Absolute BL

Meta Post of My BL Master Posts! 

Thank you so much! I keep a spreadsheet offline (because I have a spreadsheet for everything, I LOVE THEM with a pure untainted devotion), but that's not super helpful for you, now is it? A lot of my master posts have links to other posts in them or at the bottom so I hope you’ll forgive me for just directing you mostly at those? That way, if you’re intersted, the rabbit hole awaits. Ready? Here we go! 

Top Tear Master Posts

BL MASTER POST - WHAT IS BL? + more links to all the important stuff 

BL Foundations Syllabus Master Post - BL 101 Film Course - An Introduction to the Genre (if I were to teach a course on BL) 

BL Starter Pack Watch List (Updated 2025) - shows I recommend the most to thsoe jsut entering the genre

BL Breakdowns By Country - master post country by country analysis, a broad overview designed to manage watcher expectations, not as a socio-critical pop-culture analysis 

History of Asian BL - Form of… PHD THESIS! Why is there a big industry in many Asian countries for gay romance shows but little in the US, Canada, or UK? 

THAI BL MASTER POST - So this is a master post about Thai BL. It’s long. I’ve divided it into parts. Skip to the bits you’re intersted in. 

BL Directors - Overview - training to spot the different directors and their BL styles 

BL Language & Culture Master Post (mostly Thai) - round up guides to linguistic & language posts I’ve done over the years

Welcome to Tumblr BL Fandom - Here’s Your Primer

Meta Post - All My Stuff on the BL Industry

Other Useful BL Generalist Posts

Heat & Angst in BL + Terms Explained (dubcon, HEA, etc...)

Defining Seme/Uke (MORE seme/uke discussion including some coaching from P’AbsoluteBL on your sex life....)

Defining Chemistry - Giving Good Kiss in BL

WHY SO MUCH DUB CON IN BL? Fantasies Seme/Uke (AGAIN) Cultural Biases 

BL - The Second Coming - Your favorite BL is getting a second season! Should you be scared or excited? Let's look at data.

How long does it usually take from an announcement to getting more info on a BL being made?

BL Review & Information Content Providers/Blogs OFF Tumblr

The History of the Genre Series 

Top 10 BLs Out of China + history of the genre

Top 10 BLs Out of Japan + history of the genre 

Top 10 BLs Out of Korea + history of the genre 

Top 10 BLs Out of Taiwan + history of the genre 

Top 10 BLs Out of Thailand + history of the genre

From 2022 the best of lists are outdated, but the history stuff still stands.

My Top 60 BLs - The Elite 10% of 600 Watched (as of mid 2023)

Chef de Smooching - Recipes for BL 

Let’s Play Frankenstein’s BL! (best worst production by country) 

If You Dated BL - country by country amusement 

BL Master List of 415 BLs as of mid 2022

Queer Stuff

BL Linguistics & Queer Identity - I Am Gay versus I Like Men 

Will BL Get More Honestly Queer? 

Actually gay, not BL gay - the idea of "by queers, for queers, about queers," the BL bubble, sanitized gay, and a queer lens

Queer lens (from the director) and chemistry (from the actors) in BL (A Tale of Thousand Stars)

Touch & Daisy in Secret Crush On You - Queer Coded Language and 3rd Gender Identity

BL in Taiwan & Gay Marriage

Debating Queerbaiting in BL ( + Devil Judge... is it queerbaiting?) 

BL Actors and the Assumption of Queerness - outing actors, coming out, being out, more:  Is that BL actor actually queer?

So is it really fetishization? straight women loving bl 

Some BL fans are sasaengs, and it’s a problem in this fandom 

BLs That Highlight How Society Treats Queers

10 BLs That Are Honest to a Queer Experience 

10 GREAT Chemistry BLs to Binge 

BL Actor Pairs - Meta Guide (this is a marketing tactic - no, really, there are no exceptions, not even your favorites, sorry honey, welcome to the fandom), my term for this tends to be Cobranding

About Me Personally

BL FAQ - personal favorites, beginnings, how I got started, what I like best, where I find shows

My Journey to BL via SFF, Yaoi & M/M Romance 

fan psyche and capacity for nostalgia

My Absolute Top 15 Best (and Worst) BLs 

Favorite BL Nuggets of Narrative 

400 BLs, My 40 Favorite Moments 

All My BL Series Watch Alongs and Epic Trash Watchings 

Top 10 Most Underrated BLs 

because I, weirdly, get these ones a lot: 

this is basically what I do 

I hold multiple citizenships & passports 

currently I lurk on the left coast of the USA 

I travel a lot for work & pleasure, so when I vanish it’s just I lost internet access (I’m not dead yet) 

my (too many) degrees are in (among other things) anthropology + maths (focus on stats, history of pop culture, etc... look, it made sense at the time and it seems to have worked out for me) 

my gender is: working in theory terrible in practice, I genuinely do not care what you wanna call me 

sexually I identify as omnivorous 

I swear a lot and I will eat absolutely anything, including very spicy food NO LIMITS! 

i am a fan of Kpop but i consider myself a dilettante and not active in that fandom (TOO CRAZY) if you push me though: GOT7 (b. Jinyoung bw. Jay B) and BTOB (b. Minhyuk) more here, that said if your blog is too Kpop heavy I won’t follow back (sorry, I’m here for the BL)  

I tend to be under pretty heavy NDAs so due to that + my queerness and involvement in kink I’m highly protective of my own safety, location, and IRL identity, so that’s all ya get. 

My MDL profile (all my reviews of shows are also put on MDL, and I only review BL) 

Memes & Silly Shizz 

5 Love Languages of Thai BL 

ABCs of Thai BL 

BL Couples as my High School Friendship Group

BLs as K-pop groups

Honest Elevator Pitches for Thai BL 

University Gayness Ranking via Thai BL

Your Favorite Thai BL Couples = What to Watch Next? 

Not Just BL

Explaining Thai to the Casual BL Watcher - It Has Registers 

Thai Honorifics Between Ages in BL and real life 

Linguistically fascinating BL couples 

I’ve a lot more on the Thai language and BL, mostly cross linked int he above posts

ASIAN GL History of GL - Popularity Struggles 

Favorite Noona Romance Recs!

Also, you are so right I should come up with a better tagging system but... I never thought this would all get so big and take off so much. So, yeah, my bad. Too late now. 

Please ask if I forgot anything or there’s something specific you are looking for. My ask box is open (not a euphemism) and I check my notifications regularly. 

(source) 

For pride I'm posting my favorite lines in BLs, one each day.

For pride I'm posting my favorite lines in BLs, one each day.

Rules:Pick something, whether it's the main colour of a scene or an item in a shot from a ql show or movie that you think of, which corresponds to a colour of the rainbow flag: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

Okay, okay, I got tagged four times so I gotta do it! Tagged by @hughungrybear, @romanceismycallingcard, @dramalove247 and @abstractelysium!

Note: I am gonna do this via chronological order of my gifs from now and going back but do a different show for each gif. And I think I'm gonna add pink. Just because. Well, also because @absolutebl is doing each country and I thought 'only recent gifs' was also a fun challenge.

Bonus Pink:

For pride I'm posting my favorite lines in BLs, one each day.

BL image rainbow for pride. 

He’s Coming to Me

Why R U 

So Much In Love 

My Tee

Love By Chance

Cherry Magic

Until We Meet Again 

I Told the Sunset About You 

2 Moons 2 

Oxygen 

Color Rush 

Bonus, Sarawat in a rainbow shirt offering a cupcake: 

Tops and his rainbow cake: 

Extra Bonus, Gao Shi De’s *painting* of Zhou Shu Yi in We Best Love: No 1 For You.

The line about him saying, "Everyone is Catholic in my community," really stood out to me. That's unusual in Thailand overall, since more than 90% of the country is Buddhist. However, there are a few villages and districts in the northeast where Catholicism became deeply rooted and entire communities are Catholic.

His mother also mentioned that the trip took "eight hours to Bangkok." In the 1990s, an overnight bus ride from rural Isan to Bangkok commonly took around 8–12 hours, depending on the province and road conditions. Catholic missions in northeastern Thailand historically built schools, boarding facilities, and seminaries. For many poor rural families, education through the Church was one of the few paths to social mobility. These communities were also (and often still are) tightly knit and heavily dependent on mutual support networks.

So if I had to place Kong on a map, my ranking would be:

1. Tha Rae (most likely)

2. Another Catholic village in Sakon Nakhon Province

3. A Catholic community in Nakhon Phanom Province near the Laos border

4. Another Isan Catholic settlement connected to French missionary history

Tha Rae, Sakon Nakhon, is especially interesting because it is famous for being the largest Catholic community in Thailand. It was established in the late nineteenth century through the work of French missionaries and Vietnamese Catholic migrants who settled in the area. Even today, it is known for its large Catholic population, historic church, and elaborate Christmas celebrations. In a place like Tha Rae, a boy saying, "Everybody back home is Catholic," would actually sound completely realistic.

The history behind this is fascinating. Catholicism first arrived in Siam during the sixteenth century through Portuguese missionaries who followed early European trade routes into Southeast Asia. Later, French missionaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society became much more influential. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they established churches, schools, orphanages, clinics, and seminaries across the region.

The northeast became a particularly important center for Catholicism because of its location along the Mekong River and its connections to Laos and Vietnam. Missionaries worked among Lao-speaking communities in Isan and also among Vietnamese Catholics who migrated into the area, especially during periods of persecution and political instability in Vietnam. Over time, some villages converted collectively, and Catholicism became part of local community identity rather than simply an individual religion. That's why many of Thailand's strongest Catholic communities today are found not in Bangkok, but in provinces such as:

Sakon Nakhon

Nakhon Phanom

Mukdahan

parts of Udon Thani

The poverty detail also feels historically accurate. The line about getting an ID card and a place to study is particularly interesting. If the story is set in 1996, that was before much of rural northeastern Thailand experienced the economic improvements of the 2000s. Many Catholic communities near the Laos border were farming villages where families depended on rice cultivation, seasonal labor, and remittances from relatives working elsewhere.

Church scholarships and boarding schools genuinely changed lives because they could provide:

education

housing

meals

religious training

access to official documents and administrative support

and sometimes a pathway toward the priesthood

For pride I'm posting my favorite lines in BLs, one each day.