Getting into the BL fandom can be overwhelming, but we are here to help you out by hosting a crash course on all you need to know about the fandom and what you will encounter as you watch boys’ love dramas.

Join us on Discord and tell us your favorite BLs!  

We created a full list over on MDL with some of our personal favorites. Check it out here.

OffGun’s Safe House can be found on the GMMTV YouTube

Actor Perth (aka Stewart aka Natalia’s love) has a YouTube channel. A lot of his videos are specifically on BL and the Thai language. They are a lot of fun, check them out if you haven’t!

Here are some episodes and videos we have that feature BL. All of our past What We’re Watching episodes also mention at least one BL drama (we’re always watching them):

Certified Manner of Death
Certified Spoilers: Semantic Error
Certified Machida Keita and Akaso Eiji (Cherry Magic)
Certified Spoilers: 1000 Stars
KinnPorsche Reaction (Live)

Terminology: 

  • BL: Boys Love
  • Koojin: Imaginary Couple
  • Uke/Seme: Passive/Active (bottom/top) – mostly nonsense used by fujoshis
  • Ship: Imagining relationships between two actors/characters
  • OTP: A shipping term to denote your One True Pair, or your favourite ship. 
  • Bromance: a suggested but not explicit romance between two male characters
  • Queerbaiting: advertising a show as though it will have homosexual themes, and then the show has absolutely no homosexual content. 
  • Yaoi: Manga/Anime with homosexual plots/main characters. 
  • Y Series: Another term for BL (Y referring to yaoi)
  • Fujoshi: A woman who enjoys BL content. (literally means “rotten woman”)
  • Fundanshi: a man who enjoys BL content (Rotten Man)
  • Gear: a trope to primarily thai BL which for a long time featured college romances where one or both of the couple were engineering students, who would exchange a “gear” similar to exchanging rings
  • MLM: Men loving men (not multi level marketing lmao)
  • WLW: Women loving women
  • GL: Girls Love

Famous Koojin Ships: 

  • Peraya: Fans of Singto/Krist
  • Polca: Fans of Tay/New
  • Wanjaii: Fans of Mew/Gulf
  • Babii: Fans of Off/Gun
  • Fireflies: Fans of Max/Tul
  • Pigeons: Fans of Drake/Frank
  • MonTer: Fans of Kim/Cop
  • Nineheart: Fans of Earth/Kao
  • MyBlue: Fans of Fluke/Ohm
  • Mii2: Fans of Jimmy/Tommy
  • Broccoli: Fans of Boun/Prem
  • Trigon: Fans of Saint/Perth
  • J9- joong Nine

Famous Books/Comics turned into series (for better or worse):

  • Mame Universe (Love by Chance, Tharn Type, Don’t Say No)
  • Kinn Porsche
  • Love Stage (Both a japanese film and thai series)
  • 2Moons
  • Cherry Magic
  • Semantic Error
  • Theory of Love
  • Addicted
  • Advance Bravely
  • Guardian
  • The Untamed
  • Love Sick
  • My Engineer
  • Until we Meet again
  • WhyRU

Time Codes:

00:00 Intro
02:19 History and it’s International rise
18:27 Popular terminology
29:35 Tags and BL listed as genre
33:09 Problems and issues
41:11 Common tropes
49:39 Koojin Ships
01:00:47 Famous books and novel
01:07:37 Where to watch
01:11:24 Outro

More Links:
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube

We’d love to hear from you! Send us a message certifiednoonas@gmail.com or on our socials! Send your questions that we’ll answer during our livestream to askanoona@gmail.com.

Like our content and want access to some fun extras? Consider becoming a member of our Found Family and support us on Patreon! Don’t worry if you can’t afford it, the clips on Patreon will always be just extras and our main content will stay free.

By Jessie