me that while their characters continue to age and mature, their projects continue to decline in writing quality.
Kill to Love (8/12) - I felt little reason to finish after the major death in this episode.
Conclusion
This has been a rather dull season of BL for me, in a year that has been a real dud. I did not expect for one of my favorite projects of the year to come from Canada of all places, and it's kind of lame that I don't think there are many projects from this year that we can recommend to Heated Rivalry fans. This is also the first year I've experienced in a long time where nothing good in live action came from Japan. I really hope next year is better.
After Interview With the Vampire, we saw Thailand try to do a bunch of vampire works. I hope we don't see a surge in sports BL, but rather we see a return to basics. I want more stories told with sincerity, and less focus on branded pair maintenance. More art, less product.
I Watched Some Shows in 2025! (Some of Them Aired in 2025! Some Didn't! Who Cares!) Here Are My Thoughts on Some of Them!
Some of my friends have put out their 2025 lists, and I know this year was a rough one for a lot of my dear fellow clowns. I myself really did not watch a lot of shows this year. I prioritized my kids and my work, and I'm glad I did.
But I do have some thoughts and stats on what I did watch, and by being very picky about what I was watching, I ended this year on a high note. And I have an Old GMMTV Challenge update at the end of this post. Here goes nothin':
My Favorite Show of the Year That Actually Aired in 2025....Was Not Heated Rivalry, It Was MANDATE!
Yes, Mandate!
I was an EXTREMELY LUCKY BITCH that two queer/BL shows that aired this year had content crossroads with two personal interests of mine: politics (Mandate) and hockey (Heated Rivalry).
Mandate did not follow a Thai BL format at all; I wouldn't even call it a BL or a romance, even though some news outlets in Thailand called it a Series Y. Honestly, whatever. The show excellently focused on the professional changes of Dr. Nong (Boy Pakorn) from village physician to a national health minister, exploring his weaknesses and his drive to be successful both for individual and for political reasons. His developing romance with his advisor, Vee (Ben Bunyapol), and how it ended on a cliffhanger was just A+.
If you need a break from branded pairs; if you want some middle-aged yaoi; if you're interested in how this drama leverages real-life politics, if you want high-quality queer art -- Mandate is for you.
I want to once again absolutely hail the incredible @clairedaring for boosting this show so heavily when it was first airing. And if you haven't watched it: IT'S ON GAGA NOW! So watch it!
My Very-Close Second Favorite Show of the Year Was Heated Rivalry, No Duh!
It was a huge thrill for me to not only watch a show about my lifelong beloved sport, ice hockey, but to also discover that this show was so fucking well-written.
I've written a ton about Heated Rivalry in a short amount of time (here and here to start), I've read the books, and I just love everything about this universe that Rachel Reid has created, and Jacob Tierney has expanded. I'm fucking watching Shoresy now because of Jacob Tierney (it is HILARIOUS). Everything about HR is so well done. Onwards to season two and to Ottawa!
My Favorite Show That I Watched This Year That Did NOT Air This Year was Khun Chai (To Sir With Love) (2023)!
SEX GLITTER, DEATH GLITTER, MUSHROOM POWDER, JAMFILM!
UGGGGHHHH, FILM THANAPAT AND JAM RACHATA! GODDDDD I LOVED THIS SHOOWWWWWWW, and liveblogging it was SO MUCH FUN, especially with the support of the Khun Chai girlies on Tumblr. Omfg. Jam's and Film's chemistry; the INSANITY of the show to rely on high soap operatic drama; Tian's internal struggles; Jiu's desires and his need to also take care of his siblings; THE BROTHERLY LOVE OF TIAN AND YANG GAAAAAAAAHHHHH. This show. HAS. SO MUCH!
I haven't written about this show YET for my Old GMMTV Challenge project, but I will, I will!
A Show I Watched That I Loved That Aired This Year But I Didn't Write About It Was Heesu in Class 2!
MY BABIES!
(credit: @wanderlust-in-my-soul)
I didn't write about Heesu in Class 2 when I was watching it, because I was actually watching it for an assignment: the inimitable @shortpplfedup and @bengiyo of @the-conversation-pod wanted me on their podcast about Heesu and Gelboys. Here's what I said about Heesu, and just to reiterate: this was a 100% queer show that demonstrated the growth and development of queer love and queer joy within the scope of real-world scenarios with family and friends. It was done beautifully and with empathy.
I know there was a lot of fandom controversy and drama around this show, which I blissfully missed. But to me, there is no question that Heesu was a queer show, and a story on behalf of two young characters that deserved to be told.
I Also Watched Gelboys, Which I Really Liked, But I Was Kinda Meh on the Ending, But It Was a Gorgeously Shot Show, So Here's a GIF!
Yay! Love dat midriff.
The Piece That I Was THEE Most Disappointed By That I Was Looking Forward To The Most Was 10Dance, WTF???
Over-stylized and fucking pretentious. COME AWN.
Some of my top performing posts of this year are this one and this one, celebrating the incredible actor, Machida Keita. I even bought the 10Dance manga, man! I was so fucking excited! But this movie was too pretentious towards both ballroom dance and romance that I just checked out early. A blue-flooded studio with some dude sitting on the fucking floor talking metaphorically about dahnce and symbols, while his ignored female dance partner is literally in his face like, BRO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON THIS GUY YOU DIMWIT, and Suzuki being like but DAHNCE and MEANING and TAHLENT -- good lord, no thank you, not for me. I honestly recommend the manga, the books are BONKERS, but none of the humor in the manga made it anyway near the movie, which was a goddamn shame.
I Watched These Shows and Mostly Enjoyed the Experience of Watching Them, But the Endings Ruined Them Both For Me: Love in the Moonlight and Shine
Love in the Moonlight: PIN SHOULDA ENDED UP RICH, BITCH!
But I love my son, Peek Peemapol (Make It Right 4ever), and I was glad to see him back on screen.
Shine: WTF.
I had mostly a good time watching this show, and fully enjoyed SonEuro, but what the show did to Victor was fucking unforgivable, and BeOnCloud can kiss my ass from now on.
Some quick 2025 stats from me:
1) I haven't moved forward with the OGMMTVC in a while: the posts take a while for me to write, and I was truly burnt out after I watched GAP the Series for the project. I loved watching a GL for the OGMMTVC, but GAP was just.....I dunno, I know it's a historic show, and I honestly look forward to writing about it, but it was also a badly-told story with an ending between the grandma and that prince character that left me with a bad taste in my mouf. I've gotten burnt out on watching mediocre shows, but I have My School President next on my list, and I'm committing myself to writing about Khun Chai, Laws of Attraction, and GAP before I get to MSP. Soon. I tell myself. Soon.
(It also sucks to think about GAP and the situation now with Saint Suppapong and Idol Factory and FreenBecky not getting paid, and and and just UGH.)
2) I did not finish a GMMTV show that aired in 2025. That's a first for me since I've been watching Thai BLs. I was so excited for Singto's return and The Ex-Morning, and that show just turned out so badly. Someone fire up a flare if there's something from GMMTV that's not just worth finishing, but is REALLY GOOD, when it airs.
So the way I'm approaching shows now is, with hesitance and tentativeness. But I'm thankful I ended the year on a high with Mandate and Heated Rivalry, and these two shows will stay with me for a long time.
Hi, i know this year was a bit disapointing for you in terms of qls, but i was wondering, what were your favorite tv shows of the year across genre (in general) ?
Hi, thanks for stopping in! I appreciate the question, I haven't really had much time for year end lists and little inspiration to find it.
I have to say though, it was not just QLs that saw a noticeable dip in quality this year. This was one of the worst years in recent memory for mainstream dramas, as well. When the world is burning and regime changes all over the world are converging to create a global horror show, the art suffers as well. Funding for dramas with solid production values is decreasing in many Asian countries. And where output is continuing at a high rate, quality has taken a cliff dive. There were also quite a few shows that began well before falling apart halfway through or spectacularly fumbling their final arcs. It was a frustrating year.
So my list of favorites for this year is brutally short. These are the 2025 Asian dramas I can genuinely say I enjoyed watching all the way through and would recommend to others (with the disclaimer that I haven't watched as many dramas as in previous years so I'm sure there are some I missed):
When Life Gives You Tangerines
Heesu in Class 2
Gelboys
You and Everything Else
Typhoon Family
For me, Tangerines was far and away the best drama of the year, and nothing else comes close. But I thought the others on this list were compelling and held together well through their entire run.
I also watched a couple old dramas for the first time this year that I really loved and would recommend checking out if their genre and premise is your thing. These are both from 2018:
The Story of Minglan
Love and Fortune
And that's all! Here's hoping 2026 gives us a bit more to be excited about in drama world.
I have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about Heated Rivalry. About art made with love and understanding and how it authentically resonates and builds and grows and expands outward and encompasses and envelops. About the courage it takes to love (active verb) and how it's so hard to find that courage if you feel like you're alone. About writing and acting and filmmaking and adaptation, and understanding why people love something and deciding to protect it. And about how OMG IF YOU LOVED THIS COME AND JOIN US OVER IN THE LAND OF INTERNATIONAL QUEER ROMANCE WHERE WE HAVE SO MUCH OF THIS.
@bengiyo @lurkingshan and @twig-tea have all posted recs for some great entry level mostly Asian queer drama and romance when you're ready to dip your toe. When you're ready to go beyond entry level, mosey on over to @the-conversation-pod and peruse our back catalog of show discussions if you're so inclined. If you wanna watch before you listen, here are some of my recent (past 5 years-ish) personal faves that haven't yet been mentioned, linked for your convenience. If any link doesn't work for you, DM for further advice.
Thai
Moonlight Chicken (YouTube)
Jim, a restaurant owner, meets Wen, a customer, and they have a one-night-stand that turns into more.
My School President (Viki)
When musician Gun's high school band is about to be disbanded Tinn, who has a longstanding crush on him, becomes school president to help him save it.
180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us (GagaOOLala)
Wang, the son of famous director Sasiwimol, goes on a location scouting trip with her and 'accidentally' meets Inthawut, who has a complicated history with Wang's late father.
GAP the Series (YouTube)
Mon has idolized Sam for years. She gets a job at Sam's company, and realizes that girlcrush is just a big fat crush.
I Feel You Linger In The Air (GagaOOLala)
After a No Good Very Bad day Jom, a modern-day architect restoring an old house, has an accident and crashes into 1927 where he meets Yai, the original owner of the house and the literal man of his dreams.
Gelboys (iQIYI)
Fou4mod, a high schooler, starts a situationship with Chian, an older boy at his school, but Chian has his own crush, Bua, and Fou4mod's bestie Baabin is crushing on him. Let the games begin!
Secret Crush On You (Viki)
Do you love cringe comedy and misfits who have each other's backs? Then you'll love Toh, Jao, Daisy, Som and the rest of the gang.
La Pluie (Viki, also YouTube)
Set in a universe where some people go deaf when it rains, except for hearing the voice of their 'soulmate'. Saengtai hears Patts, but he doesn't believe in love.
Wedding Plan (iQIYI)
Wedding planner Namnuea and groom Sailom fall for each other, but all is not as it seems.
Taiwanese
HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count (Viki)
Xiang Hao Ting, a high school jock, falls for quiet, studious Yu Xi Gu, another boy in his class. His best friend Sun Bo Xiang falls for Xi Gu's much older boss Lu Zhi Gang.
I'm out of gifs now, but you'll love these.
Filipino
Marahuyo Project (YouTube)
King, a college student, gets kicked out of school in Manila and sent to the island of Marahuyo to live with his grandmother. He decides to start an LGBTQIA+ org at his new school, and finds allies along the way.
Gameboys (and Season 2) (Netflix, Prime and Tubi)
Cairo, a gamer, is wooed online by Gavreel, a fan of his livestreams, in this pandemic era romance.
Japanese
The End Of The World With You (Viki)
With 10 days left until a massive meteor annihilates Earth, Masumi, a depressed office worker runs into his first love Ritsu at the library where he goes to wait for the apocalypse. The two go on a journey and untangle their painful past.
Doku Koi (Love Is A Poison) (Netflix)
Ryoma, a shark lawyer, meets Haruto, a con artist. One of the best and funniest romcoms I've ever watched.
Utsukushii Kare (My Beautiful Man) (and Season 2, and Eternal) (Viki)
Shy awkward high school student Hira falls hard for his beautiful new classmate Kiyoi and they begin a complicated yearslong relationship.
Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna (She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat) (alas, only on the high seas)
Nomoto cooks to de-stress but she can't eat as much as she cooks. She notices her neighbour Kasuga seems like a big eater so invites her to share meals.
Koisenu Futari (Two People Who Can't Fall In Love) (alas, only on the high seas)
Aromantics and asexuals, you are seen! This isn't a romance but it is a love story. Sakuko and Satoru decide to live together as a non-romantic couple. Honestly one of the most beautiful dramas I've ever seen.
There have been several conversations since Heated Rivalry got popular about what a lesbian version would look like (I ended up already reblogging one of them). But the thing is, we do have a lot of great lesbian content already, it can just be hard to find. And so I'm going to shamelessly use the platform of Heated Rivalry 's finale to plug just a small sampling of it. Here are 5 shows to watch after you've finished Heated Rivalry, women loving women edition.
Show Me Love (Thailand, 2023)
Starting off with the one I already recced: This is for the folks who wanted lesbian beauty queens and didn't know it already existed. This Thai show's main characters have to navigate their own sexual awakening, complicated by fans wanting to see them flirt with each other in promotional content, all while knowing if they actually came out for real it could end their careers. It's available for free on YouTube.
Roller Coaster (Thailand, 2025)
If you are more interested in a story about women who know they should not be together but are having great sex anyway, and you don't care about the reason being a sports rivalry, this Thai show is for you. It lived up to its name as an emotional roller-coaster between a woman who has been waiting for her ex to change her mind and come back, and the woman who wants to keep her company in the meantime. This one is also available for free on YouTube.
A League of Their Own (USA, 2022)
If you do care about the sports, actually, and also appreciated the element that Shane being mixed-race brought to the story (and maybe even wanted that theme explored in more depth), this American series includes women loving women, trans characters, and while it primarily follows women in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, it also follows the exponentially more difficult challenges of Black women who love women and who love baseball and just want to be allowed to pursue both despite the constraints of 1940s America in parallel. This one is streaming on Prime in most territories.
The Hockey Girls (Spain, 2019)
If you wanted more of the sports than we got in Heated Rivalry actually, and don't mind the characters being a little younger (and emotionally messier), this Catalan-language show has sport and mess in spades, and is available on Netflix.
Glow (USA, 2017)
If, on the other hand, your favourite part of Heated Rivalry was Ilya slamming Shane into the boards of the rink, and then slamming into each other, you'll enjoy the romance in seasons 2-3 of this American comedy drama about the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the 1980s. This one is also available on Netflix.
Bonus: The Handmaiden (Korea, 2016)
Not a series, but I could not make this rec list without including one of my favourite lesbian pieces of media of all time, as well as one of the unabashedly horniest. This Korean film is full of twists and turns, but at its core is a relationship between two women who absolutely should not be getting involved with one another. If you want "they had a lot of sex before they actually had an honest conversation", this delivers. This is available for free on Hoopla using your local library card (available in US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; other areas of the world, you may have to search).
If you want more, please feel free to reach out, or browse my recs tag.
It’s been a real joy seeing so many people find their way to the world of male/male (m/m) romance and boys love (BL) after seeing the excellent work in Heated Rivalry. Now that viewers must await a planned second (and perhaps even third) season, I wanted to provide some options for people who want to see more stories about queer people. It may surprise some to learn that we actually have a broad collection of works to watch; they’re just not often made in the West on accessible networks.
I’ve curated a list of shows to watch below. I tried to select shows that are relatively accessible to American viewers, but will be linking to some streaming services that folks may not have heard of before.
Sort Of (HBO)
Were you excited about Canadian tax dollars paying for on-screen queer sex? Did you want to see a show more about brown and black people? Do you want to see a trans and non-binary story? Do you miss the punchy, quirky comedy of Josh Thomas’s Please Like Me (2013-2016)? This is the show for you. If you’re in the mood for a layered comedy about queerness and cultural identity, this show has some of the best comedy-drama writing of the last decade.
Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (Hulu)
Did you connect to the details about Shane’s autism being part of Hudson’s performance? Do you want to see a show about and starring multiple autistic queer people? Are you just missing Josh Thomas now that I brought him up? This show tells the story about a man diagnosed with ADHD who has to take care of his two teenage half-sisters (one, autistic) when he learns that his dad is dying. This show navigates grief, care, and family with the same kind of empathetic comedy unlike few other shows in existence. If you want to see a show that navigates queer love and romance in neuroatypical people, please watch this.
Noah’s Arc: The Movie (Paramount Plus)
Have you always wanted to see what a group of gay friends looks like when they hit their midlife crises? Do you want to see ass eating on a major network platform again? Would you like to be part of a 20-year gay TV project? Try out Noah’s Arc! This series started 20 years ago, and recently returned after as 12 and five-year break with another movie outing. Watch a gay couple prepare for the incoming both of their twins, and see how their other friends are coping with life in their 40s and 50s.
Fellow Travelers (Hulu/Paramount Plus-Showtime)
Did you connect with the closeted themes of Heated Rivalry? Did you think a lot about how Shane and Ilya hook up for eight years before having a meaningful conversation about their lives? Do you want to experience the tragic angst of being closeted for decades? Do you want to watch Jonathan Bailey (the current sexiest man in the world) have a lot of sex with Matt Bomer? Do you want to see a gay Don Draper work his way through McCarthy era politics into the Reagan years? You’ll want to check this show out. Shoutout to Jelani Alladin and Noah Ricketts for covering Black politics in the era.
What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Free at GagaOOlala)
Have you always wanted to see a show about what gay life feels like after they make the big decision to be together? Do you sometimes just want a quiet drama about two people solving everyday life struggles? Would you like to love a couple more as they grow closer over time? Do you just want to watch gay people make Japanese food? Please watch this show! We have two seasons and a movie of a closeted gay lawyer and his flamboyant hairdresser boyfriend’s lives together.
Also, this is the only show on this list that's actually free to watch!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I wanted to point fans of queer media to a few shows made within the last five years that people may have missed. If you watch any of these shows, please drop me a line and tell me your thoughts!
So You Finished Heated Rivalry and You Need Another Show to Watch
We all know that feeling. The high of finishing a good show followed by the immediate crash and sense of emptiness when you realize it's over. I've always believed the best way to soothe myself in those situations is to dive right in to another show that has some similarities to the thing I loved. It may not entirely fill the void, but it does provide distraction.
For some of you, Heated Rivalry may have been a new experience--a well made gay romance on mainstream TV that actually cared about sex as part of the story. But I have great news! In other parts of the world this kind of show is not so uncommon. There's a whole world of amazing gay romances out there, and I'm here to share just a few that may appeal to you as a fan of HR.
Note: All of these shows are available on easy to access streaming services--Netflix, Viki, YouTube and iQIYI--some entirely for free. If you want to watch but aren't familiar with any of the platforms, let me know and I will point you.
Bad Buddy (Viki)
Did you say rivals to secret lovers? Look no further than Bad Buddy, the story of two arch rivals from feuding families who accidentally fall in love and have to hide their relationship. Buff men, sports, secret romance, explosive chemistry, capital Y yearning--it's all there!
KinnPorsche (iQIYI)
Maybe what appeals to you more than anything about HR is the chance to see beautiful men in gorgeously shot sex scenes that actually matter to relationship development. If so, look no further than KinnPorsche, a show whose visuals and explicit sex scenes will stun you while you try to keep up with the zany plot centered on a mafia family.
Old Fashion Cupcake (Viki)
Maybe you're a fan of adult romances teeming with sexual tension in general, in which case you should definitely check out this workplace romance where a younger employee sets out to woo his older boss. It's short and sweet and you'll want to put it on repeat.
The Eighth Sense (Viki)
For the sexy angst lovers, The Eighth Sense offers both a compelling romance and a similar emphasis on beautiful cinematography, great music, and all around style. This story focuses on two college students in the same surf club who get tangled up in each other.
Like in The Movies (YouTube)
Speaking of great music and angst, this story about a closeted college student who meets and falls for a very much not closeted gay man will speak to those who are drawn to Shane's journey of coming into his sexuality and working through his internalized homophobia.
Dark Blue Kiss (YouTube)
Not to get ahead of myself, but I think we all know the story that is coming next for Shane and Ilya in season 2. Dark Blue Kiss similarly takes a look at a long term relationship in the closet--what happens when you've decided to be together but still have to hide?
I Told Sunset About You (Viki)
If you love beautiful cinematography, gorgeous music, intense sexual tension and deep angst, there is hardly a better show for you than this one. This story is coming of age so the characters are on the younger side, but the show is very mature in its themes.
I Cannot Reach You (Netflix or Viki)
Another show about younger characters, this one is a pitch perfect friends to lovers romance. It's funny without being cutesy, and it takes the sexual desire part of the romance seriously. Honestly so good.
Semantic Error (Viki)
And for the romcom fans, I can't leave off this top tier enemies to lovers story about two college students who hate each other--until they really don't. It's short and fun and great for any romcom lover.
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (iQIYI)
One more for the angst lovers! This gorgeous story follows two men who fall in love in high school before being separated by traumatic events and come back to together as adults to try to heal. It's another with beautiful visuals, great music, and loads of angsty sexual tension.
And that's the list for now! This is just a starting point--there are so so many more shows I could recommend to you; it's an embarrassment of riches over here. If you try any of these and like them, hit me up anytime for more recs or check my #shan recommends tag. Happy watching!
Binge-watching Tagesschau reports of the events that led to the fall of the Berlin wall and eventually to the German reunification. Exciting as a thriller.
Daigo Kotaro (Alice In Borderland 3) and Nakagawa Daisuke (More Than Words) lead MBS new BL show Love Beings in the World of If.
A year after being transferred from a technical position to the sales department, Akihito (Daigo), a shy and soft-spoken man, struggles to fit in and lives a lonely life. His relationship with Okami (Nakagawa), his colleague and the ace of the sales team, has been strained ever since a certain incident caused friction between them.
One night under a full moon, Akihito discovers an old mirror at a shrine and wishes, “I want to become someone who can stand on equal ground with Okami and laugh together with him.” At that moment, a mysterious fog envelops him, and Akihito finds himself lost in a parallel world where his “ideal self” exists.
Written by Shimo Ayumi (Ayaka is in Love With Hiroko, Sugar Dog Life, Takara's Treasure).
NiNi and Ben returned the booth with @lurkingshan to answer some questions from our inbox and award the Girl, You Tried award for the season. Despite this whole season of our podcast running long, join us for a robust conversation about the Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch project, discuss the state of current BL, and debate the meaning of what it means for a show to try.
Ben, NiNi and Shan answer your questions and award the Girl Who Tried.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00 Welcome
00:55 Introductio
Podcast Episode · The Conversation · 10/06/2025 · 1h 14m
<p>Ben, NiNi and Shan answer your questions and award the Girl Who Tried.</p><p>Episode transcript available here.</p><p>00:00 Welcome</p><p
Timestamps
The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.
00:00 - Welcome
00:55 - Introduction
02:32 - Inbox: Addicted, and Other Early BL
19:13 - Inbox: BL and Queer Cinema
23:36 - The Theory of Love RomCom Rewatch
38:51 - Girl, You Tried
01:08:04 - Outro: One Fuck Of A Year So Far
The Conversation Transcripts!
Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.
Please send our volunteers your thanks!
00:00 Welcome
NiNi
Welcome to The Conversation, the Queer Media And Brown Liquor Podcast.
Ben
I'm Ben, the media critic.
NiNi
I’m NiNi, the VIIBs queen.
Ben
And we are your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
NiNi
We’re here to talk queer film and dramas, with a special focus on Asian QL.
Ben
So if you like to dive deep into queer stories…
NiNi
If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce in queer media…
Ben
If you just enjoy simping for attractive people…
NiNi
We believe in simping!
Ben
Tune in!
00:55 - Introduction
Ben
And we're back. It's been… a long season for us. We've been in and out, but honestly, we actually haven't watched that much, and we haven't even talked about that much. Right before we were recording this session we were trying to get our notes together, and we realized that the arc of this season of our podcast is barely about the last four or five months of BL.
We covered an old BL that will never die. Two GLs that most people are never gonna watch. Two Western shows in a fandom that mostly only wants to talk about Asian shows. And then we watched Gelboys and Heesu and had a lot to say about that.
NiNi
Yep. That's been the year. [Ben laughs]And like, I felt bad. We put out episodes in January and February, then nothing ‘til May. And then June was The Untamed. And then our next episodes went out in August. That's where we are. We're doing fantastic.
Ben
We’re doing great.
Shan
Wow. A spotty year.
Ben
But don't worry, Shan is still here! [laughs] Say hi, Shan.
Shan
Shan is always still here. You'll never have the chance to miss me.
Ben
I know some of you have asked us, like, directly what's going on with us. NiNi was hella busy, I was busy, there's a lot going on.
But also, we've been struggling, y'all. The shows are mid, we're not gonna pretend they're not. And we're not gonna get out here and just moan about shows at you guys. It's not how we like to roll.
02:32 - Inbox: Addicted, and Other Early BL
NiNi solicited some questions from the audience. One of which is too long and will become its own podcast episode at some point.
NiNi
Yeah. Again, we're such big name fans. We're getting to our inbox six plus months after the questions came in.
We love y'all. We really do.
Ben
[laughs] It's the real Tumblr experience.
NiNi
All right, so let's start with the question. Shan, wanna take us in?
Shan
All right, our first question is from @lollygirlpops and they write:
“Hello, hello, I've been playing catch up on the pod having found you by chance via a reblog, possibly a @lurkingshan reblog,” —thanks for this shout out @lollygirlpops—”and I'm just having the best time. First of all, please allow me to simp for this podcast. Adore you, adore your insights. You really make me sit up and pay attention.
I'm now so much more critical when watching these shows and I tend to mostly only watch the shows you endorse” —and a nice little parenthetical here— “(Hello, She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat, you beautiful thing) I'd never have found if not for The Conversation.”
We love that. They continue:
“So thank you for being truly brilliant. Also, I'm still a little bit of a newbie when it comes to BL. I'm working my way through my early BL syllabus and recently watched the original Addicted. I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked this. I can't recall if you've ever touched on this show, but I'd love to know what you make of it if you've ever watched it. And what do you make of earlier BL in general? Is quality improving all the time? Thanks for being great.”
NiNi
I feel like I want to tackle the second half of that question before the first half.
Shan
Yeah.
Ben
First, thank you for listening to us and watching She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. Anytime somebody tells us they watched a show because of us, it makes all of this worth it. Nothing makes me happier than people going, “Wow, that show you recommended? It was actually pretty good.”
As for the generalized question, is quality improving all the time? The short answer is no.
Shan
Hell no.
Ben
The long answer is yes. But that requires a very long answer. [laughs]
NiNi
This is a longform podcast.
Ben
So, like all types of media, you get ebbs and flows. Freedom is given to creatives who every now and then do something really spectacular. And then people will try to build on that and iterate upon that. But eventually the people with money have figured out what makes enough money and then tries to skim as much of it as they can. And that's when things get worse and start to decline.
We are very much experiencing that right now in the genre. It's hard to not acknowledge that the overall uncertainty that everyone is facing on the global scene has an impact on the shows you want to watch. That's all I'm going to say about that, but this has been a very difficult year. Genuinely, this is one of the worst years in BL I've experienced since maybe 2017.
That's kind of weird to say when we're getting still a large volume of shows overall. I just don't think a lot of them are very good. I don't really have a lot of standouts from this year that I think are worth hyping about. The thing about progress is it's not a straight line and it requires a lot of constant effort. And it's a question about what do you consider to be quality? Like if we're measuring the success of BL about the willingness of boys in the genre to kiss each other, then sure, I guess we've gotten better than where we started, in terms of just actors being willing to suck face.
If we're talking about the willingness of production companies to spend money, sure, I think a lot of the shows look better and sound better than they did 10 years ago. But for me, I think the storytelling in the genre has taken a pretty big hit in the last year.
That's me, though. I'm here for gay reasons, not boy fantasy reasons.
NiNi
I think that long arc wise, in terms of production quality, definitely. In terms of acting quality, actually for the most part, yes. In terms of story quality, it's a mixed bag, a much more mixed bag than I would expect. As the niche has gotten broader and some things have gotten more popular I think some of the storytelling has fallen a little bit by the wayside. The art and the commerce are balancing differently right now and it does show.
For me, that means that when something stands out, it really stands out, like it makes it easier for it to stand out. You're not caught up in the dross. So it's easier to find the gold. But overall, to put it to you this way, this year I've gone back to sort of my OG stance. I probably haven't watched more than 15 shows so far. I might end the year between 15 and 20, which is how I started watching BL. The last two years have been an anomaly where I've watched a lot more than that. But this year I feel myself heading back down to normal levels. So in terms of my enjoyment of the genre, I'm having a slightly better time than Ben and Shan are this year, but not by much.
Shan, what about you? What are your thoughts?
Shan
Yeah, I agree with both of you. it's not really a matter of BL as a genre being better or worse compared to the past. It's just that the problems are different. In the past, the problems were more about not being able to get funding for productions, and low production values, and very green actors who were not yet comfortable with BL as a thing culturally. We're past all that, that's great, but there are new and in some ways much more insidious and complex problems now in the genre, now that it has become profitable, now that capitalism has gotten its hands on it and is the main point of these shows at this point.
So no, I would not say things have gotten better. I think they've gotten different and in some ways worse.
NiNi
My God. I just realized that we're living in Lovely Writer.
Shan
You know, I wouldn't mind if we actually were. If Kao wants to wander on by, I wouldn’t be mad about it.
Ben
Girl, That man is making so much money as a model he ain't worried about us right now.
[Ben and Shan laugh]
Shan
He's abandoned us. Oh man, Kao I miss you, bud.
I think we should talk a little bit about @lollygirlpop's other question, which was about Addicted, a television show that has quite a bit of infamy just because of the circumstances around it, but that I think is maybe not something we consider upper echelon BL. It's really just the circumstances of the show that made it notable.
A little bit of background for folks who don't know: Addicted is a Chinese BL web series that aired in 2016. And it is essentially the show that ushered in the current era of gay censorship crackdown in China. It was, I think, something like the second most viewed show on iQIYI at the time that it was airing, wildly popular, beyond expectations. And of course, that came with some consequences.
The show was actually explicitly depicting romance between two boys. They did kiss on screen. And the episode in which they had their first sexual encounter is the episode where the show got yanked off the air, banned from continuing and finishing its run. And the two lead actors in the show were blacklisted by the Chinese government. Like literally, they put out the word that they were not to be hired for anything, that they were not to be promoted. Some of the promotional stuff they had filmed for the show got yanked and was never allowed to air. Those actors struggled to work for quite a long time, although they've started to rebound very recently.
The show got a lot more attention and became famous for what happened to it, and the wave of anti-queer censorship that it ushered in for Chinese dramas.
NiNi
So I watched Addicted when I started watching BL. I don't know if you all remember my BL story, but I basically ran through like one from every country to get a cross section of what was out there. And Addicted was the Chinese BL that I found to watch. There was all this hype around it. And I remember thinking to myself, what is the hype about?
I was not a fan of Addicted. It was not my cup of tea. Based on what else I've seen of Chinese BL, especially now that there's been a little bit of a Chinese BL resurgence, this is sort of the nature of Chinese BL and I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of that.
For me, was just kind like, okay, what's this about? This is what this about? Pass. I didn't even know about all the controversy until much later. I didn't realize it got yanked off the air because to me it didn't feel like it ended in the middle. It just felt like it ended. It wasn't for me.
Ben
So the difficulty I faced was I watched this show in era, which means I didn't finish it because finding shows was a lot more complicated back then. I'm very happy for the new BL fans who get pissy if a show is not free on YouTube for them. Back in my day, we had to walk uphill both ways to find our motherfucking shows.
NiNi
—In the snow!
Ben
Let me tell you—in the snow. We were heavily reliant on fan subs back in the day, and they were inconsistent, to put it politely. Very much love and respect to all the people trying to make these shows accessible to us. It just was very difficult sometimes. And this is one of those shows I think I got maybe two or three episodes in, was a little confused, could not find the show, learned about all the controversial stuff, and then just sort of put it aside and never went back to it.
Also, I had read commentary about themes in the show that made me not want to watch it. They readapted the show with Stay With Me like two years ago? And following the week to week commentary on that was also…uninspiring for me.
So my primary feelings about Addicted are: it's really tragic that one of the most populous countries in the world shut down a whole form of storytelling over the show. And I felt really bad for the actors who I'm thankful we can say are working again. It felt really shitty that these guys’ careers got ended for trying to do a good job with the work that they were given.
NiNi
Didn't they also make a Thai version of Addicted this year?
Shan
Yeah, they did, and it sucked.
Ben
Man, I forgot that that happened. Holy shit! [laughs]
Shan
Please do not remember, you will not be happy with your memories.
So, I liked Addicted better than Ben or NiNi did. I'm a little bit more tolerant, I think, of some of the mainstays of Chinese BL. I've read a lot of danmei. It doesn't phase me quite as much, although I can't endorse it, really. It kinda is what it is and you can either rock with it or you can't, and I don't judge anyone who doesn't want to.
The Chinese are a bit sexually repressed. And that comes out in some real weird ways in the way they write sex. This is not only for gay sex. It is also true of the way they write heterosexual sex.
Ben
I want you all to know that I did successfully pressure Shan into watching some movies with me this year. And we watched In the Mood for Love and Shan was so mad about it. [laughs]
Shan
I was pissed off. I'm still mad! I don't even need that energy right now.
Whenever you have a culture of people who are encouraged to repress their natural desires, you're going to get some weirdness in the way that they write romance and sex. That is always present in Chinese drama and particularly in a Chinese gay drama, in a BL, you're gonna see some weird stuff. You're gonna see violence presented as romantic. You're gonna see a lot of old cliches about wanting to force people to accept their true nature through sexual violence. That kind of stuff is in the mix.
This story also is technically a stepbrothers story, although the two of them are only kind of incidentally stepbrothers. Neither of them ever lived together as brothers. Their parents got together after they had already met each other. So, it's not the kind of stepbrothers story where there's an actual family unit that's being disrupted. It's just kind of, I think, more of like a trope hook.
Ben
That was Shan clarifying for me.
Shan
Yes, that was for Ben.
Ben
This is one of my hugest squicks.
Shan
They cast good actors in this show. They are good at what they do. They represent the characters well and they had good chemistry. I believed that they were into each other. I believed the romance and I thought that the show overall was pretty decent, production wise. It had a good idea of what it wanted to do. There were some moments in the show that still really stick with me, like important character and relationship moments. The show also used music really well, and I think it was bold of them to have them kiss on screen, have them have sex on screen. It unfortunately led to this huge backlash, but it was a bold thing to do at the time.
I will say, I watched the show and then my insatiable curiosity got me. I was like, well, the show didn't get to finish. So let me go find the novel and read it. Oh, my friends, I do not recommend that anyone read this novel. Oh my god. I mention it specifically because if you think that there were squicks or tropes that you find distasteful or problematic aspects of the show, I will tell you that they improved on that book like a hundredfold. No exaggeration. The book is horrific. That is my one word summary: horrific. Please do not read it if you have any sensitivities about any of this stuff.
The show, I think, is a successful adaptation that got to the core of what was compelling about that book and the relationship that it depicted and brought it to life on screen without using most of the worst shit that was in that book. So I do give the creators of that show props.
I wish they had gotten to finish what they started. I feel like if the show hadn't been banned, it would have been briefly popular and then probably faded. But because it got banned, because the story got cut off abruptly in the way that it did, it became an important symbol for BL and for queer rights in China. That's why, in my opinion, it has endured and that's why people still watch it.
NiNi
Quick round robin question to sort of tie off that question. What is your favorite OG, probably terrible in terms of production quality and acting, but you love it anyway?
Shan
TharnType.
NiNi
Benjamin?
Ben
Man, that's hard.
Shan
Is it? I mean, maybe it's hard to pick one, but you definitely have some.
NiNi
I mean, I thought you would go straight for Make it Right.
Shan
Same, I'm like, Ben, it’s Make it Right! [laughs]
Ben
I mean, my heart is saying Make it Right, but I was like, let me at least consider what else was going on at the time.
The actual answer is Make it Right. The most ridiculous experience is Lovesick. One of the benefits of being a new fan is how organized the fandom historians are about stuff now. When you decide to watch Lovesick, you know you're gonna watch 48 episodes. In 2017, I did not know! I watched the first season and was like, oh, that was kinda cute. Oh, there's more? How fun! I was 14 episodes into the second season. I’m like, “This doesn’t feel like it’s wrapping up anytime soon! What is happening?”
I remember this so clearly. I was at the Toronto International Film Festival with one of my best friends and one of their friends. Having a blast. And I remember walking around with them and having like a real emotional crisis over this. I was like, I don't think I've ever gotten tired of watching gay media before, but I really think I'm tired of watching the show. This was around episode 22 of Lovesick season two. I was like, I don't know how to feel about this. Like I'm tired of this. [laughs]
NiNi
Episode 22, you had 14 more to go.
Ben
It was like a question mark about when this fucking show was gonna end.
Shan
I could not live that way. I need to know what I'm signing up for.
Legitimately the answer is Make it Right. Despite how bad it is, the gay ideas inside of Make it Right are some of best of the era.
NiNi
Okay, well, y'all know the answer to mine, so I'm not even gonna say it.
Shan
We will say it for the benefit of the people.
It's Love by Chance.
Ben
Is it Love by Chance?
NiNi
Definitely Love by Chance.
Ben
Love by Chance is also a great choice. I really hate that fucking New Siwaj gets to get two points in that response. That's incredible.
NiNi
We said OG! And that's what we meant. OGs.
19:13 - Inbox: BL and Queer Cinema
Shan
Let's go to the next question, shall we? Okay, this one's long, so strap in, folks. All right.
Ben
It's from Harry, so have a good time with it.
Shan
This one's from Harry, or @hazmatilda on Tumblr. They write:
“Ben! NiNi! Next season soon! Yay! I've been a loyal listener since you first announced the project and have thoroughly enjoyed hearing your opinions and seeing the way the pod has transformed over the past couple of years!”
Had some good conversations with a friend about the QL sphere recently - she's a queer cinephile, and while she was visiting we watched a back to back viewing of The Iron Ladies (2000) and Eating Papaw on the Seashore (2022) for quite the evening! They don't have a lot of respect for the shows I watch, despite me managing to get them to watch one or two over the years, and then more during her visit. (Something about the BL sphere being solely fujos in their 20s...)” Yeah, I've heard that one.
“But talking about the pod may have convinced her that there is valuable discussion to be had. Which, I guess, is a win? The ep where you talked about Marahuyo Project (which is one of my favourite shows) specifically piqued their interest, which was a favourite discussion of mine too, especially as we were able to watch the show together. I appreciate the work you do!
I feel like this QL season was one with a lot of interesting stories, but not many stuck the landing. Certainly looking forward to hearing you talk about ThamePo if that's on your list. As an interfan, and one who is not in any of the more extreme fan circles, seeing the way the show tackled a (toxic? overbearing? business as usual?) fanbase was enlightening, specifically in the expectations and roles of the fanbase for creators. Certainly something to be said about the industry there. I know you don't have an awful lot of faith in GMMTV helming BLs in Thailand right now, but I feel like I'm more concerned with the way they are (or aren't) protecting their talents... Idol culture also popped up in Gelboys, which is defs a show I'm keen to hear you talk about if you plan to!
I also finally watched Theory of Love after last season, and have enjoyed following the related cinema challenge. Can't say it's my favourite OffGun outing, but certainly my favourite part of fandom is the ensuing conversation and meta!
Also, See Your Love! Finally a disability BL that didn't drop the ball? Such high hopes for Pluto in the regard, especially from the first couple of eps... Oh well.” Wow, I love these show reviews, Harry. These are great.
“Not many questions on my end for you today, but I did just want to pop in for the first time and share my love and some thoughts! Keen as for the winter season (despite it meaning my summer is leaving... It's cooling down and I am not happy.)
I hope you guys had a somewhat restful break, despite. Well. Everything.
- Harry”
Thank you, Harry. I'll just note that we are getting to your question kind of late. So the season has changed, but we appreciate it.
NiNi
I mean, we're getting to the question so late it might have come back around to being accurate. Like, winter is coming. Summer is leaving.
Shan
Winter is coming!
Ben
I love Harry so much. I'm so glad you messaged us. Harry and I have had quite a few fun discussions over the years. I'm very glad you got your friend to watch some of BL, but your friend is correct. If they're a queer cinephile, BL is not concerned with queer truth as its primary reason. If you're here as a queer cinephile, it's a pain in the ass.
The only thing I will say to your friend is you can't just dunk on BL as fujos in their 20s because there are fujos in their 70s who still love Star Trek. Fujos will always be fujos. They're underpinning a lot of this. It's a complicated experience to be a fan of this genre. You gotta share space with a lot of people you weren't expecting to share it with.
NiNi
Isn't that just the experience of fandom overall? You're just gonna be sharing space with people who do not see the things the same way you see the things. And that can be incredibly annoying and has been for us sometimes. But also, we are meant to be a big tent, I guess.
Ben
That is not a universal opinion. [laughs]
Shan
Let's close the tent, let's keep it nice and small.
NiNi
Look, the tent is at least big enough to fit me and Shan.
Shan
There you go.
NiNi
That's a fairly big tent, I think.
Shan
It’s a fairly big tent!
Ben
I'm really glad you got your friend to watch Marahuyo Project. That's a good one to show a queer cinephile. I think your friend probably actually gets some enjoyment out of Oppan, too.
NiNi
I think your friends should look at our VIIBs list for standout queer narratives and watch those. I think they would enjoy those.
Ben
Basically, check in with us once a year. We'll tell your friend what's worth watching.
24:09 - The Theory of Love RomCom Rewatch
NiNi
Harry mentioned the Theory of Love Cinema Challenge. I want to dive into that a little bit. Y'all know I am not a fan of Theory of Love. Shan has gotten Ben to rewatch it and change his opinion. It will not happen for me.
Ben
TWICE. Shan got me to watch this goddamn show fucking twice.
[NiNi laughs]
Shan
I want to say that the second rewatch was entirely his fault.
Ben
I made the foolish mistake of musing on this podcast where Shan could hear it—
Shan
[laughs] Never do that if you don't want to be embroiled in a project.
Ben
—on the idea of a Theory of Love rewatch where we actually watched the films that were the thematic thrust of the episodes of the show. There's 13 movies for 13 episodes. Shan was like, “That sounds great. I love a project. We also have nothing else good to watch. Let's do that.”
So we went and watched all 13 films with each episode over the course of just over four months with some of our homies. You can look at the #tol romcom rewatch tag on Tumblr and view our joy and dismay and horror at this project.
We watched Dear Dakonda, a pretty famous Thai film. We watched Love Actually, an unfortunately famous Western Christmas movie. We watched Friends with Benefits, an American romcom with Mila Kunis and the original thief Justin Timberlake. We watched Crazy Stupid Love. We watched 10 Things I Hate About You. We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We watched Flipped. We watched The Proposal.
Shan
—I'm gonna get mad.
Ben
—The Last Moment. Begin Again—I actually like that one. He's Just Not That Into You. My Girl—another famous Thai movie. And Stand By Me, a fairly famous American film.
Let's not get into all the reviews of these films.
Shan
We could be here all night.
Ben
I will say this much, as someone who likes film, this was a very worthwhile project. This was a really interesting look at a bunch of the kind of movies that a wannabe cinephile who can't read—
NiNi
—What? [Shan laughs]
Ben
—would select.This is such a healing experience for me.I can finally let go of Third. [NiNi laughs] That boy is so stupid and he has such terrible taste in film. [Ben and Shan laugh] The best film on this list was one Khai selected.
Shan
Yep! That was my favorite part of the rewatch, when we finally got to a good movie and we realized it was Khai's pick, not Third’s. [laughs]
Ben
Third is a romcom trash girly—his is not me dunking on romcoms; we watched some good romcoms in this list. Third has horrible taste in romcoms and does not know how to watch a movie.
Shan
Inside the show, Theory of Love, Third is a film reviewer. He is watching and referencing these movies that are on our romcom rewatch list. And each of the episodes of Theory of Love is named after the corresponding movie. That's how we actually know which movies Third likes and what he thinks of these movies. And it's not just that he has bad taste. He's a horrible meta analyst and critic. He did not understand most of these movies.
This is actually intentional in the story. Third is a hopeless romantic who's a little bit dumb and in love with his own misery. And he's taking all the wrong lessons from these romcoms he's obsessed with.
Ben
He clearly never finished 10 Things I Hate About You.
I'm gonna go through some quick hits. Dear Dakanda: I was really impressed with the film, but overall, I hated the main character and the core themes of that movie. I think it's a deeply troubling film. And Thai people, we should reflect.
That being said, there's a lot of horrible American and Canadian ones on here.
Shan
Yeah, we got lots to go around.
Ben
The next one was Love Actually. The fact that I will have that horrible song stuck in my head for the rest of my life is a real travesty.
NiNi
Welcome, welcome to the experience.
Ben
I hate that movie.
I can't believe, like I finally get to the iconic scene with the fucking cards in that movie. And it is the most fucked up thing of all time.
Shan
You never knew the context of that scene!
Ben
I never knew the context and I don't care. I’m spoiling it for anybody who’s never seen it.
NiNi
Leave it to them. Everybody should discover this movie for themselves. Can I just mention though this is a bad movie, I don't hate it.
Shan
You know what, NiNi, that is the least surprising thing you've ever said to us. [laughs]
NiNi
We all know that I enjoy some absolute trash.
Shan
See?
Ben
Where is the Harlem Nights gif? I need it right now.
NiNi
Is it a trash movie? Yes. Do I enjoy it? Parts of it.
Shan
We watched these movies with a group of friends and one of our friends wrote such a scathing take down (@solitaryandwandering) of this movie. [Ben and Shan laugh] We’ll link it because it's so good.
You should just go read some of the reviews of these films that we wrote. It was very fun.
Ben
We watched Friends with Benefits—not a terrible movie, but gets most of the normal romcom things wrong by misunderstanding its core characters and hating its girls.
We watched Crazy Stupid Love. Is that the one that had Ryan Gosling in it?
Shan
That was one of the better movies to come along.
NiNi
That’s a good movie!
Ben
That movie was way better than I expected.
Shan
Yeah, it was one of the better ones.
Ben
I was surprised. Third did not understand it at all.
Shan
No, he didn't.
Ben
He clearly was just using all these movies because they had titles that were allowing him to be dramatic. He did not watch these movies.
Shan
[laughs] Yes. Third’s analysis of this film is on the level of, like, “Love, it's so crazy and stupid.” Like that's it. [Ben laughs] That's all he has to say. That's the level of meta analysis he's bringing to the table.
Ben
I hate that boy so much now, let me tell you. And he's the screenwriter for their company?
Ben
I don't believe it.
We watched 10 Things I Hate About You—a pretty decent Shakespeare adaptation, honestly. Very good use of a lot of young talent at the time that went on to have pretty decent acting careers.
We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of the most incredible sci-fi romance movies I've ever seen in my life.
NiNi
I am always telling people to watch that movie. Always.
Ben
Also, Mark Ruffalo is always willing to give us bulge in movies. Thank you always, sir.
NiNi
I can't stand your ass. [Shan laughs] No, but seriously, Eternal Sunshine is one of the movies that I am constantly recommending to people. I think it is one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Shan
It's really good, and it was linked to the episode of Theory of Love where we get a perspective flip. It was really beautifully done. I was incredibly impressed by the screenwriting for the show in the first half and how all of these movies that we watched tied in so clearly thematically to the episodes of the show and the things that were happening in the relationships.
Eternal Sunshine is all about that grief of a relationship lost and trying to recover from that and making a drastic choice because it's so hard. And this is the pinnacle episode of Theory of Love where we get the perspective switch, we find out what's been going on the whole time and we see Khai start to grieve the mistakes that he's made in the relationship that he's lost.
That was probably my favorite week of the whole project. The movie was so good. The tie-ins to the episode were so clear. One of my favorite episodes of the show. In the second half of the show, I do have to unfortunately report that the thematic ties between the films and the show started to fall apart a little bit.
Ben
It's just all bad.
Shan
From here on out. [laughs]
Ben
That's not true. There's like one good film in the back half of this.
But the next one we watched was Flipped. And this one sucked the second most.
Shan
I'm just viscerally mad now hearing the title.
Ben
This was one of the absolute worst films I have ever watched in my life.
Shan
Horrible.
Ben
And this is Third's favorite film.
Shan
His fucking favorite movie. He says it a million times!
Ben
It is the most asinine, tedious film I have ever watched. It's bad and Third should be ashamed of himself. [Shan laughs]
We watched The Proposal. That's the Sandy B and—
Shan
—That was actually pretty good, too.
Ben
—which one of the Ryans is that?
Shan
Reynolds.
Ben
There you go. That one was a lot of fun to watch, but kind of dark because it's an immigration romance.
Shan
The immigration piece of it hit weird in 2025. Not gonna lie. But it's a cute movie.
Ben
It has Sandy B. She's good. She can't save every film that she's in.
NiNi
How dare you? [Everyone laughs] Speed 2: Speed on a Boat.
Ben
I said what I said!
NiNi
Too speedy, too oceanic. How dare you?
Ben
I said what the fuck I said. She has owned it herself and was like, I should not have said yes. Keanu warned me and said, don't do it girl.
The next, ninth film was The Last Moment, which is only on here because clearly GMM was like, we need to put one of our movies in this little show.
Shan
Yeah, they must have forced it because it does not belong at all.
Ben
It is probably the worst film on this list.
Shan
Oh, I hated it.
Ben
And I will never get over Piss Boy in my life. I will not be providing context for that. That is a trigger just for the people who watch that with us.
Shan
You don't want to know! Don't ever watch that film. Not that you will. We had to go through some trials to even find it to watch.
Ben
We watched Begin Again. That has Mark Ruffalo and...
Shan
Keira Knightley.
Ben
I actually love Keira Knightley a lot and I think she and Mark are fantastic in this movie. Holy shit, this was legit. Of all the films that we watched, Eternal Sunshine is the one I'm most grateful that I watched, but this was honestly the sleeper movie of the entire project for me. I was not expecting to be as enamored with this movie as I ended up being. This was an excellent romcom.
And I really don't want to spoil it. If you're ever in the mood for a romcom, go watch this. It'll be good for you.
Shan
It's a music movie that has good music.
NiNi
I see that it's by the same people who wrote Once and I love Once so I will definitely be taking this one in.
Ben
It is an incredible movie. Like, I was deeply emotionally moved by it.
Shan
Yeah, we were all really into it more than we expected to be.
Ben
And then we watched He's Just Not That Into You, one of the WORST FILMS of the project! This is like the number three worst film we watched! Holy shit!
Shan
We knew that one was going to be bad, though. It's based on that terrible book that was really popular in the early 2000s that's just basically negging women. Horrible.
Ben
I can't believe they used Justin Long that way.
Shan
There was a shocking, well, I won't call it shocking, but there was quite an abundance of deeply misogynistic films on this list.
Ben
We watched My Girl, a very famous Thai film. I really loved the nostalgia of this particular film project a lot.
Shan
Yeah, it's one of those classic “adult looks back on their childhood and reminisces” and to be clear, no relation at all to the English My Girl film, just similar name.
Ben
It was an excellent film. I have some issues with the adult section of it, but the nostalgia section, fantastic.
Shan
Yeah, the kid stuff was awesome.
Ben
The kid actors were great.
And then we finished off with fucking Stand By Me. Oh my God.
Ben
This film is famous only because River Phoenix and Will Wheaton awoke many things in lot of young people. But this is a dark, really mean film.
Shan
I don't like it. I hated it. I actually, like, viscerally hated it. I had trouble watching it, which doesn't usually happen to me. Mmmm. Not for me.
Ben
So our final thoughts, was the project worth it for us? Yes. Should any of you actually do what we suggested? Probably not.
[NiNi laughs, followed by Ben and Shan]
Shan
I think it's really fun if you are the type of person who enjoys unpacking the context and influences around the media that you enjoy. I do think it was a way to get more insight into the characters in Theory of Love, which was fun for me because that's a show that I already really love and it added a new layer. But some of these movies are not good. So don't put yourself through that if you are, like, really committed to the bit in the way that we are.
Ben
Feel free to just read our reviews and decide if you actually want to watch the films.
If you're a big fan of Thai BL, I actually think it would be very beneficial to watch Dear Dakanda and My Girl. I think it would be helpful in general to engage with more mainstream Thai film, especially that was made before 2010, because that's the films that informed a lot of the creators that you're fond of now.
You do not need to watch The Last Moment and deal with Piss Boy.
Shan
Please don't. I beg you, don't do it.
NiNi
I will suggest that people watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 10 Things I Hate About You ,Crazy Stupid Love.
Shan
I wanna just double down on endorsing Begin Again. I think a lot of people haven't seen that film and it was surprisingly great.
Ben
It really was. I think of all the films I watched in this one, Eternal Sunshine and Begin Again are the two that I am most glad that I watched.
Shan
I got one final question for Ben. We've now come to the end of two Theory of Love rewatches, and I feel like you evolved a bit on each. Where are you sitting now with it?
Ben
Third… is… trash. [NiNi and Shan laugh] Like there's a part of me that actually doesn't want Khai to make the turn because I don't think Third deserves it. I think Third is a pretty horrible friend. It's notable, when they did their pandemic special, that they clearly realized they lost the audience on Third and they tried to do a bunch of repair work to show that Third was growing out of this ball of resentment that he was.
Shan
Mmhmm.
Ben
These were a horrible group of boys.
NiNi
Exactly! These are bad friends!
Ben
Third really lost me on this outing. Khai becomes more sympathetic each time I watch the show. I know that's hard to believe, NiNi, but honestly, he's the only character who's written in such a way that they actually experience an arc. His character actually internalizes the events that happen to him and tries to change his behavior. And that's really frustrating to recognize in the third watch that Third himself never experiences a moment of personal growth in all of this.
Shan
Mmhmm. I'm telling you, Khai is the hero of this show.
Ben
It's a tough pill to swallow, but all of us who overidentified with Third, we got some soul searching to do. We got some baggage to unpack.
Shan
Work on your drama therapy, people.
Ben
Myself included. Like I watched this when I was like 27, I'm 35 now, I have grown. I am not that boy anymore
Shan
It’s great to see, bestie. I believe in drama therapy. It's real.
Anyway, thank you for the question, Harry. It was a fun project for us to do, and it was fun to have people follow along.
38:51 - Girl, You Tried
Shan
We're going to get to a couple of the other notes that Harry left.
NiNi
We are now headed into the last part of our lagniappe episode, our signature segment called Girl, You Tried.
This season has encompassed most of the year, and, uh, it's been bad.
Shan
Mhmm. NiNi, these girls are not trying.
NiNi
They're not trying at all. It's so hard to pick any that are even attempting.
Going back to the original point of Girl, You Tried, it is all about shows with a good idea and terrible execution, but some of these girls are not trying. The ideas are not there. We came up with a list of three that we could stretch to say that they tried. I actually enjoyed all three of these, Shan and Ben have other thoughts.
So the three nominees for the first two thirds of this year's Girl, You Tried are ThamePo from GMMTV, Us the Series, a GMMTV GL, and When it Rains, it Pours—Futtari Doshubari from Japan.
Since Harry asked us about ThamePo, I will let Shan go first because she has thoughts.
Shan
My experience with ThamePo was actually pretty fun for me. I watched it in a way that was correct for me, which is I did not watch it week to week with everybody. I tend to get pretty frustrated with GMMTV BLs when I watch them weekly.
So I took a different approach this time. I said, you know what, I'm gonna wait. If at the end people are still saying they really like the show, I'm gonna binge it. When shows have pacing issues or when there is some messiness in the writing or things just don't progress in a way that feels satisfying, I can get over that much better when I'm binging than when I am watching week to week and having a lot of time to ruminate and get frustrated in between episodes. So I watched ThamePo in a binge and it was actually pretty fun.
I enjoyed the show. I certainly did not experience the fervor about it that many people seemed to. It didn't strike me as a show that quote unquote invented romance. I did not think that the main pair and their story was as compelling as many people seemed to think. It was just a perfectly okay, middle of the road romance for me. I liked the romance parts of the show. I liked the group dynamics and the friendships.
What I didn't really vibe with was anything about the idol industry. The show just got that super, super wrong, like catastrophically crazy wrong. And it bothered me through the entire show. None of the plots that were about the idol industry really made any sense. The main characters that were rooted in the industry, like, the group's boss and the people around them, their motives and actions didn't really make sense. I thought the music and the performances were bad.
But I did enjoy, like, the main thrust of the romance. I was really into Lego's character was my favorite. I just thought he was fun. So I had fun with it. It wasn't that deep for me. And it certainly didn't stick with me in the way that some of the classic GMMTV BLs I love did. But I thought it was a perfectly good show. They did try. It had really good production values.
NiNi
It was a Parbdee show.
Shan
And it looked like it, like they clearly put money into this. The whole look of the show was gorgeous. There was so much cool stuff going on in the visuals and the costumes. I really enjoyed just visually watching it. I definitely think it's a show that deserves acknowledgement for its effort to tell a decent story.
NiNi
Yeah, I watched it week to week. So I had a different experience from Shan on this. I enjoyed the romance. I thought it was a pretty good slow burn. Watching it week to week was excruciating in a good way. I love the theme song. I listened to it almost every day.
I am not steeped in idol industry stuff. So that stuff stood out to me less than it would have stood out to Shan, who is really, really immersed in this stuff. I overall had a good time with this show. It was gorgeous to look at and it sounded really good.
I think that they put effort into it. They did trs.
Shan
Did Ben Watch ThamePo? You didn't, right?
NiNi
Ben did not watch ThamePo.
Ben
I sure didn't! [laughs]
Shan
I didn't think so, but I just wanted to double check.
Ben
I will say this for ThamePo. I thought the two leads had very nice lips, based upon the gifs I saw.
NiNi
[laughs] Ben’s Lip Watch.
Shan
They took good care of those lips.
Ben
I didn't see a single #LipWatch2025 moment in any gifs and you know what? I'll take it. But all of the mooning and screaming about these boys didn't speak to anything interesting happening from a queer perspective in this show. So, I felt no desire to watch it. And I do not feel any FOMO.
NiNi
I think that's fair. Because even when I was watching it, I was like, I don't necessarily think that anybody else needs to watch it, but I'm having a good time.
Shan
The things the show does well are not things that really matter to you, Ben. So I think that was the right call for you.
Ben
I feel like if I had watched it, I'd just be irritated at this point. So it's probably for the best.
NiNi
Moving on to the next nominee. I think this is one that only I watched, which was Us the Series, which is a GMMTV GL with Emi and Bonnie. I love Emi Thasorn. So I was definitely inclined to watch this.
The show kind of, in Trini parlance, hit us a six for a nine. Like the way it was promo’d was actually not what the show was about. It was more of a family trauma narrative. I actually got really into the show. I think that all the acting was great. I think that the underlying story was great. There is a terrible parent who is not forgiven, Shan will be happy to know.
Ben
So what is the story, girl?
Shan
Well, yes, this is my experience of this show. I watched episode one and I was repulsed by it and I stopped watching the show.
Ben
Like, that's all I remember, and I remember Twig gritting their teeth through the whole show.
Shan
Me and several of our friends watched it together and were like, no thank you. Goodbye.
Ben
So like, what was the story here?
NiNi
Let me see if I can pull together a explanation.
Ben
You put it on this list, girl! You gotsta!
NiNi
I think the reason that Shan, and Twig, and the others hated the show is that it starts with a big lie and you think that the show is just gonna be about the romance. So the big lie in the beginning is one of the things that you're just like, oh no.
But actually, the big lie goes away fairly early and the romance actually is done and dusted fairly early. And the rest of the story is about Bonnie's character, who is the little sister of Sing Harit's character. They have this terrible father who has been cheating on his wife their entire lives. They have multiple siblings out there. One of their siblings is actively trying to ruin their lives, which is how the big lie happened, because she was working with the girl who was with Sing and eventually fell in love with Bonnie. That part went away really quickly, because she was like, no, I actually like this girl. I'm going to tell her the truth. I'm not going to be part of your thing. And then homegirl goes off the rails.
And that was actually the majority of it. Homegirl went off the rails and Sing's character trying to be the glue that holds his family together and basically having a nervous breakdown over it.
Shan
Wow. That is really not as advertised.
NiNi
It was advertised as like this love triangle or that basically that Emi's character was with Sing's character and then cheated on him with his sister, which is not what happened at all. It really is more of a family trauma narrative. A lot of it is about Sing's character basically having this slow motion, nervous breakdown.
Bonnie's character has left the family at the beginning of the story, she's living on her own. She will not go back. Her father slept with her teacher and had a kid and nobody wants it to tell the mom. It was a giant familial mess. But in the end, not only is the father not forgiven, I think he actually does something that ends him in prison. So there's a lot there that nobody really expected.
But in terms of the actual two romances there's Emi and Bonnie and there's View and Mim, who is Bonnie and Sing's half-sister in the story. Those are actually pretty good, solid romances. Emi and Bonnie have great chemistry. View plays an amazing lesbian when you give her the right script.
I quite enjoyed it. I don't think it's for everybody, but I also want people to know that it is not as advertised.
Shan
I guess they thought that something that looks more like a salacious GL cheating plot would attract more attention, but that's what turned a lot of people off of it, I think.
NiNi
Emi's character doesn't actually cheat on Sing's character. She breaks up with him when she realizes that she's in love with his sister.
The terrible promotion is the part where they did not try, but on the actual story, they tried, they tried and they genuinely, on most of it, succeeded.
Okay, so that moves us on to the final nominee for the Girl Who Tried this season. And there is definitely a split decision on this one. When it Rains, it Pours—Futtari Doshubari.
Shan
Here we had like the opposite, NiNi, where me and Ben watched this week to week and you binged it literally like just this weekend.
Ben, you watched this one and thought about it quite a lot. Do you wanna give the overview?
Ben
Sure. When it Rains, it Pours is an adult romance story where two guys who work at the same company end up becoming unexpected pen pals because of a typo in an email address, and end up using each other sort of as a journal to dump about the frustrations they're having in their relationships. Our more optimistic guy has been with his longtime girlfriend and she seems to be increasingly sex repulsed. This is leading to distance in their relationship and causing him a great deal of uncertainty and frustration. Our other guy is gay and in a very strange cohabitation with his childhood friend who seems determined to take care of him but will absolutely, in no uncertain terms, fuck him at all.
The two of them get steadily closer in their emails and then eventually realize that they've been emailing each other, which turns into them hanging out with each other more. And in the building frustration and loneliness they're feeling, they end up finding a connection in each other and then deciding to go forward with the emotional affair they've been having for a while and turn it into a full-on sexual affair. This eventually leads to both of their relationships blowing up and in the aftermath the two of them are going to maybe try to be together.
This should have been a pretty solid show for us to talk about. Unfortunately, the week to week experience of this show led to a lot of frustration that I think you were spared, NiNi. I noticed you had like a really positive experience at a specific moment. And I went back and read our commentary at the moment. And basically we had your response and then had it ripped because the book readers were like, that's a cop out from the show because this is the story these guys were actually telling.
I think that's the consistent problem with this particular show. It withholds key moments and leaves them off screen for the audience to determine what happens there. I don't enjoy the constant emotional ambiguity that I was left with when it comes to this show. More specifically, because sex was such an important sticking point for both of the characters for why they were so willing to get involved in an affair, I really think this show being a little chaste about its sex was not a good choice.
I also think that they did a bad job with the gay pair, because I think they really did a disservice to the Fujisawa character. Which is not fair, because they actually did a great job with the Kaori character, because I actually really loved the breakup scene in particular. I think that character was given a great deal of grace by the narrative overall, and I think that that section of the story landed the most cleanly for me.
Shan
This one is a tricky one to unpack and talk about because there's a novel, there's what the show ended up doing, and then there's what I actually hoped the show was going to do, which is neither of those things. So, there's a few different versions of the show swimming around in my head and the more I learned about the novel the more I kind of thought, hmm, I don't think I would have liked that novel.
In the book, Fujisawa is very much an evil mustache twirling villain. Which is not something that I would have been interested in. So I am glad that the show changed that. I just don't think that the ways that the show changed the narrative actually landed very well because as Ben said, there was a lot of ambiguity in the changes that they made that was not intended to be there. That ended up becoming most evident and unfortunate in the dubious consent, non-consensual, however you want to call it, sex scene that was depicted in the penultimate episode that was in the book a violent sexual assault.
We went to talk to folks after the episode and learned that there were so many different interpretations of what happened in that scene and nobody was entirely sure what we were supposed to think happened or what it meant. Which is really not good when you're talking about something as serious as assault from an abusive character. So that made me pretty uncomfortable.
I just was really disappointed that that was the direction the story went because what I found most compelling about this show when it started was that it seemed to be about these two relationships where it wasn't that anybody was villainous. It was just that the desires of the people in these relationships were mismatched. They were trying to force these long-term relationships that weren't working because they wanted different things than their partners. I really liked that as an idea to unpack, and I liked, too, that our two main characters did not actually deal with those things in a healthy way, and that led them to make the decision to cheat. I thought that that felt very human and very realistic in terms of how affairs like that tend to happen.
That's part of why I was extremely disappointed when they turned the gay side of that equation into a straight up, like, abusive controlling stalker situation. That really undercuts what I thought we were doing here. And it's just not what I wanna be watching. And then on top of that, they added ambiguity where there wasn't supposed to be ambiguity, and that created a lot of confusion and muddled their messaging a bit. I see what they were trying to do, I think. But the show for me was kind of a weird experience all the way through. There were always parts of it that I found compelling, and there were always parts of it that I didn't think were working. So it never fully clicked for me.
I appreciated, though, that there was clearly a lot of thought that the creators were trying to do something interesting here. There was a lot of care that went into, like, the visuals of the show. It just never came together for me. And the way the last few episodes played out with a lot of major important scenes and important themes from the book being removed but not fully and leading to this weird ambiguity.
I agree with Ben that them not including the actual pivotal sex scene of the book is a head scratcher. They kind of had them go from entering an affair with ambiguous or unclear feelings for each other into just like a snap of a finger, suddenly they're passionately in love, but we didn't see any of that because they cut it all out of the story. That was a big miss for me.
I did really like the Kaori breakup scene and I liked the way that her arc was handled all the way through. It's a show that I think belongs in the Girl, You Tried consideration because it did try. It did do some interesting things, but it just didn't cohere. And it certainly did not provide a consistent experience for the people who watched it.
NiNi
This is actually the first time we've gotten to talk about it, because I literally just finished it today. But I think that I benefit from a few different things. One, that I binged it, I think is definitely changes the tenor of a lot of it for me. Two, that I'm just coming off of editing our conversation about Heesu in Class 2, and three, I have sort of developed a level at which I approach Japanese drama that doesn't for me read ambiguity so much as reticence to portray certain things. I also was not engaged in any of the conversation around it. I was not familiar with the story. I didn't know anything about the novel. I went into it completely blind. I had no expectations whatsoever. And I think that that genuinely put me in a place to just be able to receive it, take it in just based on myself, I guess, and come to a conclusion that way.
So for me, when I watched it, I don't see any gaps. Normally, and Shan had pointed this out to me, I am good at filling in gaps where I see them, which is why I have a slightly better time with some shows than Ben and Shan do, but there's a difference between filling in gaps and there not being gaps for me and from my view of watching the story, I didn't find any gaps. That's my personal opinion.
Ben
So I guess that's the big question then for you, where you think we're describing gaps, what did you read?
NiNi
Shan talked about one around like the pivotal sex scene, which I assume is the sex between Sei and Fujiwara, yes?
Shan
Yeah, but not the part that we saw in the show. In the novel, they have the first very awkward sex, which is what we saw, and then after that, they have their emotional moment together. And that is when they start having real sex, good sex, passionate sex, and that is very intense and goes on for days. That is the part that the show cut out.
Ben
And that's what explains why he gets so sprung for the boy.
Shan
Yeah, that is when they actually passionately fall in love with each other, which is something that was not actually on screen in the show.
NiNi
To me, they fell in love before that. So that by the time they actually got to the sex it was a pivotal moment for them, yes, but not in terms of their emotions. For me, I'm seeing them having the emotional affair the entire time. And so the physical affair, when it comes, it's this turning point, but it doesn't do it for me.
Ben
This is the BL gay divide, and this is why I'm so angry about this particular part. This is a show about a gay man and a straight man getting together. I don't think glossing over the sexual awakening component of that is acceptable at all.
I'm not willing to just hand wave that as, well they were already having the emotional affair so the sex doesn't matter. It actually does because so much about what they were doing was wrapped up in notions of identity.
Glossing over what may have happened between Fujisawa and Sei is unacceptable, as well. One of them was absolutely refusing to have sex and then maybe tries to have sex, maybe tries to force sex, maybe rapes his boyfriend, maybe they have awkward bad sex finally. We're not entirely certain. But we know that both of them are kind of over it and emotionally spent the day after that.
This is a show where the sexual tension between the four main characters was critical to their characters and it was not well managed for me.
Shan
I'll just add, Ben mentioned earlier that like, for some of us, there was a more positive reaction and then we learned more about the book and then changed. That's not how I experienced it. I was disappointed the whole time. [laughs] From the jump, I was just like, uh-uh, nope, that was not it. They did not nail that.
I did not see what I needed to see for Hagiwara. For me, it was very startling to go from Hagiwara's uncertainty and still figuring out if he wanted this to then all of a sudden he is obsessively into Sei to the point where he's falling apart. Like that literally was a two minute transition on screen. And for me, I need to actually see that. I need to see him have the sexual awakening. I need to see him then tip into a more serious and passionate love. And I need to see that play out to the point where he starts to lose his grip. That's just not stuff you can skip for me.
NiNi
I think I definitely have a different view of that and that's maybe because of the way that I think about sex. But I take your points, both of you.
Ben
You call yourself the sex and story girl. This was a show about sex and they didn't have it.
NiNi
But that's exactly the thing. I didn't think the show was about sex because for me, the fact that they're not having sex with their partners, it's about the emotional pain of rejection more than it is about the physical desire for sex.
Ben
Which is why when they finally get the sex, it's supposed to be about how do they respond to affirmation.
NiNi
The scene when they're having sex when Sei tells Hagiwara, if they don't want this body or whatever it is that he says to him, that really hit me. I felt that incredibly emotional because it was to me validating. The show's about sex but it's also not about sex and I probably just under-indexed on the amount that it was about sex for me.
Shan
That's gonna have to be a your mileage very much varies. I can never excuse a show making the entire narrative about sex and then copping out when it comes time to actually show the sex. The only sex that we saw between them was the awkward sex. We didn't see the good sex. So that doesn't resonate to me at all as an argument.
NiNi
For everything that you guys have said, I completely see where you're coming from on this. I just had a totally different reaction to the show.
Shan
Yeah, that's fair.
Ben
I am going to reiterate that I just don't agree with that at all. I think it's completely unacceptable. This is one of those things where I'm actually kind of gay furious because Hagiwara's sexual awakening is important. If the show wants us to believe that he got sprung from this boy after a great dicking over the course of a weekend, like we don't have to see, like, them boinking per se, but like there are many artful ways to accomplish that.
The fact that Fujisawa would never touch that boy, him finally touching that boy, and that whole sequence being a little bit ambiguous and everybody not being certain what happened there is also extremely unacceptable for me. On top of that, making his whole reticence about the boy about some sort of really fucked up tragic loyalty because he feels guilty about maybe being the reason his parents died? Not good.
Shan
Yeah, I did not like that backstory.
Ben
This is one of the rare times I was with the aro-ace girlies. There's a really fascinating concept of devotion here that I think is being twisted badly. And the fact that like him finally having sex was about him sort of losing this feeling of possession, that needed to be fully played out. And I think the show cut away too fast on that. I'm just extremely frustrated about this entire experience.
Shan
You're more mad about it than I thought you were. I think you've gotten more mad over time. [laughs]
NiNi
Okay, so those are our three options for the Girl, Who Tried. And now we get to pick one.
Shan
How do we pick one from this little list here?
Ben
I don’t even know. I'm not giving it to Us, though, because I don't like this one just being something else entirely. That's frustrating. Prepping your audience for what they're going into and then giving them something else, that's bad. [laughs]
Shan
[laughs] I'll say the marketing team tried something. I don't know if it was a smart thing.
Ben
Like, at least for like ThamePo, I was like, okay, it looks like everybody got what they wanted out of that. whatever.
Shan
If they had advertised it as a family drama, most people would not have bothered to watch it. I would have watched it, but most people would not have.
NiNi
And because of that, I don't think that that could be the Girl Who Tried.
Shan
I get that. Thinking about ThamePo versus When It Rains it Pours, they're such different shows.
Ben
I think ThamePo has an argument in that they were trying to do an idol romance and it seems like the audience connected to that even if everybody who gives a shit about actual idol stories were like, what the fuck.
Shan
[laughs] Yeah, if you know about the idol industry, it's a tough show.
Ben
So I find myself resistant because I don't want to praise GMMTV for giving milquetoast idol commentary when they're the primary source of this shit.
Shan
It did get something right that Only Boo! got very wrong in that when the idols had to choose between their relationships and their careers, and they chose their relationships, there were actual consequences for that.
Ben
Okay, that's a point. I'll give them that.
Shan
They saw the error that they made in Only Boo! and did correct at least that part of it. Certainly they didn't land it perfectly, but I was glad that they improved on that.
NiNi
Okay, so we have one show that's kinda eh and another show that actively angered people. So which one? [laughs]
Ben
I feel like I want to give it to the show that pissed me off because my anger is specific. [Shan laughs] When it comes to When It Rains it Pours, like the arc is complete. We're not arguing about whether or not the show completed the story it was telling or whether or not it was doing what it was actually doing. The difficulty with this show is at key moments they left the audience hanging and then we have to sort of decide what actually happened in a way that gets us to the next scene. That's a specific frustration.
I keep going to the Kaori breakup scene. There's two key things she does in that scene that I really like. She talks about how she read the messages and while she was upset, one of the things that she noted was that despite everything, he never once said anything bad about her. And two, she told him to break up with her. She's letting him be the one who ends it. Even though he had an emotional affair and then a physical affair with someone else, she owned how she let him down and set him up for that. I think it's really significant that she's willing to be the one who was in the wrong TM and give him the position of the one ending the relationship.
Shan
I think that the creative team behind this show was really trying to do something here. I think they cared about it and I think that they succeeded in some ways in creating compelling characters, creating compelling dynamics.
I mean, the only reason you get mad about something is because you're invested in it, right? You wouldn't even get mad if you didn't care. The spirit of the Girl You Tried is a show that had good ideas and had good intent and had some real effort in the production that just maybe missed the mark here and there and didn't quite land it. That to me is what When It Rains it Pours is. So it feels like the right pick for me.
NiNi
It's better to talk about something that failed in an interesting way. And I think that based on what you guys are saying for you, it failed in a way that was at least discussable.
Shan
I think that’s right.
Ben
We had a lot to say, let me tell you. [laughs]
Shan
We sure had lot. I think it succeeded more for some people than others, but for the people for whom it failed, it was an interesting thing to discuss. There was a lot to unpack about why it didn't work. So I think that's right.
NiNi
I just want to point out people we are in August. And this is the first Girl You Tried we have gotten to all year.
Ben
It's a bad year, folks. I'm sorry.
Shan
Yikes.
Ben
The best show we had this year was made two years ago. That's how bad things are. [Shan laughs]
NiNi
So the Girl Who Tried is When It Rains it Pours. Congratulations, dubious honor.
You will go into the hopper for our Girl You Tried of the Year. You will probably win it considering there's nothing else happening.
01:08:04 - Outro: One Fuck Of A Year So Far
Shan
Wow, end of summer is here and here we are.
Ben
I'm sad.
We can't end on a sad note. Let's find something to be happy about. Is there anything interesting that you guys have watched in the last few weeks? Give me anything at all that made you happy.
Shan
Anything interesting... I am stalling for time...
Ben
I'm looking at my list.
Shan
[laughs] I am too, it's not looking great.
Ben
Pluem got us to start watching Rearrange. We’re one episode in. I can't say shit about a Thai BL one episode in.
Shan
But you did like the first episode.
Ben
I did, I think there were some good ideas in the first episode. This was hella gay. So I'm kind of into that.
Shan
I think, NiNi, we can give a shout out to Good Boy, which is a kdrama that we enjoyed watching quite a lot. The ending did not live up to our expectations. We had a good time watching it for most of the show.
NiNi
We did in fact. [laughs]
Shan
We are stretching here. We're doing our best to come up with things. Let's see. What else? [laughs]
Ben
Shine is very pretty even if I'm feeling rather dubious about how every episode it goes, “But what if rich people are sad too?”
NiNi
I still think that that is not actually the message.
Shan
I really hope that you're right, NiNi.
Ben
It isn't. But the problem is like every episode they go “You say rich people are bad and poor people are good. Is that fair?” They have asked that question in every single fucking episode.
NiNi
Yes, they have, but also they had the greatest intellectual foreplay of all time with two guys sending each other coded messages through romance books in the library.
Shan
I did see gifs of that. It piqued my interest. I was like, who is this tall drink of water flirting through books? But I shan't be watching this show until we get to the end and I am assured that it doesn't totally blow the class themes, because y'all know how I am.
NiNi
I had a good time with a Star Trek episode a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the last one was kind of a downer
Ben
You talking about the one where they put Kirk in charge? My dad really liked that one. He said it reminded him of the first day he was a principal.
I'm getting this in here before we go. You cannot have Kirk and Spock on screen together and they constantly doing No Homo shit around them the whole time.
[NiNi laughs]
This season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the most weirdly No Homo shit I have seen from Star Trek in a long time. It is genuinely uncomfortable. My dad, who is normally not even aware of this, is texting me like, what's up with all this straight shit? [Everyone laughs]
Shan
Wow, okay, so you know that's bad.
Ben
My father, an OG Star Trek fan who was not aware of any of the Spirk shit, was like, what's going on with all of this making Spock have a girlfriend every episode stuff?
And I'm like, thank you, Dad. It's a lot, isn't it? [Ben and Shan laugh]
Shan
Well, I didn't know this. This is a good update. I like to be at the very edge of the periphery of Star Trek, just having a very general knowledge of what's happening and never venturing in myself.
NiNi
Good to know.
Shan
So thank you for the update.
I will say this about the state of current dramas. I have retreated to rewatching Hometown Cha Cha Cha. That's where I'm at.
Ben
Wow. For people who want the gay update from me, I was trying to be super invested in 10 things I Want to do Before I Turn 40 and also trying to be super invested in Stay By My Side After The Rain. These are two shows that I really want to love, and unfortunately they just keep being so fucking weird.
Shan
It's true. [Ben and Shan laugh] I feel really bad, NiNi, because Ben's trying so hard to like these shows and they're just bad. They're not good.
NiNi
This is a rough year. I feel like the energy of the entire planet right now is misaligned.
Shan
I'm with you, something's not right.
Ben
It's not good. It's not good. We're all struggling. It's not fun.
NiNi
Yeah, there's very little fun to be had out here right now. I don't know, stay safe out there people.
Shan
I'm praying to the Sing My Crush gods. Please, just drop a show on us out of nowhere. Please, we need it.
[Ben laughs]
NiNi
The only thing I have left on my list right now is 25 Ji Akasaka De part 2. And the way that this year has been going…
Ben
We didn't even talk about it but I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama had a second season and it was barely about the leads at all. And when it finally was about them, it undercut its own core theme. The first show fucking ended on, “I want to like you as a man, not as an Aoyanagi Hajime fan.” And then the fucking end of season two, it's like, “The only thing I'm good at being is an Aoyanagi Hajime fan.”
“Okay, well, let's have sex.” No! Bad! [laughs]
Shan
I was pissed. We were so mad. Like don't come back just to destroy the things we love. Just stay gone, okay? I swear to God, if the 25 Ji one does it too, I'm gonna lose it.
Ben
We might have to retire for real real, not for play play.
NiNi
Maybe we'll go on hiatus. I don't know about retire.
Ben
I mean, I functionally have. I was so mad after the Heesu response that I took BL out of my header. I don't actually describe myself as a BL blog anymore.
Shan
He's mad at that fandom.
Ben
I cannot be associated with a fandom that thought that that show was horrible. There's a lot I can disagree with—the parts of BL that the girls are here for, I'm not always here for those things, but you know, more power to that we can share the space. No. At the point at which we're saying that this show is bad and convincing other would-be fans that this show is bad, we have failed. I don't wanna hear shit about how BL amplifies queer voices if we're saying that this show is bad. All of you can go fuck yourselves on that one.
Shan
Woo, that's a great note to end on.
NiNi
I mean, there isn't anything more to say. With that, we out. See us when you see us.
Shan
No promises of when that will be.
Ben
No promises we'll be back anytime soon. We might check in at the end of the year for awards. [laughs]
NiNi
We've got a couple of things on the horizon if we can get the scheduling lined up. Not about any actual shows, though. We're gonna do some industry deep dive stuff and then head into the end of the year. Womp.
Okay, all right. And with that, we out! Say bye to the people, Shan.
Senior Prom Square Dance: Gelboys and Heesu in Class 2
AND WE'RE BACK
NiNi and Ben returned the booth with @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles to discuss the love rhombus, teenage love in the modern age, the horrors of social media, and that one Zoom call from hell. We'll be unpacking the way the Gelboys all made each other worse in their quest for a dopamine hit, and how effectively Heesu in Class 2 used all of its elements to tell a coming out narrative.
Our knees hurt and the music is too loud. Ben, NiNi, Shan and friend of the pod Turtles talk Gelboys and Heesu In Class 2.
Episode transcri
Podcast Episode · The Conversation · 09/11/2025 · 1h 42m
<p>Our knees hurt and the music is too loud. Ben, NiNi, Shan and friend of the pod Turtles talk <em>Gelboys</em> and <em>Heesu In Class 2</e
Timestamps
The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.
00:00 - Welcome
00:55 - Introduction
08:36 - Gelboys: A Portrait of Modern Youth
17:32 - Gelboys: Technology, Loneliness and Distraction
30:58 - Gelboys: Our Not-So-Fab Four
40:30 - Gelboys: Perspectives On The Ending
44:28 - Gelboys: Final Thoughts and Ratings
53:17 - Heesu In Class 2
01:00:41 - Heesu In Class 2: The Story Is Storying
01:09:55 - Heesu In Class 2: Friendship, Family, Queerness and Acceptance
01:24:57 - Heesu In Class 2: On Seungwon
01:28:06 - Heesu In Class 2: The Galloping Disk Horse, Final Thoughts and Ratings
01:38:31 - Outro: Things Are Dire
The Conversation Transcripts!
Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.
Please send our volunteers your thanks!
00:00 - Welcome
NiNi
Welcome to The Conversation, the Queer Media And Brown Liquor Podcast.
Ben
I'm Ben, the media critic.
NiNi
I’m NiNi, the VIIBs queen.
Ben
And we are your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
NiNi
We’re here to talk queer film and dramas, with a special focus on Asian QL.
Ben
So if you like to dive deep into queer stories…
NiNi
If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce in queer media…
Ben
If you just enjoy simping for attractive people…
NiNi
We believe in simping!
Ben
Tune in!
00:55 - Introduction
Ben
And we're back. It's been a long time since we were back in the booth. We brought some friends along. Welcome back, Shan. Say hi, Shan.
Shan
Hi, people.
Ben
We've also brought our friend Turtles along, of the blog @waitmyturtles. Say hi, Turtles.
Turtles
Hey, everybody. I haven't been on the podcast this year, so happy 2025.
Ben
Yes, and what a year it is. [snirks, NiNi laughs]
NiNi
Oof!
Shan
The Year of Trash! [Ben and Turtles laugh] I feel that people should know that we're coming in salty and hot.
[Ben and NiNi laugh]
NiNi
All you need to know about this year is that it is almost August and we have put out exactly two episodes, and they were both about The Untamed.
Ben
Holy shit!
Shan
Doesn't that just say it all?
Turtles
That says everything.
Ben
We're talking about two of the shows we did manage to like this year. We're going to talk about Gelboys from Thailand, and we're gonna talk about Heesu in Class 2 from Korea.
Before we get into that. It's been a while since we had Turtles on the podcast. Turtles, you have been doing one of the longest-running BL projects, trying to do a proper historical watch of Thai BL focused on GMMTV. Where are you now and how's it going?
Turtles
So, thanks for checking in on my Old GMMTV Challenge project. Life takes a huge hit out of this kind of undertaking. And I'm very lucky to have a busy life with a family and kids. And those kids get older, and they demand a lot more time. So, I've only watched a couple shows this year.
I started the year out fabulously with a little side series called my Lakorn Corner, where I watched some very impactful, either queer shows or shows that had queer themes in them. They included The Fallen Leaf, Khun Chai/To Sir With Love, Laws of Attraction, and The Miracle of Teddy Bear. I am behind on writing about those shows.
I got a posts that I need to write about the rise of the GL genre, which now in 2025, it's really its own established thing. And maybe even arguably from a marketing perspective, more popular than the shows with the guys. And to NiNi's very anticipated excitement before the end of the year, I will watch My School President for the very first time.
NiNi
Thank you. Please, dear God.
Shan
It's been like two years of NiNi waiting for you to watch that show.
Turtles
I feel uncomfortably too old to truly enjoy GemFourth, but I'm going do my best.
Right after I finish My School President, I'm going to ruin the moment by doing a speed watch of My Love Mix Up Thailand—
Ben
—For fuck's sake.
Turtles
—to report on GemFourth before the Catholic show—
NiNi
—Don't do it! Don't do it!
Turtles
—and it's gonna be great and I'm gonna drink so much alcohol and it's gonna be really bad.
Ben
Will Turtles watch My School President before Fourth's hair finishes growing back?
Turtles
I think it's already back.
Shan
Definitely. You know how fast that short boy hair grows? No, the hair is already back.
Turtles (03:58)
You gotta look at his LV ads. I think it's already back. It's like more fluffy again.
Shan
Turtles
Those, like, pre-21-years-of-age hair hormones, man. But anyway, yeah, this old cougar is going to be watching some GemFourth. Watch out.
[Ben and NiNi laugh]
Ben
Not a cougar!
NiNi
Why are you like this, Turtles, why?
Turtles
It's Friday, I got a blue bottle, highly caffeinated coffee that should have some alcohol in it, but it doesn't. Shame on me.
Thanks for having me back on the pod.
Ben
We love you so much.
Turtles
I love all y'all.
Ben
Thank you for joining us.
Before we get into both of these shows, we're going to be talking about the way dramas, particularly Asian dramas, like to use the concept of the love rhombus. In Gelboys, we follow four different boys and the complicated relationships between each other. And Heesu in Class 2, we've got what eventually shakes out to two different couples as well. So before we get into the show discussion, we want Shan to provide some drama perspective on this very tried and true storytelling tool.
Shan
So there is, I think most popular in kdrama but used across Asian dramas, a romance structure that I always refer to as the love rhombus. Which is, there are four characters introduced at the start of the story. You might have a couple obvious leads and a couple obvious sides. You might have four leads. It can vary a little bit, but the thing that characterizes it as the love rhombus is they have these multi-directional lines of attraction, affection, love for each other, that are not mutual at the start. It's kind of like the classic, “he loves her, she loves him, he loves somebody else,” these messy things where everybody likes somebody different and nobody is attuned to the person that likes them.
It naturally creates a lot of back and forth drama, comedy, lots of opportunities for messy relationship development. And eventually, over the course of a story, these love lines get sorted out. So you'll see people getting confused, people realizing that the one they like doesn't like them and moving on from that, catching on eventually to the fact that somebody else does like them and hey, maybe actually they do like that person. And then you end up with two happy couples at the end and hopefully nobody feeling bitter about it.
It's not a typical structure that we see for BL. Normally in BL, we see really clear and non-mixy romances. You normally have a main romance, you have a side romance or multiple side romances, and they don't normally mix because a lot of BL is based around, like, this idea of pairs that are going to be very clearly the ones meant for each other and in their own story that runs parallel to the other couple's story the whole time. These two shows that we're gonna talk about today didn't stay in that typical BL lane and instead veered into the love rhombus.
NiNi
The love rhombus, the way that it usually plays out, lends itself kind of perfectly to youth romance because this is the time when everybody's hormones are bubbling and nobody really knows what they're doing. These are two stories that are focused heavily on that kind of back and forth of youth romance.
Shan is our Korean drama expert. Turtles has been doing this project on Thai drama. So we wanted to sort of look at how these two cultures are looking at both the love rhombus and youth romance.
Ben
Before we move on, since you are more familiar with the concept of the love rhombus, for each of you, you have like one or two examples of some of your favorite executions outside of BL?
Shan
Aw, Ben, you always give me the opportunity to talk about Coffee Prince and I appreciate it every single day.
Ben
I got you, fam, don't you worry!
Shan
Of course, Coffee Prince is my favorite love rhombus. Part of what makes, I think, a love rhombus a good story structure is that you get to see a little bit of messiness in the relationships.
You want the characters to be confused about who likes who and wondering if their feelings are returned and figuring out that they like someone they didn't think they liked. Coffee Prince has all of that in spades, even though the messy hets, as we like to refer to them, in that show are kind of annoying. They play a really crucial role in the story and really support the themes and the development of the main relationship.
Ben
NiNi?
NiNi
You put me on the spot and suddenly I can't remember ever having watched a show in my life.
Ben
She said, I've never watched a show in my life.
[Turtles laughs]
Ben
Go ahead, Turtles.
Turtles
I also have never watched a show in my life. I can't think of an example outside of the BL world that fits what Shan described so well.
08:36 - Gelboys: A Portrait of Modern Youth
NiNi
Okay, so let's move on into the first show that we're going to talk about, Gelboys from Thailand.
Ben, what is Gelboys about?
Ben
Gelboys is about how everybody who worked on I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon should still keep working.
Gelboys is a show about a group of high schoolers inside of Bangkok who are all very obsessed with each other, and have enough disposable income to make their lives worse over it. We were sponsored by Spotify and the Bangkok transportation system, and you are not gonna forget it while watching this show.
NiNi
Not when me and Ben here. Public transportation for the win! [Ben and NiNi Laugh]
Shan
Good!
Ben
Fou4mod is very much a typical teenager in that he's got a lot of big feelings about love and he's looking for a strong sense of belonging in his relationship. We begin with him breaking up with his girlfriend who doesn't really wanna be his girlfriend. She wants to have this whole “we're just friends who mess around” dynamic and he's just not that comfortable with the uncertainty of that. He breaks up with her, is incredibly dramatic about it in public, and then he gets on the Thai equivalent of Teeny Bop Grindr and starts looking for boys. Eventually, at his school, he starts vibing with this other boy who's clearly trying to play with him. He decides he's going to try and play a player and then proceeds to embarrass himself.
Meanwhile, the boy who he's fiending after is obsessed with his own friend, and Fou4Mod's best friend is secretly in love with him as well. Everybody seems to only fall for each other at the exact wrong time, and they never find themselves in correct alignment. It’s a hot mess.
Shan
And they do their nails a lot.
Turtles
A lot.
Ben
These boys were really fascinating to me because there's a lot of wealth aspirational stuff in a lot of the Thai BL romances, where we have a poor-ish person and an ultra-wealthy person as the two people we're dealing with. This was surprising for me in that we were dealing with a bunch of kids whose families were decently off, it felt like. These kids had money to spend on trolling each other getting their nails done, they had a garage band, they could order from the apps, and go out and do things. It felt like these kids had disposable income to blow. Like they went to Blackpink concerts, or at least Lisa's solo concerts.
What do the three of you think in general about the presentation of these boys middle-class-ish status in the show?
Turtles
From the Southeast Asian read, I think that there's somewhat of a cultural demand in a lot of Southeast Asia to present higher level or middle class socioeconomic ranges. It's certainly aspirational, it's content that sells. But when we think about the socioeconomic environment that was presented in Gelboys, I think the range itself was meant to nail the middle that is the majority of the audience that's watching the show. I think that the way that the show is being presented, and to whom the show is being presented, it was supposed to be most reflective of that one moment.
If I have money, I'm going to be spending it on all of this technology that I need to plug in in my classrooms and get on the wifi and be surrounded by devices and covering my ears with headphones, and I’m sharing playlists with my courtier or my beloved or whatever as we're getting our nails done. I think it would have been out of touch both in terms of the story itself, and in terms of who the stroll is being presented to, to fuck with those economic ranges.
Shan
I was very struck by how much money these boys were spending. They have expensive hobbies. They own guitars. They own gaming systems. They are kpop stans and they buy like kpop stans. That's a whole economy we can talk about. They spend a lot of money getting their nails done. They have a ton of disposable income and none of them work.
Ben
Chan moping over $500 worth of miniatures. “The boy won't talk to me.”
Shan
Seriously, the amount of money that they spent in this show was kind of insane considering how young they are and that none of them have jobs. And we saw that they're not rich-rich. Baabin's family seems to own a family restaurant. We didn't get a ton of insight into everybody's family, but the depiction was more like they were kind of comfortably middle-class, not like wealthy-wealthy. And yet the show had this ridiculous amount of spending happening for them with no real story mechanism to address where they were getting all that money from. You just kind of assume their parents must give them really generous allowance or something.
So, because I care about class depiction, because I'm always curious about this stuff, I do kind of wish the show had actually been a little bit more explicit about where all of that money was coming from, how they were able to spend so extravagantly for kids without jobs. I think that Turtles is probably onto something and that there is a little bit of aspiration in the way they were depicted spending money like that. Like it's to communicate to the audience that these kids are whatever morality and values you want to attach to families that have a comfortable level of income.
Turtles
When I was watching Gelboys, I think I watched it, absorbed it, and didn't really do a separate kind of economic analysis of where these kids were coming from. They spend a lot of time in malls, they do spend a lot of time shopping, they have their own instruments, all of that stuff. But also, I'm thinking of Fou4Mod’s overcrowded house where the floor was covered with products and his mom and his family are all doing live streams selling products. You actually saw the family, at least his family working.
And then Chian’s, he's alone and his family is away. So we know there's a middle class, maybe an upper middle class conversation going on. Fou4Mod's house, it's a very well lived-in house. The kitchen is crowded. It's small.
I think now that I'm thinking about it more, their ability to spend is one thing. What they're spending on is something else.
Shan
Yeah.
Turtles
I think for the audience that's watching it, the way that they spent money that they had would be spent exactly the way that the audience would expect them to spend it.
Shan
hey're clearly not meant to be wealthy-wealthy, but they're spending so much and they own and possess and continue to buy every single episode so many expensive things. And so it seems like part of the intentional commentary of the show, because the show is a lot about mindless consumption. The kind of mindless way that they engage in social media, in the way that they're always looking for something to consume. I think that this was part of that. I don't think it's an accident.
NiNi
There is some delineation between the characters. Going back to the idea of looking at youth culture in Bangkok in particular and what is considered important in youth culture and what these kids are actually spending the money that they do have from whatever source they get it on is really fascinating.
We see Fou4Mod during the course of the show swap phones with his sister, because his sister has an iPhone. He asks his mom to get him one, and she says no. So he swaps phones with his sister so that he can get an iPhone. It's things like that that really add to the whole consideration of about the restless consumption of youth culture. That's something that's universal and unending, timeless. Like when I was their age, it was the same thing. We were in the mall. We didn't really have any money, but we were in the mall, we'd save up whatever we had and buy CDs, and cheap sneakers, and t-shirts and all these kinds of things. But it was about showing that you could afford to, however you got the money, that you could go out and hang out and do the things that everybody else is doing and consume in the way that everybody else is consuming. It was all of a piece of growing up, and that doesn't seem to have changed from the time I was a teenager to these kids who spend all their time on Spotify…playlist.
Oh my god. I felt so old watching this show sometimes, I do have to say, like really, really old.
Shan
Especially you, who doesn't use social media at all.
NiNi
I don’t! [laughs]
Turtles
I've been snapping my fingers at every single thing that NiNi has been saying, including and especially feeling so old when watching the show.
17:32 - Gelboys: Technology, Loneliness and Distraction
Ben
I really want to talk about the technology of this because, as I was watching episode two with Emily last night, we reflected on how excessively-young these characters felt. I don't envy these kids being young with Instagram.
NiNi
My idea of literal hell. I was lucky to be a teenager before Facebook was even a gleam. And I was at the beginning end of the internet. So we didn't have social media, but we had Instant Messenger and Black Planet and all of these things.
Shan
My God, Black Planet. Wow. Throwback.
NiNi
We didn't have social media in the way people understand it now.
Ben
My very first form of social media was Hi5 and MySpace. The sad story about this is we didn't actually use social media when I was in high school, but because I was a Katrina refugee, we all got social media because we were trying to organically find everybody.
NiNi
I hadn't even thought about that. Like, at the point that that happened, I was in college.
Ben
Can you imagine dealing with the MySpace Top 8 friends drama when you're a refugee trying to figure out where you belong in the world? [laughs]
NiNi
No, oh my god.
Shan
It sounds horrible.
NiNi
Listen, that Top 8 ended friendships.
Ben
I was thinking about the Close Friends feature of Instagram and how they use it. That's what that triggered in me. Like the same tactical deployment of the Close Friends reels that they were doing on IG was the same kind of torment we were doing to each other with MySpace Top 8 friends and AOL vague posting.
Shan
The vague status setting was my favorite.
Ben
Exactly.
NiNi
Oh my god,Instant Messenger statuses, like, were your entire being. Like you had to get exactly the right status so that everybody knew what was going on with you.
Shan
I always had song lyrics in my status, of course.
Ben
Of course you did.
Shan
It was very on brand.
Ben
All right, who were your top women that you were using for your messages? Alanis, obviously, who else? [Everyone laughs]
NiNi
You don't know my struggles, Ben!
Shan
No, you don't understand. When I was an emo teenager, I did not listen to any pop music. It was only alternative rock.
Turtles
Oh my god.
Shan
I was insufferable as a teenager.
Ben
I listened to a lot of Live and Bush when I was 16. [laughs]
NiNi
I was in the Caribbean listening to a lot of reggae so my statuses came from like Beanie Man, Buju Bantan and like a bunch of stuff. It was mostly raunchy.
Ben
We're all of a certain age. Social media felt separate from our lived lives for the most part when we were teenagers. I think what scares me so much about young people today, and this affected me even when I was a teacher, is these kids never get a break from each other. It's always happening to them.
Whatever drama is happening in person is also happening online. There is no reprieve for these kids from the constant anxiety that they inflict upon each other.
Turtles
That's right. It's 100% true and my kids are about to cross that threshold.
Ben
That's one of reasons why I actually wanted to bring you on to talk about Gelboys, is because you're a mom of young kids and this is something that you're going to have to contend with or currently contending with because even your young children are likely on the precipice of being subjected to this crap.
Turtles
My kids are certainly not on social media. God help me. They're too young for that, but the dopamine reward cycle of YouTube kids videos, which is literally the worst app that we have my kids on right now. I absolutely hate it. My kids love it. They can switch them, they can fast forward, they can go back. It creates a dopamine reward cycle, alters their brain chemistry literally, and it's really difficult to establish parenting boundaries, settings, rules, all around the practice of using that.
For the Gelboys, we can very easily assume that they grew up on their phones. It wasn't just social media. It was the actual usage of the phone itself. The need for these guys to always be connected to something, to your point, Ben, but connected to what? Connected to each other? If we remember, there was this one scene where Chian was really lonely. He was in that shared game room space with his friends, most of whom were doing homework or doing shared projects together. And he was just on his phone and he was pulling up iQIYI and he was watching dramas and his eyes were sort of flicking away. He was looking for a hit. That's the brain chemistry of young people these days, of probably every single person that's listening to this podcast.
I had just graduated college when Facebook was becoming a thing that all of us needed to be on in order to be connected. And then just in a rapid few years, it became a crutch. But our brains hadn't been altered like that. Our brains had been altered in other ways. We were still using landlines, and then those landlines turned into cell phones, and people were bemoaning the rise of those technologies.
NiNi
Don't forget the pager era.
Turtles
Oh girl. The beepers, the beepers in class, like every day. Are you a drug dealer? Get out of here.
Shan
I want to say I'm sorry to any youths listening to this right now, because we are just talking gibberish to you. You cannot understand anything that we're saying. [NiNi laughs]
Turtles
And also to the youth that are listening to this, your brain chemistry has been altered. Read still in focus, go on a retreat, fix yourself, these technologies are having deep psychological impacts. And what we saw in Gelboys was the constant need for a hit.
I loved the way the show turned the need of the hit from technology, from consumption to, in part, to human relations. How we got there in the end, I quibbled about that a bit, narratively speaking, but it got there. A point of the show was human relationships are just as important as all of the consumption and all of the confusion and all of the chaos that we're depicting in the show.
NiNi
I'm just going to touch on three things that you said in there, Turtles, that really also hit me when I was watching Gelboys. The first one was loneliness. The loneliness factor was just so huge. You could feel these kids reaching out for something. All of this connection that they have with each other through these apps and spending all this time being out there in the world hanging off of each other. They're puppy piling and they're all so lonely at the same time. It's really crazy to watch.
The second thing that you brought up there was this idea of distraction, of your eyes sliding away from life into something else that is gonna keep your brain going away from the things that you maybe should be thinking about onto just something that you don't have to think about too much.
The third thing, when Turtles and I had originally talked about Gelboys, Turtles had really glommed onto something in the idea of youth and ephemerality that really hit me. This fact that all of this stuff that they're doing is so of the moment. It's so in the moment. It's so disposable.
Ben
That's why I love the nails as a gimmick, because the nails grow out and you have to replace them.
Shan
Yep.
Turtles
100%.
NiNi
It's constantly turning over all the time. Like the moment is here and then it's gone. So even when these kids completely embarrass each other or embarrass themselves on social media, five minutes later, these kids are onto something else.
Crazy. It's just like this endless, endless, constant cycle and churn. It really freaked me out in some ways, Like to me, this just looked like a version of hell. My teenage years were like, we had our own things for sure. I'm not going to be here like, “Oh, well, in my day, shit was better.” It wasn't. It was different. But the thing that really scares me about these kids now is just watching how fast everything turns over all the time. It's terrifying.
Shan
I think it ties nicely into the last aspect of the cultural touchstones of the show that we haven't really talked about yet, which is the kpop stanning part of these boys' lives. Which is very much for a lot of fans connected to those emotions that you're talking about, NiNi, to that sense of loneliness. Wanting to tie yourself to something that feels more lasting, and also the short-term dopamine hits that you get from being a fan of a group, a musician, whatever, that is always putting something out there that you can respond to.
And so it makes perfect sense to me that these boys would be stans, would be people who glom onto a group or an idol and make them part of their identity, who invest part of themselves and their own emotions in the success of this stranger, this famous person, who they feel a connection to and who they can kind of live vicariously through. They are invested in things like charting and accomplishments. Like there's a whole long scene in this about Baabin and a lot of the other boys around them, like, contributing to an attempt to make Blackpink, who is the group they stan, make their new song chart. They're trying to get what's called a PAK in kpop terminology—means perfect all kill—which means you're number one on all charts simultaneously. That's a really big picture goal that doesn't actually matter to your life at all, but gives you a sense of achievement when you can accomplish it for somebody else. And then gives you that kind of emotional high that we're talking about these boys seeking.
NiNi
Also that sense of community because it's something that you're doing in collaboration with other people, and you feel less alone on top of everything else.
Ben
For the people who don't engage with kpop who are listening to us, this is no different from little boys watching Dragon Ball Z trying to give their energy to the spirit bomb.
Shan
Fandom is the same in all forms. Sports obsession is a form of fandom.
Ben
I'm watching volleyball right now!
Shan
You sure are! Always!
Turtles
Yes, girl, yes!
Ben
Right now!
NiNi
You are always watching volleyball.
Shan
Uou’re always watching volleyball, right?
So it makes perfect sense for them to be fandom types. And as I was telling Ben as I was giving him some background about kpop, it makes perfect sense for them to be Blackpink stans in particular, because Blackpink has a Thai member, Lisa. So, very, very popular in Thailand just by the nature of her being in the group. And also Blackpink has an aesthetic and a fandom vibe that very much draws catty gay boys. So when I saw that they were Blackpink fans, I was like, that's exactly right. That is perfect. Good job show!
Turtles
Shan, the way that you just described the work that goes into kpop and the sort of burst of reward of achieving something. There were a couple of intimate scenes in Gelboys, that absolutely speaks to you know, the le petit mort of it all—
Shan
Mmhmm. 100% it does.
Turtles
—the orgasmic quality.
I'm just realizing we're talking about hit after dopamine hit after hormonal hit after dopamine hit after hormonal hit. The spectrum of life as one big hit is exactly the way that technology in so many different ways has influenced the way that the youth need to live their lives.
Yet again, I'm gonna go back to what I love about the show so much. In the end, it was the old fashioned hits. It was the relief of loneliness, the emotional connection between two people, and the physical intimate connection between two people that ends up being the most enduring.
But man, yes, Shan, to your point about the work of being a fan, what is the reward that you get in the end? It's virtual, it's ephemeral, it's not tangible, but they still feel accomplished at doing it, and it's a little bit orgasmic when you think about it.
Shan
Yes, I will say sometimes helping your group achieve a PAK or a Billboard All-Kill is better than sex.
Turtles
I'm gonna steal from Subway Takes and say 100% disagree.
NiNi
Just to slide from Turtle's last point about taking those dopamine hits and those orgasmic moments into the real world, and what that does to the love relationships, going back to the beginning of this conversation to the love rhombus itself and how it all plays out. These kids are doing the same thing that they're doing online in the real world. So they're chasing these dopamine hits. The way that they feel about each other is probably one of the most enduring things, but even that's changing. And they are also not over-indexing on any one person.
The whole story even gets started because these kids don't want to commit. Fou4Mod meets Chian. He likes Chian. Chian's stringing Fou4Mod along because he really likes Bua. Bua is stringing him along. We find out later kind of a little knowingly, Bua clearly enjoys the attention that he gets from Chian. But also, he is looking for friends and he figures that this is the way that he can find friends, like Chian is his friend because Chian wants to fuck him. But as far as he's concerned, he can hold that to the side and actually have somebody who seemingly cares about him and puts their effort and energy into him. That's a form of dopamine hit.
And that's a dopamine hit that Fou4Mod is looking for when he goes off looking for a boyfriend. He wants somebody to be his person, to give him those dopamine hits that Bua is getting from Chian and from his TikTok fans. Baabin is collecting those little dopamine hits in his little Fou4Mod folder on his phone where he screenshots all the moments that they have in chat. I can't remember how many screenshots were in this—
Ben
—It was over 400.
NiNi
—it was a lot, yeah.
30:58 - Gelboys: Our Not-So-Fab Four
Ben
We've got four boys and there are four of us. Does everybody want to pick a boy and deconstruct their arc?
Shan, you're getting Bua. It’s okay. [laughs]
Shan
YES! I WON! [NiNi laughs]
Shan
Who wants to start tackling the mess of Fou4Mod?
Ben
It's NiNi. NiNi's getting Fou4Mod.
NiNi
It's like you know me.
Shan
I love how you asked and then just gave us our assignments.
Ben
Look, we don't have a lot of time. Turtles, how you feel about talking about Chian?
Turtles
I wanna slap that boy upside the head is what I wanna say about Chian!
Ben
We’ll get to you third. I’m going first! Let's talk about Baabin! [Shan and NiNi laugh]
Shan
Of course, his favorite boy, Baabin, gets to go first.
Ben
We're gonna take our obligatory ITSAY Mention section a little early here. The Bas character from I Told Sunset About You—
Shan
—There it is.
Ben
—who served a specific function in that story to be, like, a better boy than Teh. Oh’s not choosing him because Teh is special to him. And they went, we realize you all did not realize what Bas was, and many of you have not let go that that boy should have won, let's show you why he couldn't win if he was a real person. And they gave us Baabin to show that.
Baabin, in so many ways, is the worst of all of them. Because he's so self-flagellatingly mean about the whole endeavor. Baabin is part of Fou4Mod's group and his band, and he's secretly in love with Fou4Mod. Fou4Mod ends up using Baabin to make Chian jealous, Baabin eventually gets really frustrated about this. However, at every opportunity that Baabin had to step forward and be something more for Fou4Mod, he got chickenshit about it and then backed off instead. By the time he has a chance to be something more with Fou4Mod, he intentionally shoves him at Chian just so he can maintain his self-righteous pining about it. It's awful!
Over the course of this, ends up running into Bua to tell Bua to leave Chian alone so that Fou4Mod and them can be togethe—insane behavior. And then ends up developing this sort of secret friendship with Bua. And this turns into a genuine attraction between him and Bua—which actually ends up allowing the show to explore some interesting sexual dynamics in a way that I thought was really tasteful, where like these two would be verse if they actually got their shit together.
But Baabin is obsessed with his own misery, which is the cardinal sin of every piner. I’m also talking about myself here. He is, in my opinion, the worst of all of them, because he would rather hate Fou4Mod for not loving him back than tell Fou4Mod that he loves him. That is at the core what is wrong with every unrepentant and unreformed piner out there. They don't want to confess to people because they're terrified of the consequence of rejection, or in many cases what actual acceptance would mean. They just won't face it and they just tear themselves apart as a result.
We can't even give Baabin the “what if he's not gay” safety net for why he won't say what needs to be said. Instead, he's just an asshole who is being in many ways cruel to his own friend because he's unwilling to face the reality of what his friend not liking him or actually liking him back could actually mean. I don't think we're meant to feel sorry for Baabin in this case. We're meant to appreciate that his unwillingness to say what needs to be said is inherently what's wrong with him.
Unlike the Bas character from ITSAY, Bas did speak up! That’s part of why he was better! These characters are not the same, but there are obvious allusions that I thought were really compelling to work with.
Are you ready, NiNi, to talk about Fou4Mod, our primary character?
NiNi
My mess of a child. Fou4Mod is definitely the spiritual successor to my baby Teh Krittikorn Saetan. Just dying to be chose, and will not do actually anything that is going to be sensible in this whole mix. Makes every mistake known to the 17 year old about getting chose.
It was delightful to watch, honestly. I was having moments of, “Ooh, you gotta walk that off,” “Oh no baby, don't do that.” Especially when he started essentially begging Chian for a shot. When Chian starts stringing him along, he's like, “I don't want to be like a thing.” And he's like, okay, well, I'll enter this situationship with you, knowing very full and goddamn well you do not want a situationship, it put me in mind of some moments in my own, my own misspent youth.
I love that boy. Nobody can ever say anything bad about that boy in front of me.
Ben
Let’s go to Chian.
Turtles
When I think about Chian, I think about power dynamics. The power that he had vis-a-vis Fou4Mod and Bua throughout the show. Fou4Mod gave Chian power. Chian gave Bua power. Seeing Chian kind of negotiate through those different power dynamics. And I think that the ending kind of fumbled that a little bit. I don't know that the ending necessarily tied the power dynamic knots as well as it could have.
But Chian, he's somebody that grew up a little bit in the show. I liked that he graduated, I liked that he went to college. He moved in with new people. He was living in a much smaller place in his dorm. He was negotiating with his roommates, he was developing and sort of expanding his social life just a tiny little bit but still drawn to those things that he was still very much attached to in high school. On the one hand, so cool to watch. On the other hand, to NiNi's excellent points ugh, pain. you can't expect a kid to immediately start, quote, growing up as soon as he moves out of the house and starts going to college or university. But I was kind of pulling for Chian to make those changes and cut some of those ties that he had with the attachments that he had before going to university.
So he was deliciously frustrating. Was his arc fully satisfying for me at the end? Not completely. I think narratively those stories could have been told a little bit better. But overall, he deserves a smack on the upside of his head, but also a big hug, because I'm a mom and I can't help myself.
Ben
All right, Shan, go in and let have.
Shan
Can we just, like, acknowledge that nobody expected Bua to be the sleeper agent of the show, but he totally was.
Ben
We did not, and yet he won. Him and his lesbian moms won.
Shan
They sure did.
NiNi
His lesbian ex-wives moms.
Shan
So like, Bua was always the other in this show. He is mixed race. He looks different from everybody else. He doesn't go to the same school as everybody else. He kind of does his own thing. There were multiple episodes of the show before we even figured out literally how he spent his time. We were like, what does this kid do? He doesn't seem to go to school. Like, what is his deal?
He was kind of in the role of like keeping Chian in his fishbowl. He was keeping him on the hook because he liked the attention of having somebody who liked him, but he didn't like him back. And that was clear. And at the same time, I don't think he was particularly malicious in doing that. I think it was just the way that he had figured out to keep someone's attention on him. He wasn't a kid who was intentionally trying to fuck with somebody. He was just kind of confused and a little bit of a mess and he wanted the attention, but then he didn't want the attention and kind of going back and forth on it like that.
What makes Bua so special in this show is that he actually changed over the course of this narrative. He recognized that the behavioral patterns he was engaging in were not serving him and he broke the pattern, which is something nobody else in this show managed to do.
Ben
He's the only one who apologized in the whole fucking show.
Turtles
Yep, fabulously said.
Shan
Right. So he won the narrative, basically, by breaking the cycle and saying to Baabin, after he realized that he genuinely liked him, what he wanted from him. He didn't pretend to be cool like the other characters did. He had, like, a whole emotional meltdown that was about his insecurity about how he looks different than everybody else that really just hurt my heart, honestly, like putting in the contacts and trying to dye his hair and all of that. He was the only boy in this story who was honest and said what he felt and said what he wanted and didn't just let it slide when the person he was trying to communicate with was giving him bullshit.
And that is why, ultimately, I think he ended up in the healthiest place at the end of the story. He was in a good relationship. He was happy. He had broken free of the patterns that were actually toxic for his life. And it's another reason, honestly, why I really dislike the ending, because Bua's journey and the reward that he got at the end of that was completely undercut by how the show ended the other relationship, which is unfortunate. But his arc as a character was fantastic. And I don't think when this show started anyone could have predicted that that would be the case, but it is what happened.
40:30 - Gelboys: Perspectives On The Ending
Ben
Let's talk about that ending.
Shan
Yeah, let's get into it.
Ben
I genuinely wanted all of these boys to break up and was baffled that they stayed together. That only makes sense in the era of fan service and getting these Y girls to go to fucking concerts for these boys.
Turtles
Yep.
Shan
It didn't make sense. It wasn't honest to the narrative. The better ending would have been all of them ending up single.
Turtles
And a second season of watching them grow into understanding themselves and each other.
Ben
Right? They could have had a second chance romance season. Goddamn it! [NiNi and Turtles laugh]
Turtles
Sing it, sister.
NiNi
It was very clear to me that Chian and Fou4Mod getting together was the beginning of another season of hell. And so I was fine with that particular ending.
Shan
It's not actually what the show communicated though, to be clear. The show gave them a happy ending and also gave Bua and Baabin a happy ending. Truly, it did not feel honest to the narrative. Bua was the only boy who broke out of the toxic patterns. There could have been some power in him being better off than the other boys at the end, but that's not what they did. They just kind of shoved them all into the same, “yay, happy couples” box at the end.
Ben
I generally think what stands out to me is that we don't see a lot of this show like constantly recirculating on socials. And I feel like undercutting their ending has hurt the staying power of this show. I think everybody felt a little bit disconnected from how this thing ended. There's really nothing to hang on to long-term with this one.
NiNi
There's also something to be said about fandom and ephemerality. This year I found that when I look at what people are reblogging and the gifsets that are coming back up, it's all older shows. Nothing from the past few years.
Ben
‘Cause they were good.
Turtles
I do spend a lot of time lurking on Twitter and getting a lot of my BL news and whatnot from Twitter from all over Asia. I do get a good number of tweets in Thai from Thailand. The reputation of Gelboys is a little bit more art house, which surprises me, because I think that the marketing was meant to not have the show be an art house show. But I think it's being seen like that, obviously with Boss as the director.
Boss is an art guy. Up until that ending, the show was telling the stories of toxicity so fucking well. We were all twisting and turning watching the show and the ending just didn't nail it. But the reputation of the show that I'm seeing on Twitter is that it has sort of an art house reputation that the fan girls maybe can't completely get around.
Shan
I think what's challenging for Gelboys in the BL fan landscape is that it didn't lend itself very well to shipping, particularly with the main quote unquote couple, Fou4Mod and Chian. Like, the girls didn't like them.
NiNi
They did not. They really did not.
Turtles
And the girls had pain about it, too.
Shan
So all the shipping energy went to Bua and Baabin in the end. They ended up the much more popular ship from the show. And it hasn't stuck from what I can see in the same way that I Told Sunset About You did in terms of not just being considered, like, elevated art or whatever, but being considered one of the mainstays of Thai BL genre.
Turtles
That's a good point. The novelty of I Told Sunset About You, in regards to its quality, the script, the narrative, you're right, kind of lent itself to a far more enduring kind of reputation that fans could glom onto in a different way. I think there were a lot of people who had expected to glom onto Gelboys from that shipping perspective while also being served a quality show, and then the stories of toxicity kind of took that away from the ability of the Y girls to just sit back and relax, both with the shipping ability and with the quality of show.
Shan
Mmhmm.
Ben
Unfortunately, we don't have time to talk about BL fandom and how they process toxic tropes today because we have a lot of other things to cover and I will save that salt for another day.
44:28 - Gelboys: Final Thoughts and Ratings
Ben
Before we wrap up the segment, everyone's favorite what the fuck moment from this fucking show.
NiNi, we'll start with you.
NiNi
It's that Zoom call! [Shan snickers] That Zoom call from hell! My god, that Zoom call was so bad, Bua literally pissed himself! It was terrible! I wanted to die. I wasn't even in it, and I felt like I was in it.
Boss Kuno, hats off to you, sir. You have a way of doing this to me.
Ben
Turtles, what's your favorite what the fuck moment from this show?
Turtles
I gotta tell you, NiNi said it, 10 out of 10, no notes. You pee your pants, you got my vote.
Shan
Obviously that Zoom call from hell was horrific for all of us, but in the interest of variety, I will offer another cringe moment, which was I cannot believe that Baabin left the fucking Blackpink concert. I can't believe it—
Turtles
Cosigned. Also cosigned. My god.
Shan
He worked so hard to get tickets—
NiNi
—After all of that, well after everything he went through.
Ben
—To go watch his crush confess. Holy shit.
Shan
—to see his Lisa. And then he just ran out.
I couldn't, I was so upset. I was like, “bro, don't do it!”
Turtles
You know, Shan, that moment brings us back to what we started this conversation about, which is economics. He left the money on the table.
Shan
He left money, time, effort, energy, emotion, he left it all on the table. And for what?
Turtles
Kids these days.
Ben
Shan said you're a bad Blink. Get out of here. [Everyone laughs]
Since you all doubled and tripled down on the Zoom call, I'm taking multiple.
Number one, Fou4Mod using AI generation tools to make a video of him and his friend making out because—
Shan
—You're so right.
Ben
—she wouldn't commit to him and posting that on fucking Facebook.
Turtles
—Cancel him.
Ben
That is disgusting and evil to the extreme. I will never forgive that boy.
Turtles
And she gave it back to him good.
Shan
She did.
Ben
Number two, Chian of all people asking ChatGPT to help him with his relationship problems.
NiNi
Listen…
Ben
I'm so scared for the youth.
Turtles
I gotta tell you, that's a thing.
Shan
It's not just the youth.
Turtles
Everybody’s doing it.
Shan
I've got a disturbing number of middle-aged women using ChatGPT for therapy. It's a real problem.
Ben
Holy shit.
Turtles
Ben, I'm gonna break your heart a little bit. In the English translated manga, What Did You Eat Yesterday? there's a reference to a secretary at Shiro's law firm who says you can use ChatGPT to make you happy.
Shan
No!
Shan
This is universal, it's almost universal at this point.
Ben
NiNi, I want you to note this moment down in the histories and annals of our podcast.
Shan
It wasn't Ben who brought it up.
Ben
One, someone brought up What Did You Eat Yesterday? before me for once. And they brought it up in a way that was only designed to hurt me.
Turtles
Sorry about that, Ben. Love you.
Ben
I'll remember this moment the next time we hang out. You will pay for this moment. [Everyone laughs]
Turtles
Don't blame me, don't blame me!
[Ben laughs]
NiNi
So all of that said, how are we rating Boss Kuno's city mice as balanced against his country mice?
Ben
I'm going first! He's getting a 9 because he filmed this whole fucking thing with his homies on cell phones.
Shan
God, we didn’t even talk about that!
Ben
I think that was one of the coolest things they did. ‘Cause this is a very, like Gen Alpha, Gen Z cast. And they were also filming in a lot of public spaces a lot. And it's really notable that because they filmed this on iPhones and everybody's used to people filming everyone and everything constantly. But it's so normal for, like, teenagers to be annoying on the street filming themselves now that nobody cares that they're filming one of the most important shows of the year around them at SIAM Center. If you were watching a show like this in the 90s, like people in the street be like, what the fuck are they filming? What the fuck is going on?
Shan
You just made me think of that scene where they're taking selfies and they're doing all these crazy poses. [laughs]
NiNi
We're not even gonna have time to talk about the production on this show because it is insane. Do yourself a favor and just go look at it. It is wild what they were able to do.
Shan
And just look at it and remind yourself that the whole thing was shot on iPhones. It's crazy.
Ben
I want to give this show a 9 for a lot of different reasons. Let's give us some of the gay reasons. I think it was interesting for this show to do the youth thing of not really wanting to define the kid's sexuality by even talking about it, despite the obvious queerness of the whole cast. And I actually like the way the show used sex and intimacy, how quick Chian was the reach for Fou4Mod's dick rather than have an earnest conversation with him. That was one of the most effectively gay things I've seen out of Thailand in a really long time.
I also liked the way the show managed to protect its actors, but still get an interesting sexual component done when Bua and Baabin were trying to figure out their dynamic and were playing around trying different positions with all of their clothes on.
There's a lot of things in the show that I really liked. However, I just can't let the disappointment of this ending go. This was very close to being an all-timer for me. And I don't really like the economic choice they make at the end to pull back and not make the audience grapple with the inevitability of these boys tormenting each other. It just doesn't make the show stick with me as a result.
Turtles, what about you? How are you rating this under your complicated criteria?
Turtles
I don't usually do number ratings, letter grades or anything. It's really just about what shows am I reblogging and looking at GIFs on. And there's not a lot of traction at least on Tumblr regarding the creation of nostalgia around the show yet. This conversation is bringing back a lot of really good feelings that I had while watching it.
My mom view of watching the show is that I really wanted to give each of these guys a hug, no matter how much I wanted to smack all of them upside the head. I felt that there was so much more growing up that these guys needed to do, I would argue these characters were narratively successful if I felt that way.
But I gotta agree with you, Ben, that my memories of the show are tainted by that ending. The actors did a fantastic job. It was the script and it was the economic gain of this new agency being able to sell these guys as two ships. These guys have deals left and right. They're doing fashion shoots. They're doing product placements, they're actually at the malls where they were filming, doing their little product presentations and whatnot. They're achieving that goal. And that's the reality of the industry these days, all of these shows are really meant to be end games for these guys ending up into pairs that get to be sold.
Ben
So that's four mom hugs, four mom slaps, and a big ass frown.
Turtles
That's right. Well said.
NiNi
I think that works out to like an 8 and a half.
Ben
Yeah, it sounds like an 8.5.
Turtles
Look, maybe a little bit lower. I think if I did numbers, I'd give it probably a 7.5.
Ben
Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!
Shan
Get in there, Turtles!
Turtles
That's the feeling is good, but I'm not thinking only about the beginning and the middle of the show. Gotta average it out.
Ben
Shandler!
Shan
I was so excited to get another show from Boss. I was very impressed by the quality of the production. But man, did it bum me out hard when I saw the branded pair shit interfering with this show, too. Gelboys in my emotional landscape was supposed to be my refuge from branded pair nonsense in the Thai BL world. And it really broke my heart that that ended up interfering with the narrative in this show, too. It definitely tainted the show for me.
I'm very impressed by the production. I really liked the actors. I was very into a lot of the aesthetics of the show. I did really like Bua's arc. And I liked a lot of the messiness of the show. I liked that the boys felt like real teenagers.
But it really, really felt to me in the end, like the show kind of betrayed itself for commercial reasons. And that's always gonna be a big thumbs down from me. So I think I'm landing on giving it, like, an 8.5. It's a good show. It could have been a great show.
Getting out the coulda been a 10 bat as per usual and lamenting.
Ben
There she is, shaking in the corner.
NiNi?
NiNi
Well y'all know how I roll. For an ending to really ruin something for me, I really have to not be able to vibe with the ending. I was able to vibe with this ending. Is it perfect ending? No. Is it exactly the ending I would have wanted? No. Does it bum me out? It actually doesn't. Ding it for sure. So I'll end up somewhere around a 9.
It was a 10 at the moment that Zoom call happened and then the ending really maybe take that down to like a 9.5 and I'll drop it down to a 9 because I feel like I wanted a little bit more of it.
Ben
That results in an 8.5 from The Conversation.
53:17 - Heesu In Class 2
NiNi
Now that we have ventilated our spleens on Gelboys, it's time to move into Heesu in Class 2.
Ben, what is Heesu in Class 2 about?
Ben
About how I will always love gay shows the most when the gays are being terrible because they’re in the closet.
Heesu in Class 2 is about a young man named Lee Heesu. He has three older sisters and he has developed a reputation at school for being a good listener who gives good dating advice despite being a single virgin who's never been with anyone ever. He has a huge, long-time crush on his best friend, Ju Chanyoung, who is incredibly popular with the ladies and who is always agreeing to date these girls until they basically just get bored with his sort of nonchalant attitude to hanging out with them.
Heesu's life is complicated when Chanyoung seems to really hit it off with a young lady at his cram school named Choi Jiyu. Heesu, feeling like he might actually lose Chanyoung, becomes competitive about this and conspires to have his neighbor, Kim Seongwon, try to pursue Jiyu as a competitor. Hijinks ensue because Kim Seongwon does not have a crush on Choi Jiyu, his old friend. He actually has a crush on Heesu and Heesu is unfortunately quite oblivious about this.
We spend the show dealing with the complications of our two gay boys being reluctant to confess their feelings for homophobia reasons, while Jiyu is navigating becoming a public idol, and Ju Chanyoung is dealing with some familiar stress about his desire to take tennis seriously—which his family doesn't support.
I think I covered that pretty good. Anything else I need to say?
Shan
Yeah, you got it.
NiNi
Pretty much nailed it.
Ben
I try! It's really important to me to get these things right, because it's important that we talk about what the show actually did.
Shan
You're getting worked up already? [laughs]
Ben
I’m already worked up. Before we get into the nitty gritty of this, Turtles is an extremely busy mom carrying a lot of responsibilities. She was unable to stick with us for this section, but she delivered a motherfucking word that we will have at the end as we wrap up.
Shan
This show was so familiar to me right from the start because I am a kdrama viewer. I am familiar with the narrative structure that was deployed here. And I know how kdramas work, in that you have to have a little bit of patience. Kdramas take a few episodes to get their story set up, to get all their characters in place, to establish all the relationships and themes. And then right around the middle of the show is when they usually kind of heat up and then sprint to the end. And so, I was not bored as some people were in the early episodes.
I loved that the show was deploying these really classic kdrama tropes in service of a narrative that was really centering a young queer man's experience of his queerness, of the anxiety of not being out and his fear of being outed, his fear of the people he loves seeing him differently. I understood that it was doing something a little different from most BL in that it wanted to show a really holistic view of Heesu's life. This show was not focused solely or even primarily on one romance.
It was really about his coming of age as a young gay man, his coming into himself, his developing the courage and the comfort that he could come out to the people he cared about, that he could cope with the feelings he had for his best friend that he knew were not going to be returned in the same way. And also as part of that developing new friendships, getting closer with his sisters, falling for a new boy who actually could return his affection.
It was very much about his experience as a queer person. The show was interested in every aspect of his life, not just the romance. I think that for folks who only or primarily watch BL, maybe that was a little bit confusing.
Ben
NiNi, I want to go to you. Shan and I are nursing a lot of fandom experience feelings we have that are going to be hard to extricate from our responses here. But you came to the show sort of late. We bullied you into watching it.
NiNi
You did not bully me into watching it. I intended to watch it. I just needed to know it was actually gonna be gay. You guys said it was gay and so I watched it.
Ben
So what was your experience watching this?
NiNi
Me and Shan are always giggling about our kdrama muscles because we both watch a lot of kdrama. So when some of these KBLs come out with that kdrama structure and BL fandom is finding it a little hard to parse them because that's not the framework that they're accustomed to, we're just like, well, no. It's kdrama. It's gonna follow K-drama structure. The way that Heesu and Chanyoung in particular interact, and all the sturm und drang around confessing, that's very kdrama. So I was having a blast.
I recently just watched Light On Me finally after Ben shit on me in the Diamond League for not having watched it.
Ben
A huge win for all of the K-BL fans. We finally got NiNi to watch it.
NiNi
So when I was watching Heesu I saw a lot of parallels between Light On Me and Heesu—they're not similar in a lot of ways. But one way that they are pretty similar is structure and that focus on confessing as being really important to not just the narrative but also the character development. What it says about a character to confess their feelings. It's huge.
So I really enjoyed having those two experiences, not back to back exactly, but very close to each other. And then adding onto it, I was instantly dialed in from the moment that I realized that Heesu Knew. He's narrating and talking about the way that he has to hide, the things that he can't say to people, and you see how it affects his relationship with Chanyoung, who is his best friend, and that's a runner throughout the whole show. I love that shit. Feed it to me.
Ben
Quick aside! Shan made a great point about being a fan and your idol’s success feeling like your success. Since we mentioned Light On Me, Kang You Seok is thriving right now.
NiNi
—Thriving so much. He is in everything. Everything.
Ben
We won, we won!
Shan
I am so proud of him. He's everywhere.
Ben
We did it. That's our win.
NiNi
He was in biggest kdrama of the year this year.
Shan
Yes, he was in Tangerines. He was in Hospital Playlist 2. Two of the biggest, most watched dramas of the year. He is continuing to be cast.
Shan
He's killing it.
NiNi
Not Hospital Playlist 2, Resident Playbook.
Shan
Oh my God, wow, that was a real wishful thinking moment. Resident Playbook. You right, though.
Ben
We did it, gays! We got our boy into the mainstream.
Shan
Good job, everybody.
01:00:41 - Heesu In Class 2: The Story Is Storying
Ben
The first week of the show does this great job of setting up the stakes of the whole situation. Heesu loves Chanyoung, Seongwon loves Heesu, Chanyoung, we'll just say loves Jiyu. Heesu thinks like we've got a circle here where Seongwon loves Jiyu and there's like a real chance here.
I love that the dynamics were so clear for us from the beginning. There's so much noise in Gelboys. That's a big part of the experience, there's so many distractions and so much shit being blasted at you. We have the opposite experience in Heesu where every character has a clear narrative purpose, down to Chanyoung and Heesu's friend, Hoseok, who's there to be the other male glue of their dynamic who ends up suffering because the two of them have been not well. Like ep 6 or 7, he's like, did you guys make up? And Heesu's like, well, we're not fighting. I love that because that's how it is for men.
One of my favorite things this show did at the end of episode 4, Heesu gets a threatening message as he's lamenting that Chanyoung and Jiyu are getting closer. He basically gets an anonymous message saying, “You better get over Chanyoung or I'm gonna out you, bitch.” I loved that this show made the audience sit with the homophobic threat of being outed and then was not in a hurry to resolve that. That's part of the long list of things that I think that the show did that made queerness feel accessible.
I think it's important that we talk about the fact that all these characters had a purpose in Heesu's story.
NiNi
One of the criticisms is, they put so much time on this whole Chanyoung and Jiyu thing, but the way that that feeds into Heesu and Seongwon’s story is really interesting because it parallels it in a way, it contrasts with it in a way, and it also interacts with it in a way. It touches the story in multiple different ways.
We've got the contrast of the whole Seongwon and Heesu thing. Jiyu and Chanyoung, the confession for them is easy because it's what everybody expects. But Seongwon is terrified to confess to Heesu because he doesn't know what he's gonna get on the other end of that confession. It's not just a question of whether Heesu will accept or reject him. It's also a question of is he gonna tell somebody else? What are people gonna think? All of these other things that he has to consider that makes confessing for him fraught in a way that it isn't for Jiyu.
And then he and Jiyu are friends. And because of the nature of their friendship, she was holding his secret for him. She's not telling anybody his business. She's telling him, you have to confess because you are messing up my life. But at the same time, she is not confessing for him because it is not her place to tell anybody who he is. She never outs him even when it's to affect her own relationship with Chanyoung.
So we talked about the intersection and the contrast. Now we're talking about the two relationships parallel. Chanyoung has had all these girlfriends because these girls like him and he shrugs his shoulders and goes whatever, but he's never actually liked somebody back and he's never put effort into a relationship. Heesu has never really put effort into his relationship with Chanyoung, he and Chanyoung have this relationship that is on a maintenance level because he is so afraid to tell Chanyoung about himself. That same fear that Seongwon has is holding Heesu back.
It's just like this delicious stew and to me, you don't get that without the very clear het relationship interacting with the very clear gay relationship. You couldn't get that from two queer relationships. It had to be a het relationship to make that contrast, to make the parallel, to make the intersection work. So I'm sorry. I am not mad at the hets. Not this time.
Shan
Nope, they belonged in the story. They had a clear place and a clear purpose.
NiNi
They're sweet!
Shan
[Chanyoung]'s a good friend. He tried his best to understand Heesu, to look out for him, to take care of him. He noticed when Heesu was upset. He didn't know how he could help him because he wouldn't tell him anything. That's not his fault.
Shan
I love that when Heesu did finally come out and confess his feelings to him, he didn't react perfectly in that moment. He's not always gonna have the right answer, but he's genuine and he cares.
And Jiyu is awesome. You know who Jiyu reminds me of? Jane from Knock Knock Boys.
NiNi
It's Yihwa best girl all over again.
Shan
Right? It's that ride or die bestie who loves you and is always on your side, but is also going to call you on your shit. She was such a good friend to Seongwon through all the nonsense that he was putting her and her relationship through. She was frank with him and she was honest with him, but she let him take his time that he needed. They are good friends. They are a cute couple and they have a really clear purpose in this story that supports the queer narrative.
And they're not the only characters in the story that function that way. Heesu's sisters all have a similar narrative function. We learn about their quirks and their romantic struggles because they do the same thing in reflecting back to Heesu some of the struggles that he's going through from a different perspective. The story is really, really well written. Everything has its place and its purpose, and all the characters are so likeable.
Ben
So I guess we're just going to come straight out and say the popular response to this show is to dunk on it, call it queerphobic in some way, call it queerbait in other ways and insinuate somehow that this show hurts gay people.
Shan
Ridiculous.
Ben
I genuinely don't understand. Like, I don't know if our goal of watching BL is to scream at the screen and go sing for me, my angel of music. But like, this is not the vibe that I can really be part of.
With this particular show, the dynamics are so compelling. Heesu has a crush on his friend. His friend is very popular with girls. He basically hisses at girls until they get over him. And then he feels challenged by Chanyoung having a real connection to another girl. This challenges the sort of delulu world he's trapped in of “Maybe my straight friend actually likes me. Because sometimes he glances at me the right way at the right time, and I can ride that for a little while and imagine that he might actually choose me. I won't say anything because I know he won't, but I'm gonna ride that high.” Because he pays so much attention to Chanyoung and likes him so much, he recognizes that Chanyoung genuinely likes someone. This is actually an incredibly sad moment.
It was really hurtful to me to see a lot of folks just not really get the tragedy of the gay person who loves their straight friend, and sees them falling in love, and at some level is resentful of it and can't root for them. You're their boy. They're relying on you. As Chanyoung is falling for Jiyu, the first person he goes to, anytime he has big feelings about Jiyu, is Heesu. That's supposed to be his boy to help him sort out his feelings and check him on the shit when he's trying to get it with this girl. And instead Heesu is actively working against him the whole time. I don't know that everybody watching really appreciated that.
Like, I get that webtoon!Chanyoung knew Heesu was gay the whole time and was only trying to date all of these girls in the hopes that Heesu would get over him. To be clear: I think that's also fucking horrible.
NiNi
That's really mean.
Ben
I like that they decided to make Heesu the mean one here. Chanyoung and Jiyu like each other for really genuine organic reasons. He does something nice for her, which causes her to pay attention to him. This becomes a positive feedback loop and the attraction between them is obvious and palpable. The straight couple in the show had, like, a full romance arc. You're supposed to be sad that the gay boys did not get to have the whole arc, too. And the reason why they don't get to have the whole arc is because they're homos. That's the point!
I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. I didn't get to date properly in high school. You're supposed to lament that. Like, this show is meant to be useful as far as I'm concerned. It's a way for queer viewers to soft launch coming out to their families. Like it's serving the role that Degrassi served for me. We watched all of the Marco arc when I was a teenager just so I could gauge how my family would handle me coming out to them. And that's why I waited a few years. If your family watching this show can't empathize with Heesu, maybe don't come out to those people.
NiNi
Literally Seongwon says to Jiyu, “It's not the same way for me that it is for you.” He says those words. It's not even an allusion at that point. They put it in the mouth of the character and had them say it.
Shan
It’s in the text. Yes.
01:09:55 - Heesu In Class 2: Friendship, Family, Queerness and Acceptance
Ben
What's so sad about this show from another perspective is that Heesu is violating the male bond between him and Chanyoung. Chanyoung doesn't know why, he just knows Heesu doesn't seem to want to hang out with him anymore. Heesu will not really talk to him about important things that are going on, like the fact that he likes a girl for the first time, or that he doesn't really want to stay around his family anymore.
This is all really difficult stuff, and Heesu is not there for his best friend when his best friend needs him. And Chanyoung doesn't really get mad at Heesu about it for a long time. He tries to go like, maybe I left Heesu hanging. Maybe I'm not the one who's been forthright enough. He's actively trying to be more open with Heesu, to be more present for him, to tell him more things about what's going on. Maybe thinking maybe I let him down in some way by maybe holding back on something.
This culminates in Chanyoung breaking Jiyu's agreement and telling Heesu that they're serious, and Heesu does not respond kindly in that moment. Heesu really fucking let Chanyoung down at a really important male moment. “Hey, I really like this girl and we're going together.” It's like a huge moment. And Heesu fucking failed in that moment really fucking badly. I was horrified at that moment where Heesu's face dropped and he just walked away from Chanyoung. He didn't even try and pretend. So like, when Chanyoung was a little bit overwhelmed later and left, I wasn't like, “Oh there Chanyoung, he's such a bad friend.” Heesu had already let him down in a huge male way. I loved the mirroring of that moment.
As a man who grew up around men who loves men dearly, Heesu really fucked up in that moment. It's no wonder that Hoseok was worried about him and Chanyoung for the rest of the show.
Shan
This gets into a theme that we've talked a lot about over the last year or so around how sometimes being the tortured piner actually makes you the asshole because you become really selfish. You become really fixated on your own desires and your own unrequited feelings and you stop actually seeing the person that you claim to love. Heesu was so fixated on what he wants from Chanyoung that he is not actually seeing Chanyoung for who he is and being a good friend to him because he's too caught up in his own hurt disappointment about what he can't have with him.
I really love that the show went there with this, that it let him be a bad friend for a little while and then let him figure out what he was doing and correct it and come out of it and repair that friendship. And it let Chanyoung also not be perfect with him. That's why it felt like a real friendship between two people who genuinely love each other but can't be exactly what the other needs.
That felt so great to me just to see something so real depicted in one of these shows that are so often in a bubble. Not just a no homophobia bubble, but like a non-reality bubble. I really like that they were not afraid to let these characters be flawed.
NiNi
Listen, when Chanyoung told Heesu, “I tell you everything and you don't tell me anything.”
Ben
He was right!
Shan
He was right.
Ben
That's one of the things that I love so much about this show.
NiNi
He literally was saying. He's like, “You are my friend, I love you, but I don't know you because you don't let me.”
Ben
I love how every plot line in this show is built around queer closeted allegory. Like, what's the most important thing that gay people have on their side? Lesbians. Lesbians are the first step to Heesu's own self-acceptance and coming out process. The little lesbian who comes to check in with him is how Heesu first broaches the entire idea of queerness with his sisters, who share a meaningful look that tells you either they already suspected about Heesu in some way, or that they were gonna have to have a conversation when he wasn't around.
Later on, it's Seongwon's mom being a late in life lesbian that is one of the first signs to Heesu that queer adults even exist. That's a real experience growing up. Like you feel like you're the only queer person in the world. I loved that someone having two moms is a huge step for Heesu as well.
Lesbians, you've done so much for us for so long. I love you all so much.
NiNi
On the topic of Seongwon’s moms. I loved that runner of his mom actually discussing with him, like, how out. He seems to have worked through whatever feeling he might have about his mom having left his dad and being in a lesbian relationship. Like in his head his family is fine but there's still that external factor that he's not 100% sure of and that also the mom is not 100% sure of. And I love that she checks in with him about it. Like, “Okay, I'm not ashamed of myself. I know you're not ashamed of me. But also, I know where we are and I need you to tell me what the guardrails around here are because this is gonna affect you much more than it's gonna affect me at this moment.”
Ben
Y'all watch more kdrama than me. That felt highly unusual and incredibly special. I was not expecting the mom to ask her son how out do they want to be.
Shan
You get so few depictions of queerness in kdrama. A scene like that is certainly not common. That felt meaningful to me.
NiNi
Definitely not common.
Ben
That’s not a small sequence either. And again, everybody has a role to play here. Like, Jiyu being an anonymous singer who's going through an audition process now, she's got to basically come out as a singer to people. It's like an intended, not perfect, allegory for the coming out experience. Having everybody suddenly talking about you, having to face that. But about how Jiyu can't have what she wants if she doesn't come out. This is true for Heesu, too. He can't go out with the boy that he likes if he's not willing to be perceived by people doing that.
Chanyoung wants to go into tennis seriously despite not committing his whole life to it exclusively the way he should have. I mean, his dad's not wrong about that. But his dad is horrible about it and literally is throwing the kid's shit away and forcing him to leave home so he can do the thing that's important to him. An obvious queer allegory. And who does Chanyoung land with? He lands with his closest friend who can handle this sort of shit. That's also super queer.
Heesu's sisters are dealing with their own relationship struggles that help Heesu face some things. His oldest sister was dating her best friend. They agreed to go abroad together, I think to America probably, and she got cold feet at the last minute and didn't go with him. And then she decides late in the show that she's gonna leave her job, she's gonna take up that study abroad path that they were gonna go down together. She's gonna go support her friend. ‘Cause she says, regardless of what we are to each other, romance or not, he's my best friend and I let him down and I'm gonna go make up for that.
Middle sister's is also dating one of her best friends, but she's not actually into her friend romantically. And she's tormenting this poor boy because she can't give him the emotional support that he needs from a partner. And she seems to be kind of a mean girlfriend about it, too.
NiNi
It was kind of also a parallel to Heesu's crush on Chanyoung. what happened with Heejae is they had been in this relationship for a really long time and they had actually lost those feelings for each other, but momentum was keeping them going in the relationship until her boyfriend decided that he was gonna cut it off and then she went into panic. She's like, “We've been doing this so long. What am I gonna do now?”
And that's paralleling, sort of, Heesu's crush on Chanyoung. It's been going on for such a long time. It had become a part of him at that point. And so the idea of letting go of it is what really sent him into this spiral. Like he acknowledged to himself like later down that his feelings for Chanyoung had changed but he could not let go of them even as he acknowledged that they had changed. Which is what the whole confession thing was about, he had to release that secret, he had to tell Chanyoung what the problem was to get past all of that.
And that was paralleling with Heejae, she and the boyfriend had to have that conversation even after he dumped her. Kdrama really indexes on having those conversations. When people break up, it's not considered a breakup until they've agreed to break up. You can't just dump me. It has to be agreed to.
Shan
It's one of the strongest Korean cultural beliefs, right? You can't move on until you've confessed, until you've gotten it off your chest, until you've talked it through and figured out everybody's feelings. So I wasn't surprised to see it here.
And I was glad they needed those moments of catharsis. Heesu standing in that dark room, having shrouded himself in darkness like that to confess.
NiNi
A fucking moment.
Shan
That was such a powerful visual to see that just that small shaft of light finally making its way in as he finally got it off his chest.
We haven't talked that much about the show's use of space and the stars as a metaphor but it was so well done, it's very artful in ways that you don't often see in BL. This show really cared about its ideas and its themes and it's shown through not just the storytelling and the narrative, but in the visuals that they use throughout.
Ben
I felt so seen by this show giving the closeted gay boy a really nerdy, kind of solitary hobby and having him wax poetic about it over his own dramas. Such a great choice.
One of the things I liked with the sisters, I actually liked that Heesin was so amorous and always confessing to boys because the social politics of how you portray queer people in Korea doesn't seem to really allow for femme presentation. And I really liked Heesin as somebody who just can't hold it in. I like that she's there subtly to stand in for the femme types who just cannot hide. And I love that she says it explicitly. Like, why do you always confess? “I just have to. I can't hold it in.”
NiNi
The fact that it works at the end.
Ben
I love that she actually wasn't prepared for it to work, either. That was so fun.
Shan
She was a great character. And I really liked that Heesu had different relationships with each of his sisters. Like the nature of each of his sibling relationships was a little different. The way he talked to each of them was different. The way they relied on him or took care of him was different. As someone with a lot of siblings, that is so real.
Ben
I like that most of their sibling beef was over food. That was fun.
Shan
That's very real, too. [Ben laughs]
NiNi
Makes 100% sense as somebody with siblings, absolutely that's how it rolls. We're mad at you when you're upset. You don't need to be upset right now.
Ben
Let's talk about that coming out sequence. When Heesu finally decides to come out it's not a surprise to me that it's Heesin that he comes out to.
Shan
Mmhmm, same.
Ben
I love the way he comes out, too.
He's like, I had a crush on a boy. And I have a new crush on another boy. I think all of my future crushes are gonna be on boys. Wow, look at this show acknowledging that the boy you love in high school is not the only boy you will ever love. Holy shit.
Shan
I was also not surprised it was her that he confessed to. She's closest in age. She's the freest. She's the most emotionally open. It made sense to me that she was the one he felt safest going to first.
NiNi
I loved her reaction.
Ben
I love her trying to follow her training. She's like, “Right, I gotta tap him and reassure him. We still love you, little brother.” [Everyone laughs]
Shan
You can see her being like, “All right, remember those articles you've read. What are the steps?”
Ben
She's like, “Don't fuck this up.”
Shan
Because you know she already knew and she like read up on how she needed to respond when he finally told her.
NiNi
Mmhmm. They discussed it. The sisters all discussed it.
Ben
It's time for a gay media moment. There's this moment in The Fosters, a show from ABC Family, now Freeform, in which Lena, who is the black lesbian school administrator mom, has this interaction with her dad. She came out as a teenager and her family was very supportive. And he has this incredible moment with her where he says, “I think sometimes about when you came out to us and we said we still love you. We still love you. What a horrible thing to say to your child. Like we meant well, but doesn't that imply that we could have chosen to do otherwise? We never could have. What I wish we had said to you instead was, thank you so much for telling me this important thing about yourself. And I can't wait to meet the person that you want to share your life with.”
I'm okay with this moment not being the kind of things I would like to see someone say in an ideal circumstance, because that's sort of the point. Like, again, if you think about this show as soft launching your kids might be gay to the wider Korean audience, I like that this show is full of so many imperfect moments with how people handle the queerness. A lot of people are gonna fuck up dealing with queer people in their lives. I love that this show is full of imperfect moments that people then try to rectify.
Like Chanyoung doesn't handle Heesu coming out to him very well, because he felt cornered and overwhelmed. And then when Heesu comes to see him later, he's mad at him. He's hitting tennis balls at him. Like, “Why didn't you prepare me in some way? I feel like I fucked up badly as your friend.” He feels bad that he let his friend down. He didn't make that moment about Heesu somehow letting him down. He got frustrated that he let Heesu down and he was still resentful of the way Heesu had been holding back with him for so long.
I love that Jiyu handles all of her stress in life by meddling in gay affairs. She is every girl who I ever trusted growing up. [Everyone laughs] Is there something wrong in your life, Jiyu? Sure is. So what are you doing? I'm making these gay boys go on a date. Got it. All right. I pissed off one of my gay friends by saying he should just come out and he read me for filth over that. What am I doing? I'm coming out as a singer today. Okay.
[NiNi laughs]
01:24:57 - Heesu In Class 2: On Seungwon
Shan
I feel like we haven't talked enough about Seongwon. He's the more quiet, understated character in this, but he's also a great character. I love that he is kind of fixated right from the start on what he wants. And his arc is about finding the courage to speak it. As much as Heesu was not being honest with Chanyoung, Seongwon’s not being honest with Heesu.
That is a big part of why Jiyu was trying to intervene and encourage him to speak his truth because he needed to. He was stuck. He struggled so much with saying the thing and putting a name to it, which made it harder for Heesu to understand where he was coming from and to recognize his own feelings.
I really just liked the way that whole arc played out and that they both had to find their courage to be honest.
Ben
Seongwon knows Heesu likes Chanyoung. And so it's not that Heesu couldn't choose him. There's this particular drama when you're the only queer kids in the school of like, yeah, I guess you guys are your only available option for gay outlets or whatever. But that also puts this huge pressure of like, what if it doesn't work? What if that turns messy too? What if I end up outing Heesu? It's more hurtful to be like, okay, this guy's gay too, but he clearly doesn't know this about me, which means clearly there's something wrong with me ‘cause I can tell about him. Maybe he can already tell about me, but he doesn't want it. So he's going after this guy instead.
Like, his crush is played by Ahn Ji Ho. Have you seen Ahn Ji Ho’s shoulders? I would be nervous if I was Seongwon about whether or not that boy would be actually interested in me. I love that Heesu won't come out because he doesn't know how Chanyoung will take it. And I love that Seongwon won't come out even though he has a mom who would probably be okay with it and he likes a boy who's clearly also queer. There's a lot of realities to face for coming out. That's gonna be nerve wracking. And what if Heesu doesn't want it? So now he's come out and embarrassed another person who's not ready to come out. And now he's gotta deal with all of that shit, too. None of that is easy.
And I loved the way they framed it for that boy. I loved the kind of, like, messy lying thing he did too by stealing someone else's attempt to flirt with Heesu. That was also pretty fucked up for an otherwise very kind character.
NiNi
I like the way that it all gets wrapped up at the end, though. Despite the fact that the stakes for him seem to be pretty low, his parents are going to be fine with it, he actually likes another boy that he knows is queer. When they're figuring out how to express their relationship, they're like, well, we can't hold hands. It's cool if I put my arm around your shoulder because you've done that with Chanyoung before. That's a nice little subtle hint that even though all of these other things are not concerns for him, they're still the world that he has to think about.
Ben
Also, shout out to this show for putting gays in the background. On one of the sequences where they're kind of chilling while the boys are playing soccer, there are clearly some gay boys hugged up on each other. Good job, background gays, not getting caught up in this fucking drama. [laughs]
01:28:06 - Heesu In Class 2: The Galloping Disk Horse, Final Thoughts and Ratings
NiNi
It is a beautiful little show. I think that if you're watching it with BL goggles, you will probably be disappointed. But if you allow yourself to enjoy it as a queer drama, I think that you will let yourself sink into it and you will feel the vibe of all the things that we've been seeing.
I always say, are you here for a ship or a story? If you're here for a ship, you're not gonna have a good time with this. If you're here for a story, then yeah.
Ben
I’m gonna address the elephant in the room: They were never gonna kiss in the show, guys. They just don't kiss in Korean youth programming.
NiNi
Gay or straight.
Shan
This is a high school show.
NiNi
There are very few Korean high school dramas in which characters kiss. Almost never happens.
Shan
It's completely in line with mainstream kdrama standards. So there's just no real leg to stand on there for accusing the show of bias.
Ben
Did they kiss in the show? No. But was the show about queerness? Hell yeah. There's no heterosexual explanation for the entire arc of the story.
Shan
The show was very explicitly queer. They said the words out loud. The whole plot was about it.
We've been kind of dancing around it a little bit, but I will just say that the experience of watching this show surrounded by the discourse that it inspired was one of the worst instances of cognitive dissonance in my life. I could not understand the shit people were saying about this show. People got way off the mark with their criticisms. Listen. Y'all know me. I'm a critical bitch. I'm the first to ding a show when there are flaws, and this is not a perfect show. But that's not what was going on in the discourse here. There was some real weird mental gymnastics happening.
It was upsetting, genuinely, to be watching this show and see how good its intentions clearly were, how carefully and lovingly it was made, and to see the way that it was treated by people. It was one of my worst experiences ever in BL fandom. I will not get over it, and I am not letting it go.
Ben
This show ended officially on April 26th. We're recording this session at the end of July. I haven't really written about BL in three months as a result of it. Like, one of my last big pieces was about how I don't even know if I want to associate myself as a critic with BL anymore. Because if this is the nature of our fandom experience, I don't know that this is something I want to be associated with.
I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it plainly. We spent the whole section here talking about how everything in the show spoke to queerness and the experience of being closeted. This is while the show was being called homophobic on Tumblr, on MDL, on Twitter, on YouTube, on IG. It's baffling.
It feels weird to be in a room of people who are seemingly mad at BL when it isn't sexually titillating for them. It's an awkward place to be as a queer critic.
Shan
It feels like a lot of the BL audience is coming to these shows not for genuine stories about queer people, but for some other kind of dopamine hit. And then they're taking it out on the shows when the shows prioritize a genuine queer narrative over whatever it is that they're seeking.
NiNi
People will always criticize something and they will always have a leg to stand on in criticizing things from whatever lens they have. My thing has always been don't be intellectually dishonest about it. One of my favorite Tumblr users I often disagree with, but they are so honest about where they stand and where they're coming from when they criticize a show that I love or when they love a show that I hate that I can't be mad because they're very clearly being intellectually honest about where their interest in the genre lies, what they want to get out of it and what they enjoy. I can have dialogue with that user because we are both coming from an intellectually honest place.
It's intellectual dishonesty that bugs me. Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining, ever. Because I'm gonna see it and I'm gonna call you on it. You can be mad, you can critique, you can be upset. You're perfectly within your rights to bitch about a show I love. But do not be intellectually dishonest while you do it.
Ben
Before she had to go, we asked Turtles for her thoughts on the show overall and her thoughts on this discourse.
[flashback whoosh noise]
While we still have you on the recording, I just want you to answer, like, two big questions for us. How did you feel about Heesu as a show? And what are your thoughts on how fandom really did not like the show?
Turtles
This has not been the year of super stellar shows. I'm not the fan that the industry across Asia markets towards—a middle-aged mom, but not a lot of time. So the show has to be really good in order for me to spend my precious time on it. I think that Heesu is a really good show. From a construction perspective, from editing decisions to scripting decisions, it's not the actual top show. I would quibble. I wasn't planning on watching it. I didn't see it a lot on my dash. I was actually a little bit bored when I first started it. It didn't grab me. I think that there were some pacing and scripting issues that led to me sort of being a little bit slow to glom onto the issues that the show was really meant to focus on.
I think the second half of the show solved all of that for me. The second half of the show and the crystallization of all the conflicts, the love rhombus. The show just took off like a jet plane for me, and I was suddenly really invested.
Ben, you wrote about the context of all of the different social constellations, no pun intended, but actually pun intended—
Ben
—A great pun! Good job, friend!
Turtles
—I think that that's what the show is meant to reflect on exactly, the constellations of Heesu's life. So, I don't want to give the haters any leeway, to be honest. I think they misinterpreted the first half. And that translated into their really misplaced complaints that the show was focusing more on the het couple, that this was a heteronormative narrative. The bus was missed on those interpretations.
We had a young gay high school student that was trying to figure his shit out. He had different individual experiences of the different individuals in his life and their shit that was going on. And the show did pay attention to each one of those individuals, each one of those sisters, to Jiyu, to Chanyoung. Each of those individual stories was so important regarding the comfort that he needed in order to come out. We needed each of those stories because they were contextual and important to the life that Heesu was living at the moment that he decided to first come out to his sister. This was a queer story through and through.
Heesu gave us the life of a young man that needed to take his time. And so I'm being a little bit unfair to Heesu as a character myself in complaining about the pace of the first half of the show. So let me hold myself accountable. Heesu needed that time in the first half of the show to sort himself the fuck out so that by the time he's sitting in that chair on his roof coming out to his sister that he could feel comfortable doing so. The show told a whole story for me of the struggle of a young gay man coming to terms with himself and feeling comfortable with himself, not only about coming out, but about finding love in his life and being brave enough to do it.
In the end, I have to take off a couple of points because I do feel like there were some narrative drags there. And so I would probably, if you wanted me to give a number for Heesu, I'd probably give it a 9. But in terms of the feeling I got after I finished the show, the feeling itself was a 10.
In regards to fans putting the show down, I'm really worried about what fandom is asking gay characters to do for them as far as being entertainment and not being emotionally and holistically authentic. Heesu was authentic and a fabulous story told of a life that's about to be lived a lot more happily.
NiNi
Okay, so with that we can definitely wrap up this episode because I don't know if anything else needs to be said!
Shan
Very well said.
Ben
Wow, well bestie, you killed it.
[whoosh back to the present sound]
Ben
All right, let's wrap this bad boy up. Ratings!
NiNi, we're going to you first.
NiNi
It was a 10 for me personally. I had a great time. I did not really have any notes.
Ben
Shan?
Shan
I gave it a 9.5.
Ben
[snickers] There it is. I love you.
Shan
It had a few flaws that, in an environment where we could have had good, rational, productive conversations about the show, I would have been interested in unpacking more with the fandom, but we had the environment we had. So I was not interested in talking about any of that.
It's a great show. People should watch it. I love it.
Ben
I also gave the show a 10. It's in the realm of everybody should watch this. Beyond it having really solid acting, really attractive actors, having a good plot, really well executed presentation overall, I think it's really fascinating as an adaptation of an existing work, because the original source material is really limited in its scope, and they had to expand this into an eight episode drama of over 45 minutes. That's not an easy task.
And it was compelling from a queer perspective. It's worthwhile to watch from a variety of different angles. I think everybody gets value out of watching it.
NiNi
So that would be 10, 10, 9.5.
Ben
And a 9 from Turtles.
NiNi
I'm exercising producer privilege. It's a 10 from The Conversation.
Ben
Heh heh. That's right.
Shan
I accept it.
Ben
It gets a petty 10 from us. Die mad about it.
Shan
A petty 10! Yes! [Everyone laughs]
01:38:31 - Outro: Things Are Dire
Shan
I wanna say as we're wrapping up, that discussing these two shows that actually had ideas and things to say has been such a fucking treat. After the last six months—
Ben
Seven months, seven months!
Shan
—seven months of this horrid year. Worst BL year I have experienced. Bar none.
Ben
Twig and I were talking about this. We haven't had a BL year this bad since maybe 2017, maybe 2016. It's quieter in fandom. People are moving on. The genre is in shambles. It is milking us for all we're worth and not delivering on compelling narratives.
These shows are just not the moment. And it's really sad to watch. Every single company in the genre is floundering in some way. Our favorite creative team who gave us I Told Sunset About You, I Promised You the Moon, My Ambulance, and a bunch of other shit. We looked at their new show and we were like, “Ooh, you have to choose commerce, huh? Yeesh. Yikes.”
Shan
Right?
Ben
This is the only show from Korea that we thought was worth talking about in the entire year on this podcast. There's not another Thai BL I wanna talk about at all this year on the show. Taiwan ain't done anything I wanna talk about on this show. Japan ain't done anything I wanna talk about on this show—
Shan
That one's a real knife to the heart.
It's been a bad year. There are still shows coming out, but they're just not good. I'm happy for folks who are still finding things to like and still having a good time. I have left that era. I am so burnt out on these terrible shows. I am so sick of watching stories made by people who don't care about stories.
NiNi
I’m having a little more fun than you guys are, but not by much.
Ben
A lot of people are not like me and Twig who were like, we will die on the gay hill. If they get bored with BL, they just move on.
Shan
They have.
Ben
I don't know what space that leaves for the next wave of fans to come in. It's not a good look. BL is in trouble, y'all. And I think there is a much longer conversation to be had. The way we went from seeing BL as uplifting for queerness to now basically preying on queerness.
NiNi
And that is a conversation that we are going to have in an upcoming episode. When is it upcoming? TBD!
[Ben laughs]
NiNi
But we will be having it before this year is over.
Shan
Don't worry about it.
NiNi
That is going to wrap us up on whatever we're going to name this episode. I've apparently been banned from naming episodes. The last two ones are going to go up with the names that I chose for them and y'all will die mad about it. Since then I've been banned from titling episodes.
annaxmalina
izzy806
areudirty
kaledo-art
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
