#age gap bl

[heretherebedork]

Oh, Korean age gap 'flirting with your former tutor' microdrama? Here for it.

[absolutebl]

As I have been watching My Sweethart Jom, I got the taste for an age gap BL (for one with more chemistry and all, obviously). If I remember right this is one of your sweet spots and I also know you did post a list about them. But if you had to name one for someone who was so-so with this trope, which one would you recommend as a “first”?

(I watched Cutie Pie and that japanese one from which you posted the finger licking part a while ago, but I forgot the mane 😅)

Thank you for the answer and hope your flight will be all right!

Ooo fun question!

Yes age gap is one of my absolute favorites. Hum.

If I had to name one age gap BL for someone who was so-so with this trope, which one would I recommend first?

I think the one you mention having watched is Old Fashion Cupcake and that would be my top recommendation. It's one of those I think anyone would enjoy.

But since you have already seen it my second pick would likely be Minato Shouji Coin Laundry. It REALLY leans into the age gap aspect.

However, since you are watching Jom it seems like maybe Thai BL is more your thing than JBL? So I'm gonna switch to something in that realm instead which is...

A Tale of Thousand Stars

(Thai 2021 Viki)

With great casting and cinematography this drama nods at BL tropes but manages to elevate them (and itself) with a strong mature story concept about a spoiled rich kid who gets a heart transplant and becomes a teacher it order to pay out survivor’s guilt. On the way he falls in love with a local park ranger and contends with his own classism and escapist tendencies.

Everyone seemed to perfectly suit their roles and GMMTV made the most out of its stable. Combined with excellent production (and post production) values, 1000 Stars is without question GMMTV’s most mature, charming, and smart BL series.

I think it should go down as one of the top BLs of all time. I feel safe recommending this one to friends and non BL watchers. 

That said the age gap doesn't come into play very much as a trope, although there has to have been quite a bit of one between the leads.

More here:

Post by @absolutebl · 14 images

💬 7  🔁 18  ❤️ 100 · Age Gap BL · BLs with bigger age gaps (over 5 years) and/or those that clearly highlight age and different life stages a

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Dew the Movie Edition

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

Before I get started, I want to note that I’m publishing this review out of chronological order from the list: I owe you all a review of 3 Will Be Free, which will drop next week, but I just watched Dew the Movie this week, and felt the strong urge to get out my thoughts sooner rather than later.

Why? 

I have had a number of quick conversations about Dew the Movie with some of the around-the-block mentors on Tumblr, particularly with @absolutebl Sensei, who very kindly answered my question last week about where Dew stands by way of the trajectory of BL in Thailand (and just to note, as ABL Sensei says in their answer: Dew is most definitely NOT a BL, but an important piece of queer media to consider for the BL-driven OGMMTVC). 

The (small sample size) majority of people I’ve spoken to about Dew have actually not seen it, which is utterly understandable from the perspective of the tragic circumstances of the film. 

When I first planned on watching it, I put a caveat note on the OGMMTVC list on my blog’s pinned post that Dew wasn’t an official part of the Challenge. I change my tune on this: I would argue, at least from my perspective, that it was a *must for me* to watch.

Again, why? 

As ABL Sensei writes, Dew fits into a stage-checklist mold of queer cinema, where, at the time of its release, it potentially NEEDED to check off certain boxes in order to get produced. It very well may have NEEDED a tragic end (arguably, multiple tragic ends) to get made. It may have NEEDED to kill off a gay character (arguably, multiple gay characters) to be ripe for consumption by a wider audience. It may have NEEDED some amount of equivocating about those deaths within the art itself.

I was aware of this when I was watching Dew, aware of watching Brokeback Mountain again, aware of death and disappearance and erasure.

What I didn’t expect from Dew, possibly as strong a punch in the gut as the impact of the death(s) themselves, was how Asian the movie was.

This sounds silly, coming from an Asian-American towards a Thai movie made in Thailand, about Thai young men, as based on an original story from South Korea. But having visited Malaysia, one of my home countries, a whole bunch in the 1990s, at the same time when half of this film was situated -- I was absolutely struck by how the film did not shy away from the Asian experience of discrimination and the destruction of Asian family systems by way of homophobia and other explicit biases throughout the film.

The depictions of homophobia and discrimination in Dew were so raw that I caught myself actually gasping-crying at certain points. Before I get there, let me offer a quick summary of the film, since I believe not very many people have seen this:

Dew and Phop are two high school classmates in the late 1990s, in an extremely rural town called Pang Noi, adjacent to Chiang Rai. As the wonderful @shortpplfedup kindly noted for me, the timing of Dew and Phop’s engagement took place right before the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis that first emanated out of Thailand, and was also set as military dictatorships had given way to democracy in Thailand. 

In their rural town, young men who are either out or presumed to be gay are sent to training camps. Accusations about the spread of AIDS are made vis à vis the LGBTQ+ population. Students who are out are rejected at school and in their homes. 

I’ve written previously about how certain BLs, mainly in the MAME realm (Love By Chance and TharnType), have touched upon a kind of bigotry and bias that I have described as being particularly Asian in nature, reflective, word-for-word, of the kind discriminatory language and ideas that I was exposed to as a kid from my Asian parents. 

To see that kind of discrimination and homophobia orchestrated on a community-based level -- in Dew and Phop’s school, when children are rounded up by teachers and soldiers to be sent to a training camp -- was brutal to watch.

It immediately introduced a level of dystopia to the entire film. And I ended up appreciating that the film went that far, so immediately at the beginning of the film, after we had seen an otherwise happy-go-lucky young man in Dew beginning to engage with Phop. 

We needed that element of dystopia to kick off the film, because: Dew faces rejection from his school and, potentially, from his single mother, to be an out and gay young man in Pang Noi.

More brutally, arguably, is the rejection of Phop from his EXTREMELY patriarchal Thai-Chinese family, led by an almost despotic father, who is ready to take down his son at a moment’s notice, with a helpless mother present as Phop is progressively rejected by his father, his brothers, and the patriarchal family system that keeps that family together. (@shortpplfedup, as I wrote to you, this was Double Savage x 10, maybe x 100.) 

The reason why I liked the juxtaposition of the community-level discrimination vs. the micro, family-level discrimination is that both experiences of this kind of discrimination are dystopic. As humans, as mammals: we crave community, family, and companionship. 

To be rejected by your community is unnatural. To be rejected by your FAMILY is unnatural.

This is not a message that’s limited to Asian media or Asian cultures -- this exact kind of discrimination flourishes in America and elsewhere, including conversion therapy (Dew reveals that his own mother sent him to behavioral therapy). In rural Thailand, this kind of existence... simply cannot exist. That’s dystopic to queerness, to the LGBTQ+ community.

I brought up Malaysia earlier to make a quick mindset comparison. Around the time of the setting of Dew and Phop’s high school days, I remember hearing on Malaysian radio, riding in a car with my family, that the singer Sting (STING, y’all -- vanilla STING) had been banned from performing in Malaysia for his music being “too rhythmic.” 

Malaysia, unlike Thailand, is an Islamic nation. But borders are only lines on a map, and as I’ve spoken at length with the amazing @telomeke about, the cultural flow between the countries is strong and present. It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that rural Thai towns WOULD engage in this HIGH LEVEL of discrimination and exclusion, as unbelievable as it might seem to Westerns not familiar with either Asian or Western styles of dystopic discrimination, as I’m calling it here.

To try to survive: Phop runs away to Bangkok. And begs Dew to come with him. And Dew dies in the process.

Phop lives. He becomes an adult, a middling adult, with only middling success in his life. After a life in Bangkok, he moves back to Pang Noi, broke, married, reminiscing about Dew.

And he discovers, after becoming a homeroom teacher, that Dew has been reincarnated in the body of a young female student. (This is one of a few times that ideas of ghosts, spirits, the reborn, and the reincarnated are introduced in queer Thai media in 2019, along with Until We Meet Again and He’s Coming To Me.)

We then get the presence of an actual controversial filmmaking trope in age gap, between a young student and an older teacher. Age gap is certainly a present trope in BLs, past and present. 

In lightly peeping the MDL reviews for Dew, I saw quite a bit of consternation about this age gap, and honestly, as a mom, I certainly felt the wibbles as well. But I thought it was an interesting filmmaking device to use, in putting Dew’s spirit in the body of a young student.

Because -- of course -- this inclusion forces us viewers to confront OUR OWN BIASES. Besides the community-level and micro/family-level discrimination we see in the film, we’re also forced to truly dig into what we, as viewers, are biased against. AND, the film very much digs into the controversial nature of teacher-student relationships as well, and Phop is condemned for his closeness with the reincarnated Dew through the student, Liu, wonderfully acted by Pahn Riety of 10 Years Ticket. 

This film is fucking brutal. But the fact that it forces us to CONFRONT OUR BIASES, on so many levels -- it does a wonderful job at that. 

To the end. To the end of the loss of Phop and Liu, so that Phop and Dew can be together in the afterlife. 

The film leans on Thai-Chinese Buddhism in the second half, again, so reminiscent of He’s Coming To Me, leading to ANOTHER non-happy ending that brings two people together in unideal circumstances. Phop and Dew’s spirits will be together, not in this world, but where, exactly? Certainly not in the world of 1990s rural Thailand, a world that wanted them extinct. 

When I say that this film is rooted in its Asianness, I really mean it. I think one needs to have an appreciation for how these themes tie together -- the community-level discrimination, how general sexuality and queerness were treated with such a hands-off/ignoring approach in the SEA region in the 1990s, and why Thai-Chinese Buddhism was chosen as a means of bringing Phop and Dew back together, just like Thun and Med in HCTM. There is an acknowledgement by the Asian filmmakers of these pieces that queerness was brutally unacceptable during these times in Thailand and elsewhere, and these pieces do not shy away from that reality. 

I’m tremendously glad I watched this. I feel like crying right now while watching this, but I’m really glad, as someone with SEA roots, to have watched this, and to have seen discrimination at that level that I have seen previously, and to know it exists. If one takes up the OGMMTVC and feels like they can’t watch this, I can totally understand. But I think Dew the Movie is a tremendous gateway -- as He’s Coming To Me was -- to a very particular Asian mindset around collectivist living that does not jive with individual expressions of sexuality and queer acceptance. 

Those realities are brutal -- I hate thinking about them, I HATE IT. The acceptance gateway that I have discovered vis à vis Thai QLs is a salve to my soul that was subjected to HEINOUS discrimination against ANYONE deemed different from my Indian culture growing up. But that discrimination was also VERY REAL. I’ve broken out of being exposed to it, and I’ve tried to become the best ally I can be. But the acknowledgement, through art, that that level of discrimination can exist, in my Asian cultures, is also a reality that I have a responsibility, as an ally of Asian descent, to reckon with. 

(A quick side-note. Once more: Ohm Pawat shines. This man is a CIPHER of queer pain and queer joy. The acting, directing, and cinematography of this film was stunning. Two hours went by in a flash. If you avoid for the content, that makes sense, but if you’re a film buff, you may enjoy this film just for the devotion it pays to rural Thailand and the spectacular expanses that it captures.)

[Yow. My heart is aching, not just for Dew the Movie, but I’m also recovering from a crazy week of Step By Step, HA. 

But anyway: my review of 3 Will Be Free will be up early next week. WHAT A GODDAMN AMAZING SHOW! The OGMMTVC is definitely ruining me for great content, up against what I’m watching that’s airing now (....side-eyes to SBS, hmph). 

And: I’m digging into Until We Meet Again. IT’S FABULOUS SO FAR. Come AWN, Fluke and all of ‘em! I’m traveling for the holiday next week, but hopefully my watch schedule won’t get too messed up. But with this review of Dew and 3WBF next week, I’m holding all y’all down if you’re looking forward to these reviews!

Here’s the status of the watchlist. As ever, I’ll take any feedback ya got!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review coming) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (watching) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 26) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 27) Not Me (2021-2022) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

[heretherebedork]

Hiii

Can you rec any other shows that have an age gap as big as jin and akin from topform??

It's not the most common age gap. It is a pretty big one.

Minato's Coin Laundry has a big age gap as well, though I really only recommend the first season. But it's got the age gap AND lots of age gap related issues.

Technically, Old Fashion Cupcake also has a ten year age gap but they're both older and the age gap is treated very different due to that.

Lovely Writer also has a big age gap, has them both working in film and explores some of that age gap as well in their relationship. Different vibes than Top Form, but the age gap is similar.

Cutie Pie and Naughty Babe both have big age gaps between the lovers, though Cutie Pie's is a bit bigger and it does play into their relationships.

Step By Step is definitely similar age gaps and has that as part of their relationship.

Kiseki: Dear To Me has a good age gap in the main couple and it plays out very well but also very differently than Top Form, again.

Past-sanger ended with the biggest age gap ever? Technically. But that's... that's very technical. This is not a recommendation. Don't watch it. It's not very good. Just a laugh.

I will tag @iguessitsjustme for helping me with this (I got so caught on the categorization of 'age gaps like Top Form' that I couldn't see past my own nose) and will also tag @absolutebl because this is a trope we both love.

[absolutebl]

Your recent ask got me thinking, I do love a good age gap. Any chance you track BLs with age gaps on your magical spreadsheet, or can just remember ones that you have seen?

BLs With Age Gaps - Hyung Romances

So if the het version is noona romances, are these considered hyung romances? Eh, let's do that. For a lot of these BLs, since the seme is usually the older character, the age gap is standardized so not a big deal and not a plot point. 

With very few exceptions, I'm not going to talk about shorter age gaps, by which I mean like FighterTutor or DeanPharm or JaeYoung & SangWoo, where the older boy is the seme and is older by a few years, because these are not really about the age. If that makes sense?

Instead I picked ones where, for me, the age is visually present and kind of a bigger deal in terms of life stage and narrative, e.g. one of them is still in school while the other is not... things like that.

CHINA 

Advance Bravely

We don't know the age difference Xia Yao and Yuan Zong, but Yuan Zong acts and looks quite a bit older. Censored before it concluded.

Guardian

Well the alien/fantasy people are thousands of years older than their romantic counterparts, so yeah big age gaps. Censored from the get go but we all get it anyway.

JAPAN 

Pornographer series

So this is a dirty gaslighting crazy piece of Japan being SO Japan about this trope. But it sure is age gap. Established novelist with an intention to corrupt, bullies college kid into writing his porn for him with the intent to seduce.

Minato’s Laundromat

My favorite version of this, younger seme older uke, 10 year age gap. I love this show so much. 

Old Fashion Cupcake

Another age flip, only both characters are older, it’s office set, and added obstacle of boss/employee dynamic. God it’s so good. 

JAPAN & THAILAND

Love Stage

Ryu is out in the world as a full on actor idol and Anda is still in university. The Japanese version has the same age gap.

KOREA

1st Love Again

YeonSeok remembers his past lives and is an established writer, he also looks older than HaYeon who is a new editor. So this BL feels very age gap. There isn't much hyung-ing tho. 

Kissable Lips

Your bog standard ancient vampire falls in love with a college kid trope, only gay and Korean. It's good but it ends sad, but it certainly is a massive age gap.

Tasty Florida

EunKyu is an established chef with a successful business and HaeWon has just entered the workforce so there is some kind of age gap going on. They also act this way right away, instantly going with hyung.

You Make Me Dance

HongSeok is a loan shark and clearly quite a bit older than college kid ShiOn.

THE PHILIPPINES 

My Day the series

Ace is the CEO of a company, although he looks younger he is probubly quite a bit older than Sky who is still in college. However, these two don't act at all like there actually is an age gap in play.

TAIWAN 

HIStory 2: Right or Wrong

Probubly the most typical execution on this list. YiJie is a lot older than ShengZhe and also his professor, since this is a teacher/student romance which is a classic age gap story. 

HIStory 3: the BL that shall not be named & HIStory 4: Close to You

The side characters in H3 and cameos in H4 BoXiang and ZhiGang have a huge age gap, 12 years, and it is a big deal for their relationship.

HIStory 4: Close to You

YongJie is quite a bit younger than XingSi, not sure on the specifics but he's in middle school when XingSi is in high school and still in college when XingSi has his own business. Also the stepbrother trope. 

See You After Quarantine?

Definitely an older younger dynamic with a college kid and an established businessman. Also SO flipping cute.

THAILAND 

Tale of Thousand Stars

Chief & Tian must have a pretty big age gap.

Brothers

This is not a good show, but side couple Khun & Kaow are great in it and this is my favorite version of an age gap: younger seme + older uke. Khun is in university and Kaow has a baking business.

Lovely Writer

Again Sib is quite a bit younger than Gene and the pursuer, man I love this dynamic. Since Gene is out of university and established in his career, I'm calling this one for age gap. 

Not Me

DanYok is an age gap, but it isn't really the point or the plot of their romantic arc.

Dear Doctor I'm Coming For Your Soul 

Absolutely an age gap, I mean one of them is an immortal reaper. Also they confront and address the ultimate issue that one of them will age when the other one doesn’t. It’s poignantly handled, but I thought quite lovely.  

VIETNAM 

My Lascivious Boss

Vietnam's age gap offering. He's the owner of the cafe and his boy is just out of university (?). It's very very cute. 

Also Nation's Brother might qualify.

Others With Age Gaps but I'm Not Into it

Ossan's Love (Thai) triangle second lead

Waterboyy (Thai) side couple

Make it Right 2 (Thai) side het romance, very problematic

Bite Me (Thai)

Call It What You Want (Thai)

Friend Forever (Thai)

Because of You (Taiwan)

Innocent (Taiwan) short

Light (Taiwan) short

The Immeasurable (Taiwan) short

Top Secret Together and Love By Chance both have sub plots of high school boys pursuing college ones, but the one didn’t go anywhere and the other went very very bad, so yeah... no. Although I would personally LOVE to see this done well. 

You could make the case that Devil Judge also qualifies.

MOAR!!!

(source)