Revisiting the Houses of Thai BL: Dead Friend Forever and Deep Night

Since my brain has perpetually been in Dead Friend Forever brain rot since the finale, I immediately noticed that the filming location posed as Non/New's house is the same as Deep Night's Wela's home. Now, since I have enjoyed both shows, entwining the narratives of both shows became inevitable.

The idea of Non's family parting with their home, only for it to become Wela's—where the home is more commonly filled with love and affection. The juxtaposition is so incredibly palpable—both families struggle financially, but man does Non's home feel incredibly suffocating.

I really think that this stairwell will never know any peace. We're back to parents expressing their disappointment in their sons, while the sons in question silently absorb every word, hidden away on the stairwell.

*Cue 'I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending'*

At least one of them can experience love and devotion instead of pure misery at their doorstep—

This bridge is making a reputation for itself as being the 'bridge over troubled water'— at least emotionally and figuratively.

Non's tear-stained face, mourning the little good he had in his life while Wela stands by the same window, radiating joy as he bids Khem goodbye—

I have nothing other to say here than that this rooftop has seen some real lows and incredible highs.

I would like to address the conversation going on around Playboyy The Series and the "lack of plot" seemingly presented since its inception (promo). I feel like a huge point is being missed by the general consumers of BL that I, as a queer woman, would like to draw attention to. Sex in queer communities, while ultimately being a form of pleasure, has also been a form of protest. There are still countries in which same sex intercourse is illegal and, in some cases, is punishable by death. Media's response to queers only being palatable to straight people when they viewed them as not being fully functioning human beings who partake in sex (aka taking away their autonomy) were shows like Queer As Folk and The L Word. I know QAF has been in discussion frequently with the rise of more risqué BL like Love In The Air, KinnPorsche, and Only Friends. However, Playboyy The Series is much truer to that era of media in unapologetically portraying queer intimacy more explicitly to remind straight people that we are fully human and with that should come the human right to have sex without being surveilled and reprimanded, to have marriage equality because queer people can also view physically intimacy as an act of love just like straight people, to have access to all basic human rights, because we are REAL! I understand if explicit sex isn't your thing, if cutesy plots are more of your style, but to condemn Playboyy The Series for being "plotless" in this scenario seems unfair to me. Sex is the protest, therefore sex is the main plot device in the show to lead us through the plot because it's a huge part of humanity and queers are human period.

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: YYY, and When BL Talks About BL Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I examine the success -- or not? -- of Cheewin Thanamin’s YYY and what the show does by way of macro-level commentary on the BL genre.]

Alright, so YYY! It would be VERY EASY to write this show off. Maybe the old Turtles of the early OGMMTVC would have done just that (exhibit A: SOTUS, which I’m thinking about revisiting in a wrap-up piece after the OGMMTVC is done, thanks to Krist and his fantastic acting in Be My Favorite). 

But I’ve learned my lesson. There’s a LOT going on with YYY that makes it absolutely worthy of inclusion on the OGMMTVC list. It was @absolutebl Sensei themself that made the case for YYY, especially in ABL Sensei noting my interest in Cheewin’s emotional filmmaking trajectory from Make It Right/MIR2, to Secret Crush On You, to Bed Friend. I thank you, ABL Sensei, for pointing me in this direction to see this *other* side of Cheewin!

So why do I think YYY is important on the OGMMTVC list? It’s a short, VERY CHAOTIC, VERY UNEXPECTED six-episode series that focuses on two roommates, Not (Yoon Phusanu) and Pun (Lay Talay), who fall for each other in short order in the midst of a wild and inexplicable living environment. They’re supported by their fellow apartment-mates, Ohm (Pee Peerawich, most recently of La Pluie) and Arm (Scott Satapong), and most importantly, are living under the VERY watchful eye of their probably-transgender building manager, Porpla, played by THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE actor in Poppy Ratchapong. OMFG. More on Poppy in a bit. (OMFG, Poppy. I’m in LUV.)

I’ll break down the importance of YYY in the following order:

1a) Who exactly is the writing team of Fluke Teerapat and Tanachot Prapasri, and why are they important (I’m actually going to try to figure this out along with the rest of y’all, and hopefully if folks have more info, they can chime in!), 1b) What did director Cheewin Thanamin bring by way of past vision to YYY to explain the show’s composition, 2) Why the show’s subject matter actually serves as critical commentary to what was happening with the BL genre vis à vis the association of BL and romance, 3) A quick deep-dive on the EXCELLENT acting we saw in YYY, and why that’s also important to the show as a whole,

and, as always, possibly more. Let’s do this. 

So, Fluke Teerapat and Tanachot Prapasri. I’ve tried to find more information on these two dudes to some avail, but my quick analysis of their work really stems from MDL, Fluke’s past acting career, and analytical conjecture about why they wrote YYY and what they wrote after YYY. 

As we know, the guys of these broad circles -- New Siwaj and his Studio Wabi Sabi, Cheewin and his Copy A Bangkok studio, Fluke and Tanachot as writers, and many, many others -- are, generally speaking, of a community of BL creators that are outside the usual GMMTV circles. (I’ve written about this before -- while my project is called the Old GMMTV Challenge, with the goal of digging into how we’ve ended up with GMMTV’s current standard of BLs, the list features quite a few non-GMMTV BLs, as I believe art is always speaking to art, no matter where it’s published.) (And, I am sure most of you are familiar with this, but if not, there are master lists of the history of Thai BL studios out there.)

I note the non-GMMTV affiliation of these guys, because -- some of these guys, like New and Tee Bundit, actually contract with GMMTV for specific shows, like A Boss and a Babe and Hidden Agenda, respectively. Fluke Teerapat himself was a pre-BL actor in the 2014 movie My Bromance with Fluke Natouch (so many cute Flukes, amirite), and also acted in GMMTV’s FIRST BL in SOTUS -- Fluke Teerapat played Wad, who was maybe? hopefully? kinda? indicated to be shipped with the older Prem (Gunsmile Chanagun).

I’ll add two more points to consider here as I continue to sit with the influence that Fluke, Tanachot, and Cheewin brought to YYY: Firstly, GMMTV BLs, up to YYY’s moment in 2020 generally asked for romance in their shows. Again, that’s a generalization. (I don’t think Theory of Love fits in this category.) But considering what had come out on GMMTV CLOSELY PREVIOUSLY to YYY’s airing -- 2gether and Still 2gether -- GMMTV was riding a romance high, and counting their massive BrightWin dollars.

Secondly, YYY is the first piece on the OGMMTVC list that features Cheewin Thanamin as a solo director. Going backwards, as we know, Cheewin’s previous work on BLs including co-writing, co-directing, and acting in Make It Right and Make It Right 2, and he was a writer on Love Sick, season 2, and was a guest actor on Love Sick, season 1. 

Putting this all together: at least Fluke and Cheewin have utterly tremendous histories with the literal birth of the BL genre, Cheewin outside of the GMMTV circles with Love Sick and Make It Right/MIR2, and Fluke beginning his career as an actor in GMMTV’s first BL, AND first HUGE BL. 

Cheewin and Fluke have had front-row seats to the development of the BL genre, seeing and understanding what fans, studios, producers, and major networks in GMMTV, Channel 9, Channel 3, and others, demand and expect out of the genre and the dramas by way of fan service, shipper culture, romantic storylines, tropes -- all of it. Cheewin and Fluke have been around for a MINUTE. They clearly HAVE critical viewpoints about BL, and are not afraid to scrutinize the genre in their works, which is what happened in YYY.

I’m going to get confusing for a second to jump to the closer present for my next analytical point: what else have Fluke Teerapat and Tanachot Prapasri written?

They’ve written My Ride (2022) and La Pluie (2023). I haven’t watched either of them yet, but I am damn glad that I’ll be watching them after the OGMMTVC is done, in their chronological order, and I already can’t wait to write about them. Because what I bet is that I’ll see what intelligence and scrutiny Fluke and Tanachot had leveraged in YYY, the cutting criticisms about BL they lined YYY with, and then took the sharpness of their writing and the critical viewpoints they have ABOUT the BL genre to My Ride and La Pluie, two beloved BLs that are lauded for their directness in structure and storytelling. 

In Cheewin, Fluke, and Tanachot, we have a team of creators that’s not afraid to be critical about the genre in which they’re operating. Now -- this take, this perspective, can sometimes work well (I’m eagerly awaiting Tee Bundit’s Lovely Writer on the OGMMTVC list, as I understand he takes this macro approach in LW), and in other times, it does not work well at all (exhibit B: Tee Bundit’s Step By Step, rant linked). 

YYY took a lot of risks. It was a weird show. It didn’t... quite make sense. But it was clearly designed to criticize what we, as fans, usually expect out of BLs, including clean and romantic storylines and happy endings.

Episodes 5 and 6 of YYY fully explained to me the show’s purpose. First off: BLs are jobs for the actors. The ships are not real. And YYY states as much. Pun is considering quitting his job as a shipped half of a boy-couple, and his acting partner isn’t having it.

In episode 6 -- before Not and Pun go to space? -- we get two screen quotes of the life of YYY itself.

The world that Porpla operated in the apartment building where Not, Pun, and their neighbors lived was chaotic precisely BECAUSE of Porpla, and what Porpla demanded out of the human behavior around them. Porpla could only be appeased, as an obsessed yaoi fan (LOL), with the confirmation that Not and Pun were together and dating. If that’s not a metaphor for fan and network demands out of BLs and ships, then I don’t know what is. AND: those demands CERTAINLY create chaos, especially for the individual creators and performers associated with BLs. (I didn’t take screenshots of Porpla’s INSANE outfits, but really, the chaos of YYY stemmed and centered around Porpla -- and Poppy Ratchapong’s ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE performance of Porpla). 

While watching YYY -- Porpla, the Chinese brothers, the coffee and janitor couple, all the flashbacks, Not’s hilarious and nonsensical sign-offs (omg, I was gagging with laughter) -- I was reminded of Lukmo and Yok in Make It Right, especially in Make It Right 2. New and Cheewin did some crazy shit with Mo and Yok, especially their confusingly edited and strangely metaphorical sex scenes. Mo and Yok were chaotic right up until their open and tender moments about their emotionality to each other. 

At the time of my watching Make It Right 2, I noted that it seemed to me like Mo and Yok suffered from editing fumbles, which I think is still accurate. But now that I’ve watched YYY, I also might want to theorize (I wonder what you think of this, @lurkingshan), that Mo and Yok might have been specifically written BY CHEEWIN himself, AND that the chaos and strangeness of their metaphorical intimacy (like, sexual food metaphors using mortars and pestles, it still scars me, ha) may have been specifically designed to serve as a mirror against the more straightfoward (but still chaotic) romantic ships in TeeFuse and FrameBook. I’m not ENTIRELY sure. But I think I can feel confident in theorizing that what New and Cheewin were doing in MIR was to add a gentle question about whether EVERY ship working in a BL is worth it. (I think New touches on this in Love By Chance vis à vis TinCan.) And I think Cheewin furthers that question in YYY vis à vis Not and Pun -- who, spoiler alert, do not end up together at the end of YYY. They end up in space. Yeah, totally. 

(I just want to note here that a major reason why Cheewin in particular is such an important person to focus on for the OGMMTVC is that chaos is not his ONLY bag. As I noted in my MIR2 review and earlier above, Cheewin has a SEPARATE perspective that he’s explored in multiple shows — the journey of queer joy. We have seen marriage proposals from FrameBook in MIR2 and KingUea in Bed Friend. While chaos is…chaotic, I love that Cheewin has MULTIPLE THEMES that he explores in his works, and he’s not necessarily *beholden* to them in any one of his shows. Unlike Tee Bundit, Cheewin may not be held back by funding issues, and *can* dabble in non-romance structures. But from what I’ve seen of his art by way of romance — he does those structures beautifully as well, ending at least MIR2 and Bed Friend in glorious happiness. Again, I really appreciate @absolutebl​ Sensei recognizing these two different tracks in recommending YYY to me.)

Anyway, listen. YYY is home to micro- on macro-commentary about the BL genre and BL’s resulting questions and chaos, using chaos itself as a storytelling tool. Porpla is THE entity, the über-fan, the symbol of CULTURAL PRESSURE for BLs to WORK and PLAY in happy endings, when happy endings might not exactly be what filmmakers like Cheewin really want to achieve all the time (see above). I appreciated that time was actually taken to explain to Porpla that Not and Pun were not going to be together. I gotta say that I commend Cheewin, Fluke, and Tanachot for playing hardily in this sandbox, clearly having fun doing it, in such wild fashion.

AND: I MUST give Yoon, Lay, Pee, and especially Poppy their flowers. They acted the hell out of this show. Yoon had me DYING with laughter at his nonsense monologues at the end. Pee is clearly one well-rounded actor, handling comedy crazy well, and I can’t WAITTTTTTT to see him in La Pluie (cc @wen-kexing-apologist).  

But this post and the performance of this show ultimately belongs to Poppy Ratchapong. When I first late-night liveblogged about YYY and I was like, POPPPPYYY, the HOMESLICE @dribs-and-drabbles came THRU with a post celebrating Poppy that had me SILENTLY DYING on a work Zoom call with them abs, DAMN! LOL. FAMILY: I MEAN, if you’re gonna watch YYY, you’re gonna watch it for Poppy as Porpla. His Porpla was SO wild, SO chaotic, SO emotionally (UN)balanced, SO insane, SO crisp, SO controlled in their manipulation, I mean. Porpla will definitely be in my top 10 list of favorite OGMMTV characters. Poppy did Porpla’s wild identity utterly solid. 

(YET ANOTHER REASON to criticize Step By Step: an underutilized Poppy! I can’t wait to see Poppy in Lovely Writer, and I have GOT to watch Cutie Pie after this project is done.)

YYY was an experiment in macro-level commentary on BL. It was definitely fun, confounding, confusing AF, but I had a lot of fun with it. I’ve proven that I don’t have to like the shows for them to belong to the OGMMTVC syllabus, but I didn’t NOT like YYY. I enjoyed it a lot, and for the sake of seeing this wild side of Cheewin in definitive form -- and to also see the roots of Fluke and Tanachot’s writing before My Ride and La Pluie -- it is absolutely worthy of belonging on the OGMMTVC list. 

[Okay! I’m ahead on my watchlist below, as I’ve already watched Manner of Death -- that review is dropping next week. And I am ALL kinds of nostalgic and warmly weepy for A Tale of Thousand Stars -- I am soooo glad I am spoiling myself for some awesome rewatches during this project. 

Quick note: in my review of 2gether and Still 2gether, I noted that I wanted to pen another pain-related Big Meta on pain, trust, and separation in BLs. I was going to originally write it on Still 2gether, Bad Buddy, and Until We Meet Again, but of course -- ATOTS also has a classic example of separation. So I’m going to hold off on writing this at least until I’m done with ATOTS, and/or when my life calms down a bit in the fall.

Speaking of life calming down, my August is going to be IN.SANE., so I will do my best to keep up on the watching and the writing. Pour one out for me, y’all!

Status of the watchlist below. I made an addition, btw! I added Be My Favorite, which a lot of us are currently watching. GMMTV going so far as to make a show in part as über-commentary on half of its first HUGE BL ship in Krist? That is MAD worthy of inclusion. And, it’s a great fucking show. Any feedback on this, let a gal know!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 17) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order)  20) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review coming) 21) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (watching) 23) Lovely Writer (2021) 24) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) (tag here)  38) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) (watching)]

I think you can unpin that post now @ Copy A Bangkok lol

Copy A Bangkok producing shows like War of Y and now Playboyy the series and marketing them like raunchy erotica when they are acidic queer commentary is baffling to me. Do they read the scripts ? Of course they flop since THE SHOWS ARE WAY DARKER AND POLITICAL THEN WHAT YOU TOLD THE AUDIENCE THEY WERE. I legit tought Playboyy was an erotic anthology (cool if it was) it’s a show about exploitative sex work in Bangkok ?!

If THAT Studio Remade Semantic Error

Ready?  

COPY A BANGKOK 

Cheewin would direct. Nothing would make sense, it’d be subdivided into some very strange installments. Poppy would show up. The sex scenes would all be super hot. 

Star Hunter Studio 

They’d pick the WORST anchor pair, then they’d add two more side BL couples with better chemistry but completely incomprehensible story arcs. (I’d do a trash watch.) 

Studio Wabi Sabi

New would direct and go off script. Yacht and Sammy would play JaeYoung’s besties. BounPrem would do a decent job but it would somehow be a little too bland and lackluster. 

MAME 

Ja’s JaeYoung character would rape SangWoo (both drunk of course), there would be a particularly contrived parting in ep 11, and at least 3 additional BL pairs added in, one of which was even more sus than the leads. All female characters would be removed and replaced with predatory bisexual men. (I’d do a trash watch.) 

GMMTV

They’d do an okay job but Mix would be a little too tsundere, Earth would be a little too serious, and GMMTV would draw the whole thing out over 12 eps and tease us with a GL side pair that never goes anywhere. 

O2

Bah Vinh stars as JaeYoung, opposite some random cutie. It is oddly all set at home instead of school, and the plot makes NO SENSE. But there is a shared bath, great kisses, and some lap sitting. 

Taiwan’s HIStory peeps 

There’d be full on sexitimes, more kisses, and an extremely problematic side couple. JaeYoung and SangWoo end up married, running their own small business, and adopting a kid by the end. 

(source)

Oh??! 👀

“do you really want to do this fanservice for the rest of your life?”

- War of Y - coming August 2nd

I love seeing actors having fun. Thank you, War of Y, for just giving us actors having fun. I also love that Billy is laughing directly after the bathtub scene despite us knowing how serious that was. He did an amazing job and then moved on. Yay for actors!

i just finished watching the final episode of playboyy and i am so confused about the timeline of events and what the hell is up with the "to be continued"

crazy fans are hacking the social media accounts of Copy A Bangkok actors

stop. doing. illegal. shit.

I haven’t seen anyone mention it here on Tumblr but interestingly enough, the writer for Playboyy is the same writer for Only Friends (and part of the writing team for Mansuang).

It’s going to be interesting what the audience reception is like for both series, since Playboyy has already seen quite a bit of pushback for being “porn” adjacent even before the first trailer was released and Only Friends’ reception has generally been a lot more positive. If what the writer says holds true, Playboyy is going to be delving into a lot of real topics that surround the gay community in Thailand. I think it’s important to note that the production team even worked with Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand.

My main worry with Only Friends is the turn around for this show. They only just wrapped a couple weeks ago and it’ll already be airing in two weeks. I’m hoping the editing of this show does the script justice because it seems to be a convoluted story. This happened with Never Let Me Go (which had a lot less characters), and though I personally loved that show, even I was aware of the choppy editing that was a result of the fast turnaround for the project.

Anyways, it’s definitely going to be a very ‘hot’ season, but more than that, I’m looking forward to the conversations that will start with both of them, especially since they’ll both be airing around the same time.

Ayyyoooooooooooo what the fuck was that trailer to playboyy that was just porn..... Since there's no subs to any of the bids I'm just gue#sing the series is gonna be like idk sex scandals and blackmail sex industry maybe idk but this is wiiillldddd and it's from copy a Bangkok?! Talays company??? My sweet boy???? Where is this even going to air..... Anyone if anyone can't find the trailer best just search for copy a bangkok instead of the series name cuz looking up playboyy will not bring anything up

I think it's interesting how they're making jabs at people who call everything these actors do as fanservice or people accusing bl actors of queerbating. Bc accusing a real person of queerbating does insinuate that you know them well enough to know their personal identity like pun and nott are queer, they both like each other and so by extention men yet are being accused of queerbating for interacting yet if they don't interact people still give them shit.

It's been a month since I saw the teaser and still decoding each couple's storyline my guesses are : the first couple : "black swan" , the second couple : "drumline" or the "nutcracker battle" not sure , 3rd couple my favs Billy and Seng giving very strong "interview with a vampire" vibe also "Kill Bill" but my bet is on "interview with a vampire" , the fourth couple most intriguing for me by the way not sure a "Carmen parody" mixed with "chess the musical" and also "dirty dancing ". Anyway could be wrong but these are my best guesses will wait for more clips cannot wait .

I started watching War of Y because I wanted the insight into the BL industry and its dark sides and you do get to see them (e.g. cyberbullying, homophobia, sexual harrassment, power abuse). But you still have to keep in mind the absurdity that this show, that is meant to expose the industry, is itself a BL show...