BL Thoughts & Reviews

the justin moir of it all

(TW: images and descriptions of blood, gore, misogyny)

In a shocking turn of events, on July 17, 2026, at approximately 9pm ICT, GMMTV announced its termination of rising actor Justin Angus Moir, effective immediately.

(Justin Moir).

For the unaware and uninitiated, Justin Moir, born November 15, 2010 to a Thai mother and Scottish father, was one of the newest young actors (and one of the only fluent English speakers) on GMMTV's roster. He currently stars in GMMTV's When Oranges Fall, playing "August."

The actions that prompted Justin's termination were...disturbing, to say the least. Justin had been exposed for reposting to his TikTok account a series of violent, hateful, and discriminatory posts promoting incel ideology, political violence, ableisn, racism, battering women, and femicide.

Here are a few of the reposts social media users found:

(Cr: Reddit)

(Cr: Reddit)

(Cr: Reddit)

In my opinion, this was the correct move. Many others have the same view.

But I've seen some people defend him saying that he was just 13/14 at the time of the reposts. I disagree with this defense. Even 13 years old is old enough to know that MURDER is bad. This is not some technical, nuanced issue where an argument can be made that he wasn't old enough to understand. We all know from a very young age that killing people is bad. It just feels ridiculous to even have to type this. And 13/14 is the precise age where we start to seriously internalize messaging about the world around us and mimic what we think is normal. And for those people trying to justify Justin's reposts on the basis of youth, tell me this: when you were 13/14, were you contemplating beating and brutally murdering your middle school crush for looking at other people? Not a petty scuffle, not even a school fight, but stabbing or shooting someone to death.

You probably weren't, right?

Even if reposting these misogynistic descriptions and depictions of violence and gore doesn't mean Justin would actually engage in them, at the very least, it is a symptom of the start of a dangerous pathology that shouldn't be rewarded with fame and fortune. We've all heard stories of boyhood incel behavior growing increasingly radical until the boy assaults a girl or shoots up his school. The only way out of that cycle is to unlearn those ideas completely. And seeing as he was still posting these types of things earlier this year (a year and a half later), he's probably still harboring those thoughts and feelings but having a manager means hiding it better. Lest we forget, D4VD also engaged in this type of online posting behavior at this age, and now he's in prison for "allegedly" sexually assaulting and murdering a child.

The Edge of Horizon has:

Poor attempts at humor, even for a soap opera,

Weird messaging (I get the parallels to ngo pa but by using that story as a reference point and romanticizing it, it kind of ruins the point they're trying to make)

Poor audio quality at times, and

Really horribly done cliches (again, even for a soap opera)

More people who have 0 familiarity with omegaverse: "I didn't expect Knot to have gender roles/gendered language. Isn't it an omegaverse? This is 2026, why isn't he allowed to work!!!"

Yes, grasshopper. That's like half of the point of the omegaverse (even if the authors don't always expressly intend for it to be so).

The omegaverse is a fictional universe where people with penises who identify as male can get pregnant. Because this is one of the pillars of the omegaverse (one of the others being that they are basically human wolves--but critically, not werewolves), these stories address questions we, in real life, often grapple with: what if a cisman could get pregnant? Would he still be a piece of shit (if he already is)? How would the world treat him? Does sexism exist because of bioessentialism or are there other mechanisms at play? Would he understand the plight of women regardless of their ability to get pregnant? Would the world turn on its head?

So many omegaverse stories intentionally and unintentionally answer these questions. Hell, a big point of contention in the community is whether children should call their omega parents "mom" or "dad" (I argue that it really doesn't matter and is based on the people involved. I know several real-life WLW families where one ciswoman parent goes by "daddy"). We even see in the Thai BL industry that Domundi bottoms some men prefer to use female pronouns, so why would a fictional child calling a cisman "mom" be any different?

And quick tangent on this: I think people reject omegas so much because of the misogyny and internalized misogyny surrounding pregnancy. That's why the "omega mom or dad" debate in omegaverse BLs persists despite authors making the stylistic choice to have the omega parent referred to as "mom." And it's why there's a growing trend of authors either replacing omegas with enigmas (a type of hyper-alpha that can dominate alphas and, importantly, CANNOT GET PREGNANT) or turning genderbending cismale characters into cisfemale characters so that they can write gendernormative straight romances under the guise of slash fiction.

Another, longer, tangent: I think I've said this before but I actually don't care if gay cismale characters use terms like ผัว/เมีย ("pua"/"mia") if that's their choice. Is it heteronormative? Probably. But I think that the heteronormativity conversation is an example of thinking you're far left but in practice being right of center. Often, by telling gay people that they can't be in a relationship that looks like some straight relationships, it's telling them that there's only one right way to be gay. It's like telling a woman who likes to cook that she can't like cooking because that would be subscribing to a gender role. In other words, it's depriving that person of a choice they consciously made, and I'm not a big fan of that. For Thai BLs, specifically, there's also the language aspect of it. Most Thais say "พ่อแม่" ("phaw-mae") meaning "mom and dad" instead of "parents." And this is actually a pattern in Thai language where instead of using one neutral term, Thais use compound words or more specific words to express a concept. For example, the word for "sibling" is "พี่น้อง" ("phi-nong"). If you're familiar with Thai, you know that "phi" and "nong" refer to older siblings and younger siblings, respectively. When you say "phi", you're literally saying "older sibling," but when you combine it with "nong", you're suddenly just saying "sibling."

All that to say, if two gay cismale characters want to call each other husband and "wife," there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I argue there can be positives to it, but that's for another time. I also agree that in Knot specifically, if Phatsa doesn't like being referred to using feminine pronouns (which, I'm actually not sold on that being the case--I think he just doesn't like the idea of being married to Nakhun, no matter how you word it), then the characters disrespecting his harmless choice are in the wrong.

Shuyuan is not the best actor in his series. He's overacting a bit. I'm not sure if it's purposeful since half the time he's playing an actor playing a character, but he's doing so much at times (specifically as Gao Zhun) it breaks my immersion. Ollie, on the other hand, is playing both of his characters with much more realism. Too many people see Visine crying and aggressive shouting and equate that with a good performance. Maybe for the stage or a melodrama, but Deep In is neither. Both of them are doing a good job, but I disagree with the opinion that Shuyuan is giving an "impressive" performance.

Progress, on the other hand, appears to be overacting on purpose. People aren't giving him props (and are instead giving Almond all the praise) because they can't differentiate acting skill from direction and character. Ko Neung is supposed to be OTT, silly, boisterous, and cartoony. Progress is playing that role to a tee. Could it be better? Of course--rarely do we see a flawless performance. But he's by no means a bad actor or even the worst in his pair.

Almond has improved since Love Sick 2024 but his main skill still appears to be that yearning puppy look he does so well. He needs more reps for all the praise he's getting these days.

For the uninitiated, yeah...that's what it is. Nakhun and Phatsa are an alpha and an omega who do not know each other and are just trying to get relief as quickly as possible. One big part of omegaverse is that people become these almost scary super horny feral humans when they go into heats/ruts, especially when it's with someone who is not a long term partner/close loved one. It can look very sloppy and uncomfortable and you will feel a lot of secondhand embarrassment.

ask them if they thought Knot episode 2 made sense or if it was just a random collection of loosely connected scenes.

If it made sense -> congrats, you're an omegaverse reader!

Dropped

Ticket To Heaven (ep. 3) - Beautifully shot, very raw and gritty atmosphere. Sadly, I can't believe Gemini as far as I can throw him.

Flower Boy (ep. 3) - This series exposed just how much Pearl is carrying Peak on screen. Didn't help that the storyline itself wasn't super compelling despite the unique gimmick.

Completed

Nothing yet.

Now Playing

When Oranges Fall - I have a few critiques but they are so outweighed by the loveliness of the story, beauty of the mise en scene and cinematography, chemistry between our lead couple, and even, at times, the strength of the acting. All they need to do is nail the ending for me.

Payback - Bitch when I tell you I have not been this invested in a series from EPISODE 1!! I don't even want to get too happy out of fear of disappointment. Pretty cast, excellent story, good acting. Let's keep this up.

Deep In - I genuinely do not know what kind of crack they put in this series but it is quite captivating. It took a little longer for me to connect with it than Payback but once I did, I was locked in. The direction is the best of the four I'm currently watching.

Knot - Plot's a hot ass mess so far but the concept has me intrigued. Very interested in seeing where this goes.

Waiting for

Gelboys Season 2 - Season 1 was in talks to be the best BL of that year, so I know season 2 will be interesting. Baabin and Bua's storylines I feel had much more life left to live by the end of season 1. And with the Newgels, we will be getting something different.

20 Lists - Listen, Patji can make me watch damn near anything.

Class Crush Crisis - Been waiting on this one since it was announced. HS BLs have been killing it over the past few years, and this is Change's chance to become more than PoohPavel on their BL side. It feels like their BLs are hits only when they star PoohPavel.

(Updating)

...but do we?

"We need more strong M/M friendships/bromance shows" is a refrain I see commonly in reference to anything Sky-Nani related.

I like Sky and Nani; I like the show they were in together; hell, I like the concept of a BL starring them. But their on-screen bromance is not necessary on the basis that it's somehow rare to see a male friendship in the Thai drama space. We already have more than enough bromances/depictions of male friendships in the Thai drama space.

From just GMMTV alone, we have a variety of depictions of all male friendships and even bromances in het/BL/and non-romance series like:

Blacklist (Traffic, Andrew, Highlight, Title, Jim Bae, Buntad)

The Gifted (Pang, Punn, Ohm)

My School President (Chinzilla, Tin, Thiu)

Not Me (Gram, Sean, Yok, Gumpa)

Bad Buddy (Pran, Wai, Pat, Korn)

Theory of Love (Khai, Third, Bone, Two)

2gether (Tine, Fong, Phuak, Ohm)

Outside of GMMTV, there are classic bromances like Nunew and Nat's characters in Cutie Pie, Auau and Thomas's characters in Your Sky, and Noeul and Peat's characters in Love In The Air. As an aside, I feel like people don't count these particular pairs as bromances because the characters are both explicitly gay and explicitly in separate romantic relationships, unlike the friendships between two straight male characters (see Traffic and Highlight in Blacklist) and friendships between one straight character and one gay character (see Wai and Pran in Bad Buddy).

Another issue at play with bromances like Nunew and Nat's is the fans's perception of the actors (and even the characters). Nunew and Nat are both the ukes in their ships. Nunew in particular has a more feminine presentation both on- and off-screen than say, Sky or Nani. And some people will ignore the fact that Nunew's friendship with Nat is a positive male-male bond merely because Nunew and Nat don't fit neatly into a stereotypical masc male box. After all, you can't have a male-male friendship with 2 femme-coded actors/characters, right? Wrong. But I think people genuinely think this way. You can see it in how those people talk about any friendship combination between DMD bottoms. I have a whole thesis I could write on how the fans discuss the relationship between DMD bottoms versus how they discuss the relationships between the tops (e.g., Zee has a "bromance" with Max but you don't see similar language used for the friendship between Namping and Kim. In fact, in that friendship, the "bro" part is stripped from them and they're described as having something resembling a sisterhood). Of course, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this (I support femme-coding everything lmao), I'm just saying that I think this plays into why people don't think there are a lot of bromances depicted in internationally available Thai dramas (BLs specifically). People simply do not think of some of these characters (and their actors) as men with a close friendship. Instead, they view them damn near as women or otherwise they view the obvious friendship as romantic.

I also feel like people don't count bromances in BLs because the focus of the story in a BL is an actual romance between two men. The bromances in these stories are often in support of the main romance (see Thiu and Tin in MSP for an example of what I mean), whereas the focus of a full-fledged bromance story is the friendship between two straight-coded traditionally masc men (Saint and Shin in Highschool Frenemy).

I'm not convinced that TeeTeePor had to be TeeTeePor for the sake of branding. If you think about it for more than 2 seconds, that entire talking point goes out of the window.

You don't need a consistent ship name to be able to brand this specific ship. No matter how you order the names, the ship name would be unique enough to appear in the searches (what other ship has any version of the TTP/PTT/PTTP ship name?).

Not only would the name appear in searches, but if the concern is that some people will tag TTP and others will tag PTT, the solution is that you can just search both. I did this for years with unofficial ships, surely everyone else can too with an official ship.

Users can tag both names and brands can search unique hits on both names to get an idea of popularity. Genuinely, what is the difference between doing that and the artists' name + the artists' ship name to gauge popularity of the artist individually? Brands do that all the time (which is how you end up with one part of a ship having more brand deals than the other). Bright brand collaborators were searching "Bright Vachirawit" and "BrightWin" to gauge Bright's popularity--even though sometimes both tags appeared in the same post. It can be done.

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, and Pond said something in his and Phuwin's interview with Zach Sang that really made it click. When actors are at odds with each other and the status of their pairing is on the line, a lot of times there is a divergence in the actors' goals. In PondPhuwin's case, Phuwin wanted a Hollywood star-like acting career, while Pond just wanted to care for his family. And in many ways, this explains a lot of what I saw about the pair on and offscreen (which is what had caused me to think they needed to break back then). Pond always seemed more interested in the ship itself and created amazing chemistry between the two onscreen. On the other hand, Phuwin seemed disengaged and even a little uncomfortable with the whole thing (especially around the Never Let Me Go era). Come to find out, there was actual tension between the two during this time and it came across on screen and during official appearances. And it all seems to have spurred from this 'difference in goals.' And that framing that Pond and Phuwin so helpfully provided in their Zach Sang interview has me recontextualizing a lot of actors' behaviors, especially regarding fanservice.

Now I'm realizing that the amount of fanservice a pairing does and that pairing's potential for longevity are directly proportional to how tied one of the actors' success is to the popularity of the pairing (bonus points if only one side initiates most of the fanservice moments/goes harder on the fanservice than the other).

So, for Pond, he would frequently try to keep the PondPhuwin together an in the public eye from Day 1. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Phuwin didn't put in any effort, but it's clear that Phuwin felt he had many options to maintain his success in the industry (or ways out of the industry if he grew tired of it). A similar situation plagues many pairings. I personally feel like Joong, Zee, Almond, Thomas (ThomasKong), Net (NetJJ), Fort (FortPeat), and Boss are the main guys I think of who fight the hardest to keep their ships alive if it came down to it.

For Thomas, Kong comes from money and can decide to end the ship whenever he wants and still be successful. I'm not sure about Thomas's background but I know that he's not nearly as privileged as Kong.

For Net, although I think he genuinely gets attached to his screen partners, I also think he's very calculated and knows what will keep his career in optimal form.

Almond is practically an industry baby and is probably just following directions when it comes to all the fanservice. But I do think that as he and Progress get more experience in this industry, if Almond isn't given the training he needs at his craft, it'll become increasingly clear who needs who more in the AlmondProgress pairing. In a way, it'll be a lot like late 2010s OffGun.

I don't follow FortPeat closely but it comes off like Fort is better built for the industry than Peat. The problem is, Fort's acting needs a lot of work. It's one of those situations where the person who enjoys the attention more doesn't have the chops to keep it on them for long.

Joong, to me, is in a similar boat as Fort where he yearns for the industry but maybe doesn't have the right appeal on his own to maintain the same level of success that he's had with Dunk. And although I think Joong and Dunk are more equal in terms of the amount of effort they have to put into their ship than other pairs, it just comes off like Joong has slightly more interest in staying in the industry long-term than Dunk.

Like with Net more generally, I think Boss feels some kind of attachment to Noeul. It's like if he doesn't work with Noeul, he thinks he can't be as successful. I personally don't think that's the case, but the way Boss talks about his career and Noeul's place in it seems a bit unconfident to me :/