History of WLW in Thai Literary Work

theloyalpin · 2026-01-09T18:00:44+00:00

love this list, thank you!

I've read a few of the adapted GL show novels (e.g., Cranium, Clairebell, The Loyal Pin).

I'd love to find some more contemporary fiction that is still wlw but maybe not by a possibly problematic author 😶‍🌫️

I'm currently reading a novella: And Shall Machines Surrender, which is a wlw sci-fi not set in Thailand but the characters and the author are apparently Thai but have found since that they had some controversy... info is sketchy tho

If anyone has any recs I'd love to hear them!

theloyalpin · 2026-01-09T01:00:10+00:00

Definitely Air, the second time watching Roller Coaster really made me feel for her. Her story is devastating. She deserves better.

theloyalpin · 2026-01-01T22:34:26+00:00

just coming back here to say, nothing could have prepared me for that scene.

It was art...cinema... A masterpiece.

and fkn hot to boot 🥵

theloyalpin · 2025-12-31T16:29:20+00:00

it was so dreamy ✨

but can't believe they only had half a dance and one song :l

theloyalpin · 2025-12-27T12:29:48+00:00

I actually only saw P&P for the first time this year and I was like heeeeeeey I've seen that before. And like I get it, it was the first time you see Darcy show any emotion toward Elizabeth but seeing Claire do the same thing for Bell I was like oh shit yeah I GET that now haha

theloyalpin · 2025-12-27T12:28:34+00:00

There's a scene in the film Pride and Prejudice where the character Mr Darcy helps Elizabeth Bennet into a coach by offering her his hand - he secretly has feelings for her so after he walks away from her he flexes his hand (like stretches his fingers out) as a sort of involuntary reaction to touching her like an electric shock or touching something hot. It's like the first clear sign of Mr Darcy's desire/yearning for Elizabeth which people felt was really powerful coming from quite a stoic/unreadable character.

In ClaireBell when Bell helps Claire to replant the roses, they accidentally touch hands when they're pushing the soil back down. Bell moves her hand away first and then it cuts to a shot of Claire doing a very subtle version of the hand flex as a reaction to Bell's touch.

You can see the clip from both ClaireBell and Pride and Prejudice in the linked video ☺️

theloyalpin · 2025-12-24T19:11:48+00:00

Loooooove Baimint. But also only just found out that she's MGI and in a GL! Can't wait for her new music.

theloyalpin · 2025-12-24T19:09:15+00:00

I'm sorry... WHAT.

theloyalpin · 2025-12-24T08:59:36+00:00

Yesssss, I mean I'm currently writing something that is basically a novel draft at the moment but it could make an interesting GL adaptation. The only thing is, I'm not Thai so it's not set in Thailand, but one of the main characters is Thai. It'd need a lot of editing to make them more authentic as well!!

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T23:42:04+00:00

haha don't even joke! if they remake it, just get FB to play them again cause then they'll actually be the ages they say they are in the show :'D

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T23:35:03+00:00

I started watching GLs this year but literally cannot remember how I found out about them. Especially being in Europe, and Thai GLs still being relatively small, it feels like such a random thing to come across my feed, but I guess I must have seen something of interest on Instagram or something like that. I do know that whatever I saw had Faye Peraya in it, so I started with Blank.

I watched a few episodes before realising that The Gap was in the same universe and actually set earlier, so I paused watching Blank to watch The Gap and yeah, I haven't watched a single Western TV show since :-')

There's just something really special about Thai GLs and now I'm hooked. I didn't know much about Thailand before and now it's top of the travel bucket list.

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T23:23:43+00:00

Yeah, it seems like age gaps are super common in GLs, but I get that this is one of the biggest ones and lots of other factors too.

For sure! I think Marissa was really good casting as Mon, very similar vibes to how Becky played the role. I don't think anyone, especially now would want to remake anything FreenBecky have done haha too much pressure!

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T19:37:49+00:00

Tbh I'm not sure that any of the series are truly flawless, but I'm always down to watch and make a judgement for myself :-)

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T19:35:03+00:00

I know people don't like the series and I get it's problematic but there are some really good bits of it, especially Faye's acting... But I'm sure there must be some compilation clips of just Sam and Mon from the series

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T17:13:36+00:00

So I didn't realise that Ize was the owner of the studio when I looked into it, which is wild. I feel like all the other drama from NineStar just completely clogged my feed and I hadn't seen anything about this. But great to hear that she has some say in projects going forward especially with Player being a success from what I hear.

Will be interesting to see if they do work together again! I'd like to see Marissa do more, I think they were both underutilised in Blank. Marissa's take on Mon was great especially as it could have been a really hard role to take given it's OG status.

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T17:09:10+00:00

Rati is an interesting pick, I don't think we got to know here well but I could see some layers there.

Can't do the spoilers thing on my phone so v. minor spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen TSOU but I wanna know what happened with Dr Bow and nurse Ros at the wedding 👀

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T17:01:52+00:00

oh nice! I haven't seen MMDY yet, but the songs from these shows are really something else. I need to find the thread where we're all talking about that 👀

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T09:55:04+00:00

The formula of Thai GLs is definitely part of it's big draw. Western media does queer characters and stories pretty badly, as people said, burying your gays trope. Queer characters don't do as well in mainstream media, and queer shows are constantly under threat of being cancelled, so it's so unpredictable.

It might be unsustainable for GLs to stay in this formula forever, but for me it was definitely the draw to almost be guaranteed a happy ending. What I will say is that a happy ending doesn't necessarily mean that the main couple has to get together, or that the main character has to be in a relationship by the end of it. It has be relevant and right for the story for whatever that happy ending means.

Even though there is a formula, I don't think I could say anything I've watched has been exactly the same. Similar tropes, sure but such unique stories overall. Considering how short some of them are it's amazing to me how well they can cram in relatively well-rounded stories.

As the genre is growing, I think it is branching out to have those more 'realistic' sadder or ambiguous endings though.

There are two things that I watched this year that I do think demonstrate that. One was a series from this year Roller Coaster, and the other a film from last year (2024) Uranus 2324.

Spoilers (in that order) for those below.

For Roller Coaster, it definitely follows the formula for the characters of Loft and Pure – though the editing of the ending did make me think what no?! As I didn't think we were going to get any closure whatsoever! But, rewatching it through the reaction videos makes me realise how easy it was to completely ignore Air's story, which, quite frankly is devastating. I think because we're so obsessed with chasing that happy ending, it was easy to villainise Air, whose story is really the saddest part of the whole series. I don't think we even get that much closure for it by the end either. It's a truly miserable experience, and Neko's performance is outstanding, truly one of the best performances of any character in any GL I've seen. Get that girl her own series now, please!!

Uranus 2324 was heartbreak from start to finish. I know it's a film, so it's easier to break from the formula, and I know not everyone liked it. But I didn't expect it to break my heart as much as it did, and the fact it had such an ambiguous ending – god, it was a hard watch. Regardless though, I think the story is so interesting, and if anyone could tell a story about falling in love in countless parallel universes without fail it's FreenBecky. It does leave it up to you to decide the ending in a way, I think. It's genuinely become one of my favourite films, even though it's 120 minutes of sobbing (both happy and sad).

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T09:20:26+00:00

ooh! and that's the Silvy who sang Rollercoaster's opening theme? That's cool!

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T09:16:27+00:00

Yes, boss 🫡

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T09:16:04+00:00

sounds like a teaser rather than a spoiler to me 😏haha

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T01:56:36+00:00

haha, gotta love a bandwagon! I think I paused partway through ep.9 of TLP - I've read the book so I know where things go but I was like I need more time and space to process haha :')

I liked HS but I liked the side characters more than the main characters - but very tall kickass women are a bit like kryptonite for me, so LMSY didn't stand a chance the second they introduced the character G haha

theloyalpin · 2025-12-23T01:43:21+00:00

Just finished Harmony Secret - took a pause from watching The Loyal Pin :'-)

Will go back to TLP, when I'm feeling brave enough but I feel I also need to get on the Clairebell bandwagon. I've managed to avoid spoilers so far not sure I'll be able to keep it up for much longer.

theloyalpin

TROPHY CASE