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#I have thoughts about Office BL Dramas

itsanidiom · 9 months

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OFFICE BLS RANKED BY THEIR ABILITY TO MAINTAIN THE VENEER OF APPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOUR

Because I saw @sorry-bonebag's tag and had to.

Here we go! Disclaimer: I'm not going to list every Office BL™ these are just the ones I've seen. Sorry if your fav is missing! Let's start with our lowest scorer that definitely sets the tone for the bottom of the barrel.

CHECK OUT - The veneer is tracing paper if not completely transparent. Fucking in the office. Yeah. That's an HR violation for sure. Thankfully your company is too small to have an HR department. But you're definitely getting fired by your boss who is also your boyfriend who you are also cheating on.

BED FRIEND - The veneer is only considered opaque because everyone else in the office is blind as hell. HR is pretty sure you two fucked in the office bathroom, but they have no proof so could only give you a warning.

LOVE MATE - Veneer is 1-ply. I mean, if the whole office ships it, is it truely an issue? HR thanks you for keeping things PG.

WE BEST LOVE: FIGHTING MR. 2ND - The veneer is definitely paper thin, but it's 2-ply. At least you avoided fucking in the office. Just a good smack in the face and some mutual sexual harassment. HR win...I guess.

HISTORY4: CLOSE TO YOU - Veneer is getting a little thicker, but depends on the light. Rooftop and in-office grandiose love confessions aside, HR thanks you for keeping your higher heat make out sessions off business hours. Still, gossiping about your romantic interests with your coworkers is grounds for a warning.

OUR DATING SIM - Veneer is about as thick as the space between your legs through which HR can see that you're literally holding hands in the office right now, stop it.

STEP BY STEP - The veneer is solid. Mainly office stuff happens in the office. HR approves of this boring as hell vibe. Still, you get marked down slightly because you did almost get down in the company parking garage.

CHERRY MAGIC - The veneer is a wholesome thickness, but no kissing in the company elevator. HR slap on the wrist for sure. We don't care how quickly the doors closed. There is CCTV in that elevator, sirs.

JUN & JUN - The veneer is currently in the process of being painted on so we'll have to wait and see, but it's looking pretty thin so far. HR has their pens ready to write up the report.

OLD FASHION CUPCAKE - The veneer is solid, but HR saw you hugging in the coffee station. Thank you for waiting until you were off work hours to make out, I guess. Enjoy your fancy desserts.

ROOMATES OF POONGDUCK 304 - The veneer is there. HR heard some weird noises over the zoom call, but we're just going to ignore those for now.

#bl drama #office bl #Are you in the HR department for a BL Drama that I did not mention? Please feel free to add #lol #roommates of poongduck 304 #step by step #old fashioned cupcake #cherry magic #check out the series #bed friend the series #we best love: fighting mr. 2nd #love mate #our dating sim #jun & jun the series #history 4: close to you #I have thoughts about Office BL Dramas

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chipchopclipclop · 4 months

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Please.... Recs for anime about middle aged men..... I beg of you

heres a list from me thinking and also checking my mal lol

Ristorante Paradiso / middle aged and up men working at a restaurant, based on a manga by natsume ono, the anime adaption looks a little wonky at times but the ps2 graphics kind of added to the charm for me lol, the mc specifically chases down a gilf iirc. her power.

Rokuhou-dou Yotsuiro Biyori / middle aged and younger guys working at a restaurant (help) these guys aren't as old as the above but i think most of them will still appeal, a pretty breezy watch

Eternal Boys / middle aged men become idols 🌟 i had a bias against this show bc i like the artist they hired to do the initial concepts and didn't like the changes they made to the final designs but i did eventually watch it and like it so i came around (lol)

Tiger and Bunny / what if superheros but they were real (woah) im reccomending this WELL KNOWN SERIES bc the mc kotetsu is The middle aged anime man of All Time (Of All Time) even if i dont like the main ship the world pushes him into

ACCA13 / i thought about and literally 95% of the men in this are actually middle aged (including the mc) political drama show (and very beautiful) also adaption of natsume ono manga

Deca-dence / of the mc duo, one of them is an old man mentoring a young shounen protag girl (WATCH DECA-DENCE) there is old man yaoi bait potential

Sakugan / its like deca-dance but badly paced and not as good but i have to shill for faildads in anime

My Home Hero / father begins cycle of violence to protect daughter that spirals out of control, you should just read the manga for this one actually but the mc is also one of the Middle Aged Men of All Time to ME

My New Boss Is Goofy / slice of life peaceful show about office workers, everyone in this is very smooth bl ikemen so i kind of bounce of that design wise but its cute

#chitter chatter #i recommend browsing the josei tab tbh #middle aged men lover mutuals...feel free to add...#id add rakugo to this list if id actually watched it rn SORRY #theres also things im probs forgetting rn dont consider this all that comprehensive lol

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lurkingshan · 1 month

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Japanese QL Corner

It's a quieter week as a few shows have just wrapped and the next wave hasn't started yet, but there is still Japanese ql airing, including what is shaping up to be an all time fav. Both of these current airing shows are on Gaga and I highly recommend watching!

Love is Better the Second Time Around

This show is so good, and so mature in exactly the way I hoped. And I don't mean mature as in explicit--there is sex in this show but it's not some wild heat level. It's mature in that it's a story about characters who know themselves, know what they want, and draw boundaries. Both Iwanaga and Miyata are going down as favorite characters for me; I especially love that Miyata is a more knowing and self aware spin on a really well known bl archetype (think Rain from LITA but if he actually knew exactly why he was reacting the way he was to Payu and was mad about it instead of just overwhelmed and confused). This week we got a lot deeper into his teenage hurt over Iwanaga and now have a firm understanding of why he's alternately giving into and resisting this attraction. I am looking forward to Iwanga figuring out how to repair the damage he caused and earn his trust back.

My Strawberry Film

This was easily my favorite episode so far of this meandering little show. Every week I am left wondering what exactly this drama is trying to say and be; it certainly doesn't feel like a bl. We have spent the vast majority of our time on doomed het romance while Ryo quietly pines for his oblivious friend in the background. But this week we finally got to know Minami outside of Hikaru's narrow gaze, and I like her a lot. Her scene with Ryo where they discussed their romantic woes and established each other as a safe zone was very sweet, and showed how perceptive she is about all these dynamics happening around her. I was discussing with @bengiyo whether the show is going for an aromantic read with her, and I'm not sure. I see the makings of it, but the presentation of her feelings on romance feels a bit muddled. I loved her calling Hikaru out on being self-centered and having absolutely no patience for his petty jealousy. Hikaru thinks he likes her, but he doesn't actually know her (or his own best friend). I liked the final scene between Ryo and Hikaru as well, and the terrible angst of Ryo's confession that he immediately took back. The way the lights and audio from oncoming traffic played over his face in that scene was a really fantastic way to communicate both a moment of clarity and a moment of fear in the aftermath. I'm curious to see where this show takes the ending; a romantic conclusion for the two boys would not feel genuine to me at this point, but I could see them leaving us on a note of burgeoning curiosity and hope.

Bonus: No Touching At All

I recently watched this 2014 jbl on @twig-tea's recommendation, and I really loved it (I have already watched it twice and will definitely be doing so again). This is a classic office romance between a young gay man, Shima, and his "straight" boss, Toga. It's a simple story but well executed, and the film has a strong sense of place that I really loved. Shima and Toga have a fairly instantaneous attraction, and Toga is the kind of laidback character who simply never gave much thought to his sexuality and doesn't care about the fact that Shima is a man; he likes who he likes. Shima, however, is carrying a lot of internalized homophobia and trauma from closeted men messing him around in the past, and has a hard time believing in Toga's sincerity. I really love the way this conflict plays out in the story, and I especially love the way Toga talks to Shima. He's a no bullshit kind of guy and he tries his best to reassure Shima, but he's not a pushover, either. Ultimately Shima has to work through his own insecurities and make the choice to be brave to make the relationship work. The ending of this one is amazing and left me feeling very confident in this couple, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's the grey for this one, unfortunately, but if you have trouble finding it in HQ let me know and I'll point you (don't watch it on YT, the version on there is potato quality).

#japanese ql corner #love is better the second time around #koi wo suru nara nidome ga joto #my strawberry film #no touching at all #japanese bl

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bengiyo · 2 months

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Love is Better the Second Time Around Ep 2 Stray Thoughts

Last week, we met our leads, Miyata and Iwanaga. Miyata and Iwanaga had some kind of relationship as teens in high school and seemed to part on mixed terms. Now they're both adults and have met through happenstance via work. Miyata seems to be suppressing his queerness, and Iwanaga seems determined to reconnect with Miyata. Miyata wanted to break off, saying he's committed to his girlfriend, but we left at them kissing in Iwanaga's apartment before Miyata ran away and admitted to himself that he still has feelings.

Yes, let's pick up from the kiss and get Iwanaga's perspective.

OMG he wanted to elope, and Miyata didn't show up. Incredible.

Iwanaga wasn't gonna let you go that easy, sir, especially not after that kiss.

Oh fuck yeah, Shiraishi! Drama convention says you won't succeed, but I love you for telling your rival to fuck off.

Oof, Shiraishi heard that. I hope he gets meaner.

I am howling! This botched proposal is one of the funniest things I've seen in weeks! I didn't want an adult woman who didn't deserve this, and I like her shutting this down.

Wow, he called Iwanaga and Iwanaga didn't let me down. He put that ring on Miyata.

I wonder if Miyata was referring to the office scene earlier or their time as kids with that comment about ridicule.

Iwanaga is the winner. Despite also being rejected, he ate the cake.

Wait, now I want dumplings.

Oho! Poor Shiraishi! The first time they hooked up Iwanaga was thinking about Miyata. He's been losing to this man for a decade!

Genuinely loved the desk as a barrier between Iwanaga and Shiraishi in that scene and the flashback.

"Please stop posing." I love this show.

Overlaying their conversation with this idyllic date footage is an excellent choice in a short show where the characters are stepping around their history. We don't know that history well enough to read into their facial expressions well, so balancing their voices and dialogue with the montage works really well for mood.

Deeply invested in Iwanaga admitting that he was a jerk when they were teens.

I really like Miyata's second rejection here. There's a sense that he got swept up by Iwanaga before and now that he's older he's doing what he can to avoid that swooning again.

Oh big choices next week!

I'm having so much fun with this show. This feels grown in a way a lot of the second chance stuff we've had has been missing. I've been wanting more adult-feeling BL, and the way all of the characters talk to each other in this show underlines their histories so well. I also just love how forward everyone is about intimacy. There's no shock about it.

#Ben watches #love is better the second time around #koi wo suru nara nidome ga joto #japanese bl #bl series

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absolutebl · 8 months

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This Week in BL - Korea drops my favorite cameo ever & gives KISSES

Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized sorta by favs in each category.

Sept 2023 Wk 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Fri grey) ep 4 of 12 - Well that’s one way to find out if he’s gay, see how he reacts to reading a het sex scene out loud. Yai is flirting so hard it’s like he knows everything.

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 4 of 12 - Oh no! I love them. Also cohabitation trope! Also ALL the other ones: hair dry, meet in childhood... GMMTV going no frills with this one.

Hidden Agenda (Sun YT) ep 9 of 12 - Zo’s drama over Pat helping Joke flirt seems awfully manufactured. I’m losing faith in this show. Could GMMTV PLEASE hand JoongDunk a decent script?

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 5 of 10 - Sand & Ray are the only interesting couple, and I’m pretty much only watching for them. They gonna go south fast, tho, and they're already ruined by persistent singing. Ooo. When Sand said Top "stole his ex" did he mean Boston? How gay.

Naughty Babe (Sat YT) ep 2 of 8 - The pronoun conversation had a bonkers translation but I enjoyed the actuality of it. The reasons for Yi's trickery are very convoluted soap opera. But I suppose that is the amnesia trope for you.

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 10 of 12 - Boys. We discussed this already. No sex in onsens! I found this one dull, until the end when LLS showed up. Happy to just have him in everything. Thank you Thailand. Looks like it is a classic ep 11 DOOM next week. Who cares?

Venus in the Sky (Tues iQIYI) 1-2 of 10 eps - The usual Thai pulp claptrap this time a reunion romances in and around a convenience store between a boy who recently quit his job and his former bestie who is now a doctor. Mostly not great acting, plot, or production but the sound is okay and no bad effects or singing (so far), so that’s something. The gay brothers have a fun relationship. It’s vampy and campy but fun. I like it but not sure anyone else would.

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 4 of 10 - The date was cute but I still don’t like the lead or the premise (we moved into Cyrano de Bergerac territory). It’s moving slowly but it seems like we might be over the crush/stalker part of the narrative, so that’s a relief.

Crazy Handsome Rich (Sun Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - I just can’t. The sound is too weird. With punch down humor and other issues incoming I may DNF this. You’ve been warned. This ep we got to see LLS with his shirt off. Did anything else happen?

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 8fin - No wonder he is everyone’s favorite hyung, boy can read the room like no one else. I love that we got to see exactly how clingy and demanding Choi Jun was always going to be. Only Lee Jun is easy-going enough to put up with him. Also I’ve never watched a KBL with more innuendo. For Korea this was… raunchy. I gotta say had Laws of Attraction not come along, Simon might have been my favorite character of 2023.

Final thoughts on Jun and Jun:

A delightful office romance about an ex-idol who joins cubical life only to find his new boss is his first love. Others boys are sniffing around too. Operative word being "sniffing" as much of this romance involves smell. With a snappy script, enjoyable sides, a pretty as peaches cast, and descent chemistry this show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smiled every moment I was watching. With tons of rewatch potential (especially the last few eps), my only caution is this is for fans of the BL genre only, I don’t think it’ll work for anyone else. A solid 9/10 from me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I like that Korea is trying high heat, but Taiwan and Thailand are leaps and bounds better at it.

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 9-10fin -

Omg they so cute as flirty bf. Eeeeeeee! CAMEO!!!!! My fav guest couple ever! So exciting!!!! I love that they intersected with MY Strongberry couple (Private Lessons). I’m not used to this but Holy innuendo Korea, what with Jun & Jun and now this show? It’s a bit much for my gay little heart. The final episode was entirely unnecessary, but it was fun to see them being all domestic and stuff. Maru with his dumb lettuce leaves was hilarious. I feel like I need to rewatch this one to really understand it properly, so I will likely do that soon.

Summary of Love Class 2:

3 couples form within a semester of university: 1. a hyung romance reunion of exes, one of whom has a dangerous past, 2. a friends to lovers romance, and 3. a mature student and TA one night stand + complexities (many aspects of which had me laughing). I enjoyed the characters and dialogue of this show immensely. It was a little bit more breezy and friendly than I was expecting after the first installment, Love Class. I’m not entirely sure Korea can handle multiple couples like this because it definitely felt disjointed, especially the 3rd more mature couple (also my favorite) who probably should’ve had their own series. But it was definitely fun and something different from Korea. 8/10 RECOMMENDED

Also, Korea tried to give us higher heat... that was... interesting. I mean, you tried hon...?

Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) ep 4 of 13(?) - Everyone is a sad sack this ep. Ooooo. Teach/student my favorite. We never get this one. It’s messy. I’m not sure if there is a plot. I’m not sure they’re sure if there is a plot. But I am still enjoying it.

Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - Why is the Fighter character always so frustrating regardless of name or country? Ji Oh stalking his crush via IG is so relatable. He’s very first crush awkward, unsure, and sweet. They also gave a nice kiss - I love the backpack drop (kiss version of a mic drop?) I still hold that if you haven’t seen the original this might not make much sense. But I am enjoying it.

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 8 - Oh goody, another JBL where we have to pay attention solely to what they do and not what they say.

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Big fat sigh.

It's Airing But...

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 24 eps - I couldn't get hold of it and I'm not mad. I'm putting it on hold until distribution gets sorted, or icky get their shizz in order (like that'll happen).

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting

9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan Gaga) Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.

9/15 Bump Up Business AKA Bump Up Project (Korea movie) suspected cinema release? I don't know much about what's going on. Last status update. Love story between a trainee who is about to debut and a celebrity from the same agency. Kpop boy group OnlyOneOf has signed up to star in this idol-based BL (based on a webtoon). They’ve been auditioning for this since Libido IMHO. You can watch me chronicle their BL MV series in this post. It’s from Idol Romance who will do sad but can do good kisses (Wish You, Nobleman Ryu, Once Again, Kissable Lips, Poongduck 304, Tasty Florida, Tinted With You).

Still To Come In September

9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.

9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.

9/27 Bon Appetit (Korea iQIYI) - from 2022, 8 eps from GoGo Studio, romance between an office worker who lives off junk food and the man next door who cooks well.

9/? Mr Cinderella 2 (Vietnam YouTube?)

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I love him. And I love his version of this character better than Jimmy's.

I also love it when a show gets meta. (Both Why R U? Korea) Why they didn't just go for YRU? the world may never know.)

(Last week)

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rocketturtle4 · 10 months

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Arthrit was my Favourite Character and I want to write about him; My reflection on the SOTUS Franchise as a newbie

In brief: I am attempting to understand the growth of Thai BLs by watching ABL’s understand the history of thai bl list on the Thai master post. I’m more interested in the growth and change on screen than the tracking of different actors/directors etc. but I do enjoy reading about those things. I am concurrently understanding the history of All BL by watching the Foundation Syllabus lists as well, I am not planning to review everything, but I adored SOTUS and I’ve started following @waitmyturtle’s journey through oldgmmtv and was surprised by our different initial takes on SOTUS and to a lesser extent the SOTUS franchise so I thought I’d share my own feeling about the shows. Yes I know ‘twas a while ago.

I don’t know anything about the actors as people and have minimal knowledge of the IRL ship drama (just aware that there was drama)

Disclaimers:

THIS POST IS LONG (LIKE LONG LONG), and I cut out so much you wouldn’t believe

Obviously, these are my own thoughts, I am not expecting everyone or even anyone to agree, I’m just sharing.

I only talk about Arthrit and Kong in this post, I enjoyed the side couples but I was much more invested in the main one and that’s what I want to talk about.

Not defending Gay for you as a damaging trope

Not defending blushing maiden and sex negativity as damaging tropes

Damaging tropes suck and being aware of them while viewing content is important for not internalising their message for yourself or your perception of others.

I’m demisexual FYI (My sexuality suddenly felt relevant halfway through my reflection so Imma put it here)

General SOTUS Thoughts

In writing this I have realised my attachment to Arthrit started later in the franchise than I thought but eh still mostly going to write about him.

Bullying/hazing (I didn’t mind this time) – I don’t like Hazing or bullying, but the way it was portrayed here, as a form of relationship building which was openly discussed as damaging and then improved on as part of the arc was fine for me. It was about recognizing the good parts of a practice and removing the bad and I was cool with that.

Kongpob (I’m a fan) – He’s hard working, he’s snarky, he’s clearly got good learning habits and cares about his education, he’s supportive of his friends and he stands up for injustice. I was definitely watching SOTUS for this character in the beginning.

Disparate personalities and positions of power (And the different ways our leads present as authority) (there’s also obvs age dynamics at play)

Arthrit is older but also the shyer and less expressive, his assumption of leaderships feels less aligned with his personality and so he cares more about maintaining his professionalism, first as head Hazer and later as an employee while Kong is an intern. (This does not make him a bad leader I think he’s a good one).

Kong is a natural leader, shown overwhelmingly by his standing up for his peers and their inclination to elect him as the campus star and then as the representative (which he runs away from cause he’s already got enough on his plate). His comfort with his own authority is a part of his pursuit of Arthrit and also his differing experience with Authority. (I think the way he bonds with P’Paga the scary office lady is a great example of this difference, he has good instincts).

This feels important to me as Arthrit is holding onto that authority a lot tighter than Kongpob, he’s working to maintain it because it’s NOT natural.

OKAY Onto Arthrit’s Arc and why I found it so impactful.

First up I can tell you the exact moment I fell in love with Arthrit’s character, it was right…

Here (Please study hard P'Arthrit)

(His eyes my good people, they had me and they never lost me) (I literally learnt how to GIF just so I could keep this moment forever) (Episode 13) (I mean, I found a GIF generator) From this point on I was watching this entire franchise for the way Arthrit emoted with his eyes first, and everything else second.

But let’s back up slightly.

My take on Arthrit’s emotional arc through the early parts of SOTUS was essentially:

Why is the first year defiant-flirting with me?

This first year is incredibly clever and that’s dangerous because it could undermine my authority and I want this program to be successful (He did recommend him as campus star, and comment to himself/his friends about not underestimating Kongpob, we had clearly early signs that Arthrit thought Kongpob was pretty amazing, he just couldn’t show this because of this authoritative position) (also age dynamics = a big deal in Thailand)

Then we had the sleep confession (He’s never really sleeping)

Arthrit’s panic over the fact that his sort of friend, definite nong who is a guy apparently had feelings for him

This manifested as his removing himself from Kongpob to work through and process his own emotions, my personal feelings on this were that Arthrit’s reaction was more confused than disgusted and he was trying to avoid a confrontation so he could figure himself out without hurting Kongpob. (There was also some unresolved feelings in here for his highschool friend that needed to be dealt with).

Not the ideal move and poor Kong was so confused and got hurt anyway but then we got to

“I don’t know you well enough Kongpob… But I want to know you more”

Now I seriously appreciated this because I often feel frustrated when characters emotions just immediately match: like one person confesses and two days later other person is like, oh turns out I am also madly in love with you. Boom. Couple. (This does sometimes make sense in the story, just not always).

Arthrit’s emotional response of: Yes I think I like you but I’m still figuring it out so do keep flirting with me so I can keep figuring it out…

I liked it.

Now immediately after this, Arthrit kisses Kongpob (mutual kisses yay!). I don’t take this as say, a final cementation of their relationship (as the kiss often seems to be treated, especially in K BL) but as an expression of interest.

Kiss = I am interested in you romantically, let’s flirt more/date to get to know each other so our feelings can develop.

Then we got to see Arthrit melt (the eyes conveyed it, I adored) honestly it was their tiny little movements that I liked the most and you can’t see that here but still.

Also his shy little smiles.

I totally think that the attraction here is not conveyed by Arthrit’s character the same way Kong’s but to me this reflects

Kong’s more straightforward and open personality + plus his self confidence (Seme dynamics definitely factor into this since these are characters not real people)

Arthrit being more uncertain as to his own emotional state, AND his greater shyness with expressing his emotions publicly (uke dynamics obvs - but not too pronounced I think). I like how the actor conveys these emotions. (whether or not it was intentional)

People have different levels of comfort with any kinds of PDA and that’s okay (look I’m not sure if blushing maiden trope arguably comes into play here but to me some people are shyer of affection than others and I personally feel that for Arthrit, this early on, his emotions were pretty clear and his responses makes sense.)

And then at the end of episode 13 we handed over the gear

In episode 14 we had a bit of drama because it’s early days and Arthrit is just realising he likes a popular boy

Jealously thou name is Arthrit

But things get resolved (by accident by Kongpob’s gift, amusing) and so we have the public declaration (like the kiss earlier this is instigated by Arthrit which I appreciate because he’s the one with the boundaries being crossed in this scenario). His little smile and duck down to hide his face felt very authentic because he’s not a PDA person and so he feels a bit embarrassed about drawing attention to himself.

And they had a good convo afterwards too + Kiss etc but I really want to get onto:

SOTUS S

(Because episode 15 of SOTUS is over the time jump it's included here)

Thoughts on the stuff that happens during the time jump (e.g. the end cut scenes of some episodes).

We had 2 scenes which stuck in my mind from this time, the piggyback ride ("you are my faen after all") after Kong hurts himself.

(THE EYES)

AND

Arthrit handing over the metaphorical power to the future head hazer.

I personally felt this scene was super important because it showed us:

Arthrit simping all over his boy being authoritative and flirting back with the same lines Kong had once used, in a public space.

Arthrit’s continued uncertainty, NOT (in my opinion) with the idea of being openly affectionate with his boyfriend (what do you call his face above if not openly affectionate) but with having his professionalism undermined by being asked to kiss said boyfriend in front of a whole group of his peers while he is technically their leader (plus they will tease him).

Look it's dark here, and I know my love of his eyes and their emotions is irrational but to me that gaze says: “you know I love you, but why are you doing this HERE.” @waitmyturtles, this was the thing I found most discrepant about your thoughts and mine, to me Arthrit’s emotions were conveyed so clearly by Krist, even in SOTUS but especially in SOTUS S. I was so absorbed by Arthrit sometimes I got completely distracted from Singto’s (excellent) portrayal of Kong.

Onto the main timeline of SOTUS S

(How many of my images of Arthrit being a simp can i put it here to justify my having them in the first place) (I restrained myself a lot you have to believe me)...it turns out I hit the limit, enjoy!

(I started doing a quick flick through the show to check my continuity but then I wanting to add stuff so I stopped and I'm trusting my brain)

We get an early sign that their relationship is going strong with their mutual missing of each other: Arthrit’s visit to campus and seeking Kong out because he misses him, and Kong telling Arthrit he has a duty to him as his faen and convincing Arthrit to stay the night with him because he misses Arthrit.

(They're both so doting naaaaww)

Later, we have this scene where Arthrit goes to tell his coworkers he has a faen and gets interrupted ("well I…") Now we don’t know this for sure, but he drew himself up and prepared to face it and then sort of deflates when he missed the chance, so I’m projecting and that’s what I think.

There’s some bumps in the road while they navigate their new seperation and Kong hits a boundary of Arthrit’s he clearly didn’t know existed when he showed up at Arthrit’s work. (I think this is again more of a personality thing, Arthrit is still figuring out his position and authority in the company and feels very unsure about having his male faen show up to his office without warning. This is not the university space where everyone around them knows they’re dating, it’s DIFFERENT. Kong on the other hand is the kind of guy who totally would have interrupted everyone at that dinner to be like, actually I cook dinner for my man. All. The. Time.) Anyways, they talk, Kong visits work in a planned way, and things are more settled and physical (have some more photos, justify my having them in the first place)

until…Kong shows up at work, and then after they sort of talk, Kong shows up next door.

Now while writing this I had a personal realization that I need to check in about (detailed in small text below the next photo) but first.

This moment makes everything else in the Arthrit’s arc make sense to me, to me he’s feeling uncertain about fundamental aspects of their relationship, rather than purely being temporarily hurt by Kongpobs actions, he internalises this uncertainty about their communication.

This is then kind of resolved but then made much worse by Kongpob moving in next door. (Yes Kong says it's to be close while giving Arthrit space, but doesn't Arthrit deserve to be part of that decision?) (We don't see how much they communicated prior to this, but it seems to me that Arthrit's point here, about losing faith in their ability to talk to each other is super relevant)

(Personal note, how secure I feel in a relationship directly affects how comfortable I feel physically in the relationship, and I don’t mean ‘I’m sad so I don’t feel like having sex right now’ I mean, ‘the foundation of our relationships feels less stable and as a result my comfort with physical things, especially sexual intimacy feels significantly reduced’

I THOUGHT THIS WAS NORMAL Y’ALL

Having sat and thought about it right now, I don’t think that’s actually the case for the majority? like not all the time at least? This made me think about my personal reaction to watching Nevertheless a few months ago (a kdrama) and I was crazy uncomfortable with the discrepant emotional comfort vs physical desire plot, (I finished it, because I had to, because leaving in the middle would have been worse but just, No.) I mean I get sex without feelings, sure, or with budding feelings, but sex while you’re feelings have moved from stability to instability or are just floundering in instability without resolution?. Possible? Absolutely. Comfortable? No way.

Is this a demisexual thing? (I'm demi if you missed the disclaimer at the top) Is this a me thing? I am going to examine this more but for now you have my facts and perspective and we’re moving on)

(also this relationship being kind of ace has actually been put forth by ABL (here) and most likely others. I had previously read this post and moved on (because I hadn’t seen SOTUS), so I just wanted to say this is not a Tumblr revelation, just a me revelation)

I may be projecting but…

I adored the way the actor continued to show Arthrit’s foundational uncertainty in where their relationship was going/at, through his discomfort with being physical with Kong even after he’d consciously forgiven him. (Okay definitely projecting)

Episode 7, where Kong gets hurt by the door and is forgiven, but Arthrit still seems kind of uncomfortable with the physical side of things both here and in the next episode.

Plus the excellent scenes where Arthrit keeps telling Kong off for giving him food and then ends up yelling, and Kong goes back to being uncertain about where the line is. (Arthrit needs to talk more I'll admit it).

Arthit during the scene where Kong professes his uncertainty, because it's another screenshot I already had. (HIS. EYES.)

BUT because Arthrit realises he's hurt Kong, they talk about it and tada: Arthrits more comfortable physically again next ep, because he’s more certain of his relationship again.

We get beaches

(seriously Arthrit’s little smile, I’m dying) and fun times and kisses

(I have so many screenshots in here everyone, it's concerning)

And then:

Arthrit get’s double shaken again (Dad + Photo) (and he processes things by taking physical space. AGAIN.) (still totally relatable but I’m actually kind of annoyed with him for not saying a word to Kong now that I’m writing it down, I was not at all annoyed when I watched it, for the record)

And then Kong goes “OKAY THAT’S IT” and expresses his (totally justifiable) uncertainty about what is going on, because Arthrit keeps not being clear and can’t they actually talk about things!! So Kong gives him back his gear and leaves. My take on this was basically:

Kong: You need to be sure you want to be with me.

Arthrit: wait what, you’re leaving? But you’re always there? You’ve been hurting? Oh no I’ve hurt you? *cries* *Processes* *Publicly declares feelings* There I fixed it.

To me, Arthrit was never uncertain about whether or not he Loved Kong (Is this in question?, I don't know), he was just navigating the stability of his existing relationship in a new environment with many new revelations. And I believe that, because, even through the uncertainty, Arthrit continued to stare at Kong with such intensity that I couldn’t look away.

Hmm despite that, I think this reflection has actually left me a little bit less obsessed with Arthrit (definitely a good thing, I realized after I finished SOTUS S that I have 48 screenshots of Arthrit’s face staring at Kong with different adoring expressions and that is… too many).

For me, Arthrit’s emotional arc was so captivating because of the way Krist acted throughout, his expressions (HIS EYES) and the links between his emotions and his physical comfort were compelling and I was sucked into his emotional journey above all else. Did the actor intend this? I don’t know, but I had a great time. I almost feel like I need to rewatch SOTUS S just to pay attention to Singto more because he was kind of sidelined for me.

OUR SKYY SOTUS (the quickest summary because the words are totally out of hand)

(I totally had more pics from our skyy but I've apparently hit my limit oops)

We had some lovely relationship comfort and stability followed by compelling drama and then resolution. I loved it.

The drama is basically just Arthrit going: oh no you’re leaving, what if I make things harder for you, what if things end, how will I live, *get’s bad advice about breaking up* we should take a break because I love you way too much.

Kong: You complete moron, I love you and that’s why we’re supposed to stay together, now I’m leaving tomorrow, and you better prove you love me too by showing up.

Arthrit: *takes time to process* Oh yeah cool cool, I totally love you a lot *shows up and decides to travel with him for a little bit because these boyfriends be clingy*

But with all the excellent acting.

(Tiny note, my understanding is that this performance might be more compelling because Krist is expressing more emotions, but I took that as the first time Arthrit had actually tried to talk about and express his feelings, due to feeling stable enough to do so (all previous space taking was emotional processing). So there isn’t a single scene in SOTUS or SOTUS S where I would have expected this level of emotion (except for when he realized Kong was leaving because Kong was hurt). I would have found it confusing because Arthrits clearly a brooder. So he doesn’t talk to Kong while he’s hurting (an incorrect choice but one he continues to make) and so only the attempt to speak about his emotions here induces this level of physical display.

I cry more when I try to talk about my emotions, anybody else?)

CHEERS FOR READING

ALSO, I appreciate all you Tumblr master posters so much more now (I swear I already appreciated you lots!! but seriously I thought this would take like an hour or two and it DID NOT - and I'm not even meta-ing just throwing my thoughts on a page)

#sotus #sotus the series #sotus s #sotus s the series #rocketturtle4 catches up #thai bl #analysis #our skyy x sotus #Arthrit sotus #Arthrit x kong #rturts is wondering #Rocket4Reviews

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ginnymoonbeam · 4 months

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Top 5 kisses of the year!

Oh friend, you know what I am ABOUT! I have so many opinions on kisses, I even have a spreadsheet with a detailed assessment rubric. If I'd kept up with that sheet even a little bit this year, I wouldn't have had to scrabble through my recollections to answer... but the scrabbling was fun, and also gave me an excuse to rewatch some choice scenes.

Before I answer (you knew this wasn't going to be short), some general thoughts on what makes a really great drama kiss. Physicality is important: the lips, the hands, the eye contact, the way both bodies express desire and the pull to be closer. But a really great kiss is also full of emotional context and narrative meaning. It's as much an expression of character as any other actions or words. It shows who these people are to each other in this moment, and it lets us see the individuality of their desires and feelings.

The really great kiss scenes usually also come after a buildup of tension, releasing like a musical chord resolving. A kiss that I have been dying to see will hit so much harder than an equally sensual kiss with an established couple that does it all the time, or with a pair I've just seen meet. That's not a knock against established couple kisses or lust-at-first-sight kisses: I enjoy both, a lot. But the kisses that really make an impression, that make my chest ache and leave me thinking about them for days, tend to be Big Moments.

So here you go, my top 5 BL kisses of 2023.

Step by Step car makeout

gif by smittenskitten

Step by Step might have been a letdown, but Pat and Jeng's chemistry never faltered. This car makeout, after having to spend a day in the office trying to keep up a professional front, holds some of the most raw, frenzied desire we've gotten this year. The way they look at each other, the way they grab for each other, it's blazingly good. And the thing that makes this a standout scene for me: in their groping and grappling, they hit the car horn, stop and laugh about it, and then keep kissing. One of my kissing scene peeves is when any small interruption brings the scene to an end, as if a spell has been broken and they've been reverted to normal not-kissing people. I punched the air when Pat and Jeng stopped for a minute and then got right back into it, like two people who really want to be kissing each other should do.

I Cannot Reach You infirmary kiss

gif by jimmysea

Now we go to the opposite end of the sensuality spectrum. This kiss was short and gentle in comparison to every other kiss on this list, but the narrative impact is profound. I Cannot Reach You is only the second BL I've seen to put direct focus on the physical intimacy side of a friends-to-lovers story, where sexual desire appears as an unsettling element in the friendship that both parties need to wrestle with in their own way. This kiss shows the resolution of that struggle, the mutual acceptance and mutual desire. Yamato is not holding himself back any more and Kakeru is fully accepting and reflecting his desire. And while it's not the most involved kiss, the sensuality is absolutely there: the softness of the lips, the cradling of Kakeru's face, the hands! Gorgeous.

Last Twilight rooftop kiss

gif by jimmysea

Aof Noppharnach knows how to build a goddamn moment. Not for nothing is he the architect of the top-rated kiss on my spreadsheet (yes, it's the one you think.) This is the perfect example of a kiss as character and story work, a kiss that has a distinct narrative role, a kiss that's physically distinctive and suited to the moment the characters are in. Day has just been kissed out of pity and is despairing that that's the only feeling he can evoke in others; Mok has spent weeks realizing how much he wants Day even as he watches Day move away from him and toward someone else. Mok needed to kiss Day aggressively in this moment, and Day needed to feel that desire aimed at him, and we the audience needed a release from the agonies we'd been feeling for both of them all episode long.

I Feel You Linger In The Air post-ballroom kiss

gif by tenprems

Whew... what is there even to say? The buildup to this one was extraordinary, the romance of it unparalleled. Gorgeous, gorgeous scene. Also this is a good place to mention that kissing in the rain is good. Kissing in the rain is always very good. I've been known to give bonus points for other environmental elements too, but rain will always score big.

This list hasn't been ranked thus far - all four of these kisses are wonderful in such different ways, and I didn't want to take the time to actually fill out my rubric to get a numerical score for each of them (maybe I will after I post.) But the last is unquestionably #1 for me: it's the one I knew right away was going on the list, the best kiss scene of 2023 and one of the best of all time.

La Pluie apartment floor makeout

gif by wanderlust-in-my-soul

In all my talk about narrative weight and character, let it not be thought that I don't care about the physicality and the sensuality. Boy do I, and boy did this scene deliver! These boys want each other intensely, and every element of the scene made me feel that right down to my toes. It's the way they touch each other, the way they look at each other, the way their mouths move. There's an editing choice that I adore, perfectly conveying the escalation from first exploratory kisses to heated passion. And then the way they stop, because Patts recognizes that Tai would regret going further in this moment, as fired-up as he is right now. This kiss scene says so much about who they both are and how they feel about each other, and it does it while delivering a fire I still feel after [mumblemumble] rewatches.

Thanks so much for the ask and letting me go on about one of my favorite things!

Ask me my Top 5 BL anything!

(they probably won't all be this long)

#ask game #best of bl 2023 #kissing scenes #bl drama

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moaserendipity · 4 months

Text

My Top 10 BL's of 2023

I am back with my personal top 10 of 2023. I know I've been super quiet these days but making a top 10 is always fun to do. The #1 has been decided early this past year but for the rest... It was a crazy year for BL but only a few were really top tier...🔥🔥

10. My Personal Weatherman (Taikan Yoho)

One of the Japanese BL's I really enjoyed watching. It was more grown up then the ones I've seen and that was very welcome. I love the dynamics between the main characters a lot. It was a bit of a slow one, with the lack in communication between the two but I forgive that because the chemistry was really good.

09. Wedding Plan

Oh how i looked forward to this one, the second I saw the trailer. I loved the storyline but I thought it was very short, which made them rush through it at times, which was a shame because it was actually really good and I just wanted to see more. I loved the chemistry between Sailom and Namnuea, So I really enjoyed watching them. They are very new if I'm correct but I didn't notice it at all, so hopefully they will get another BL together but a longer one. Also I love the GL in this BL, it was very natural and I in the end hoped they would be the ones that got to marry. Not to forget about the cameo;s of my babies Payu and Rain and of course Prapai and Sky.

08. Moonlight Chicken

This one I've waited for so so long and it was kind of a surprise because I love EarthMix, Like Mix is my man but my attention got taken away from them and got attached to GemFourth who played Li Ming and Heart. I just loved everything about them! I loved how they incorporated Sign language because Heart was deaf and just the overall chemistry between them, was everything. They made me smile so much. Jim and Wen, you know were amazing as well but I sometimes felt frustrated by their interaction. The close moments they had were amazing of course but it was not what I expected from EarthMix but overall this drama was definitely worth the wait!

07. Kiseki: Dear to Me

I absolutely loved this one. I couldn't get enough of it. I am a sucker for the Hate to Love trope and this had exactly that and in a gangster way. Like I loved it. ZeRui and Bangyi were made for each other and you can't tell me otherwise how he went to prison for ZeRui and even got hurt but he still decided to dedicate his bakery to him with his Strawberry cakes, ugh too cute. The second couple made me want even more. The sassiness of Ai Di and the coldness of Chen Yi, they were really something. The way Chen Yi didn't realize that Ai Di loved him until he went to prison or that one hot night made me slap my forehead because nothing was more obvious, so I can not explain how happy I was they finally got together in the end!!

06. My School President

This really was a GemFourth year because this was their first leading BL and boy how they won us over with their cuteness. The OST was also seriously top tier. I think I loved all the songs. This entire Cast was amazing! To think I almost skipped this one...That would've been a mistake for sure, so I'm happy that I decided to give it another try because I fell in love with them and bingewatched it in one go. I can't wait to see the next project from them.!

5. Our Dating Sim

this Korean BL was a welcome one. I loved the office setting of this BL and the fact that the episodes were short as usual, didn't disturb me that much. Their chemistry made up for that! I will never forget how my heart sank when Ki Tae thought Wan had disappeared again, this poor man but I loved how Wan immediately comforted him the second he saw him. I should really rewatch this again.

4. Last Twilight

I know it's still running but I can not leave it out of my top10 for 2023. I am impressed with Jimmy and Sea. These two are everything to me at this moment. Their chemistry is crazy and I am happy they have this BL to show their talents again. I am impatiently waiting every week for the next episode and so far no episode has disappointed me, which is rare tbh.

3. Sing my Crush

Sing my crush was not even on my radar but the second I came across it, I bingewatched it. I am a sucker for music BL's, where the actors can ACTUALLY sing and play instruments.. I loved it so much. from start to finish. I really think this BL was very underrated. I did not hear a lot of people about it but it definitely deserves more!

2. I feel you linger in the Air

Ever since I saw the trailer, I wanted to see this one badly and boy did it not disappoint! I was in awe every episode. I don't think I've ever seen a Thai Bl that was staged in the past. Also this way of time traveling is one I actually like. As long as no bodies get switched I am loving it. Their chemistry was top notch and those intimate scenes. That kiss in the rain, Art I am telling you and that massage scene, HELLO!! I literally forgot to breathe at that point and my face was almost stuck to the screen, crazy!! So yeah this was a true masterpiece!

01. The Eighth Sense

Let's all act surprised by this one...... what can I say? This one touched my intire being. It touched my soul, My heart everything. I cried, laughed and even cursed at 2 people in particular.. This is the biggest masterpiece of 2023 and nothing can change my mind about this. The way I anticipated every week and felt sad when it ended, ugh!! I just want to praise Oh Jun Taek for the way he acted, because if I'm correct this was his first acting job or at least he is very new but he pulled it of perfectly and Ji sub, I am applauding him for the way he portrayed Jae Won. All I need now is a season 2 or an special episode where we see them do the things Jihyun wanted... like just please!! In al seriousness everything was amazing about this one and that's why it's my number 1

I really do think that the Korean BL's won this round. I feel like they are finally stepping up their game. It's still not as Explicit as Thai or Taiwanese but that's not what I am expecting. I don't always have to have NC scenes because without a story, it's not worth a lot. Overal the Bl's were powerful this year and Top tier. Hopefully next year will bring us even better ones!! <3

#my top 10 BL #the eighth sense #i feel you linger in the air #our dating sim #last twilight #sing my crush #my school president #moonlight chicken #my weatherman #kiseki: dear to me #wedding plan #wedding plan the series #jisub x juntaek #jimmysea #gemfourth #earthmix

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the-conversation-pod · 9 months

Text

Adult Swim

We originally planned to talk about Step by Step during Work, Bitch, and Nini hadn't planned to watch La Pluie until the fall. However, because all of us refused to give up on La Pluie, Nini joined us around episode 8. Both of these shows inspired more writing than we've seen since the heyday of Bad Buddy or I Told Sunset About You. Surface-level engagement was all-but-impossible with either of these shows, and honestly wrung us out more than we were expecting.

It's time for the kids to get out of the pool for the grown folks to talk as Ben and Nini open their third eyes and discuss Step by Step and La Pluie.

Listen on Apple Podcasts!

Listen on Google Podcasts!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond to chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

0:00 - Welcome 1:15 - Intro 2:08 - Step by Step 4:40 - Step by Step: A Moment of Simping 8:40 - Step by Step: Big Themes 16:52 - Step by Step: The Romance 25:45 - Step by Step: Story Execution 50:25 - Step by Step: Where are we on Tee Bundit? 53:10 - La Pluie 57:50 - La Pluie: The Soulmate Myth 1:08:22 - La Pluie: Lomfon is Rude! 1:13:30 - La Pluie: Tai Also Deserves Some Smoke 1:18:26 - La Pluie: Tai’s Dad Read as Queer 1:20:48 - La Pluie: The Romance 1:32:06 - La Pluie: Depiction of Male Anger 1:35:50 - La Pluie: Treatment of Nara 1:40:47 - La Pluie: The Side Characters 1:44:02 - La Pluie: Sequel Potential 1:46:01 - Outro

The Conversation: Now With Transcripts!

We received an accessibility request to include transcripts for the podcast. We are working with @ginnymoonbeam on providing the transcripts and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes. When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

0:00 - Welcome

Nini

Hello, hello! Your QL fandom aunty and uncle are here with giant sunglasses, brown liquor in a flask, a folded five-dollar bill to slip into your hand when no one is looking, lukewarm takes, occasional rides on the discourse, deep dives into artistry and the industry.

Ben

Lots of simping! I’m Ben.

Nini

I’m Nini.

Ben

And this is The Conversation. About once a season, we plan to swan in and shoot the shit on faves, flops, and trends that we’ve been noticing in the BL, GL, or QL Industry. Between seasons, you can find us typing way too many words on Tumblr.

1:15 - Intro

Nini

Hey Ben, what are we talking about tonight?

Ben

Tonight it's time for Adult Swim. Kids: out of the pool! This season led to so much more writing and meta than we've seen in a really long time. There was so much to say about both of these shows that we ended up needing to move both of these shows out of separate episodes and just shove them into one.

Tonight we will be discussing Step by Step and La Pluie, and then we'll return with you all at the end with some final thoughts. Nini and I are bracing for this, because we have a lot to say to each other. [laughs]

Nini

This is gonna be round two of fight night apparently, not on everything but on some things. So you guys stay tuned and we'll see you at the end!

2:08 - Step by Step

Nini

Okay, Ben this time I got my eye black on for you. So let's talk Step by Step. Tell the people, what is Step by Step about?

Ben

Step by Step is a workplace drama that centers around a young man named Pat, who is maybe 25 — there was some confusion about that at the end?

Nini

Shade!

Ben

…who is returning to Thailand after completing some of his graduate studies, and is now working at a large corporation inside of an office tower. He is the low man on the totem pole in the sort of digital division of this corporation, and is having a very difficult time. Very early on, he has a kind of flirty interaction with the largest man who has ever existed in BL, and takes a shine to him, but is disappointed when he realizes he's his boss.

Pat eventually ends up in conflict with his new boss whose name is Jeng…slowly the two of them start to work better together. Jeng ends up putting Pat in charge of a BL advertising project in a mostly queer team, and over the course of the show there ends up becoming this huge misunderstanding between the two of them about whether or not they're on a romantic arc, as the show is also unpacking a lot of really huge themes about where queer people do or don't fit in corporate structures that are more than willing to profit off of them, as Pat and Jeng try to figure out what their relationship is supposed to be.

Nini

I think that was a very fair précis of the plot of Step by Step.

Ben

If you're listening to us and you've watched Step by Step, you may be familiar with the fact that…reactions to the last arc of this show were mixed, to put it mildly. Nini and I ended up falling on opposite sides of the fence on this one, so we have a lot to unpack.

4:40 - Step by Step: A Moment of Simping

Ben

I'm [gonna] let you have this part first: I want you to just go ahead and have your little fun before we get into the big stuff. We can begin with talking about Man Trisanu and how much you really enjoyed his performance.

Nini

His performance, yes, but before we get to his performance…I mean we say in the intro that there is lots of simping on this show, and I've been listening to our old episodes: we haven't simped nearly enough? So I'm just gonna do like a quick two minutes of absolute simping for Man Trisanu, because my god that man is large. That man is so large that for like the first three episodes, every time he came on screen, like my brain made like the boinga boinga boinga sound, like I could not actually focus [laughs] on what was happening — I had to watch episodes multiple times…

Ben

[laughs] She’s just posting awooga gifs in the chat all the time.

Nini

If I was the kind of person who would get embarrassed by this stuff I would have been embarrassed by the way I behaved. But I don't get embarrassed by this stuff, so I wasn't embarrassed by the way that I behaved looking at this man [laughs]...throughout, but especially in the first three episodes. I just kept staring at him. And then as we got like further and further into the show it was very clear that he's also a good actor, so I was invested in the character emotionally? But that also did not stop the fwarh noises in my brain. The man is large. And he's large and he's attractive. And he's large and he's attractive and he's talented. That's basically my kryptonite.

That doesn't mean that I cannot be fair about the show—there are things that I'm gonna say about the show that are not complimentary, even though in the end—I'm just like skipping to the part where I score it, I gave it a 9—there are problems with the show, do not get me wrong. But overall, I found it incredibly enjoyable. And I can't lie to you: Man Trisanu was part of why I found it enjoyable. Not just because he is large and attractive but also because he is quite a good actor. Okay, so I got my yah yahs out.

Ben

Solid 20% of the chat is just Nini going: “THAT MAN IS BIG!”

[both laugh]

Nini

He’s a biggun! [both laugh] At one point I definitely just sent a voice message that said “Timberrrrr!”

Ben

It’s like, it would be Tuesday and everybody's in the chat just, “Lorge.” [laughs]

Ben

In terms of simping, I really like Ben Bunyapol’s work in this one. Nini and I tend to fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to…the guys we're attracted to in these shows? Unsurprisingly, she was super into Man and all of his work; I really liked a lot of stuff Ben was doing, and I like Nini's commentary that Ben is definitely someone's problem, right now.

Nini

Oh my god, somebody is staring at the ceiling up at night, like, thinking about Ben Bunyapol because that boy is…I mean, not my style, but I can appreciate good lookin’, I can. That is somebody's problem.

Ben

I really like what he was playing with in this. I really—we'll get into this when we talk about the queer themes in this—I really like the specific type of queerness he portrayed in this. And I know that must have been really difficult to hold with everything else he was doing on the show.

Nini

I concur, he also showed some talent. There’s quite a few newbies in this cast, Ben and Man are both newbies, and you see a little bit of that, but mostly they, I think they acquitted themselves very well.

8:40 - Step by Step: Big Themes

Ben

Since we're disclosing our ratings early in this one: as you all know, Nini gives me a lot of shit on this show about how friendly I am to shows with my scoring? I gave this show a 7.5, because I think the problems in this show make it hard to recommend to people. And the more homework I feel like I have to give people, or pamphlets I have to hand out before they start watching, the harder it is for me to recommend.

However, there are a lot of things to talk about in the show I think are good. And I think because it's Tee Bundit, and we have to talk about how much the sort of…irritated version of queerness that he's carrying around in his work comes through in his stuff? Think we should start with the big themes, because that's what he clearly cared about the most. So Nini, as someone who is thrilled with this show: what are the big themes you think that Tee is going for this time?

Nini

I mean, Tee is a guy who, kind of hits on the same themes in most of his work? And the themes that he likes to hit on are around like, queerness and capitalism, or like around the monetization of queerness and sort of juxtaposing it against the way that queer people are just kind of suffocating under this fog of homophobia. So that's like one of the things that he definitely gets into in this show, like all his other shows.

Another thing that Tee is very into is playing with inside and outside, like perceptions of queer people and how queer people see themselves versus how the world sees them? I think that's a big thing. He loves a family dynamic where everybody knows but nobody says anything, that's another big theme that he's playing with in this. These are the things that show up over and over again in his work, that I tend to respond to. I find it really legible, so I quite enjoy it.

What about you? What kinds of themes did you pick up on?

Ben

The big ideas, like core statements that I can read from this is that: corporations are more than willing to profit off of queer people. They absolutely want to use our talents, our social skills, our managerial skills, and our relationships as well as our lives…to sell shit. But they don't actually want us, particularly in positions of leadership.

Another thing that comes through very clearly is that queer people cannot experience queer joy in environments that demand a very rigid form of conformity. And also, that everything that queer people want for themselves, including their joy, is not something you can have on the timeline of BL. It's going to take literally years for you to find your happiness. Which is so sad!

Nini

One of the things that I think we had discussed a little bit but didn't really delve into is that you feel a cynicism emanating off of Tee that you kind of don't like? I don't know if you wanted to get a little bit more into that, because we didn't really, like, discuss that too much.

Ben

Tee Bundit clearly—oh, there's a man I could simp for. [laughs] I think that man is very pretty, and I like how fucking angry he is all the time. [both laugh]

So, Tee is a director who has a really strong eye. Don't know that he's found an editor who works well with him yet. Or has found a really good screenwriting team to hang out with? But he has a really strong eye, and he very clearly hated being on the TharnType set. That comes through so loudly in Lovely Writer, and you can see that this has affected the way he looks at being an adult professional in so many ways.

Pat is so unhappy in this show. He's so stressed. And Jeng is also so unhappy, because he's so bottled up. It gets a little bit lost sometimes, how specifically pissed off Pat is about everything that's being thrown at him and expected of him. And you can feel that with Tee, that he has to…play to the proclivities of shipping culture, which he clearly despises.

Nini

He's made two shows about it now.

Ben

Quick aside about this, Tee leveled some I think fair criticism of BL as an industry, in that it is profiting off of the appearance of relationships of queer people, but they're all inherently fake, and they're meant to be fake. And apparently a certain set of fans did not agree or like that their ship was used as the example of this, and caused such a stink that they were forced to edit the episode and remove that commentary. And I don't know if this impacted later commentary that may have been in the show. I do not think it would have made the show more legible than it is? But Tee is just so irritated about the inescapability of heteronormativity in his professional life.

You see this for Pat, who doesn't allow himself to even perceive Jeng as someone he could be with, because of the age difference, the class difference, the work difference…and the way that they are queer is very different from each other. You see this with Chot, who seems to be an incredibly talented individual, but is not someone apparently considered for middle to upper management in any way? You've got this with Jaab where he's just like ‘yeah I'm not playing that. I got money, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want.’

It's so frustrating, because in this show towards the end sequence where they ask Pat to come back for one more ride to try and save this stupid department. They assemble a little team together of queers or queer-friendly people and they end up using everyone's queer adjacent skills in some way shape or form to sell, like, fucking gas stations? [laughs] So they end up having Pat's formerly shitty superior write like, a BL story about looking for, like, a specific fucking juice at the fucking gas station, so that Jaab can very publicly run around on Facebook looking for Jen, the side character he's also pursuing. And then to help pimp this out, they ask Pat to call his ex, who he doesn't want to engage with on this, to help sell this shit—who was also forced to go back into the closet so that he could pretend to be gay with his BL co-star. Which is insane.

Nini

Like when you say it out loud it's like, the levels of bullshit, like Tee is very much about piling on the bullshit. And he's like doing it and pointing to the audience and saying, ‘Look at this! Ain't this some shit? This is the kind of shit that we gotta deal with on the regular!’

Ben

I'm not even done! The head of the company baited them by stripping their marketing budget because he knew his son would use his own money to save this: creating a division between the gays because of lack of loyalty and such. And so like, that comes through fairly loudly.

16:52 - Step by Step: The Romance

Ben

Part of where the struggle kicks in for me with this show is honestly with Pat and Jeng. Like, I have really strong positive feelings about Pat as a character, as an individual, and I have an incredible amount of feelings for Jeng as an individual—and I want to elaborate on those—but like Pat and Jeng as a unit, I feel, was super frustrating and really disappointing in this show, in a way that felt kind of pissy from Tee? Like I feel like…they don't feel satisfying on purpose. And that doesn't sit right with me, because of genre conventions and expectations.

I'll let you talk about Pat and Jeng, because I think you feel a lot better about them than I did.

Nini

Yeah, because I think I had different expectations. I definitely took in at the beginning, or before the beginning of the show, some of the stuff around the show where Tee was very clearly saying this isn't a romance. And as we sort of went through the show, I started to understand what he meant by saying that. I think Tee has a, like a complicated relationship with BL, that much is obvious, and I think in a way, the story that he wanted to tell here—he almost resented a little bit, having to use the romance to tell the story. And it, it shows up on a metatextual level in terms of some of the themes and some of the story points and plot points running throughout the show. He's like, can’t I just tell this story? Why do they have to, like, make out?

There is a tension there, there is a dissonance there. So it's not that I don't understand the problem that people had with it; I understand it entirely. But I was just vibin’. Because…I saw all of that as like, yeah, whatever Tee, like I see exactly what you're saying, but you also put this in here anyway, so I'm gonna enjoy the parts of this that you did put in here. That was my way of dealing with it, and that's why I really enjoyed it—because what he did put in there, for me, between Pat and Jeng? It resonated, because at first it was so much about ‘well this thing can't be and here are all the reasons that this thing can't be.’ It's clear that, like, Jeng is just falling deeper and deeper and deeper, and Pat is just like, I can't, I can't even hear that noise—to the point that he literally drowned the noise out in his own head. To the point where like Jeng actually had to tell him basically, ‘hi, I am actually hitting on you.’ And that, like, it came at the end of like a long tail because also Jeng's very aware that it's, like, an ethical minefield to be hitting on Pat because Pat works for him. So it's just like a swarm of things coming together, in a way that I personally enjoy?

And I, I’ll acknowledge that my enjoyment of this show is extremely personal to just the kind of bitch I am. I just like this kind of, like, dynamics? I like this kind of exceedingly complicated and, ‘this actually is kind of a gordian knot, but still, through that all, I feel the way I feel and you feel the way you feel, and if we could just like figure some of this other shit out—and we're gonna fuck up figuring this other shit out for a while—then it would be solid, it would be golden.’ But like I said, I can completely understand why people wouldn't rock with that. It's dissonant, it's incredibly dissonant, I’m fully aware of that. But I was vibin’. That's just how I feel about it.

Ben

My issue is that the show doesn't say that. And we have to take that as the acceptable read to move on. Like, all of the ideas about how corporate life is evil for queer people are loud themes exemplified through the characters. I was consistently frustrated with Tee in this particular outing, because important gay decisions happen off screen, and that pissed me off. So much of his idea is about how queer people don't get to make choices—and he doesn't show the queer people making the choices they can make.

Like for example, they get together and Pat and Jeng don't discuss what being at work is going to look like for them? Which was so irritating for me, because they don't really know each other? And like I'm totally fine with two bitches just being like, ‘let's just fuck about it for a little while and enjoy this ride while we go.’ But like, they don't say that! Like, we have to take that as meaning, and it irritates me, because he's not subtle about his other shit. It feels a little bit tacked on, because you're supposed to just understand this.

Like—I took that Jeng was broken. I wrote a whole fucking piece about it, about how broken Jeng was by being in the closet as he is, because he lives in a big ass closet. Like his closet was so big I didn't even realize it was a closet, I thought it was an exercise room. No, it's his fucking closet. He lives there, that's insane. But like Pat and Jeng get together, and they don't discuss what being at work is going to be like for them. We don't really see their romance function at all, and they don't give us a sense of the two of them functioning as a pair until the story is over? And that irritates me because what the fuck are they fighting for? Like Jeng is explicitly fighting for the idea of Pat, and Pat is explicitly frustrated that Jeng is trying to manipulate him into the version of Pat that Jeng would prefer him to be. And that is not really confronted in this show. I can't be happy about these two getting together because that particular tension point is just submerged. It isn't dealt with, it's just shoved out of the way. That would have been okay, ‘we're just going to bury this’ is an okay choice, but it's a choice that feels like it happened off screen.

It's frustrating because Pat's choice to break up with the MLM big tall, and his choice to break up with Put happen on screen. Pat processing his complicated post-breakup feelings with Put is executed beautifully on screen. We don't really get a functional version of Pat and Jeng on screen, and it irked me, but it low-key makes me sad, because what if Tee doesn't have enough to pull from in himself to do that properly? But he can handle, like, the painful shit and the breakup shit really well. Like that makes me sad for him…but, like, it irritates me as a viewer. If the desire to be a partner to Pat, and to change because Pat asked him to, is literally the driving force that moves Jeng through the plot—that is text—I hate that when he gets together with Pat, none of the talking about that occurs at all.

Nini

See I had a completely different reaction to that, because to me, from the time that all of that, like, wasn't happening, and then I saw the way that the plot was going, I was just like ‘oh it's a false start.’ That all makes sense to me, like the fact that Jeng spent all this time basically sweatin’ Pat, and finally, like okay, he gets somewhere, he doesn't want to confront the problems. He doesn't want to confront the problems, and Pat doesn't really want to confront the problems because Pat is just, ‘this man wants me, I want this man.’ Like, they don't talk about the issues. They get giddy on each other, they get high, nose wide open, and they don't want to confront the bad shit. So they don't talk about it. It's a false start. They don't talk about it, they don't talk about the fact that they don't really know each other, they don't talk about anything that matters…that to me tells me everything. There's a deep and intense infatuation happening there. And they're burying their heads in the sand about a lot. To me that's deliberate, and that's why it ends up falling apart. It works for me on a narrative level.

25:45 - Step by Step: Story Execution

Nini

I think part of the frustration as well—and I think here we're going to start getting into, like, some of the structural issues—because I said that I did have criticisms about this show. And one of the criticisms that I continuously had was that this show feels like it was edited by monkeys on crack cocaine. There is a lack of a certain amount of cohesiveness to the editing, that makes it hard to follow some of what's happening. Like you have to sit with it and like really train your brain and do one, two, three passes at it, to be like ‘oh yeah, that's what was happening, that's what was happening, that's what was happening.’ So I do take that criticism. I absolutely do take that criticism of the show and I agree with it. That the graph of the show, like the way that it was structured in terms of when the pivot point happens—because it happens almost towards the end—I can see where the frustration comes from, absolutely.

Ben

There's so much in this show that is interesting, but is delivered so haphazardly that you have to work for it. Like, the only useful read I got about the hets and their role in this, was to model what showing up and speaking out looks like versus what sitting on your hands and not saying something looks like. With Khanun and Beam, and their attraction to Ae—who has a baby in a hilariously inaccurate birthing scene…

Nini

[laughs] I’m sorry, you said the birthing scene and I had to crack up, like that was the most like, hand wavy like, ‘I'm a gay man, I don't know how these things work’—like ‘she had a baby, like make it like—do whatever you think having a baby looks like, it's fine, moving on’ [laughs]

Ben

She's pushing the baby! And everybody’s screaming! And POP! It's out! [laughs]

Nini

I don't know how the baby came out, because she was still wearing her pants. But eeehh, let's leave that to the side for now. [laughs]

Ben

I'm okay with that, because everything else was so silly, I get them just not wanting to ask Zorzo to take her pants off.

Nini

There's a thematic reason that Ae has her baby where she does, how she does, when she does, like there's a thematic and a narrative reason for that. But the scene itself is like one of the most cracked-out things I’ve ever seen in my life. [laughs]

Ben

That's the whole problem with the show, like there are good ideas here but like, I don't feel them. I hate that you have to think so hard to get to them. Normally I'm okay with subtext for these sort of things, but…you have to basically rebuild the moments that are occurring in the show so that you can think about stuff.

I ended up frustrated with Jeng by the end, because I feel like his arc peters out. Like there's a, a totally fine read on a lot of these things, but it is so…flat for me. It's fine for a show to make you play with the notion of disappointment? But the disappointment feels…petty, if that makes any sense? Like I don't think the disappointment is built into all the thematic structures. It's just built into the effect that the show wants to engender. It feels a little incongruous, and it's really irritating. I don't mind queer cinema making me feel negative emotions and walk out of a theater going ‘damn, bro.’ I just don't like the way this show is going for that, but also pretending that it's not, towards the end.

Nini

Okay, so here's a thing that we don't normally do, but I think would be useful for this show. So, let's fix it. Our mantra around here is generally: you meet the shows where they are. Right? But: is there a version of this show that you like, and what does that version of the show look like?

Ben

A big problem with this show is, they spend way too much time away from the Jian group office environment. The bubble of the Forge project goes on way too fucking long. The reveal in episode, like, 9? That Pat did not know Jeng was gay this whole time? Is really good, but needs to happen, at the very latest, by episode 8. Because it creates this huge compression effect on the back half of the show, that is so fucking irritating for me as a viewer. The Jeng crying and sad shit is great in episode—10, when that occurs? And like he and Pat get together in episode 11, but the gays need a solid ‘we're going to try to make this work’ episode. You have to put us in the interior of these two settling into each other. We need to understand what we have been yearning for for the whole show up to this point, so that we can understand what they're giving up when they've when they sever—it's romance, they gotta break up, you have to put the characters in a position where they have to figure out, ‘can I go back to the person I was and enjoy my life without this person in my life again?’ The answer is no, because this is fucking romance!—But we need to understand what the romance is and what they're going for.

And all of the development of Pat and Jeng as a couple, that we're supposed to be benefiting from in episode 11 when they're trying to save the stupid little BL project they're working on, feels completely unearned. Yes, I understand that the reason we're not getting payoff is because their relationship is fundamentally flawed as a false start—but it doesn't flag very effectively as one, because we aren't constantly seeing the misfires when they're trying to do stuff romantically together. We need to fully confront the fact that Jeng is brainwashed into thinking that work life integration can work for queer people. It cannot. And we don't get that. So like when they break up, the feeling is like, ‘good, because y'all needed to.’ And not in a satisfying way that another show might have done. We need to move all of the beats from the end of the show back a whole fucking episode.

Also, the decision for Pat to go off and start his own thing, take Chot and Ae, all happens off screen. This is a huge set of choices! Why is Chot running off to be with this twink? Like sure, he's playing fairy godmother in the whole show, but why does he choose to go with him? The audience is left to just figure that out. But so much of this show is about the difficult and complex choices that queer people have to make to survive in a corporate world that doesn't want us. So yes, we can infer that Chot was also frustrated with all this drama at work, and is more than willing to go work with the very talented, very successful little baby gay who showed up at his job, and go off and they gonna get this paper together. I get it. It's fine, it doesn't track as wrong for Chot to do that—but Chot's choice also matters in a show about how queer choice needs to be respected! And they don't show Chot making the choice. Like, the gay choices happening off screen are egregious to me. They need to be unpacked. If the show is about how our choices aren't respected, why aren't we showing the interior decision-making of the choices we're forced to make?

Nini

I'll definitely take your point about where the pivot point of the story happens. It's one of the critiques of this show that I completely agree with. The critical path of this show—like the throughline?—to me is so clear. What happens though, is that the critical path is sort of impacted by…like a bunch of these little side quests. Whether it is that the side quest is too present or too absent, the milestones are happening slightly off schedule. The way that it's sequenced works for me, but the way that things like lag behind or in front of each other are a little…squiffy. In terms of the way that the story is constructed, in terms of some of the things that you feel that you needed to see, or that would have made the story better to be able to see, rather than having to conjure up yourself…like, I get that, absolutely. I don't disagree with that, I think that is a valid and accurate critique of this show. I live in my head a lot [laughs] and so that didn't bother me enough to ding it, but I understand why it didn't work for you, and for a lot of other people.

I think it's just for me that…I was fine with getting pulled along by the story, because I was invested, particularly in Jeng. First they got me with Man being, you know, the size of a barn. And then I started actually paying attention, and they got me with Jeng's character. That's where the show, like, managed to string me along the entire way; I got a hook in, and I'm just like ‘okay, this is what I'm going with.’ But none of the things that you and everybody else is saying about the show are wrong. You're all correct. [laughs] You're all correct. I just…enjoyed it.

Ben

I think for me, both places where this show really broke, and where I really disconnected from this show, were in both of the kitchen scenes, which you loved. Like if we could point to two scenes where things break for me as an audience member? It's the speakeasy scene, kitchen scene—throwing food on the ground, kitchen scene—Pat reconciling with Jeng. It ends up becoming a failure point when Jeng resigns from his company—in his Canadian tuxedo —

Nini

Denim on denim y’all!

Ben

[laughs] And he says to his dad, ‘I have dreams.’ And I'm like, ‘girl, what are they? You ain't said shit for the last three goddamn episodes! What are they? Please sir, talk to the camera, I need to know.’ And like we can infer these things, we can project onto him. I can infer that the restaurant is what's important to him. I can infer that food security for the underprivileged is important to him. But for someone who's as plan-oriented as him, it feels a little weird, that this feels like a undercooked and underdeveloped idea for the character, that's just sort of simmering in the back and I'm like, ‘what, did we even put anything in the pot? Is that just water boiling?’

And so we get to these two kitchen sequences. Chot has chided Pat for not properly receiving someone's feelings, which is an idea that's been all over BL recently, that I'm totally into. Like you can reject people just fine, like you do not owe people any booty at all. But if someone tells you that you're important to them, you should at least acknowledge that they made themselves vulnerable to you, and acknowledge those feelings. Fine, good. Go buy a carrot cake and run to that man. But he goes to Jeng and tries to acknowledge his feelings and Jeng's like, ‘okay, we're together now’ and they make out, and I'm like ‘oh okay, sure, I guess? What? No!’

And this is when the not talking portion kicks in, and then Pat breaks up with Jeng, for what I believe are incredibly valid reasons of feeling like Jeng doesn't trust him or believe in him, because he makes choices for them without consulting Pat. And Pat feels like Jeng is always undercutting him, and Jaab makes a point about this in the final episode—when he doesn't talk to Jen at all? whatever—and says, ‘you kind of manipulated Pat the way Dad manipulated you.’ And I'm like, ‘that's a very, very specific idea, that makes a whole lot of sense, that we're just going to walk away from because this is the last episode—roll the fluff!’

So we get to the second kitchen scene, and I'm trying to accept the emotions of the scene? Of Pat just deciding that he's going to let go of the anger because he really likes Jeng, and he likes what the two of them had together, and he just kind of wants to let it work and figure it out together—the same way I Promised You the Moon ended. And I like that, but it doesn't land here for me? And I ended up really irritated about it. And this is where I get frustrated, like Jeng through episode…10, works for me, but the dead-eyed Jeng of episode 11 and the sad depressive Jeng of episode 12—it feels like he never comes back to life. Which may have been their point, but they went out of their way to try and make me feel like he and Pat are together and they're happy and everything's going to be okay now because they're together in the final episode. It feels unearned, and it feels like they didn't finish the goddamn mission! when it comes to Jeng.

Nini

And for me, it feels exactly the opposite, because those two kitchen scenes are very clearly paralleled, you're absolutely correct: in the first kitchen scene when they're first getting together, they don't talk about anything that's important, they just kind of roll past it. But in the second kitchen scene, they stop, they take a breath, Jeng says, ‘let's talk about this tomorrow.’ He's happy, yeah, but they make a deliberate point of not doing the same shit that they did before. They make a point of saying the things; they make a point of taking a beat; they make a point of taking their time; they make a point of actually talking to each other. And to me that's why it works. I mean it works, as well, for emotional reasons that are just pure, like, me engaging with romantic notions, reasons, and I'll fully admit to that. But to me the fact that those two scenes were so different was kind of the point? And I quite enjoyed that part.

Another problem with the show that I think makes it really not legible for people is the fact that you don't have any sense of the passage of time. Like you really have to work to figure out how much time has passed between any two events in the show.

Ben

And clearly we were on the wrong timeline from the show.

Nini

[laughs] I think they just made a mistake in the last episode. I did a lot of work on the show, but I enjoy that, so I was fine. The timeline is that the first 9 to 10 episodes happen over the course of roughly a year? And then episode 11 is very compressed. I think they do give us a chiron at one point, that you figure out it's like about three months maybe? And then the last episode, it spans years—not just including the time skip, but the actual episode itself.

Ben

It feels like somewhere between three to five years for sure.

Nini

Yeah, the last part of the episode, like maybe the last half hour, is like a series of vignettes? But it's just that the way that it's edited, it doesn't feel like a series of vignettes. It feels like scenes that are happening in sequence, which they're not.

Like I said, the editing of this show, monkeys on crack cocaine and ayahuasca, absolutely. Storyboarding, I'm not sure anybody did any?

I did a lot of work to enjoy the show. But I did enjoy it.

Ben

And I hate that. I hated the sides, like they weren't even in the final episode, they're like ‘yeah we don't care about them, get them the fuck out of here.’ No Khanun, no Jen, just get them out of here. We're gonna be here for an hour and forty two minutes, but the sides required literally zero closure to help stick the landing with the mains? Ugh, man.

Nini

They were there to reinforce thematic ideas, and they leaned way too hard into them as a narrative point when they weren't supposed to be narrative. So yes, completely agree with you, that was a mess.

It's not that I don't agree with you! We're saying that this is a fight night and I got my eye black on, but the reality is that I don't disagree with anything you're saying. It’s just that I was fine with doing that work, and you are not fine with doing that work because you think you shouldn't have to do that work, and that's…yeah, you're probably right about that.

Ben

I'm in the business of recommending things to people because I like enjoying things with people. I will not be showing this to Emily, because I have to explain too much along the way the whole fucking time. And like, I hate that! It shouldn't be this goddamn hard to enjoy the damn show.

I ended up comparing the dissonance around this show to, say, something like 2gether, which I think is remembered fondly because of pandemic stuff, and less because the show is good. Because everybody acknowledges that the show is a goddamn mess, but there's things that they take out of it, they say ‘I really like this.’ And that's how I feel about Step by Step. I loved everything that Man did in this; I think he played a 32 year old repressed gay man really well. But low key…I gotta be honest, I'm a little burned out on feeling a bunch of fucking feelings about sad rich gay boys? Like, the West is obsessed with sad rich gay boys and I am burnt the hell out on it. Like ‘oh no, he's sad, in his penthouse…’ who cares? [laughs]

Nini

I think for me as well, because I've been spending so much time with Turtles’s Asian family trauma lens, that I dug into that side of things, like a little deeply with my brain, and I was kind of enjoying kicking that around to myself as part of this.

Ben

And that’s the thing that sucks! Like Jeng, through episode 10, works so well for me. Like I absolutely loved what Man was doing with Jeng, how he was playing him, how Ben was playing Pat as kind of oblivious to it but unconsciously flirting with Jeng.

We didn't even talk about Up Poompot! Up Poompot was in this show and he whipped ass! Up was so good! Put was an incredible character. So Put is Pat's ex, who was not a great ex to him. This is very clearly a failed first romance on a lot of different levels. Put is ambitious, and he wants a lot more from his life than to just stay in the poor town the two of them grew up in, and he clearly didn't have Pat's skills to go to school…twice, study in America, and come back to Thailand as a highly trained marketing professional who can go into a corporate environment, and even with every goddamn employee in there working on his damn nerves still be the best person that they have on their team. Put doesn't have that: he's pretty and he's charming, and he's an actor. He has to go into BL, and so he can't have a boyfriend. Which is very fucked, that gay people cannot be out in BL. Insane. Put is an incredible character. He is simultaneously deeply unlikable and also incredibly sympathetic. Up is so good in this show.

And I think Ben, who has an incredibly internal character—who really could have benefited from a journal? So that we could hear his thoughts more often—also does a really good job playing someone who is barely keeping it together, and trying to restrain their quick temper. Ben does a good job as a fairly new actor dealing with some really complex internal things that have to be externalized, in a film tradition that leans towards bombastic. That's really difficult to do.

Bruce is in this! Bruce had such a rough character to portray in Lovely Writer, and it was hard to really like that character even if you felt bad for them. So glad we got a character for Bruce that we loved this time in Chot.

Zorzo is in this, she's incredible, we love her. She can do whatever she wants—she shows up on a set and we're just like, ‘hello Zorzo, what do you want to do today?’

It's just so much fun watching this cast work together. Even the new people. Saint had some difficulties with his romantic partner and I think that's because he was new and nervous about doing that right. But he was really really good with Ben: when Jaab was interacting with Pat, Saint was really good, and you can see why he was cast. His chemistry with Ben felt so natural, and didn't read as like weirdly sexual or romantic, which is very easy to fall into in BL when they put literally any boys in the same room with each other.

They did a great job letting queer friendships feel like queer friendships in this show. There's so much that's genuinely good in this show, which is why I feel like I have to give it a 7.5. Like if it had just been kind of bad and muddled? I’d have probably given it an 8 for just pure gumption. But it's frustrating, because it feels like everyone understood what the mission was and the plan fell apart with contact with the enemy immediately, and they did not regroup at all.

Nini

This is sounding like video game stuff.

Ben

I'm kind of pissed! I'm in captain mode right now. I'm assessing the film and going over everyone's screens and we're talking about who fucked up here.

50:25 - Step by Step: Where are we on Tee Bundit?

Ben

The most important thing to ask now is, where do either of us sit when it comes to Tee Bundit and Dee Hup House?

Nini

I am a Tee Bundit fan? I see some of the things that he wants to say. I think that maybe he needs some guardrails? And maybe to lighten up a little bit? Because he has good ideas, and the ideas, he makes them very legible, when he wants to.

I am curious to see how he does with some guardrails. Sometimes an artist needs a few guardrails to really focus themselves. So I am still down with Tee, and I'm interested in seeing the rest of what he's putting out this year. How about you?

Ben

I just want to grab him—like William Shatner in a classic Star Trek episode—by both of his upper arms, and say very clearly: “You got to stop being mean to the audience, bro. They're on your side.” It feels like he's beefing with us the audience, in Step by Step. Like it feels like he resents that the only way he can tell queer stories and get funded is to do queer romance, which I don't know that he's interested in—even though clearly he cares a lot about queer existence. Which is a very complicated space to sit as an artist, particularly with what the zeitgeist is feeling right now?

But I need him to not take that energy out on us as the audience, like we signed up for romance, bro! Stop making us feel bad for wanting that! It just feels like Tee is just mad, and yelling in the room, and we're like ‘I get that you're mad bro, but this is unfun for all of us: we are on your side, and you are taking this out on us.’ He's that friend, who's right…but fuck, dude!

[Nini laughs]

Ben

That's all I've got. It's a chop for me, I'm sorry. [laughs]

Nini

Nah, I mean, sometimes we disagree, my friend, that’s just the way it is. [laughs] For me it’s a 9, for Ben it’s a 7.5, so that works out to…8.25? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Ben

It’s not bad, but it’s not good.

Nini

8.25 for Step by Step, and entry into contention for the Girl You Tried award for this season.

53:10 - La Pluie

Nini

Okay, so we are talking all things La Pluie. Ben, tell us what La Pluie is about.

Ben

La Pluie is a sort of speculative fiction romance, set in a world very similar to ours, where a small subset of the population experience temporary sensory loss whenever it rains as a form of deafness. Of that incredibly small population, an even smaller portion of them, when they come of age—which is 20 in Thailand—they may begin to hear another person's voice whenever it rains. Those people are seemingly tied to each other by this rain-based connection and other people have described them as soulmates.

Our protagonist Saengtai is a 22-year-old who experiences rain deafness. He has three brothers, one older, and both of his parents are what people call soulmates. When he turned 20, his parents wanted him to know that they were getting a divorce, and this shattered Saengtai’s faith in the concept of soulmates, and he spent the next two years actively avoiding speaking to his soulmate at all. Two years later, he happens to run into him in a cafe, realizes his soulmate is hot, and then [laughs] decides to maybe give it a shot. And the show becomes this ongoing exploration of the concept of romance itself, unpacking whether or not the soulmates concept is real, portrayed by incredibly emotionally aware characters.

Our primary four characters are: Saengtai, our protagonist, who's a writer. Patts, his soulmate, who is a veterinarian, and slightly older than him, and very cool. You have Saengtai’s little brother Saengtien, who’s kind of a rascal, who does not have rain deafness but very much believes in the concept of soulmates. And then there's Lomfon, a boy who is also in school with Saengtien, who adamantly refuses to believe in soulmates, and causes his own problems along the way. There's quite a colorful cast of supporting characters, and this is probably…the most legible show that we've ever watched? From the very first scene, this show is nothing but constant payoff.

Nini

Hmm, I don't know about from the very first scene, because as you know, it took me a few episodes to kind of get there. I started and stopped, and then had to be cajoled back in [laughs] and I do not regret coming back in. The line on this for me is that I think soulmates are bullshit. I've never been a fan of this soulmate trope—in the first episode or two, I'm just kind of like, ‘I don't know that they're gonna do anything interesting with this’ and then sometime around…it was definitely around episode 4, and I know it was around episode 4 because isn't that when Tai bit that man? We're gonna talk about this, Ben.

Ben

[laughs] Tai did bite that man, in episode 3.

Nini

Tai, my precious little alley cat, that was when I decided I was in [laughs] and I was gonna keep watching. I mean he literally got drunk and bit Patts, and I was like, ‘okay this is gonna be fucking awesome.’ Who bites somebody??

Ben

Someone unhinged!

Nini

Exactly, that's the point! And you know I love unhinged, so I was in for the duration after that. That was like the end of episode 3 when he bit him? And then episode 4 it just keeps getting better.

57:50 - La Pluie: The Soulmate Myth

Ben

Let's get properly into the soulmate stuff. I stand by my comment that this show begins paying off from the very first scene. We read the blurb, we get our little intro, and he's like ‘we got soulmates in this world; I can't hear when it rains; there's a boy who talks to me when it rains,’ and we were like ‘whoa man, these two are gonna fuck real good!’ And then the show opens with divorce. And I was like, ‘never mind, I am seated!’

Right away, the show is telling you that it is going to challenge the presumptions built into its core premise. It spends the entire time interrogating its premise, with really legible characters. And I think you provided the clearest read on the sort of primary archetypes these characters fit, when you described them in the framework of faith. So, please elaborate on your analysis.

Nini

The key thing all our characters, our key characters are dealing with in the show, is whether they believe in soulmates or not? So you have Tien, who is absolutely a true believer, 100% believes in soulmates, no matter what has happened to potentially shake his faith in soulmates he totally believes in it. Then you have Tai, who I described as an apostate, because Tai used to be a true believer and then his faith was shattered, and so he's sort of gone against believing in soulmates. In terms of their love interests, you have Patts, who is sort of agnostic on the idea? ‘Eh, I don't know, maybe soulmates are real, maybe they're not, doesn't really matter to me. I don't know what to believe but I'm not going to let it affect what I'm doing, and this is the way I feel about things.’ And then you've got Lomfon, who is an atheist: not just an atheist, like a rationalist atheist. He's just like, ‘soulmates are bullshit, I don't buy this, I don't believe in anything that this is happening here.’ And then what the show does with those four viewpoints is sort of, brings them all around to a kind of agnosticism? So in the end, they kind of all get to where Patts started.

Then one of the things the show does towards the end, really at the end, is bring Patts around to being…sort of a true believer? Not necessarily in the sense of the rain deafness connection being a soulmate connection, but believing in the idea of having a soulmate. I don't think that's in any way related to the rain deafness connection at all, but more about choices and the way that he feels about Tai, and the way that Tai feels about him and the relationship that they are building. I found that really interesting, where in the end everybody kind of comes around to the agnostic viewpoint, Patts is the one who moves towards a, a believer, but not in the whole myth.

Ben

I think what works for me really in the show, when it comes to the belief in soulmates or not, is…the show understands that belief without action is meaningless. In the case of Tai and Lomfon, their choices and inaction create immense harm for the people around them that they claim to care about. In the case of Tai, he hurts Patts, for years, with his silence. Like it is totally fine for him to want to work out his comfortability with the rain-based connection privately and on his own time, but he owed it to Patts to say that. Even just, ‘I'm uncomfortable having you in my head, please don't talk to me when it rains.’ That's all he had to say. It's the silence that was really cruel for me. He's hurting Patts and punishing him, because his parents let him down. That's really shitty.

Lomfon glomps on to Tai, for whatever reason, and just determines he's supposed to be with Tai. Actively ignoring the growing relationship between him and Tien, hurting everyone along the way. Whereas Patts and Tien are both actively treating people with immense kindness and care, because of how they believe and how they move through the world. Tien cares a lot about his brother: he knows his brother was hurt by what happened to their parents, and he gives excuses for him and he tries to take care of his brother, he tries to make himself small to take care of his family and the people around them, even if he's a little bit feisty. And Patts, who maybe doesn't care about the soulmate shit at all, sees Tai once: is like, ‘whoa, I am inextricably drawn to this person,’ and pursues him very kindly. The people with the most angst about whether or not this shit is real are the ones doing the most harm to other people. It's the people who are most pissy about faith being the worst in their relationships.

Nini

Look at us here being a couple of lapsed Catholics on the podcast.

[both laugh]

Nini

There is so much that the show wants to say about that idea of faith without works being dead. So much that the show wants to say about the relationship between chance and choice. I think the show itself is agnostic on whether soulmates are real? But I think the show does also say: there is some mix of chance and choice in romance. You ran into this person in a coffee shop—that's chance. But what you do next is choice.

There're little things sprinkled throughout, like Patts and Tai finding out—once they've decided to be together—finding out that they actually had a connection from earlier on, because Patts's grandmother used to live next door to Tai. So when Tai's parents split up and he was like really sad and depressed about it, Patts saw this kid crying, and he just decided to be kind to this kid, and he helped Tai through, like, the immediate aftermath of his parents' divorce. And in return for that kindness, Tai sort of helped him through the death of his grandmother? They never saw each other's faces or anything like that, this was a happenstance. This was a chance encounter, through Patts's kindness and Tai’s kindness in return, that became a connection between them. Again, chance and choice. It was by chance that Patts saw this kid crying, but it was a choice to be kind to the kid next door.

That's threaded throughout the story in different parts, this idea that chance brings you to the table but choice determines what happens when you get there.

Ben

I feel very strongly, as a lapsed Catholic, that none of the beliefs matter if you're just trying to be right. What matters is how you treat people.

Nini

The show is more interested in the choices than the chances, but it does put the chances sort of in there. You know that the show is interested in the choices because of the way that it deals with the parents, and the parents divorce, and how the parents have made it through their divorce and continue to be people who are together in dealing with their children, who still talk to each other when it rains, who have moved out of a romantic phase and into a platonic phase in their lives. To the point where the mom can get remarried to somebody who is more suited to her, and this doesn't affect their friendship.

I really enjoyed the aspects of the show that really harped on the idea of choice, and choosing how you're going to build a relationship with somebody whether it is romantic or platonic, rather than fate putting somebody in your path and that feeling like a predetermination of who that person is going to be to you. That's why in the end, I did come around to La Pluie after not being interested at the beginning. They fucked with soulmates, and I like that.

Ben

I feel the need to rant.

Nini

The floor is yours, sir. Speak directly into the microphone.

Ben

I'm so glad that this show ended by saying that the soulmate stuff was a trap. It was really frustrating to see everybody caught up in the soulmate stuff, and the mechanic of that, as this verification tool. Maybe it's the whole lapsed Catholic thing and having a very complex relationship with faith and doubt? Because I got the whole notion that the purpose of all of this is about choice. It's about what you do with the opportunities you're given, and how you treat the people when you're there.

It was really frustrating to watch so many members of the audience just really struggle with this show, because they needed the soulmates thing to either be bullshit, or to be confirmed. I really like that the show very politely sidesteps answering that, because what matters is how people treat each other. The opening scroll of the show is a happy couple that is a guy with rain deafness hanging out with somebody who is not. Like these things were legible from the beginning for me, and it was so…tedious, week in and week out, dealing with the, like the weather report: “Are the soulmates real this week?” Stop.

Nini

Since we're ventilating the show's take on soulmates so to speak…

1:08:22 - La Pluie: Lomfon is Rude!

Ben

Yeah, let's talk about somebody who clearly got it wrong, in the show!

Nini

[laughs] Let's talk about Lomfon getting that ass beat, and why it was absolutely necessary.

Ben

We're gonna begin where we always sat: Lomfon is rude! And Patts should have punched him harder.

Nini

[laughs] I like just, I heard like a million people just turning the podcast off at this point—but it's, it's true, it's a fact.

Ben

Look, I do not care. Here's the thing: Lomfon is beefing with people for no reason, from the jump. He's beefing with Tien in the store over a goddam magazine. He's beefing with other classmates. He has no goddamn friends.

Nini

He was rude to Bow! He was rude to Tai's boss, and he likes Tai, and he still couldn't muster up like a shred of interest in anything she was doing, or even general politeness to shake her hand and say hi how you doing. Rude!

Ben

He only cares about what he's thinking about, there's no regard for other people. Like yeah, sure. He's like, 20. And like, kids gotta grow up at some point. But also, tastin’ a little bit of fist will reorient your life a little bit sometimes.

Nini

[laughs] True!

Ben

He's just so dramatic! There's this development over the course of the show, where Tai ends up with two different soulmates with connections to him. Lomfon is like, ‘I'm hearing Tai’s voice when it rains.’ Instead of, like sending, like a group text, saying, like, ‘hey, I believe something very strange may have happened to me, I think we should all meet up next Sunday at four o'clock—because I've checked the weather and we should all be together for this.’ And they could have handled this like adults and talked about stuff. No. Lomfon is rude and selfish, and so he needs to corner Tai in the rain, kiss Tai, and be like ‘whoops, my bad!’ And then when Patts rolls up on him throwing haymakers, he's like ‘whoa bro, no, he's mine!’ He's yours? Little boy. Please.

I got a lot of smoke for this motherfucker, I got some notes over here. This dude hung out with Tien at a cast party, cuddled with drunk Tien, calls his brother because Tien needs a ride home—and then while Tien is mostly unconscious, flirts with his older brother? Gross.

Nini

He's in his own zone. He's not thinking about anybody else, he's not interested in whether what he does affects anybody else and how it affects anybody else. And it takes, yes quite frankly, a jaw rockin’, for him to get his head out of his ass. Completely concur that it was needed.

Because I mean, think about this okay? Even if he actually liked Tai—which he doesn't really—does he think that this is the way to go about getting Tai? Let's ponder this for a second, just a short second, okay? It doesn't even make sense. And then, he thinks that maybe he might feel something for Tien, he doesn't know…but instead of, I don't know maybe, hm! going on a date with Tien instead of Tai—like there's so many other ways that Lomfon could have gone about what he went about. He just did it in the messiest way possible. Everybody was already telling him, ‘look I'm seeing what you're doing here and I'm gonna need you to take a step back.’

Ben

Tien picked up on it because they were on that mountain, and he saw Lomfon starting shit and looking at his brother, and he pulled that motherfucker aside, he said, ‘I am a third son, bitch, I will bury you on this mountain! Don't ever look at my brother again! Their relationship is theirs, and if you fuck with them one more time, they will not find your fucking corpse on this mountain.’

Nini

Everybody who saw it told Lomfon, ‘yo, you need to mind your own business.’ And if they didn't tell Lomfon, they told Tai—so Bow told Tai, ‘look, Lomfon’s up in your business. You need to say something and get that kid away from your business.’ Tien told him mind your own business. Patts told him mind your own business—because Patts definitely knew that Lomfon had a crush on Tai.

Ben

And Lomfon’s like, ‘well I heard Tai's voice in the rain, so now it's my business,’ and instead of talking to Tai properly, he's going to go like beef with Patts and be like I'm taller than you, so.

[both laugh] That boy got on my goddamn nerves! Like, he's an excellent character.

1:13:30 - La Pluie: Tai Also Deserves Some Smoke

Ben

Let's talk about how Tai needed that ass whooped too.

Nini

That's what I was about to say, like, we're on Lomfon and Lomfon deserved it, but Tai also deserves some smoke and I'm here to give it to him. Tai, baby boy. Patts carried you down that mountain after you ran up there in the first place offa some bullshit. He had to carry you back down that mountain, y’all come back down the mountain as boyfriends. You looked at that man in the car and told him ‘I want to stay over at your place tonight’ and that man beat land speed records to take you back to his house. You literally got the booty in every single room in that apartment.

And then you decide to go on a date-not-date with Lomfon? I feel like it was a little bit too—like he was slightly flattered?

Ben

Let me just read Tai his rights. [Nini laughs]

This man, after finally getting what he thinks he's wanted this whole time, realizes there may be a situation going on with his brother's friend. He coulda asked his brother, like at any moment: ‘yo what's up with Lomfon, like Bow is already saying dude was sniffing around, and he asked me you to do some sort of thing, and I dunno how I feel about it. What's up with you and your little friend?’ And Tien could have been like ‘oh noooo, I actually like him, why is he doing this like?’ He could have solved this any number of ways that were less dramatic than ‘let me lie to my boyfriend because I'm worried how he's gonna handle knowing that this little dude is sniffing around’—as if he didn't already know.

It is so frustrating that Patts—who is clear from the beginning that his primary concern was Saengtai’s comfort and happiness—for Saengtai to just actively ignore this man's vocalized needs. Man is telling you, he wants you to say the things. And you're like ‘well, don't my actions show it?’ No baby boy, because you're out here with some other dude in the middle of the motherfuckin’ rain, and you need to do better.

And then! That boy is at his mom's wedding. Your dad has said he is happy for her. He likes the guy that she's gonna be with, and he's happy for the life that they're gonna have. And this boy ruins their wedding, making it all about him, because he's mad that his parents’ soulmate thing didn't work out. Oh I was so mad at that boy.

He was so frustrating as a protagonist sometimes, because he just shits on all the relationships in his life. He shits on his mom. He’s low key shitting on his dad. He relies on his little brother too much without really paying attention to him in a meaningful way, and he beats up on Patts. And he does the same thing to Bow, like he works with Bow. She's clearly covering for him at work. Because he works with a bunch of other people and refuses to ever learn their names or really engage with them.

Nini

This is not to say that we do not love my little alley cat Tai, but he is a fucking alley cat. [laughs] He has the predisposition and morals of one, quite frankly. Like he's scratching and biting…in some ways he's just as rude as Lomfon. But like, you see where all this stuff comes from. And you want him to like, just for a second like, dude, retract the claws, and stop making decisions for people that are more about what you want and what you're interested in than what they want and need and have said that they want and need.

Ben

This is what I mean, like, the show being legible and saying the same thing the whole time. Like, as early as episode 2 Tai is like, ‘hey I found my soulmate,’ and Tien says quite plainly, ‘you fucked with love: unfuck it.’ And when he finally has that confrontation with his parents where they show him the complexity of human relationships, where his dad also says, ‘when you have love you need to take care of it.’

It's so funny, like, for all that Tai is obsessed with his dad, Tien is the one who picked up on his dad's, like, core skills. And Tai is so much like his mom, I'm really glad the show finally recognized that towards the end. Tai recognizes that he's doing to Patts what his mom was doing to him: not giving him any information, leaving him to suffer in silence without giving him the context that he's desperately needing. And it showed a lot of growth that he finally got his ass together, and spent the whole episode running around looking for that man, because goddamn.

1:18:26 - La Pluie: Tai’s Dad Read as Queer

Ben

I wanna get this aside in here, how Tai's dad read as queer to me the whole time, I don't know if he did to you?

Nini

He did, but I didn't know if that was the actor or the character.

Ben

I think it may have been both, and I think I like the way the show handled it. I think it was very useful for subtext to show that Tai's dad is queer? And to not confirm it at the text level. Because La Pluie is not interested in structural homophobia. But I thought it was a really interesting premise to consider what happens if a straight person and a gay person think they're soulmates. What happens if a man who knows who he is goes into a straight marriage, loves his sons, loves his wife, but they can't work, because they can't be the kind of partners they need to be to each other. Which is exactly what the show says, without saying it’s because the dad was queer.

And I think I really like the show leaving that as subtext for us to consider? Because the show does such a great job at building emotionally intelligent gay relationships otherwise.

Nini

I think there were lots of markers for it, like there were markers in the character themselves, there are markers in the relationship that the father and the mother had, the way that the mother was the breadwinner and the father was the caretaker. There are markers in the father's chosen profession, he's a chef. There is a, sort of a marker in this idea of him being—I think it was a private chef to some ambassador and spending a lot of time with this ambassador? All of these are things that I picked up on, and I don't know if they were easter eggs or if they were just throwaways, but there were lots of like tiny little markers.

Ben

And also him being the one to actually say that they should break up.

Nini

Yeah, there, there are lots of tiny little, like I said, could be read as markers, could just be coincidental, but the show is so well constructed that I am loath to leave it to the idea of coincidence.

Ben

I agree. I think it's well done.

1:20:48 - La Pluie: The Romance

Ben

Tai needed to get his shit together, because as far as I'm concerned Patts is maybe the most perfect romantic interest that BL has ever created. And that also feels really intentional for the themes that they're unpacking.

Nini

La Pluie is a romance novel. Like, if you look at the way it's structured, the way it's organized, La Pluie is a romance novel that is sort of an anti romance novel, almost? And in a romance novel, the love interest is essentially perfect. If they have a flaw, it's something that is, ‘my only flaw is that I care too much’ or some shit like that, you know, that kind of thing? [both laugh]

Patts fits into that mould in a way, but it's also subverted a little bit? So, he's handsome, he's a vet, he is kind to animals, he’s kind to people. He's very sweet, he is a hundred percent into Tai.

Ben

He drives a Porsche. He has a very nice apartment.

Nini

[laughs] He's rich. You know what I mean? All the markers of like the perfect romantic hero.

Ben

He has no family drama.

Nini

None whatsoever…he has a little tragic backstory with grandmother dying…like he’s the perfect romantic hero in a trope sense. Listen, I think sometime around the time that Tai bit that man— and yeah I'm still not over it—

Ben

He did bite that man.

Nini

I remember saying to Ben, ‘oh so like Tai’s an alley cat, but Patts is a literal angel.’ Because after he bit that man and then he threw up on him, still that man took him home, let him, like, lay in his bed. He gave him clothes, left him alone to change his own clothes, and then in the morning when he woke up hungover and couldn't remember shit, he woke up and there was a note because he had cleared out, he didn’t wanna make him feel awkward or anything like that. He cleared out, he left a note saying all the things that he did the night before, because he didn't know if he was going to remember…He was perfect about it. He was such a gentleman.

Ben

As one of the leaders of the Patts defense squad, I'm gonna have to lead a charge for my boy. Because my man is the best communicator. He clearly understands that something is wrong with his soulmate, doesn't pressure him to talk to him; just talks back to him, tries to be kind to him, tries to say nice things to him. Eventually sees a guy who he wants to pursue. He does not know that it’s Tai. But the first thing he does that night is like, ‘hey I don't know what's going on with you, but I saw the cutest boy that has ever existed, and I'm gonna pursue him, so uh, deuces!’

So they end up at this club, Tai gets low-key abandoned by his friends, so Patts takes care of him. Tai bites that man, tries to bite him again. Later that night starts fussing with Patts, accusing him of being a player, and then makes out with him! Like yes, he was drunk, but—makes out with him! Like bro! Patts starts pursuing him earnestly after that, by leaving the note. And then Tai, who does have communication skills and social skills, does the cutesy thing you would do in a movie. He's going to return the fucking clothes to Patts in a cute little bag waiting outside his job. And the two of them go out on the cutest little date, full of all sorts of great stuff.

Also, like, I haven't talked about it that much here: Title is really really good. I love the way Title and Pee both play their characters in this show. The way Title played Tai during that dinner they had? Was so good. At one point when he asks Patts, ‘do you always eat like this?’

Nini

And he points with the knife?

Ben

And he points with the knife, it is so, so perfect! And Patts is so clever. Like Tai wants to hang out and they want to go on the date and he's like, ‘let me not…bullshit about who I am.’ They ride in his Porsche to a fancy restaurant that Patts clearly frequents regularly because the staff recognizes him. He hands Tai the menu and asks Tai what he wants. Tai, who also has social skills and is like ‘I don't know about this, I don't know what the rules are here,’ decides not to make the choice on ordering something, ‘cause he's not trying to hit him up style. So he passes the choice to Patts, and then Patts makes a neutral choice by just saying ‘we'll have whatever the chef’s special is for the day.’ By making the neutral choice to just accept the chef’s special, even though Patts picked the place, he is making sure Tai understands that Patts will not be forcing him to do anything.

I just really love their date, like there's so much there; Patts is really charming, he's funny…and then moving along, the next thing Tai does, which is insane, is introduce Patts to his dad without warning. And the dad ain't shit either, picking on Patts the whole time.

Nini

[laughs] It was funny.

Ben

He hangs out with their dad, and immediately Patts’s instinct is to show the proper respect to Tai’s father. He doesn't get in the middle of their fight. He doesn't ask about it. He just sort of gives them a way to end the fight now, he politely asks about Tai and his other brothers, giving Tai a chance to talk about his family if he wants to. They go back to Tai’s place. Patts, not really thinking about it, walks in on Tai while he's changing, gets to see all the goodies. And then they have this intense moment, and they end up making out on the floor.

I want to make a special note here about La Pluie: La Pluie is one of the first BLs that I can really remember, ever, that when there is a moment of intense sexual tension, releases it. So often these shows just bait us. They titillate us, they want us to get all hot and bothered about ‘whoa, they's ‘bout to kiss’ and then they interrupt it with some nonsense. Or they just don't do anything with it and they tease us and they make bits out of it. And as much as I enjoy these shows, it was so refreshing to see a show go, ‘what if we release it? What if they actually start making out on the floor? What then?’

I get frustrated a lot of times in BL about how they make these boys dickless. And there's this really lovely thing in La Pluie that Patts’s concern was Tai's pleasure. But they stop, because Tai isn't ready. And though Patts was a bit caught up in the moment, he catches himself. And they back off, and they have a conversation about what else is going on. Patts learns a little bit more about Tai—low key they played with some of the yaoi framing in that moment, because as big as Pee is, he crouches himself down and makes himself lower than Tai, and is kind of looking at, up at him in cute ways—because you'd expect Patts to be maybe the seme in this sort of framing—and they do that early on by putting Patts on the left with the date shit when Tai goes to see him, but Patts is queering that narrative by intentionally moving himself to the right when he's trying to get closer to Tai.

When they're on their Chiang Mai trip, one of the most insane things this show does that I will never get over, is…they’re sharing the bed, both of them are awake. They know what's going to happen, we know what's going to happen, but everyone knows Tai is not exactly ready, because we haven't climbed that mountain yet. We haven't dealt with the core angst. We're both two men who are very attracted to each other, and we know we're attracted to each other—so they start to get hot and bothered, but Tai has them stop again, and Patts, our strongest soldier, pulls himself back again. But Tai, listening to his good sis Bow, is like ‘I can't keep leaving this man hanging, I can't keep starting these things and then not finishing it.’ He offers to blow Patts and it was very explicit that that's what happened. We know!

It's so impressive to me that this show presented Tai giving Patts head as a way for him to maintain control over a sexual encounter. The whole notion about giving pleasure as a form of control is something we have not really seen explored in BL this way. I really liked that this show focused on the different ways that two men are going to become more physically and sexually comfortable with each other over time. And even after everything, after Tai has cast him aside, he still chooses to go back to Tai and try and reconcile with him, because he did lose his temper. And that was a scary moment. And I think I like that Patts losing his temper was made as jarring and scary as possible in the show, because I feel like really perfect characters need to have this intense rage about them. Because I have never met a chill pacifist in my life. The choice to be kind is so hard in a world full of cruelty, and I like that underneath the surface of Patts is a temper that he has to manage and maintain. I love my man.

Nini

I can't remember who it is, somebody put this on Tumblr: that Patts is kind but he's not always nice, and Tai is nice but that he's not always kind.

Ben

Exactly.

Nini

Tai seems like, you know, gentle and soft. But when it comes down to it, Tai is the one in the narrative who's actually kind of cruel? It's very interesting to put that on a romantic protagonist. How it ends up getting read is incredibly interesting, because that person is the romantic protagonist, it ends up getting…cast aside, and here I go back into Calvinism and the green flag label [laughs] that I thought I had ventilated with Bed Friend.

Ben

[laughs] As soon as you said that my third eye opened, and I was like—

Nini

Here I go again!

Ben

Where—where's my bat?

[both laugh]

Nini

I didn't get this out of my system the first time, somehow. But yeah, the way that that's received in a protagonist, the fact that the protagonist is kind of a little bit of a bitch boy, quite frankly [laughs], gets glossed over, and then the person who made a mistake has it sort of loom large.

1:32:06 - La Pluie: Depiction of Male Anger

Ben

I got a little bit mad about that with the fandom too like, we got all this bending over backwards week in and week out for Lomfon's rude ass and Tai’s rude ass. Patts loses his temper once, punches a boy, punches a wall, and we're like ‘oh! he's dangerous!’ And I'm like, ‘I hate this!’

And there's a lot more I want to unpack here in the future — this does not feel like the right time to do it, but we really need to talk about that at some point, as a community that engages with romance? Because we have a really fucked-up relationship with violence. Like, Patts, not leaving a mark on Lomfon was seen as egregious. Punching a door in frustration was seen as egregious. But like, Bad Buddy opens up with Pran shit-kicking Pat to the fucking ground, as these boys beat the shit out of each other!

Nini

I think like, it's a lot of things. It's a question of who gets to be angry, and how anger is portrayed, and men's anger, and the way that women—because of the way that we have to be socialized to protect ourselves, the way that we view men's anger that is sort of slightly different from how men will view men's anger? And how being familiar with certain kinds of angry expressions from men is, like, one of the reasons that women shrink from that kind of stuff. And there's so many women in BL fandom.

Like I understood where that was coming from, but at the same time, the show is so legible. It's very legible that this is Patts…reaching the end of his rope, and it's very clear in the show that Patts would never actually hurt anybody. [laughs] He doesn't even really hurt Lomfon. Lomfon is fine! He gets his ass kicked a little bit, but he's fine!

Ben

As our great friend wen-kexing-apologist pointed out, this show has a makeup budget. My boy Tai got his shit fucked up on that mountain, and the makeup crew made sure he looked messed up even in that wet filming situation. They could have afforded to make that boy's mouth bruised the way it should have been for talking the way he was, and my man doesn't. And that's the thing that gets me. Like, everybody else is allowed to be an asshole, but Patts, who I believe deserves to be righteously angry about this shit going down at this point in their relationship—and it's like ‘aw, geez, I don't know about that brah.’

We see, through Patts’s relationship with Nara, that he would never actually hurt Tai. And that's why the intensity of his frustration I think should have been the focus, not the expression of it. I really resented the way it felt like everyone suddenly wanted to regulate Patts’s frustration. I hate the whole notion that he is only allowed to be upset in an attractive, gentle way. Because he's been gentle the whole goddamn time, and everyone has been so rude and disrespectful of him.

Nini

Like, there is room to talk about the expression of Patts’ frustration, but you can't have that room if you're using it in a reductive manner to just completely kick him out the window as a character. I don't buy that, I don't subscribe to it.

1:35:50 - La Pluie: Treatment of Nara

Ben

With Nara, we saw that Patts is capable of dealing with difficult romantic situations. Because Nara is treated so sympathetically about everything that went down with her and Patts. How she feels frustrated about Patts’s soulmate connection with Tai, long before they start talking, I think is valid. Because she felt frustrated. She felt frustrated that anytime it rains, Patts gets moody, and it feels like somebody else is in the middle of their relationship. And you got the sense from them accidentally making out in the rain one time, where Patts immediately cut it off and apologized, that he didn't want to put Tai through that, even before he knew who Tai was. I got that Nara felt frustrated that her intimacy was scheduled around the goddamn rain. She felt an innate jealousy in her own relationship that she knew she was struggling with and couldn't exactly cope with. It wasn't fair to either of them. Patts is like, ‘look if I can get rid of this I would, because I do care about you.’

Nara takes some time. She gets to reflect, she decides to grow. She knows that it's hard out here in these goddamn streets, and Patts is a keeper, and she tries to do the big romantic gesture. And that's why Tai liked her! Because that boy loves big romantic gestures! And Patts lets her down, he apologizes, he's like ‘I'm sorry I may have led you on, I want things to be okay between us. Because what happened between us was real, it mattered to me, and I still care about you even if I can't give you my heart like that anymore.’ Yeah, “we should stay friends” is kind of a cliche, but it feels earned here.

And I also like that Nara got to be disappointed and heartbroken and upset about it too. I liked that people cared about how she felt. They wanted to reintegrate her into the group. The other vets liked Nara, even if she wasn't going to be Patts’ girlfriend anymore. But they understand that in the breakup, they're Patts’s friends. And you know those people respect relationship dynamics, because they didn't just look to Patts to see if Nara was okay to be around, they look to Saengtai, to see how the new person was going to feel about that—particularly because he just ran up a fucking mountain because of her—and he says it's okay, and they were so eager to reintegrate her into the group.

And then she and Dream get to get rolling. And they let us have them at the end! She was like, ‘look, we only got five minutes left in this show, if you going to get this shit you better come correct and you better come now.’ And I loved that! Because the girlies deserved it.

Nini

She said, ‘I'm grown, give it your best shot.’

Ben

I saw some frustrations with the ending, and how a lot of the episode was Tai running around by himself, and meeting some random characters at the end, and…us not spending a lot of time with Patts, like Patts not really talking at the end? But it works for me. Tai had to deal with the silence, for the first time—that he inflicts silence on so many people, and now he's the one who has to sit in the shit that he made.

And I liked him meeting a couple that had challenges to deal with in their relationship, and being told once again, ‘you just got to do the work bro, you gotta talk to each other, you gotta listen to what your partner is saying to you.’ And I like that the final scene with Tai and Patts is Tai not hesitating.

Man! This show was so rewarding to watch because it wasn't trying to trick us.

Nini

The show was wearing its bona fides on the tin. It was very clear where it wanted to go, what it wanted to do. It wasn't playing with us. It wasn't trying to gotcha with us. It was just laying out its central idea, and continually reinforcing it throughout the story and the narrative for the entire way through.

Does that make it, like, unpredictable and exciting? No. But it made it really enjoyable to watch: to watch something lay the path, and then walk the path, was more fun than it, I expected it to be, I have to say.

1:40:47 - La Pluie: The Side Characters

Nini

And, when we're talking about laying the path and walkin’ the path—man, let's just get to it, let's talk about Tien and Lomfon.

Here are the polar opposites, okay, because in Tai and Patts, like you have an agnostic and an apostate, like they're not as far apart as somebody like Tien and Lomfon, who are a true believer and a total atheist. How do they get to the middle? All the shit that happens in the middle, especially, [laughs] how do they get through that and find their way through each other? Basically, Lomfon has to grovel, and I enjoy a good grovel, so I had a great time.

Ben

Here's the thing. My boy Tien deserves so much more than he got. My man initiated a gay pinky touch, and then Lomfon, was like, ‘hm! I don't know what's going on, but I know that I have these special signs from the universe about this stupid key chain, that I need to go kiss this boy's brother, not the one reaching out with the gay pinky touch while taking care of me while I'm sick, twice!’ I'm gonna stay mad at this man. [both laugh]

This man ruined a gay pinky touch. Tien is so patient with both of them. Like Patts is beating up Lomfon, Tai is screaming at the universe, clearly suddenly they can all hear in the rain, Tien doesn't know what's going on—but he cuts through the bullshit right away with Lomfon, it's like, ‘I liked you! Why are you being like this?’ Even when Tai didn't realize what was going on, Tien holds back his own disappointment that his brother maybe didn't necessarily see him the right way, and still says, ‘thank you for always being on my left.’

Ahh! I love that boy so much! He's so good, he deserves so much more. He was dressing like an early 2000s lesbian the whole time, serving nothing but constant looks. He was so fun to watch, especially when he was being kind of sassy with everyone.

Nini

I like Tien as a character, I like his wardrobe…don't even get me started. That outfit he wore to the wedding? Unreal. I loved it so much.

Ben

I loved it. It's so good. Oh my god.

Nini

Un. Real.

Ben

That whole family looked good, like holy shit! [laughs]

Nini

We didn't even talk about Saengnuea! And oh god, we're never going to get forgiven by one of the clowns if we never even bring up Saengnuea.

Ben

He was so awkward and goofy! I, I liked that boy too. I loved Bow, I loved the vets—what's so great about the side characters with La Pluie, is they do their role just enough to help us understand the world in which these characters exist. Like Tai is surrounded by people trying to just pour love all over that boy, and he will just not let them. Patts is surrounded by a community that loves him, that wants the best for him, that wants to make sure that he gets what he deserves too. Oh my god, just—what an excellent show.

1:44:02 - La Pluie: Sequel Potential

Nini

The thing that I think that we want to end up on is, I said before that La Pluie is basically a filmed romance novel. If you are aware of how, like, these romance novels get set up—a lot of the time, it will be multiple stories set in the same universe, where each of the characters basically gets to fall in love. We know at least that the La Pluie people seem to want to get into all of the Saeng brothers and their various romances. I don't know if they will get to, but what do you think about the obvious setup for the Saengtien sequel at the end of the show, and this idea of going into, like, a Bridgerton-esque series of romances using all of the same characters?

How do you feel about that?

Ben

Honestly…I’m a little bit nervous because I just worry that the audience won't respond to it really well. I feel like a significant portion of the audience just actively did not get La Pluie. They were really caught up in the soulmate stuff. And I just feel like a lot of the audience maybe didn't…gel with all the themes?

Nini

So as usual, Ben is the one thinking about everybody else while I very selfishly think about myself. [both laugh] And I'm just like, ‘give it to me.’ I'm ready, I'm here for it. I trust these writers, I trust this director, I think that if they get a chance to delve into this universe in more detail and focusing on different characters, I think that they can nail it? I'm ready to see what happens if they get a chance to do it.

I don't care about whether people are going to get it correctly or not, I don't. I kind of care, but at the same time I don't care. So that being said: Ben, is this a ten or a chop?

Ben

La Pluie is probably in my top five BLs of all time, and it's probably in my top ten shows of all time right now. It's a 10. It's a 10. [laughs] It’s a 10!

Nini

All right? So for Ben it’s a 10, for me it’s definitely a 10, that leaves us with La Pluie as a 10 show!

1:46:01 - Outro

Ben

And we're back.

Nini

Okay Ben, so…lotta ink spilled over these two shows. I don't think I've seen so much meta being written, probably since the Bad Buddy era. We've got a strange combo here: a show that was incredibly legible, and then a show that made you work a little bit harder, and in both instances it feels like people didn't get it? [laughs]

I don't know, what are your thoughts? What do you feel about this?

Ben

One of the big stories of this year is BL maturing as a genre and beginning to genre blend. Like in a lot of ways, La Pluie wants to straddle the line between BL and classic romance, and I think it does a pretty admirable job at it. Whereas Step by Step feels like the BL elements that it's trying to manage are holding it back from what it really wants to be. That feels like the sort of thing that inevitably happens with this type of outgrowth.

La Pluie doesn't really want to say things sort of directly or inherently about queerness, it wants to talk about romance itself. And romance as a genre. Whereas Step by Step really wants to talk about queer stuff in a real world, and that's a whole lot messier to deal with. They both did some things really really well, and the audience connected to that. And what fascinated me so much about it was that the audience felt compelled to talk to each other about it. I felt like that happened maybe more organically on its own with Step by Step? Some of us kind of forced the issue on La Pluie. I know that I was part of it, like very, very directly, and it's been fun seeing people respond to that, by just us saying very earnestly: please tell us what you're thinking. And engaging with what people are writing.

I think it's good for us and the genre to take it more seriously? It has been really fascinating for me seeing people engaging the way they are, but I legitimately feel a bit fatigued by it. And like, the last time I felt fatigue in BL, truly, was at the beginning. I know a lot of you don't watch as much content as I do, like you couldn't possibly do it, it's not healthy for you. I don't know how starved some of you have been for content that you can genuinely connect to, that can help you feel a little bit less lonely about yourself. And like I’d never gotten tired of queer cinema—I’d gotten hurt by it, but I'd never gotten, like, genuinely tired of just being in it that long.

And I feel a little tired from all of the intense writing that La Pluie and Step by Step kind of demanded of us. It's a really fascinating time for me as a fan, to feel like the shows are demanding more of us as viewers, as we watch them, than to just be pleased by them or intrigued by them so that we'll engage and buy merch and stuff. It was really fascinating having two shows this season that really feel like they wanted us to think about things along with them.

Nini

I know that you and I have talked about that feeling of fatigue, like for me, this is the most anything I've watched in years. The level of exhaustion that I felt, and then to have these two shows sort of spring up at the end of the season, and demand—you’re correct—demand my attention…not just in terms of the shows themselves, but then in the reaction to the shows. It's sort of left me a little hollowed out, almost, a little wrung out? I don't know yet if in a good way or a bad way. It's yet to be seen.

I remember saying to you at one point, I was like, I need something mindless to just sit and watch for the next couple of weeks, at least. Or, like, maybe longer, I just need something that I don't need to think about. And that's not a place that I'm accustomed to being in media? Because I am normally the let's get deep into it, let's get into the guts, put your arm in and come back with a beating heart kind of girl when it comes to the stories. And right now I'm just like, eh, I want something shallow and surface that I don't have to think too much about, please, just for a little while. And then I can re-engage my brain later. It's a very strange place for me to be in, I don't think it's a place that I've ever been in? But yeah these these two shows, they took it out of me, I gotta say.

And that's how we end the season ladies and theydies! We are a little wrung out, and we'll probably talk about that a little bit more in the Lagniappe. But yeah! We tired, y'all. [laughs]

Ben

It’s gonna be fascinating, like, getting to listen back over this, because we talked really in the season about how slow it was for me to get into the spring season, coming off of the the winter hangover from Moonlight Chicken, Utsukushii Kare, My School President and The Warp Effect. And it's weird now at the end of the spring season, where…I don't necessarily feel like a tired hangover from it? It's a hard feeling to describe because the winter shows were really good, really hit something in me…

Nini

The winter shows were emotionally intense. There was like a heavy emotional hangover coming off of the winter. I don't feel that emotional hangover now, but I feel mentally drained.

Ben

Yeah, it's a far more cerebral feeling, and like the thing for me is, I grow stronger on that feeling. [both laugh] It's gonna be, it’s gonna be hard for me if these new shows don't keep up! ‘Cause, it's what I want! I do not want to yuck anyone's yums, like, there is absolutely a place for fluff in this genre. I will never, ever vote against the silly and fun shows. I just also really love meaty shows that make me think really hard while I'm watching them. And I love when that feels intentional—like we do a lot of hard thinking on our own about these shows, but damn is it satisfying when it feels like the show itself is in that conversation with us. And I really hope that this isn't the last time we have an Adult Swim episode because we got a bunch of really thinky shows to think about.

Like, I was very harsh to Step by Step when we talked about that show, but I don't want Tee to stop thinking as hard as he does. I want him to stay in the guts of trying to unpack where queer people fit in modern Thai cinema. That's a really important thing to figure out, and queer people should be part of that conversation. And like even if I didn't think this was the best execution of his ideas, I don't want that conversation to get missed because his show didn't land consistently for everyone.

Nini

I'm tired y'all. I'm so tired.

Ben

[laughs] I’m so energized. Keep it coming.

Nini

My brain hurts! And this is the shit that I normally love, but my brain, it hurts, and my brain, she needs a break! And so, a break she shall have. [laughs]

We'll be back at you next time with the Lagniappe, but that's it for us now! We are just going to wrap it up on Adult Swim.

Our first Adult Swim episode: may there be others. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

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itsanidiom · 10 months

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The problem with *some BL office dramas is they seem to think that I care about their business success.

Like let me give some examples:

We Best Love: Fighting Mr. 2nd knew how much I as an audience member cared about both the company our boys worked for and the project they were working on. How much? Not much. Except when it relates to their romance. Zhou Shu Yi having to work with Gao Shi De again because he works for his dad's company and they're doing a merger. Classic forced proximity. Love it.

This is the shit I wanna see. Their romance. The company could crash and burn for all I care. All I know about their work is that they are in an office and making some kind of software. That's it.

Here's another example. Cherry Magic! They work somewhere that make pens and stationary. Sometimes they have to do lots of unexplained paperwork. Do I care about the details surrounding the pen company paperwork? No. I don't. They know this and respect my time by not having a character spend an episode walking me through the pen company audit paperwork.

When a character has a big project, it is brief and has a clear connection to the romance arc. In season 1 and 2, work project moments just create big "reasons we cannot be together" crisis moments to be overcome.

*Step By Step, on the other hand, forced me to sit through employee training sessions and about one full length boardroom meetings per episode about products and marketing campaigns. I felt as bored watching those scenes as I would have if I was actually a member of a marketing team sitting in on a meeting that could have been an email.

Apart from the meeting where they first decide to use Put, there's no clear romantic drama or stakes in many of those scenes. It's literally just business. I do not care about Forge, they were just a client, and yet that client's name is now burned into my brain. I do not care about Olive and Pearl (?) or how their karaoke night marketing is gonna be amazing because look we got Put in it again. In fact, get that guy out of my face! All I care about is our main characters and their romance. And yet I must sit through board meeting after board meeting after...

#rant #bl dramas #step by step #step by step the series #we best love #we best love: fighting mr. 2nd #if you disagree fight me #lol #I was also going to add Check Out as another TERRIBLE example of what not to do #But we all know it's crap I don't want to even bother lol #I have thoughts about Office BL Dramas

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waitmyturtles · 10 months

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CONTINUED UNPOPULAR OPINIONS ABOUT STEP BY STEP, EPISODE 11

I will spare y’all my biting criticism with a read-more. But, TL;DR -- my review is short (for me, HA!), and I hand this show over lovingly to anyone who wants it.

(Thanks to continued conversations with the inimitable @lurkingshan and the utterly lovely @neuroticbookworm to ensure I’m not going insane with these thoughts.)

At this point, I don’t know what narrative lens we’re supposed to be watching this show through*. Maybe a few of them, together, but that is striking me as an understudied, overambitious, overworked, and confused approach to understanding this show.

Is it a queer narrative about how Jeng has been closeted-ish/held back in his public queer identification for so long that he’s turned into an inconsistent, incommunicative, distrusting putz? Is there a connection between his family being disapproving of his sexuality, and/or him running away from a filial fate of taking over his dad’s company -- and him being a bumbling asshole to Pat?

Is it a trust narrative about how Pat can’t trust ANYONE? Put, Jeng, Jeng’s dad, the company, Toh? Maybe even Chot? (I’m just throwing that out there, since Chot sent him into the battlefield with Jeng during the last episode -- I love Chot, I ain’t blamin’ Chot.) (Maybe I analytically get to this narrative by... assuming Pat can’t trust anyone, since his loving, COMMUNICATIVE parents ended up getting divorced?) (And in the process of that divorce, we learn, in part, that Pat’s mom couldn’t find her full potential in life unless she was outside of the marriage?) [So maybe that’s what needs to happen to Pat? Since Jeng is CLEARLY UNDERMINING Pat’s efforts to be successful on his (Pat’s) own, in multiple ways, by really not allowing Pat to have control over his (Pat’s) own life?]

Is this a MACRO MACRO narrative commentary on the failings of BL tropes and the BL industry as a whole? (The reveal of the once-toxic Ying as a fujoshi?)

It could very well be all of these narratives at the same time. However, the execution of this storytelling, at this point, is so inconsistent and choppy that 1) I can’t exactly tell, and 2) I’m so frustrated about the amount of time that I’ve spent trying to understand this show that at this point, I don’t really want or care TO care.

To refer back to my first point (*) -- I think it’s unfair for me to demand that ANY show have a singular narrative lens. But I propose that Step By Step would have been an actually successful drama if it hadn’t tried to do so much. I’m EXTREMELY biased right now on this kind of analysis, because I’ve just finished Until We Meet Again for the Old GMMTV Challenge, and watched two narrative lenses in DeanPharm and KornIntouch come together into one cohesive story. (And, fuck, I cannot believe I’m saying this about a New Siwaj show.) I mean -- you can take filmmaking classes that can teach screenwriters and directors how to handle multiple narrative lenses successfully.

Maybe that’s the word: cohesiveness. I’m not seeing cohesiveness in Tee Bundit’s Step By Step. Instead, I watched an episode with actual minutes -- MINUTES! -- spent watching an office team held in tension as internet “likes” poured in. Looking at computers. I spent MANY MINUTES watching Jaab WAFFLE over MULTIPLE episodes going back and forth on Jen... only to discover that he missed Jen’s departure to Japan -- a Very Big Life Decision that Jaab just *missed.* Okay.

And.... we are left with the break-up of Jeng and Pat. And a time jump.

I mean.

All that growth of the previous episodes, all that slow burn, all that processing of Pat’s growth into a hopefully successful professional digital marketer. For what. No cohesive character development or a sharpening of any narrative lenses.

The last thing I’ll offer is that I understand that Tee Bundit added themes to this show that were not present in the original novel, such as the aforementioned macro commentary on the BL industry and other workplace storylines. And, starting with episode 10, he was on his complete own, outside of the novel’s romance arc (thank you to @lurkingshan for confirming this for me). I’ll theorize, therefore, that what we’ve been watching these past few weeks is a Frankenstein-ed approach to this story where the novel focused on the romance aspect of Pat and Jeng, and Tee’s been wanting to drive home themes of workplace success (I think); professional growth (I think?!); homophobia in the workplace and the harms of either being disapproved of and/or being closeted or closeted-ish in general (Jeng, Chot/Krit, Pat), plus that macro commentary on the BL industry that got edited out.

But, and I emphasize here: not a SINGLE one of these threads has been illuminated to the point of clarity. I’ve wondered in the back of my mind if Tee maybe threw the baby out with the bathwater on this show AFTER the whole ZeeNew debacle, but -- whatever. The seams on this show were fraying weeks ago, and it shows.

Again -- I can’t think much longer on this show. It’s over next week. After a break-up and a time jump. We’re on the express train to a likely happy ending that I’m going to guess will be totally unearned. I had high hopes for each episode, only to be sorely disappointed since episode 8, when the drag got so unbalanced that I started to raise red flags. I want to see a surprise turn towards good storytelling for this finale next week. I want to be proven wrong about my instincts, but I ain’t putting any of my money on it.

#step by step #step by step meta #jeng x pat #pat x jeng #ben bunyapol #man trisanu #i think ben and man improved over the course of this series but were vastly underutilized #i think a better structured script could have leveraged both of their inexperiences much better

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obstinaterixatrix · 6 months

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I read all of The Honest Life of a Game Studio and now I am obsessed do you have recs for anything like it.

I wish. I FUCKING WISH. but it’s really one of a kind. higefusa really just wrote mundane slice of life office drama with the level of detail that could only be provided by a gamer who has worked in the industry AND he threw in some life or death stakes as a treat. how often do we get an incredibly normal office worker stuck in time prison??? and it’s ONE ARC??? not often enough.

none of these are gonna be just like game-ya but in terms of romances with attention to detail for industry/niche fields… ok all of these are gonna be kind of weird so bear with me.

double section is a BL about an auditor for an insurance company and an insurance salesman, I wouldn’t necessarily give it a blanket rec but I liked how Passionate the main characters were about audits and workplace regulations. a lot of heated drama for the most normal office setting possible. in the author’s note the artist talks about interviewing health insurance salesmen.

ginmokusei is more of a conventional BL but it’s about a guy who inherited his grandpa’s tailor shop and an ex maître d who shows up and demands to help him before he goes bankrupt. there’s a little bit about branding and marketing and bank loans. what has Always Stayed With Me is when the love interest basically goes like ‘you’re using all these flashy ads and being really pushy with discounts. are you selling beef bowls.’ every time I pass a clothes shop that goes really flashy with the discount banners I think ‘are they selling beef bowls…’

panel x magic. okay I said it was going to be weird. so this yuri is about a recent graduate who applies for office jobs and ends up doing image editing for… I guess a brothel? it doesn’t go into critiques of the sex industry, but I thought it was interesting how it takes a really logistical perspective in terms of marketing, advertising, and image manipulation… one of the chapters has the main character going like ‘oh god I’m trying to edit this risqué photo by making the thighs thinner and giving the face a glow-up but I keep making the model look like a weird alien this looks like something from a photo booth’ and gets advice from her coworkers like ‘hey why don’t you look up makeup tutorials to get a sense of what to touch up.’ hasn’t been translated in a while but it kind of hits that… really in-depth look at the logistics of a job.

I think there’s more I’m not remembering at the moment, at one point I think sundry made a joke about rating office romances by how much office work is shown. there’s a couple ones that *kinda* fit but not really… wait. wait wait wait. WAIT. oh my god it has such a h•rny title. okay. so I’m being 100% sincere when I say that the main story for hammered and pounded is a BL with interesting office politics. it’s also incredibly h•rny, but game-ya gets pretty h•rny so whatever. but yeah there’s a whole subplot where the love interest, who works in sales, has actually always wanted to work in R&D, and it becomes A Whole Thing where the head of R&D is in conflict with the head of sales over whether or not a transfer is gonna happen and there’s no romance involved with the conflict it’s all office politics

and in a similar vein, to your right, you will see my boyfriend is about a guy who’s working as a tour guide in kyoto and at the artist talks about how she used to work as a tour guide. I think it’s fun, though I have my qualms. the main character does do studying about how to be an effective tour guide and goes from being like ‘ugh I’m saying all the facts but no one’s listening’ to ‘haha check out this extremely long name of the temple we’re about to see! make sure to remember it, it’ll be the password for getting off the bus ;D’

I have another category of vaguely similar vibes of genre bending mundane office work + fantastical situations

tokusatsu gagaga is a gen series that’s a BIG fave of mine, the main character is an OL who loves tokusatsu so she imagines a lot of scenarios with that sort of vibe. it’s not diagetic, but it’s really fun when it’s stuff like ‘I’M AT KARAOKE WITH MY COWORKERS BUT I CAN’T OUT MYSELF AS A TOKUSATSU OTAKU THIS IS JUST LIKE BEING ATTACKED BY A KARAOKE-THEMED MONSTER EMERJASON HELP ME!!!!’ the eng tl hasn’t been updated in a while but there’s a live action adaption that’s really good

magilumiere co. ltd. is a gen series that’s basically ‘what if magical girls were like… sanitation workers for monsters’ so it’s a lot of company logistics in a fantastical setting. I don’t think I got that far into it before getting distracted, but it was interesting (though perhaps overly generous/idealistic about start-ups as a concept).

#ask #anonymous #gylb #orlbs #there’s also stuff like #perfect propose I really enjoyed for how it really highlights how toxic workplaces manipulate/exploit workers #(consent is an issue for that series tho)#and 24 hour kiss actually has stuff like ‘the manufacturer fucked up our bags what are we going to do’#(consent is a REALLY BIG ISSUE for that series tho)#anyway I’m not sure I’d consider these recs so I won’t put them in my recs tag #my god I spent like an hour on this #Gohan no Otomo ni… kinda…?#recs

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t1nngun · 5 days

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Gmmtv part 2 AND I have a few I'm VERY much looking forward to, here's a list absolutely no one asked for along with the ones I'm looking forward to from part 1!!!

My love mix up Thailand : As someone who adores gemfourth AND the original manga + the Japanese adaptation, I can't stress it enough JUST HOW EXCITED I AM FOR THIS!!! And P'Au??? Another certified hit in our hands (and I adore my girl Pahn so YAY)

Pluto the Series : A gl with two of my favourites????? SEATED

The trainee : more than the fact that I'll get to see my pookies offgun in an office romance setting, I'm WAY too excited to see Sea in glasses skdjksjd

Ossan's Love Thailand : I have not watched the Japanese version, I did not know what to expect, and for whatever reason I thought this was going to be a serious drama, especially since it's EarthMix. And the pilot teaser just caught me so off-guard I literally need it NOW😭 it looks SO SO good I cannot wait please.

The Dark Dice : Getting Gemini and Prim in my favourite kind/genre of dramas with dark, mysterious high school setting and games OH I'M SEATED

The Ex Morning : I have a very soft spot for KristSingto, Sotus is one of the earliest BLs I've watched </3 but BUT I'm a sucker for non-toxic second chance romance like our beloved summer!!! AND THIS IS GIVING EXACTLY THAT I'M SO EXCITED

Us the Series : Getting to see two of my wives together AND SING??? Boy already DELIVERED in the pilot teaser itself. The cinematography, chemistry and everything just looks so good

Thame-Po : This looks so fresh and I just know it's going to be so bittersweet and angsty THIS IS FOR ME

Scarlet Heart Thailand : Although I'm sceptical about two of the actors, I'm still so excited about this. I can't believe I get my FourthTu back again 😭

Leap Day : The main cast being so... Random yet so interesting, I'm getting my Dew Gun meal once again after Home School!!! AND PAHN MY GIRL. YES. I'm so excited to see Pond too, he has been so good lately, especially in Dirty laundry (iykyk 😭) I'm VERY intrigued by this let's goooooo

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bengiyo · 3 months

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Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yara ka Ep 2 Stray Thoughts

Last week, we started a new food BL in an Osaka restaurant. Our restaurant owner, Sakae, runs a local neighborhood diner, and is currently not seeking a new romance after a difficult breakup. He's working on his fitness and keeping his business afloat, and then Soga, a new office worker from Tokyo, starts coming to the restaurant. Matsumoto likes him, and is eager to help Soga work through his awkwardness with Osaka people. We left at him telling Soga he liked him.

Aww. Sakae got embarrassed and walked it back a bit. I get it.

I love that Sakae has a bestie to act as a sounding board.

I love the dialectal play in this. Soga doesn't even fully comprehend that he was just confessed to.

Episode 2: "I've Said It, Now What?"

Okay, I'm excited to see Kanda shoot her shot at Sakae.

Oh boy, Soga is divorced. Seems like the wife initiated it.

I like Sakae asking for friendship from Soga, even if he wants more. Prudence doesn't feel like it's his natural way when it comes to liking someone, but I get the sense that he's still feeling shy after the last relationship. It's probably better for Soga, too, since they're letting us know he's also exited a serious relationship.

I will not tire of the harmonica in this show.

I hope the sauna remains a recurring bit and all these guys reveal to be tsunderes later.

What a lovely problem to have in a BL. Soga talked himself into an embarrassing corner and needs help to cook his way out of it.

Having huge feelings about the ex wife wanting Soga to rely on others more as their final conversation.

Nothing like bonding over a cooking lesson.

Oh my god. Sakae is about to explode from a Baby Is a Messy Eater moment.

Oh no love triangle drama next week.

I continue to love this show. I love the way people seem to speak with each other. I'm sorry to be late with it because I needed that.

#Ben watches #sukiyanen kedo do yaro ka #although i love you and you #japanese bl #bl series

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absolutebl · 10 months

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This Week in BL - Dog Days of BL but July is Incoming

June 2023 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Step By Step (Tues WeTV & Gaga) ep 10 of 12 - I’m finding the time frames confusing. Still, a lovely crying kiss + a very high drama-lllama gay confession. Kitchen counter make out, my fav! The actor who plays Jeng kisses at MaxTul levels, which is to say = like a man who has actually done it before with genuine desire and is capable of portraying that on screen. (What makes MaxTul kings is that they BOTH do this.) Pat caught up, thank goodness. Also P’Jeng!!!! P’JENG!!! I love how intimate phi is when it’s been all khun prior. This is the Thai version of hyung slinging. Errotic linguistics, my fav. And ALL the work drama and homophobia fall out when you sleep with the boss. I really enjoy that the angst concerning their relationship has to do with the fact that this is an office romance. Lastly? I love Chot so much. Everyone needs a gay auntie. Also Bruce is SO DAMN GOOD. (I mean we knew he would be from Lovely Writer, but this... chef’s kiss.)

La Pluie (Sat iQIYI) ep 10 of 12 - There are enough meta-analysis on this one for me not to have to weigh in. Suffice it to say that I like what it’s trying to do, and I certainly appreciate the levels of consent and so forth but I’m not sure I actually like it as much now that we are swimming in high concept. Too much lying. I’m not sure I want my BL to make me think this hard. Also poly, boys = final answer. (Anyone else getting Color Rush flashbacks?)

Be My Favorite (Fri YouTube) ep 6 of 12 - I love Max now and forever, and I made some very bad puns in the Trash watch here. Otherwise I’m not super invested.

Dinosaur Love (Thai Sun iQIYI) ep 1 of 10 eps - from Ultimate Troop (The Yearbook people) so I shouldn’t watch this as it airs, after Remember Me? I swore never again. But there’s so little on right now, I’m falling on the pulp sword... My initial thoughts? It’s an En of Love installment? What is going on? Why all this opening with the sides in a bar? Are we framing? Just move on to the 2 boys kissing! Don’t try to be clever, for fucks sake. Okay, good, the pulp has begun. I like soft wet-blanket Rak and his sad love life. I’m not wild about how aggressive Dino is plus insta-SINGING but I DO LIKE THAT HE’S OUT and knows what he wants which is refreshing. It’s trope filled nonsense (crash into me, instalove, sing feelings, floppy drunk, he’s in engineering, fast and bi-curious) also Dino used ter at first (how forward!) then he went to gu/mueng after rejection, while Rak uses khun & phi/pom. Love this for them. Despite my justified reservations with this production team imma stay watching. I need something on Sundays. *

Luminous Solution (Sat Gaga) ep 6fin - That’s it? Bullsheiit. No seriously. That’s my review. 3/10 I DON'T KNOW WHAT I JUST WATCHED AND NEITHER DOES IT AND I’M MAD ABOUT IT.

* I got to say, you have only yourselves to blame for Dinosaur Love’s ranking. Once upon a time, I lived happily in ignorance of the Thai film industry. And then you all kept asking me extremely intelligent questions about it. And because I am a nosy little shit, I had to figure out what was going on. And now a BL like this, which ordinarily I would just love unconditionally, is a really scary place for me, because I know too much about the production house. The evils of too much information are all true. Remain happily in ignorance, I advise you, especially where BL is concerned.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Love Tractor (Korea Weds iQIYI) eps 7-8fin - Yechan is such a frank character it confuses all who meet him, also a truly terrible flirt. This is such a puppy/cat relationship. It was cute but it went too far into cringe for a KBL (for me). I don’t think Kdramas are good at farce (sorry), better if they stick with more subtle humor. It was a sweet ending tho, not too cheesy. Nice kiss for KBL but pretty rather than sexy. Full review below.

Tokyo in April is... AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 3 of 8 - Oh, it’s GREAT. Damn it. There is a lot of subtext and things not being said. This is going to be one of those shows where it’s endlessly frustrating that they don’t just talk to each other. The crying first time was gut-wrenching. Ren is complicated & scarred & closed off. Kazuma is earnest & empathetic & thinks he’s unworthy - so will take whatever crumbs are handed to him. They are both giving parts of themselves away in a desperate attempt to shape themselves to the expectations they have of each other. These 2 are gonna fuck each other up while they fuck and fuck with our hearts. Japan is giving us the Bed Friends that Thailand can never even imagine. There is absolutely no guarantee this will end happily (it’s from the Eternal Yesterday people) but it is guaranteed to be painful and beautiful along the way. Oh Japan, must you? I guess you must.

Stupid Genius (Vietnam Fri YouTube) ep 4 of 6 - I’m mostly confused by the catfishing & tarot side plots. But the mains sure act like bfs. To the point of our tiny jock idiot getting gay panicked by how much bfs they are. Surprise kiss! For everyone, it turns out. Yes I laughed. What? It was pat but also… FUNNY.

Tie The Knot (Pinoy YouTube) ep 3 of 8 - The main couple is adorable, but I’m not wild about the gay bashing blackmail side story. Still, it’s the best we’ve had from the Philippines in a while so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Vian the series (Vietnam YouTube ) ep 9 of 12 - Seriously? Bah Vinh = chemistry with EVERYONE.

Naked Dinner AKA Zenra Meshi (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 12fin - So Souta just disappears off to Singapore and doesn’t say anything to his boyfriend about it? And then comes back with the perfect plan and life for both of them? Oh Japan, must you? Review below.