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absolutebl · 14 days

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Hi ABL! I was wondering if you have recs for bl couples where a younger seme/top aggressively pursues an older, initially-unwilling uke/bottom?

I realized this trope was my absolute JAM when I fell hard and fast for Wei Zhiyuan x Wei Qian, Sun Boxiang x Lu Zhigang, and Yongjie x Xingsi. Bonus points for age gap, stepbrothers trope or the older uke being endlessly indulgent?

I mainly watch China and Taiwan bls, so I’ll love anything from there. I’ll take recs from other countries too, they might become my first foray into non-mandarin bls

I know this is a somewhat specific request so thank you sm if you manage to come up with anything! I really appreciate all the work you put into this blog ☺️💜

Oooo MY FAVORITE!!!

Hyung Romances! (wrap-up post)

I call these hyung romances because that's like noona romances but gay.

Specifically you said:

younger seme aggressively pursues an older initially-unwilling uke

I am utter TRASH for this! YES PLEASE!

Minato’s Laundromat

Japan 2022 GaGa

AKA Minato Coin Laundry AKA Wash My Heart! AKA Minato Shouji Koin Randorii AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry

Younger seme older uke, very clearly yaoi derived dynamic, 10 year age gap. I love this show so much. This is by far the best long running example that really dwells on this trope, Shin is very much the aggressor also very much still a high school kid. Minato is very much NOT.

Old Fashion Cupcake

Japan 2022 Viki & GaGa

Also from Japan, another 10 year gap, and a flipping genius version. This time both parties are older, so there’s less of a stigma around the age gap, but there is stigma about the one being the other’s boss.

This show had me from the moment they broke the egg yolk with the chopsticks in the opening credits for episode one. It’s about a younger man with a long cherished crush on his boss (ten years older and going through a mid life crisis) who decides to save and seduce said man with pancakes. It’s wholesome, comforting, sexy, and a very necessary narrative about still having hope, interests, and openness to affection at any age. It’s coming of age/queerness packaged in a subtle critique of expectations around masculinity and love and loneliness... and it’s beautiful. Full review.

Lovely Writer

Thailand 2021 YouTube

Sib is quite a bit younger than Gene and defines aggressive pursuer. Gene is out of university and established in his career, Sib is still in college.

Thailand criticizes itself and the BL industry while simultaneously giving us classic seme/uke with great chemistry in a one-two punch of “we love it, but are we supposed to? and must we think this hard, yet enjoy it SO MUCH?” This show won’t appeal or make sense to those who don’t already have at least some Thai BL watching experience. What Lovely Writer does, at heart, is reexamine Thai BL has done to queerness, but in a very gentle way that has more to do with Thai BL growing up than any actual queer authenticity. It’s not parody or pastiche, but it is self reflective and trying to correct for some chronic mistakes. Whether it is ultimately successful in this matter is going to depend on the watcher’s relationship to BL and queer identity. But that’s what makes this show beautiful, interesting, and thought provoking. And I, for one, applaud the effort even if I didn’t personally connect to the characters.

Oxygen

Thailand 2020 YouTube

Thailand’s first real stab at this dynamic as a main couple and it so worked for me. There are many who find this BL too slow and wooden, but I loved it.

I think of this as a paragon of Thailand’s softer BL style, since Oxygen uses every BL trope in the playbook for one of the gentlest lowest angst BLs ever made. This one showcases how far Thailand is moving BL from its yaoi roots, and is a prime example of the sweet “new BL” model for which Thailand is the main advocate (Korea is liking it a lot these days too, tho). My first watch along.

SOTUS

Thailand 2016 YouTube

Guess who started this trope in Thailand? Yeah, sometimes I forget too. But they are not just classic sunshine/tsunder but classic younger/older. Just not by much.

This is the BL that launched a hundred BLs. No literally, it was SOTUS’s international success that pretty much built the Thai BL industry into the juggernaut it is today. People have baggage around SOTUS, I have nostalgia. Trigger warning on bully hazing. Review here.

En of Love: Tossera

Thailand 2020 YouTube

Younger boy wants to court older boy and does and… that’s it. No really that’s the WHOLE STORY. There is actually no angst, drama, or, indeed plot. But are they the softest bois ever to BL as a main couple? Yes they are.

*pulp warning*

Private Lessons

Korea 2020 GaGa

A BL short from Strongberry that I love, it's age gap and teacher/student (catnip por moi). The chemistry is slightly off though, but stil I do love this one for the dynamic. Certainly worth watching especially if this is your trope since it's like 8 minutes long and very stylish.

MingKit MarkKit

2 Moons (VERY side dish) YouTube 2 Moons 2 YouTube (major side dish) Gen Y (leads) Gen Y 2 (sides again in LTR)

Thailand’s premier version of this dynamic I just lumped them all into one category. Only in 2 Moons 2 are they played by different actors, otherwise it is all KimCop, and who can complain about that? If you want to watch specifically for this dynamic than go for Gen Y. Trash watch here.

SIDE DISH CORNER

Not Me (DanYok)

DanYok is an age gap, but it isn’t really the point or the plot of their romantic arc

Don’t Say No (LeonPob)

Leon and Pob qualify. That’s all I have to say about that.

HIStory 3: the BL that shall not be named (BoXiang & ZhiGang)

Also appear in HIStory 4: Close to You

The side characters in H3:MODC (and cameos in H4) BoXiang & ZhiGang have a huge age gap, 12 years, and it is a big deal for their relationship. When they start out BoXiang is a desperate himbo high school kid and ZhiGang is a small business owner. BoXiang’s friends tease him more for his lust over such a much older man than for being gay.

Bonus on this one, there is some very high (and it's Taiwan so) very well done heat. That said, the main couple will, in fact, wreck your psyche for life. Proceed with caution.

THE THAI PULPS

You’re My Sky (SanAei)

Side could (and only good part of this show) SanAei are a classic uni age gap pairing. San is a bit of a spoiled rich kid jock who identifies the older nerd character as HIS and is just like, MINE. That’s MY elder gay.

Brothers (KhunKaow)

This is not a good show, but side couple Khun & Kaow are great in it. Khun is in university and Kaow has a small baking business.

Top Secret Together and Love By Chance both have sub plots of high school boys pursuing college ones, but the one didn’t go anywhere and the other went very very bad, so yeah… no. Although I would personally LOVE to see this done well.

BONUS POINTS ROUND

Stepbrothers trope

HIStory 4: Close to You (sides)

YongJie is quite a bit younger than XingSi, not sure on the specifics but he’s in middle school when XingSi is in high school and still in college when XingSi has his own business.

Addicted has the stepbrothers trope but not the age gap.

Older uke being endlessly indulgent

Future

Thailand 2023 YouTube

Based on a y-novel by Faddest (En of Love) about an engineering student and a dentist (shocker). This is just a soft sweet cotton candy fluff piece about a younger boy who pursues an older boy and then manufactures silly gay drama. Nothing wrong with that. But I don’t think this style of BL really appeals to a very large market share. Will I rewatch it? Sure. Will anyone else? Nope.

If you want your endlessly indulgent older gay, this is the you crack, they made if for you.

*pulp warning*

Manner of Death

Thailand 2021 WeTV

It’s not really relevant to the story, but Tan is younger. Not only that, he’s Bun’s friends younger brother. Bun is very indulgent, but in a grown up way.

I like MoD a lot but I’m conflicted over it being actual BL. It’s a great gay romantic suspense, although the mystery element is its weakness. MaxTul, the Kings of chemistry, are, of course, perfect and perfectly cast, but their romance thread is more a distraction than an addition. Still, I could watch them make-out the phonebook. Watch along here.

Seven Days

Japan 2015 grey

AKA Seven Days: Monday-Thursday AND Seven Days: Friday-Sunday Japan

Seryou kinda counts as the pursuer, but the dynamic is very very weak in this one. Still the way he asks to use Yuzuru’s first name (so CHEEKY) and the way he says “senpai” in SUCH a cute way makes me so happy. And Yuzuru is NOTHING is not indulgent, it kinda defines his character. I mean he just LETS him call him by his FIRST name... right away.

Never doubt my ability to recommend this show. One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

Just Taiwan

HIStory 2: Crossing the Line

2018 Viki

Seme uke is VERY weak with this one but the younger character is certainly the pursuer. It’s SO GOOD.

Lin Pei Yu directs this is a sports romance (volleyball) with a good boy/bad boy pairing, and mu favorite of the HIStory franchise. There is no clear seme/uke. Ostensibly it's high school set but Taiwan doesn't care about age appropriate actors. It's a very soft sweet romance with some ridiculously easily overcome conflict. There's great kisses but it's medium heat. The side dishes are the stepbrother trope but they’re very tame, and there’s no other triggers. It's not just my favorite of the franchise, it’s one of my favorite BLs with a perfect happy ending.

Kiseki: Dear to Me

2023 Gaga

The mains are a major age gap, but I always forget because they def don't look it. Also, Taiwan, so very weak seme/uke. Still there is age gap, he's in high school and our gangster is out of college and in the workplace.

The plot is totally ridiculous and slightly unhinged, but that’s normal for Taiwan. It involves all the tropes under a very casual framework of gay mafia gangs + food = love. Absolutely every character is queer. There’s a gum-ball machine of cameos, elder gay rep, great chemistry from all pairs, and a KILLER side couple. As a result Kiseki is a poster child for Taiwanese BL, and I happen to love Taiwanese BL. Bonus? They also managed to END IT WELL, which we cannot expect from Taiwan.

(Triggers for knife play, child abuse, lingering trauma.)

Unknown

2024 YouTube

Unknown is a wonderful BL with a pitch perfect portrayal of long term pining, age gap, and the stepbrothers trope. The acting and chemistry are ON POINT (especially from the leads) which made the resulting characters very believable. When it dwells in intimate family drama, it's stunning. It's slightly less successful when it leaves the home and goes gritty. Still, those are mere quibbles. This is an excellent show, one of Taiwan' s best.

As you see above I mostly had to take you to Japan and Thailand for this one. Considering your preferences try Japan first, it's closer in DNA to Taiwanese stuff, but it won't go as high heat. If you want the heat, you'll need to try the Thai stuff (or the ones from Taiwan you haven't seen). I would start with Lovely Writer.

Okay I think I have given you enough and, unless I miss my guess, I may have tempted you to try some Japanese BL.

Comes to the weirder (and weird hair) side. We have pancakes.

Yeah I think you should watch Old Fashion Cupcake.

EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH OLD FASHION CUPCAKE!!!

(source)

This post dated May 2024, not responsible for hyungs that sling after that date.

#bl with age gap #bl stepbrothers trope #bl younger guy pursues older guy #japanese bl #Minato’s Laundromat #old fashion cupcake #lovely writer #oxygen the series #That Bl #sotus #en of love #private lessons #strongberry #koeran bl #Manner of Death #future the series #seven days #HIStory 2: Crossing the Line #unknown the series

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waitmyturtles · 11 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Dew the Movie Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover Dew the Movie, screenwritten and directed by the seminal Thai BL artist, Ma-Deaw Chookiat, and starring Ohm Pawat and Nont Sadanont.]

Before I get started, I want to note that I’m publishing this review out of chronological order from the list: I owe you all a review of 3 Will Be Free, which will drop next week, but I just watched Dew the Movie this week, and felt the strong urge to get out my thoughts sooner rather than later.

Why?

I have had a number of quick conversations about Dew the Movie with some of the around-the-block mentors on Tumblr, particularly with @absolutebl Sensei, who very kindly answered my question last week about where Dew stands by way of the trajectory of BL in Thailand (and just to note, as ABL Sensei says in their answer: Dew is most definitely NOT a BL, but an important piece of queer media to consider for the BL-driven OGMMTVC).

The (small sample size) majority of people I’ve spoken to about Dew have actually not seen it, which is utterly understandable from the perspective of the tragic circumstances of the film.

When I first planned on watching it, I put a caveat note on the OGMMTVC list on my blog’s pinned post that Dew wasn’t an official part of the Challenge. I change my tune on this: I would argue, at least from my perspective, that it was a *must for me* to watch.

Again, why?

As ABL Sensei writes, Dew fits into a stage-checklist mold of queer cinema, where, at the time of its release, it potentially NEEDED to check off certain boxes in order to get produced. It very well may have NEEDED a tragic end (arguably, multiple tragic ends) to get made. It may have NEEDED to kill off a gay character (arguably, multiple gay characters) to be ripe for consumption by a wider audience. It may have NEEDED some amount of equivocating about those deaths within the art itself.

I was aware of this when I was watching Dew, aware of watching Brokeback Mountain again, aware of death and disappearance and erasure.

What I didn’t expect from Dew, possibly as strong a punch in the gut as the impact of the death(s) themselves, was how Asian the movie was.

This sounds silly, coming from an Asian-American towards a Thai movie made in Thailand, about Thai young men, as based on an original story from South Korea. But having visited Malaysia, one of my home countries, a whole bunch in the 1990s, at the same time when half of this film was situated -- I was absolutely struck by how the film did not shy away from the Asian experience of discrimination and the destruction of Asian family systems by way of homophobia and other explicit biases throughout the film.

The depictions of homophobia and discrimination in Dew were so raw that I caught myself actually gasping-crying at certain points. Before I get there, let me offer a quick summary of the film, since I believe not very many people have seen this:

Dew and Phop are two high school classmates in the late 1990s, in an extremely rural town called Pang Noi, adjacent to Chiang Rai. As the wonderful @shortpplfedup kindly noted for me, the timing of Dew and Phop’s engagement took place right before the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis that first emanated out of Thailand, and was also set as military dictatorships had given way to democracy in Thailand.

In their rural town, young men who are either out or presumed to be gay are sent to training camps. Accusations about the spread of AIDS are made vis à vis the LGBTQ+ population. Students who are out are rejected at school and in their homes.

I’ve written previously about how certain BLs, mainly in the MAME realm (Love By Chance and TharnType), have touched upon a kind of bigotry and bias that I have described as being particularly Asian in nature, reflective, word-for-word, of the kind discriminatory language and ideas that I was exposed to as a kid from my Asian parents.

To see that kind of discrimination and homophobia orchestrated on a community-based level -- in Dew and Phop’s school, when children are rounded up by teachers and soldiers to be sent to a training camp -- was brutal to watch.

It immediately introduced a level of dystopia to the entire film. And I ended up appreciating that the film went that far, so immediately at the beginning of the film, after we had seen an otherwise happy-go-lucky young man in Dew beginning to engage with Phop.

We needed that element of dystopia to kick off the film, because: Dew faces rejection from his school and, potentially, from his single mother, to be an out and gay young man in Pang Noi.

More brutally, arguably, is the rejection of Phop from his EXTREMELY patriarchal Thai-Chinese family, led by an almost despotic father, who is ready to take down his son at a moment’s notice, with a helpless mother present as Phop is progressively rejected by his father, his brothers, and the patriarchal family system that keeps that family together. (@shortpplfedup, as I wrote to you, this was Double Savage x 10, maybe x 100.)

The reason why I liked the juxtaposition of the community-level discrimination vs. the micro, family-level discrimination is that both experiences of this kind of discrimination are dystopic. As humans, as mammals: we crave community, family, and companionship.

To be rejected by your community is unnatural. To be rejected by your FAMILY is unnatural.

This is not a message that’s limited to Asian media or Asian cultures -- this exact kind of discrimination flourishes in America and elsewhere, including conversion therapy (Dew reveals that his own mother sent him to behavioral therapy). In rural Thailand, this kind of existence... simply cannot exist. That’s dystopic to queerness, to the LGBTQ+ community.

I brought up Malaysia earlier to make a quick mindset comparison. Around the time of the setting of Dew and Phop’s high school days, I remember hearing on Malaysian radio, riding in a car with my family, that the singer Sting (STING, y’all -- vanilla STING) had been banned from performing in Malaysia for his music being “too rhythmic.”

Malaysia, unlike Thailand, is an Islamic nation. But borders are only lines on a map, and as I’ve spoken at length with the amazing @telomeke about, the cultural flow between the countries is strong and present. It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that rural Thai towns WOULD engage in this HIGH LEVEL of discrimination and exclusion, as unbelievable as it might seem to Westerns not familiar with either Asian or Western styles of dystopic discrimination, as I’m calling it here.

To try to survive: Phop runs away to Bangkok. And begs Dew to come with him. And Dew dies in the process.

Phop lives. He becomes an adult, a middling adult, with only middling success in his life. After a life in Bangkok, he moves back to Pang Noi, broke, married, reminiscing about Dew.

And he discovers, after becoming a homeroom teacher, that Dew has been reincarnated in the body of a young female student. (This is one of a few times that ideas of ghosts, spirits, the reborn, and the reincarnated are introduced in queer Thai media in 2019, along with Until We Meet Again and He’s Coming To Me.)

We then get the presence of an actual controversial filmmaking trope in age gap, between a young student and an older teacher. Age gap is certainly a present trope in BLs, past and present.

In lightly peeping the MDL reviews for Dew, I saw quite a bit of consternation about this age gap, and honestly, as a mom, I certainly felt the wibbles as well. But I thought it was an interesting filmmaking device to use, in putting Dew’s spirit in the body of a young student.

Because -- of course -- this inclusion forces us viewers to confront OUR OWN BIASES. Besides the community-level and micro/family-level discrimination we see in the film, we’re also forced to truly dig into what we, as viewers, are biased against. AND, the film very much digs into the controversial nature of teacher-student relationships as well, and Phop is condemned for his closeness with the reincarnated Dew through the student, Liu, wonderfully acted by Pahn Riety of 10 Years Ticket.

This film is fucking brutal. But the fact that it forces us to CONFRONT OUR BIASES, on so many levels -- it does a wonderful job at that.

To the end. To the end of the loss of Phop and Liu, so that Phop and Dew can be together in the afterlife.

The film leans on Thai-Chinese Buddhism in the second half, again, so reminiscent of He’s Coming To Me, leading to ANOTHER non-happy ending that brings two people together in unideal circumstances. Phop and Dew’s spirits will be together, not in this world, but where, exactly? Certainly not in the world of 1990s rural Thailand, a world that wanted them extinct.

When I say that this film is rooted in its Asianness, I really mean it. I think one needs to have an appreciation for how these themes tie together -- the community-level discrimination, how general sexuality and queerness were treated with such a hands-off/ignoring approach in the SEA region in the 1990s, and why Thai-Chinese Buddhism was chosen as a means of bringing Phop and Dew back together, just like Thun and Med in HCTM. There is an acknowledgement by the Asian filmmakers of these pieces that queerness was brutally unacceptable during these times in Thailand and elsewhere, and these pieces do not shy away from that reality.

I’m tremendously glad I watched this. I feel like crying right now while watching this, but I’m really glad, as someone with SEA roots, to have watched this, and to have seen discrimination at that level that I have seen previously, and to know it exists. If one takes up the OGMMTVC and feels like they can’t watch this, I can totally understand. But I think Dew the Movie is a tremendous gateway -- as He’s Coming To Me was -- to a very particular Asian mindset around collectivist living that does not jive with individual expressions of sexuality and queer acceptance.

Those realities are brutal -- I hate thinking about them, I HATE IT. The acceptance gateway that I have discovered vis à vis Thai QLs is a salve to my soul that was subjected to HEINOUS discrimination against ANYONE deemed different from my Indian culture growing up. But that discrimination was also VERY REAL. I’ve broken out of being exposed to it, and I’ve tried to become the best ally I can be. But the acknowledgement, through art, that that level of discrimination can exist, in my Asian cultures, is also a reality that I have a responsibility, as an ally of Asian descent, to reckon with.

(A quick side-note. Once more: Ohm Pawat shines. This man is a CIPHER of queer pain and queer joy. The acting, directing, and cinematography of this film was stunning. Two hours went by in a flash. If you avoid for the content, that makes sense, but if you’re a film buff, you may enjoy this film just for the devotion it pays to rural Thailand and the spectacular expanses that it captures.)

[Yow. My heart is aching, not just for Dew the Movie, but I’m also recovering from a crazy week of Step By Step, HA.

But anyway: my review of 3 Will Be Free will be up early next week. WHAT A GODDAMN AMAZING SHOW! The OGMMTVC is definitely ruining me for great content, up against what I’m watching that’s airing now (....side-eyes to SBS, hmph).

And: I’m digging into Until We Meet Again. IT’S FABULOUS SO FAR. Come AWN, Fluke and all of ‘em! I’m traveling for the holiday next week, but hopefully my watch schedule won’t get too messed up. But with this review of Dew and 3WBF next week, I’m holding all y’all down if you’re looking forward to these reviews!

Here’s the status of the watchlist. As ever, I’ll take any feedback ya got!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review coming) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (watching) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 26) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 27) Not Me (2021-2022) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

#dew the movie #dew #dew the movie meta #phop x dew #dew x phop #ohm pawat #nont sadanont #pahn riety #age gap bl #homophobia in bl #discrimination in BLs #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc

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