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*sorry, folks, this is a long one, based on one humble inter fan's desire to understand

As we eagerly await the release of Shine, one intriguing detail stands out: its setting in Bangkok, 1969. 

Thailand in the late 1960s was not exactly a beacon of visible queer liberation. So why choose this year, this precise moment, to set this series? The answer may lie not in what was happening in the open, but what was burning just beneath the surface in Thailand and across the globe. That "light that lingers just beneath the shadows" that would turn a spark into the flames of social unrest.

1969 was a year of rupture and revolution. Across the world, young people were taking to the streets—angry, idealistic, determined to wrest power from corrupt systems. From the anti-war protests in the United States to student-led revolts in France, Japan, and Mexico, the air was electric with resistance. Music, fashion, and film reflected these seismic shifts, capturing the spirit of rebellion in psychedelic color.

In Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War raged just across the border. American troops passed through Thailand on their way to and from the front lines, and the Thai government, under military rule, maintained close ties with the United States. The social tensions of this geopolitical alignment were palpable between the rising tide of youth culture and a government suspicious of dissent. This tension was felt as well between imported modernity and deep-rooted tradition, agrarian poverty and Bangkok's concentration of wealth. All of these serve as a pressure cooker of tensions that was ready to explode.

In Thailand, student activism was gaining momentum. The seeds that would later blossom into the mass protests of the 1970s were already being planted in 1969. University campuses, especially Thammasat and Chulalongkorn, were becoming incubators for radical thought, as young intellectuals began to question military rule, wealth inequality, and the suppression of free speech.

Though the mass protests that would shake the monarchy and the junta had not yet occurred, the sense of unease was growing. Student publications, underground gatherings, and whispered debates signaled a generation preparing to stand up. It is into this world—a world tense with possibility—that Shine may drop its characters.

Half a world away, in June of 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York sparked several nights of defiant resistance led by trans women, drag queens, and queer people of color. It became a watershed moment in LGBTQ+ history, a symbolic ignition point for the modern gay rights movement. News of Stonewall may not have reached every queer person globally in that moment, but the reverberations would be felt by an entire generation.

For closeted individuals in Thailand, especially students and intellectuals already questioning other forms of repression, Stonewall represented something radical: the refusal to hide. Even if unspoken, it stirred something. It suggested that queerness and protest were not incompatible. That the same voices raised against political injustice would teach a future generation of queer people to fight for the right to love freely.

Thailand decriminalized homosexuality in 1956, over a decade before Stonewall. On paper, it was a progressive move. But legal tolerance did not equal cultural acceptance. The 1960s remained a deeply conservative era for queer Thais, especially in professional or public life. While kathoey ("ladyboys") had long been part of Thai cultural visibility, their presence did not signify broader acceptance of queer identities—particularly not of men who loved men or women who loved women outside of comedic or marginalized roles.

There were no pride marches. No activist networks. No formal advocacy groups pushing for LGBTQ+ rights in the way that began to unfold in the West. In fact, Thailand’s first gay rights organization, Anjaree, would not be founded until 1986—seventeen years after Stonewall, and almost two decades after the year Shine is set.

So why choose 1969 for a queer Thai story?

Because it is a liminal moment. 

A time before everything cracked open, when truth still had to live in shadows, but shined just as bright. A time when love, especially queer love, had to be coded through through music, poetry, unspoken gestures and looks. It’s a rich emotional landscape for drama, for longing and repression, desire and danger, all set against the backdrop of political awakening.

If Shine follows queer characters navigating this moment, their love story is not just personal, it’s political. Their very existence becomes resistance, not through protest signs or riots, but through every act of tenderness they dare to share in a world that tells them to stay invisible.

By choosing 1969, Be On Cloud may be offering a tribute to all the queer people in Thai history whose stories were never told. The ones who danced and sang behind closed doors. Who whispered their truths in journals and poems. Who watched the world begin to burn and wondered if there would ever be space for them in its new order, until they came into the awareness that they would have to build the world they wanted themselves. One love, one protest at a time.

So that future lives could Shine in the open as well.

What’s completely wild to me about Shine is how it explores deep ideological divides, each embodied by privileged men —hedonist, capitalist, journalist, military leader, and foreign-trained academic— who are also grappling with their queer identities during a time of political upheaval.

The voice we don’t hear? The people. Student activists stand in for them because institutions of that era didn’t give ordinary citizens a say in what happened to their lives. The same institutions that, directly or indirectly, each of these men benefit from.

Shine feels like it’s weaving a charged, emotional tapestry, where the personal and the political collide in the lives of queer men. I’m so excited to see how this series holds all those tensions together and manifests them on the screen.

In the trailer for Shine, the moon is a persistent, almost haunting image. Thanwa is the lead singer of Moon Shine. He welcomes Trin to his hedonistic paradise with the words (translated): “Welcome to the other side of the moon.” The OST features the track “The Far Side of the Moon,” and Trin himself wears a moon-shaped pin on the lapel of his jacket.

In Thai literature and poetry, the moon carries layered meanings of love, longing, illusion, and impermanence. In Western lit, we recognize Juliet warning Romeo to not swear his love by the inconstant moon, and rightly so. Its phases reflect life’s rhythms in its tenderness, its betrayals, and its inevitable transformations. People come into our lives and people leave. Nothing stays the same.

We see the moon’s face, trace shapes and stories into its surface, but there’s always a side we cannot see, even as the sun illuminates it.

That hidden side—unseen, yet always present—feels like the heart of Shine.

It’s no accident that, during one of the most turbulent periods in Thai modern history, the moon emerges as the story’s central metaphor. It mirrors not just national upheaval, but personal revolutions as well.

Every character in Shine is changing - falling in love, breaking apart, becoming someone new. There is the change society sees, but there is also a transformation happening in private, far from public view.

We’re not just watching a love story. We’re watching people fight in the light while wrestling with their fundamental desires in the shadows. Society is in turmoil. Ideologies are in upheaval. The only constant in the lives of these characters is that by the end, they will be transformed, and nothing will ever be the same.

Let me start by saying that I love Shine the Series. I’m so invested in it that I write fanfic for the show, which, for someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time, should tell you just how much it means to me.

That said, one thing that stands out while watching Shine is how the female characters often seem to exist primarily to support the emotional journeys of the male leads. Take Claire, Trin’s first love, for example. Her tragic death after joining the 1968 Paris student protests leaves a deep scar on him. Her final words, urging him to stand up for his own country, stay with him as a moral compass. But we never really get to know Claire beyond the role she plays in shaping Trin’s development.

Then there is Tanwa’s mother, whose suicide adds another layer of trauma that defines him. We also see women like Dhevi, Trin’s aunt, who is trapped in a loveless and childless marriage, or Dao, Naran’s fiancée, who struggles with her parents’ disapproval while unknowingly participating in a relationship overshadowed by a secret affair. Even Moira, who initially stands out as a strong presence, ultimately seems defined more by her series of lucrative marriages than by a personal arc of her own.

One might argue that, in a show with only eight episodes, there simply isn’t time to explore side characters in any real depth. And to be fair, many supporting characters, regardless of gender, remain somewhat sketched in rather than fully developed. But what stands out is that the women are not just underwritten; they are sacrificed. Claire dies to catalyze Trin’s political awakening. Tanwa’s mother dies to deepen his emotional wounds. Dhevi and Dao serve as cautionary examples of what happens when women are trapped by social expectation or left in the dark. Even Moira’s arc is shaped more by the men she has married than by any interior growth we’re shown.

This is not a fate shared by the male supporting characters. While they may not all receive detailed arcs, they are not reduced to emotional stepping stones or narrative casualties. The imbalance lies not in screen time, but in how pain is assigned, and whose pain is allowed to exist for its own sake.

In the end, it is hard not to feel that Shine uses these women more as narrative tools than as full characters. And while the show gets so many things right, this is an area where it still has room to grow. The hope is that future episodes or future series from BOC will meet that challenge by treating their female characters as more than just collateral damage, and giving them stories that can stand on their own.

(Post written as of episode 4)

Thammasat University is so important for the period Shine is set in. From the 1960s through the 1970s, it was more than just a school; it was the heart of political and social change in the country**

Thammasat University was founded in 1934 to promote liberal education and democratic values. By the 1960s, it had become a place where professors and students spoke out against Thailand’s military rulers. Critical journals, late-night debates, and rallies became part of campus life.

The most famous moment was the October 14, 1973 uprising. Students from Thammasat, organized through the National Student Center of Thailand, led massive protests demanding democracy and a new constitution. Hundreds of thousands joined in. The regime tried to crush the movement, killing dozens, but the pressure was too much and Thanom Kittikachorn, the military strongman at the time, was forced into exile. For a few years, Thailand experienced a brief democratic opening.

That window closed in 1976. On October 6, conservative and royalist forces struck back. A student play at Thammasat, interpreted as mocking the monarchy, became the excuse. Police and right-wing paramilitaries stormed the campus, killing dozens of students, with some estimates putting the number at over 100, and injuring hundreds more. The massacre ended the democratic experiment and ushered in another military coup and years of repression.

Through it all, Thammasat stood as a symbol of resistance. It was the place where young people confronted powe and demanded freedom, paying a heavy price for their activism. Depending on perspective, its students were either celebrated as heroes of democracy or condemned as dangerous radicals.

Thammasat mattered because it was the center of Thailand’s struggle for democracy. The events of 1973 and 1976 were not just student protests but national turning points that shaped Thai politics for decades to come.

**Always prioritize local sources when discussing Thai history.

(Originally posted on X)

Some viewers dismissed the love scene between Krailert and Naran as a detour from the main romance, but in truth this moment is not filler at all. It is a vital thread in the series’ emotional throughline, deepening its themes and sharpening the contrast with Tanwa and Trin’s luminous love story.

Krailert and Naran’s connection unfolds in hidden spaces, underlined passages, and fleeting glances exchanged through letters and books. The setting, a dimly lit library, reflects the nature of their love: suppressed, coded, and weighed down by unspoken truths. Krailert, a man weathered by years of repression and bound to duty, reveals himself in this stolen intimacy. Their secret love-making is both a triumph and a tragedy, a release of long-buried desire that carries the bitter knowledge of impermanence. The intimacy is tender yet urgent, reminding us that queer longing in repressive contexts often survives only in exchanged objects, hidden rooms, and borrowed time.

The way they communicate through marked lines in novels transforms literature into emotional code. Each underlined phrase becomes a confession of longing and a plea to be seen. This is not just flirtation but survival.

Placed alongside this fraught intimacy, the main couple’s story feels radically different. Tanwa and Trin’s romance is slower, deliberate, and bathed in light. Their connection grows in open spaces, among trees and flowers, amid laughter, and the honest warmth of shared conversation. If Krailert and Naran show us what it means to hide love, Tanwa and Trin show us what it means to begin to claim it. Their love may still be fragile, haunted by class expectations and social pressures, but it carries an optimism that Krailert’s story lacks. Where one romance bends under repression, the other stretches toward possibility.

The tonal contrast is also striking. Krailert and Naran’s relationship is confined, secretive, and bittersweet. Tanwa and Trin’s is expansive, hopeful, and glowing with the possibility of something more.

By placing these two love stories side by side, Shine underscores the spectrum of queer experience. Not every love can thrive under the same conditions. Some romances, like Krailert and Naran’s, are doomed to secrecy. Others, like Tanwa and Trin’s, bloom slowly toward the light. This contrast makes Tanwa and Trin’s journey feel all the more urgent. We root for them because we have already seen the cost of repression. And in Krailert and Naran, we glimpse the haunting reminder of what happens when desire is never allowed to live fully.

Far from diluting the story, the secondary couple’s scene deepens it by adding pathos, emotional stakes, and a mirror that reflects both tragedy and hope. Krailert and Naran give us the ache of hidden flames. Tanwa and Trin give us the promise of open skies. Together they remind us why Shine the Series is one of the most layered, emotionally intelligent dramas of the year.

Up until Episode 4, Tanwa felt more like an archetype than a character, the golden love interest, flirtatious and free, always glowing in the light. Yes, we had hints of deeper wounds from the clash with his father and the quiet reference to his mother’s death. But he remained mostly untouchable, the dream figure who illuminated Trin’s life.

That changes in Ep 4. Even in the opening, we get a haunting prelude: Tanwa jolts awake, sobbing from a nightmare of a woman submerged under water. We suspect it's his mother, and that grief is drowning him from the inside. He looks to the dreamcatcher swaying above his hammock, a talisman meant to guard against bad dreams. It’s telling that this is what hangs over him, not just as decor but as a silent witness to a grief he cannot shake.

When, after Tanwa's careless "We are good friends" in answer to Trin’s demand to know what they are to each other, Trin finally snaps and says “Good friends don’t kiss each other.” It’s the first time someone pierces Tanwa’s easy charm. Trin names what’s unbearable about him: his refusal to commit, his habit of floating from one thing to another. And for the first time, Tanwa is left shaken.

It’s no accident that their next scene together is the beach sequence. There, Tanwa reveals the most vulnerable part of himself: the photo of his mother, and the truth that she committed suicide or chose to leave when he was twelve. That phrasing is everything. For Tanwa, life is a matter of choice. His belief in freedom isn’t casual; it’s existential. To choose is to live, but to choose also means to accept the fallout. His mother’s choice imprinted that lesson on him forever.

Trin poses a hypothetical question: If he had known what was going to happen, would he have tried to change it? And Tanwa answers no because everyone has the freedom to follow their heart. In that moment, Trin isn’t just hearing Tanwa’s philosophy, he’s thinking of Claire. The guilt he carries, that he chose not to follow her into the protest, bubbles up under Tanwa’s words. Her death was tragic, but it was also her choice. In that exchange, there’s a strange kind of understanding: Tanwa’s freedom illuminating Trin’s consequences.

And here we understand clearly Tanwa’s character arc. It’s about permanence versus impermanence, of loving when there is a real risk of loss. If he is freedom personified, then Trin is the embodiment of consequence. And only by colliding with each other do they both begin to change.

And it’s no accident that all of this unfolds at the sea. Water is where Tanwa’s greatest trauma lives. His submerged mother is the nightmare that still wakes him in tears. Yet it is also where he finally bares himself to Trin, offering the rawest truth he has. The waves hold both grief and rebirth, both loss and love. When Trin reaches for him and they plunge into the water together, it’s not just a love scene, it’s Tanwa stepping into the place that once drowned him, but now holds him and, in Trin’s steady arms, keeps him in place and eventuallypulls him out.

The beauty of Shine is that we learn this revelation at the same pace as Trin. Until now, we see only the archetype. But in Episode 4, when Tanwa finally lets the mask slip, we see the fragile human beneath. And suddenly, the golden boy’s story is not about floating, but about whether he will ever be brave enough to allow himself to stay.

(originally published on X)

When we talk about story structure, the midpoint is where everything changes. It’s the hinge that swings the whole narrative forward, sometimes through a false victory (a moment that feels like success but isn’t yet the real thing), sometimes through a false defeat (a setback that looks crushing but ultimately strengthens the characters). Either way, it’s the point where the story deepens, the stakes rise, and the characters can’t go back to how things were before.

Watching Shine, the two central couples are pacing toward that midpoint in very different ways.

For Krailert and Naran, their midpoint has already arrived by the end of Episode 3. Their love scene feels like consummation, like they’ve finally crossed the line between yearning and fulfillment. But in story terms, it’s a false victory. They can’t retreat into the intellectual sparring that shaped their early dynamic. Every choice from here on out will weigh heavier, and intimacy will carry consequences they may not be prepared to face.

Trin and Tanwa, meanwhile, are still circling theirs. Their kiss in Episode 1 was the spark or inciting incident that launched Trin into crisis. It forced him to confront desires he had kept buried and to begin reckoning with who he is. Since then, the show has drawn out the dance between them, letting us feel the tension of Trin’s hesitation and the bright persistence of Tanwa’s presence. Their midpoint is still ahead, likely when they finally cross into intimacy. That moment will feel like triumph, but structurally it’s the false victory, or the point of no return that will deepen, not resolve, their conflict.

Seen through a queer lens, these midpoints take on more gravity. For Krailert and Naran, intimacy means stepping into risk with one another, not yet knowing how it will shift their lives. For Trin and Tanwa, the midpoint is layered with existential weight. Trin isn’t frozen by fear so much as by grief and reckoning with Claire’s death, his purpose in making societal change, and the disorienting reality of coming to terms with his sexuality. His hesitation isn’t avoidance; it’s the stillness of a man who is asking, "What does it mean to live authentically, here and now?" and hasn't quite come up with the answer yet.

That’s what makes Shine so compelling. Each story beat is personal, yes, but also political and philosophical. One couple accelerates into desire, the other is caught in the pause of self-reckoning, and both arcs remind us that queer love stories carry more than romance. They hold the weight of risks taken, histories borne, and the profound act of becoming.

And in an age of revolution, every decision becomes a kind of defiance, every act of love a radical reimagining of what it means to live. We're not at the end, or the beginning, but the moment where love, history, and the self collide, and nothing in the story can ever be the same again.