Gay shit I watched

current

trans, gnc, mlm. ~650 minutes

The first episode lived up to my lofty expectations. Out and proud kathoey pop star gets poisoned and travels back in time into the body of a closeted gay who just died by suicide. They now have to figure out what the political and personal workings are of this life they find themselves in. 

I'm using they/them for the main lead, because while it's made very clear they're some kind of gender diverse, they don't seem to identify as a woman. 'Kathoey' can mean anything from feminine man to trans woman.

current

mlm, background wlw and trans. ~540 minutes

Dramatic mess between about ten flawed characters. It finds a balance between the Asian genre of BL and the western genre of queer media, to the point that you can't really put it into either category. It's both. It's very enjoyable.

cw: suicide attempt, revenge porn, cheating, alcoholism

current

mlm. ~600 minutes

Half Thai half French guy arrives in Siam in the 1910's. He faces competing national loyalties, classism, a very interesting Thai official pursuing him, societal homophobia, and most of all his own fears and internalized bigotry. 

I love it a bunch.

current

mlm. ~650 minutes

10 more guys get invited over for the dating reality show that includes opening up about past gay traumas. So far so good.

current

mlm, maybe background wlw. ~780 minutes

Guy with a seriously deadly curse hanging over his head asks a hot shaman for help. High-stakes ghost mysteries ensue.

This is going to be so good, I'm so sure of it.

cw: it's horror, and it's really scary actually.

current

wlw. ~600 minutes

Pop star x Body guard, and also they're exes. Maybe I'm just a simp for these two but I love it so much, they're so cute.

current

polyamory, mlm. ~280 minutes

Three people fawn over a really cute guy and they decide to all live together and share him equally.

current

mlm. ~480 minutes

Fortune teller has visions about his best friend's hot but insufferably skeptical brother dying, and tries to save him. Enemies to lovers. I really love watching these two bicker.

current

wlw. ~520 minutes

Two high class popular girls who've been competitors since childhood get body swapped and have to learn to work together and understand each other.

It's hilarious, it's cute, it's a well-executed show in every way. Really fun.

current

mlm. ~480 minutes

The producers say this isn't BL but a gay series. Anyways, it's about political tensions in the late 60's early 70's, and I have high hopes for this one.

current

mlm. ~800 minutes

Big budget omegaverse. Rich enigma guy decides to pursue rich alpha guy by pretending to be broke omega. According to the trailer this is going to do a gender role switcheroo and I'm looking forward to it.

mlm. ~720 minutes

If you want to watch this, your Thai needs to be pretty good, and it would be helpful if your Japanese was also workable, because about 20% of the subtitles are simply missing.

Loser employee is contractually obligated to go hit on his hot boss, as research for their company's AI boyfriend project.

Honestly I'm enjoying this more than I thought I would based on the trailer. I was sure I was going to drop this within the first episode, but not at all. It's quite charming.

current

wlw. ~360 minutes

Guarded girl wants her ex who's married to a rich guy back, but instead rich guy's goofball sister pursues her.

The goofball has me giggling. I don't give a rat's ass about the other characters, they all seem like very unpleasant people, but the goofball really redeems the show.

current

wlw. ~720 minutes

Romcom that relies on poor communication skills for its main conflict. That's usually not my cup of tea, but it is actually quite funny, and I like seeing all of the standard 'cool rich stoic guy' tropes being applied to a girl. 

current

mlm, background wlw. ~280 minutes

Absolutely wild story about a grandpa who dies and accidentally occupies his grandson's body, then falls in love with his soulmate his grandson's age, all while trying to get his grandson's spirit to return. It's a hilarious mess.

cw: SA, not romanticized.

current

wlw. ~500 minutes

More of a slice of life than a driven plot, but I still enjoy it. There is some messaging in here about work-life balance and the importance of money. 

current

mlm. ~500 minutes

40 year old dies and wakes up in his teen self's life. He swears this time he'll confess to his crush before crush dies of cancer. 

It's charming and funny, and the songs are good. It's just looking like a sad ending waiting to happen, and the amount of misery present in ep 1 was not for me.

current

censored mlm. ~430 minutes

Oops the guy who probably murdered my family, who I swore to avenge, might be kinda hot.

current

mlm. ~300 minutes

He asks his bestie to help him learn how to flirt and bestie is a bit too eager to show him the ropes.

cw: repeated dubious consent

current

mlm. ~240 minutes

After his glow-up, he re-meets his dumbass high school frenemy, who doesn't recognize him and asks to date him, so he does, in order to get revenge.

The actors seem uncomfortable playing a gay role. The characters don't seem into each other at all. Idk I'm not convinced. It's watchable, but unless something drastically changes, this is a 6, maybe inching towards 5.

current

mlm. ~1080 minutes

Guy gets cheated on by golddigger girlfriend, and decides to get back at her by seducing her new mafia-adjacent boyfriend. 

This can be pretty funny and dramatic, but be warned that it is majorly toxic and regressive in the 'dark romance' sense. This kind of behavior can be fun to watch in fiction, but it has to stay fictional. 

Unpopular opinion, but there were many points at which I wanted to drop this. There's so many reasons: the toxicity, the way everything they do and say is calculated, the way that sex is represented as scary, painful, inevitable and not super consensual, the endless coincidences that lead to incredibly improbable misunderstandings which of course will not be cleared up because every conversation is a game of chess and people are keeping all their cards close to their chests, the sheer callousness and active malice that every character displays from time to time, the dragged out tragedies, etc. It's not my type of story. 

The reason I didn't drop it is because Mainland Chinese BL censorship was a special interest of mine, and I can't let it go yet.

cw: gang rape and sex trafficking (not romanticized, not graphic), sexual harassment and dubcon (romanticized and trivialized), snakes that kill stuff.

current

mlm. ~360 minutes

A guy with oodles of internalized homophobia re-meets his high school bestie/crush, who turns out to have liked him back, so they start dating, but self-hatred gets in the way. 

I initially really related to the guy's struggle with internalized homophobia, but that subplot has taken a back seat. I am much less thrilled with the subplot about him being scared of his partner taking touch too far. I don't like the consent politics of this at all. They're so uncommunicative and uncomfortable near each other.

current

wlw, gnc, mlm, maybe polyamory. ~600 minutes

She takes her girlfriend with amnesia to a resort and re-meets her old friend. Old friend used to have a crush on her, and now also develops a crush on girlfriend. That seems like a triad possibility to me.

on hold

mlm. ~1260 minutes

Dating reality show. Should've been trimmed down into something shorter. 

on hold

mlm. ~340 minutes

on hold because I can't find episode 6 onwards

mlm, trans, gnc. ~310 minutes

A bunch of loosely related queer twenty-somethings live their lives in Manila. Each episode is an individual story.

on hold

mlm. ~520 minutes

on-hold because I can't find episode 3 onwards

wlw, mlm, gnc. ~130 minutes

cw: transphobia

on hold

mlm. ~540 minutes

cw: seriously a horror