#itsay meta
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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY) 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, in a long post, I work my way through Nadao Bangkok’s cinematic motherlode: ITSAY. Thanks to everyone for your patience with this post: I did major due diligence with it, with the absolutely TREMENDOUS help of @telomeke, @lurkingshan, @wen-kexing-apologist, and @bengiyo to ensure I had facts and analysis correct. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to these dear friends for holding me down and offering your sharp eyes.]
To dive into a topic as complicated, as beautiful, as reflective, as impactful as a macro-analysis of I Told Sunset About You is to take on...a lot. As I’ve discussed with @lurkingshan, from a filmmaking perspective, as so many of us who have watched ITSAY know -- it occupies the top spot of Thai BLs by way of pure cinematic quality. (If you follow my late-night liveblogs, you’ll know that this was the first show -- not even Bad Buddy did this to me -- where I needed to stop multitasking, to just sit and watch the episodes. No drama has done that for me in the years since I became a multitasking mom.)
As with 2gether and Still 2gether last week, this watch of ITSAY is a definite milestone on the OGMMTVC list, and I really thank @shortpplfedup, @bengiyo, @wen-kexing-apologist, @lurkingshan, @telomeke, and others in advance for what we’ve talked about in direct conversation regarding ITSAY, its many influential tentacles, and the influences that the show itself may have come from.
I’d like to touch upon a couple of frames to structure this piece, but the caveat here is that by no way will I consider myself an ITSAY expert, because there’s a tremendous fandom that knows much more about the Nadao Bangkok studio, about PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, about the director and screenwriter, Boss Naruebet, and much more. I will have a substantial postscript to capture loose notes and learnings that didn’t make it into the main analysis.
Inspired in part by direct conversations with @telomeke and @lurkingshan, I’d like to dive into the following:
1) From a question that @lurkingshan posed to me: what shows from the start of the OGMMTVC watchlist -- and, more broadly, what art out there -- do I think spoke to ITSAY and its development,
2) The important story of Chinese migration to locations like Phuket, Penang (in Malaysia), and other locations on the Malay Peninsula, and how Chinese and Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan cultures flavored ITSAY’s storytelling,
3) A discussion of internal and external homophobia on Teh’s experience, and how his conversation with Hoon encapsulated our understanding of homophobia, filial piety, and socioeconomic pressures in Teh’s particular life, timeline, and culture,
and more, I’m sure. Let’s boogie.
I warned some folks prior to this review that my thoughts on what may have spoken to ITSAY may turn some people off, so I offer this as a flare to y’all in advance. Acknowledging that episodes three and four of ITSAY were as emotional as anything I had ever seen in Asian BLs, Teh was just such a PERFECTLY written character. (The ITSAY supporting documentary episodes state that the show was in part inspired by Billkin’s and PP’s personal lives, and I know there’s fanon that the show was meant to deeply depict their personal stories with each other. I don’t have primary source material to point to regarding this, so I’ll leave it alone, with the understanding that there are interpretations of the show that read between the lines to bring that lens in. I acknowledge the existence of the theories, but will not dive into that here.)
So, in regards to Teh, as I chatted with @lurkingshan as I was watching the series, I just kept thinking to myself... hello, Fuse.
CHAOS BOYS! (Fire Boys? No, no, chaos boys, ha.)
This is where I think my analytical read might get a little controversial with folks, because to compare Make It Right to ITSAY -- from a LOOKS perspective, CERTAINLY from a storyline and narrative structure perspective -- no, it’s not there, not by a long shot.
But when I wonder about what ENERGIES and inspirations opened the door for Boss Narubet to WRITE the way that he wrote, and to DIRECT the way that he directed, Teh’s ENTIRE EMOTIONAL PROCESS AND BREAKDOWNS, his back-and-forth, his hesitations -- I saw chaos, and when I think of chaos, I think of Fuse.
I think of Fuse, and how Fuse was held back, particularly in Make It Right 2, regarding Fuse’s CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ASSUMPTION that he couldn’t break up with his girlfriend, all while being in a nascent give-and-take, back-and-forth relationship with Tee. And how that ASSUMPTION held BACK the full expression of commitment, honesty, and trust that Fuse and Tee ended up having at the end of MIR2. Fuse was being rather unsophisticated while he was struggling with this, and he was bringing Tee along, frustratingly, for that ride.
Something that you said to me also really resonated, @bengiyo, in conversation with @lurkingshan, about comparing TeeFuse and TehOh, in that Fuse and Teh weren’t necessarily SPARKLING or GIFTED presences. As you two both pointed out to me: Teh had to work much, much harder than Oh-aew for the talents that Teh achieved, and somehow, chaotically, he managed to lose his grip on those talents and achievements as he gave up his hard-earned opportunities for the sake of the overall-better-off Oh-aew. MESSY, BRO.
Besides MIR/MIR2, there’s somewhere else where I saw chaos. @bengiyo, you pointed out to me that you felt that you saw more of Thai queer cinema in ITSAY than in BL. I don’t think ITSAY *doesn’t* speak to BL and vice versa (I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that, considering what Nadao Bangkok achieved with this show), but when I think of chaos -- and of the structures of storytelling that allowed us to get such an in-depth experience of Teh -- I also think of 2019′s Dew the Movie, and to a different extent, the before-its-time show in 2019′s He’s Coming To Me.
ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have:
a) multiple chaotic leads (including actual ghosts and dudes who see ghosts),
b) overarching cultural backgrounds rooted in extremely specific Asian cultures and/or practices and/or time periods, and
c) interplays of emotional revelations vis à vis those specific cultural backgrounds.
- Fuse introduced to us, way back in 2016 and 2017, an internal holding back of an emotional engagement with Tee that was rooted in internal homophobia by way of his negotiation with what Fuse’s girlfriend expected of him, and what HE expected of HIMSELF regarding HAVING a girlfriend, while falling in love with a young man.
- Dew featured two young men in chaos, in 1990s rural Thailand, one of whom (Dew) who had previously lived in a different city where, likely, his sexual orientation would not have been met with such dystopic scrutiny as it did in the movie. The movie made clear that Dew wanted a solid relationship with Phop, but with both Dew’s and Phop’s families and cultural expectations holding them back, they both met untimely and unfortunate ends that hammered, in extremes, the perils, in cinema, of being gay and out in an incredibly restrictive and old-fashioned Asian society.
- HCTM featured a young man (Thun) who could see ghosts, along with the ghost that he ends up falling in love with (Med). The revelation of Thun’s being able to see Med is deeply connected to Thun’s Thai-Chinese Buddhist practices, and how his family has engaged with spirituality over the course of his life. While the structure of the show has often been described as having a happy ending, I argue the opposite -- that the ending is left open-ended, as it so often is in some of P’Aof Noppharnach’s shows, with the assumed understanding on behalf of an Asian audience that Med will one day be reborn and will leave Thun’s side (unless he’s reborn into another person that knows Thun) (hello, Until We Meet Again).
So what do all of these shows/movies -- ITSAY, Make It Right/MIR2, Dew, and HCTM -- have in common?
ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have the common background of an old-fashioned culture serving as a MAJOR anchor to their stories. Their stories are leveraged by the micro-level, individual-level interplay between their main characters and old-fashioned worlds, complete with old-fashioned notions, assumptions, and expectations. ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM negotiate boundaries with these cultural guardrails, and we see -- Teh at the end of episode 4, Thun on the rooftop in episode 5, Dew talking to his mother -- what those expectations and boundaries have done internally to our dear young men.
Make It Right’s Fuse, way back in 2016, internalized this slightly differently, without us seeing as deeply the WORLD in which he grew up. The directors and screenwriters New Siwaj and Cheewin Thanamin gave us a guy in school with a girlfriend. FUSE’S world, that we see, is a school world, so apropos for that time of Thai BLs, complete with very heterosexual expectations for a young man WITH a girlfriend. And Fuse struggles with his push-and-pull throughout the two seasons.
What I love about the OGMMTVC project is that by having watched these projects before ITSAY, I can somewhat predict what the journey of chaos, by way of internal revelation, will be for these characters.
However.
What ITSAY DESTROYED for me, as compared to these dramas and movies, was the high level of acting that Billkin leveraged to get Teh to the emotional levels that he reached. Teh, episode 4, and Thun, episode 5 = handshakes.
This is where ITSAY’s structure just brings ITSAY to the top of the cinematic list and runs away from everything else. I posted in my liveblogging that the ending of episode 3 blew me away with a subversion of the four-act structure of screenwriting. @bengiyo corrected me to say that it was, instead, a rare example of Thai BLs achieving a successful five-act structure.
Just -- fuck.
You combine this UTTERLY FUCKING BRILLIANT STORYTELLING STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE STRUCTURING PAR FUCKING EXCELLENCE, ALONG WITH BILLKIN’S PORTRAYAL OF TEH IN HEAT AND CHAOS, and I’m eating, fam. Five-star Michelin tasting menu-level.
But before I start that meal, there’s even more that ITSAY did to really hammer in what I’m referencing by way of the anchors of old-fashioned culture to this story, which, clearly, Boss and Nadao Bangkok value, in the show’s indirect commentary on Chinese culture and migration in Thailand, and what it meant for Teh and Oh-aew to grow up in Phuket and prepare to leave for Bangkok. (If you haven’t watched ITSAY, I highly recommend that you plan on watching the supplementary documentary material, because those docs give a ton of insight into the Thai-Malay-Chinese background of the show. As a SE Asian homey, those revelations gave me the wonderful warm and familiar vibes.)
Dear @telomeke (I don’t know what I’d do without you, friend!) helped me to understand, back in my HCTM days, that I inherently know more about Chinese migration, immigration, and culture into Southeast Asia than I previously gave myself credit for as a part-Malaysian, because many of the migratory patterns and cultural assimilations are similar between Thailand and Malaysia. I appreciated that confirmation, and had my inspector’s hat on during my watch and rewatch of ITSAY.
I’ve spoken with @lurkingshan and @neuroticbookworm about the impact of migration and diasporic existence, in that, I think, oftentimes, immigrants to another country often hold a more conservative view of the cultures they bring with them -- in order to hold onto the tenets of those cultures, and to keep those tenets from getting influenced or maybe even watered down by the new environment in which immigrants are living. (My example to Shan and NBW was that I find that South Asian immigrants are often MORE conservative than my relatives in my homelands -- so as to keep a tight grip on assimilation, or, say, moral/ethical weakening by way of Western culture.)
I think the background of Phuket and EVERYTHING it lent to the show...
- Teh’s mom selling Hokkien mee at a stall storefront and the boys eating it in Teh’s old-fashioned house,
- The old-fashioned o-aew dessert shop, selling a Hokkien Chinese dessert, which is often preceded by a shot of the “Phuket Old Town” sign,
- Teh’s mom’s traditional Chinese-Peranakan outfits, particularly when she’s celebrating Teh and Hoon’s successes,
- The tight streets and alleys,
...all of it, visually and culturally, reminded us that the boys live in a world that was DEEPLY INFLUENCED by the way back when. I posit that Teh’s mom is the encapsulation of this kind of old-fashioned culture, from the architectural style of her Hokkien mee stall, to the clothes she wears, to the heavy decorations and rugs and furniture of her old-fashioned house -- to her old-fashioned notions of filial piety that both her sons will be successful and will help to take care of her as she ages. I posit that this old-fashioned mindset also likely led Teh to believe that Teh’s mom would not accept him for liking men, which I will delve into more in a bit.
I mentioned cultural assimilation earlier: I brought up Penang, Malaysia, earlier, because I’ve spent time in Penang -- and Penang was referenced by Boss in the ITSAY documentaries as being similar to Phuket by way of cultural structure. @telomeke educated me on the tin-trade-influenced links from Phuket to the Malaysian towns of Penang and Kuala Lumpur, all towns that experienced heavy immigration from China and feature the strong presence of Chinese-Malay-Peranakan cultures in their social fabrics. The Peranakan population developed when the first Chinese immigrants to these regions began marrying the local ethnic Thai and Malay residents, creating a brand-new culture, complete with unique foods, clothing, architecture, and much more.
Having not been to Phuket yet, I believe Boss. As well, I want to note -- very important to me as a part-Malaysian -- that Boss referenced Teh’s nickname as the Malay word for tea. @telomeke noted for me this distinction as one that’s notable for how ITSAY differentiates the culture within the show -- again, a culture that’s influenced by Chinese and Malay migratory history -- against the backdrop of Bangkok, where tea is not “teh,” but rather is called “cha,” the Thai word for tea. [The most famous “teh” drink of Malaysia is teh tarik, a sweet, creamy, and strong tea drink that you see everywhere in Malaysia. While o-aew is a distinctly Chinese-style dessert, teh tarik comes from Indian immigrants to Malaysia (and is usually drunk with roti canai, another Indian import to Malaysia)].
In other words: we are talking a TREMENDOUS, a TREMENDOUS amount of references to cultural mixing, development, and assimilation here, all INTENTIONALLY placed by Boss Narubet and his screenwriting team -- and all of this serving as a reflection against what Teh and Oh-aew will experience as being “different” in their futures in Bangkok, where this Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural differential will make them different when they get to college. (Not having seen I Promised You The Moon yet, I wonder if IPYTM sets up Teh and Oh-aew as potential country mice, à la Ji Hyun and Joon Pyo in The Eighth Sense.)
One more pertinent note of cultural intermixing by way of the historical Thai-Chinese-Malay linkages. @bengiyo was surprised that I didn’t initially exclaim at the presence of hijab- and songkok-clad Muslim women and men eating at Teh’s mom’s Hokkien mee stall; Teh and Oh-aew’s friend, Phillip, is also shown with his Muslim parents. It’s funny, @bengiyo, as I said to you: because I was watching ITSAY with such a trained eye towards spotting the Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural mixing, seeing Muslims on screen did NOT ring a bell of differentials because -- I expect to see them there, in those kinds of spaces, anyway. (In fact, seeing Muslims on Thai television is rare, which I will get into more in the postscript.)
So we have: MANY CULTURES MIXING OVER MANY GENERATIONS. Migratory patterns intertwining. Indications of physical and emotional movement. And even though, and even DESPITE, these cultures mixing, we ALSO HAVE an OVERARCHING message of old-fashioned customs and ways of living that dominate the lives of the children in the show -- ESPECIALLY Teh. Teh and Oh-aew -- literally, their NAMES reference places ELSEWHERE than Phuket and Thailand. Phuket’s old-fashioned roots. Teh’s mom SELLS a dish that comes from somewhere else (the Hokkien Chinese population mostly hails from Fujian, China, as its origin).
What happens with migration and immigration? Cultures collide and combine -- social mores and expectations change -- one’s standards of HOW TO LIVE ONE’S LIFE changes.
Teh and Oh-aew, during the entire series, are facing a moment in time where THEIR lives, THEIR cultures, THEIR micro-interactions WITH THEIR cultures, ARE GOING TO CHANGE, definitively, by way of their burgeoning same-sex relationship. Teh and Oh-aew are already different in Thailand by way of their cultural backgrounds, as I’ve established -- and now, with a potential public revelation of their relationship, will they be even more different. And their families -- especially Teh’s mom, but Oh-aew’s family as well -- are going to collide with the very PRESENT present vis à vis their boys and their love.
As this happens with migration and immigration, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN vis à vis Teh and Oh-aew’s queer revelations as well.
Boss focused on the aspects of Phuket that were anchors to the culture that Teh and Oh-aew were raised in -- an immigrant culture, a migrant culture from China, that has had a long hold over many, many towns and societies in Thailand. We didn’t see the modern 7-11s that we know are there in Phuket, serving the tourists of these towns.
And, just like the physical dystopia of Dew, and even vis à vis the spiritual practices built into He’s Coming To Me, the slice of Old Town Phuket that we SAW as that anchor was a HEAVY PRESENCE in Teh’s life -- it was PERFECTLY matched with the old-fashioned, conservative ANGER and DISAPPOINTMENT that we saw in Teh’s mom in episode 4, when Teh shares that he dropped out of university for Oh-aew. That anchor, to me, was meant to SMASH into, FEED into Teh’s overwhelming emotionality at his queer revelation, and at the revelation that serving his mother via filial piety would be automatically made more difficult, thus maximizing the impact of his internalized homophobia and his fear of recognizing his love and attraction for Oh-aew.
COUPLE THAT with the previous hints -- and then the SMASHING WRECKING BALL -- of the visual depths of Oh-aew’s own realizations earlier in episode 4, his own internally different place, the way he reveals himself to the world vis à vis the fast Instagram post of him wearing the red bra. And how Teh reacts to it. And how it sets off such an unreal chain of emotional unraveling for Teh, the SECOND of that episode, even before he goes to Bangkok to drop out.
WHOA.
THIS, TO ME
WAS
FUCKING
STUNNING
and very important to me to see as a South/Southeast Asian. WHEW.
And, good lord. How Hoon comes in at the end for Teh. Hoon, the eldest son, the one who has very quietly borne the financial responsibility that his mom, Teh’s mom, too, has placed on Hoon’s shoulders, naturally, through generations of family custom. (Super duper thanks to @lurkingshan for talking me through this in detail with me.)
And Hoon gives his family, his little bro, Teh, comfort. How Hoon says, listen. Mom’s gonna be mad if and when you tell her about Oh-aew and your feelings for me. But guess what? She’s gonna come around. You’re a crybaby, Teh, but I’m here for you.
Hoon knows that Teh’s mom will come around -- because Hoon is also a part of the next generation of change, much like his Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan community before him -- as he brings his Japanese girlfriend home to his mother and brother. (THANK YOU, @wen-kexing-apologist, for pointing this out!)
Teh’s mom, too, will move. She will move from her old-fashioned mindset, to migrate to a new mindset, where she will accept her son. Teh needed to hear that, to know that that movement would be possible.
Just like the movement of the many swirling cultures around Teh and Oh-aew, the hustle of Bangkok before them, nipping at their lives like the ocean to the beach.
What ITSAY captured for me was a cinematic moment of movement on so many levels. It was a pulsating reflection of change. It was meant and designed to insidiously shock viewers out of complacency. Like a beanstalk climbing from the ground, the movement begot movement to these two young men beginning to address and empty themselves of the homophobia that kept them back, Teh especially.
GAH, THEIR MOVING PHYSICALITY, IT NEVER STOPPED -- the end of episode 2 on the boat, the end of episode 3 in Teh’s room, GAWD -- Teh’s ABSOLUTE HORMONAL DRUNKENNESS, Oh-aew’s STARE AFTER STARE AFTER STARE, Oh-aew’s SILENT DEVASTATION AT THE END OF EPISODE 3, the way Teh would nod and FLOP his head uncontrollably in desire, the nuzzles, the sniffs, the uncontrolled reaches -- GAH. It gives me the shivers.
It was a lot.
ITSAY was just -- y’all know it. It was fantastic. While HCTM was before its time, I feel that ITSAY was RIGHT ON TIME. It brought so many elements of this GORGEOUS, HISTORIC, culturally Southeast Asian experience into the intersection of the queer lens, as well as the *migratory* lens of the Southeast Asian region specifically. It showed us, from a micro-perspective, the very tremendous macro-level implications and pressures of filial piety, of internalized homophobia, of the huge socioeconomic expectations that families have on Asian students to succeed in education, and so much more. IT WAS *DEFINITIVELY INTERSECTIONAL*, MORE SO THAN ANY BL BEFORE ITS TIME.
Yet again, for me, just like Bad Buddy, just like Until We Meet Again, I have another show in my arsenal that makes me proud to be an Asian watching these shows -- and in ITSAY, I feel particularly proud that a slice of my own personal culture, as an Malaysian, made it in there, intentionally. I will FOREVER, and ever, be grateful to ITSAY for that.
-------
I’d like to offer this postscript as a means of making some quick points that @telomeke, @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, and @wen-kexing-apologist shared with me as I was writing this review -- and I thank them all deeply for reading drafts of this post before publication.
1) I was previously unaware of the history and current state of Islamic culture in Thailand until ITSAY and Be My Favorite included women wearing hijabs in their shows. This is an important slice of culture for me to know about, as I’m part-Malaysian, where Islam is the dominant religion. @telomeke shared with me that the majority Muslim population in Thailand is in southern Thailand (although, of course, Muslims live across Thailand), and that there have historically been separatist efforts in those southern provinces that have often led to violence.
There are many reasons why discrimination of Muslims exist in Thailand, as it does around the world, including references to the separatist efforts in the southern provinces. As well, ethnic Thais can trace their heritage back to various towns and communities within China, thus possibly making northern Thailand, with its proximity to China, potentially more lauded in Thai culture, and contributing even more to a perception that southern Thailand, with its Muslim population, as potentially “less desirable.” (And I want to take a second to note @telomeke‘s excellent point to me that “Chinese” as a catch-all word is often incomplete, as Han Chinese make up a sizable portion of Thailand’s population, but as we see in ITSAY, the Hokkien Chinese population also flourishes in certain parts of the country, and there are populations of Teochew and Hakka Chinese as well, as there are in Malaysia.)
All of this combined -- the geographic proximities to China, the places where various populations have settled, from the places that various populations of Thais track their heritages, plus global and/or popular misconceptions and stereotypes of “other” communities -- can contribute to discrimination of Muslims in Thailand. Of course, that is not a universal statement, as we do see Muslims beginning to show up in Thai drama art, which is heartening. To me, it strikes me as more realistic for the region to see Muslims on screen, but I don’t know Thailand well enough to say that for sure (that’s my Malaysian-side talking). I really want to thank @telomeke for taking me on SUCH a deep dive with insight into this part of Thai culture that I think is very necessary and fascinating. (Politics in Thailand is quite complicated at the moment, but at this very second, Thailand’s current Parliament speaker, from the Move Forward party, is Thai Muslim, with a Malay Muslim name -- Wan Muhamed Noor Matha. Very cool, but this is going to change soon, as Move Forward will make way for another political party to take control of the government.)
2) If you know me well enough, I cannot leave food well enough alone in our wonderful dramas (exhibit A: Moonlight Chicken and khao man gai, exhibit B: coffee/kopi in The Promise, lol), and I want to make sure that we were all aware back in 2020, and/or make you aware now, that Hokkien mee is a VERY regional dish, with styles unique to each town in which it is famous. @telomeke, I know you feel differently, but Hokkien mee from Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia is my.... it’s my heaven, my soul, my heart, HA!
Here’s some linkies to get you educated. And also! Oh-aew prefers his Hokkien mee with rice vermicelli noodles, instead of the usual, thicker egg noodles. You know what I like to do if I see that a stall has the two styles of noodles available: I like to get them mixed together. Hokkien mee, Hokkien prawn mee noodle soup, curry laksa -- I like the best of both worlds of noodles in my bowl. YUM.
Phuket Hokkien mee
KL Hokkien mee
Penang Hokkien mee (this one is the prawn noodle soup, not the fried noodles -- omfg so good)
Singapore Hokkien mee (note the lighter color -- and the m’fing mix of thick and thin noodles, hell yeah!)
(If you made it this far in the ITSAY review, I have an easter egg for you. Guess what the Malay name is for rice vermicelli noodles? Bee hoon or mee hoon.
Hoon and Teh, two Malay names: thin noodles and tea. What Teh’s mom serves at her stall, and what Teh and Oh-aew represent, symbolically, by names and their noodle preferences, as a pairing. AND! @telomeke gave me one more easter egg! Teh O is a popular way to order tea in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s black tea with sugar, no milk. Another pairing reference. ITSAY never stopped with all the layered references!)
[WHEW! What a ride. Thanks to all y’all who held me down during my losing-it liveblogging of ITSAY. More to come when I get to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.
Next week, I’ll release my review of YYY into the wild -- listen, honestly. Yes, chaos, confusion, all of it. But I am not writing this show totally off. There was definitely stuff in it to chew on. And: POPPY RATCHAPONG. And Pee Peerawich. The acting was actually stacked on this show. There’s stuff! More soon.
And I also finished Manner of Death, so that review will drop in two weeks. I LOVE MAXTUL. UNABASHEDLY. Yes, I know I’m years late, yes, I know Tul is retired, sobs. Let me live my 2021 dreams! These guys are so good together, and MoD was fuckin’ great.
I have so much good stuff on the way: I’m fully in my ATOTS rewatch, and I’ve added 55:15 Never Too Late, very specifically its BL storyline. I may not give 55:15 a full review because I’ll fast-watch the rest of it, but: Khao, come to me, boo-boo! I have an INSANE August ahead of me as I’ll be moving in a month (GAH), but hopefully this schedule won’t fall back too much.
Status of the listy! Hit me up if you have feedback!
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)
19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review coming)
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) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]
#i told sunset about you#i told sunset about you meta#itsay#itsay meta#tehoh#teh x oh aew#teh x oh#oh x teh#oh aew x teh#billkin putthipong#pp krit#boss naruebet#nadao bangkok#chinese migration to thailand#chinese migration to the malay peninsula#history of the peranakans#peranakan#peranakans#hokkien mee#muslim population in thailand#turtles catches up with old gmmtv#turtles catches up with thai BLs#turtles catches up with the essential BLs#the old gmmtv challenge#ogmmtvc
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I love the conversations in ITSAY that are about things other than what they seem
And the scene where Teh and Ohaew float in the ocean, before having their first kiss underwater, really struck me in particular.
First we get Teh's perspective:
"This feels good. I don't have to think about anything. I want to stay this way.
I love it when the seawater touches my back. I feel like something is holding me up."
Teh doesn't want to think. He's hiding from all the thoughts he's been having, avoiding self-reflection and putting a name to his feelings. We see that in the next part of this scene, when Ohaew pushes for definition and confirmation and Teh can't say anything more specific than "Isn't it nice, what we have now?" When Ohaew first reveals his feelings for Teh in the hammock, and indicates he knows Teh likes him too, Teh doesn't actually say anything, he just doesn't contradict or protest what Ohaew says. Teh doesn't say aloud he likes Ohaew until the last episode, while talking to his brother, and we can see how difficult that is for him.
In the ocean, laying like that, Teh doesn't have to put in work. The saltwater supports him, keeps him afloat. Why change what's already comfortable? Why dive into the unknown (break up with Tarn, confess to Ohaew, etc.) when he can keep doing what he is doing.
Teh feels like he's drowning, body contorting, breathing deeply like his lungs haven't had air in too long. He reaches out for Ohaew whenever he can, gulps lungfuls of his scent, anything to get close to him, but he won't take the plunge and vocalize his feelings.
I think it speaks to Teh's relationship with others and especially his mother too - he says "I love it when the seawater touches my back. I feel like something is holding me up." Teh is so concerned with what the people in his life would think if he reveals his feelings for Ohaew and dates him. When he is spilling his heart to his brother about Ohaew in episode 5 he says "If I date him, how can I tell my friends? All my friends date girls" and "If I dated a guy, would [Ma] be ok? What would Ma think of that?" He fears losing his support network, the people who "hold him up," if he is honest and takes the plunge to confess to Ohaew.
So as a result, Teh chooses silence and stagnation. He doesn't verbalize to Ohaew his feelings (despite signaling them in all his gestures and actions), he doesn't break up with Tarn or tell her how conflicted he is (beyond saying "I'm confused"), he tells Ohaew he wants things to stay the same between them. It's easier to remain, at least outwardly, the same Teh he's always been - heterosexual - rather than change his understanding of himself and update others on who he is now.*
When Teh visits Tarn's house to ask if she still loves him, desperate to find some sort of proof, a reason, to forget all the feelings he's been having about Ohaew and return to a (heterosexual) normal with Tarn, she challenges him to tell her he loves her back. She yells "SAY IT!", a desperate plea to have Teh vocalize the thoughts and feelings he's been having - but he doesn't, just like he doesn't say anything to Ohaew. "It's your turn" she says, and I'm sure Ohaew would yell the same. They are tired of being the ones thinking and talking and taking the risks - it's Teh's turn to take the plunge. "Why are you so quiet?" Tarn asks. "Why are you doing this?" and it's true, Teh is only hurting himself and the people he loves by choosing to float, unthinking, unchanging, staying where he is.
Now for Ohaew's perspective:
"But you need to hold your breath all the time with this posture. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable.
And when I don't want to control anything, I release my breath, and let myself sink."
Ohaew points out that Teh's approach isn't as relaxing as he makes it out to be. It still takes work to float, even in saltwater. You have to tense your body and hold your breath to stay above the waves. And we've seen that in Teh, how tense he is, how he writhes around as if desperate for release but he can't quite reach it.
In contrast, Ohaew says when this existence gets uncomfortable, you have to surrender to the waves. Stop trying to hold on even when it's causing pain and relinquish control. Ohaew has many things he is stressed about, like his grades, making his parents proud, getting into university, etc. but there's many things he is more comfortable with than Teh. He seems confident in his sexuality (he knows he's into boys, has no fear at confessing to Teh his crush on Bas, dates Bas openly, etc.), he share his life with others freely on Instagram, he studies but asks for rest days, etc. He takes the plunge and tells Teh he has feelings for him and that he knows Teh has feelings for him too. He's often the first to reach out for Teh and move into his space, directly challenge the boundaries of platonic friendship.
In fact, times when Ohaew is least comfortable are times with Teh: when he waits for Teh to open up about his feelings, when Teh pushes him away, when Teh says he wants to continue as friends, when Ohaew considers how he can't change for Teh.
So Ohaew relinquishes control: he can't change how Teh feels and acts, so he lets Teh go and tries to move on with Bas. He's still caught up in his feelings for Teh (especially since he knows they are reciprocated but Teh is unwilling and unable to step into the unknown) but he's trying to move on, let the tide take him where it would, find happiness elsewhere.
This conversation floating in the ocean tells us where they are coming from, and the next bit shows us where they end up:
Ohaew puts it out there: he tells Teh how he feels, he initiates non-platonic contact, he pushes Teh to open up as well. Teh fights it, tries to remain floating "effortlessly" on the surface, keeping everything just the way it always has been, though the water keeps pulling him under and he's been holding his breath for months.
Ohaew practices what he preaches and surrenders to the waves, takes the plunge, and, after a moment, Teh follows.
*side note to say this reminds me of some of the thoughts I've had about Tinn from MSP (here) and how it can be hard to challenge other people's expectations and preconceived notions of you even if they don't quite fit anymore
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I Told Sunset About You Rewatch Ep 1 Stray Thoughts
We're doing a retrospective for @the-conversation-pod soon, so I want to get a rewatch in (I think this is my sixth) before we record. Figured it might be fun to jot ideas down.
Let me just say that the quality of the opening song still hits like a ton of bricks right as this starts. I had not experienced something like that before.
Telling us from the first scene that it's always been about Oh-aew.
RIP LINE TV. Pour one out.
Thinking about Teh's relationship with his mom this time, she was praising Teh for making it into this school with high marks.
Oh we finally know what MoRaoYuLok means! (We look so funny)
Skyline is just such an affecting song.
I often forget that the first float we saw was with the young actors.
Really like the camera zooming in on Teh after Oh agrees to play Yongjian. We've seen them in frame together for about four minutes of the friendship montage, and now Teh suddenly feels alone.
The tragedy of their breakup hits every time. You can see it coming immediately as soon as Oh is selected and Teh tries his best to support him through the play.
I often think about how Teh wasn't even selected to play a tree in the play.
Oh, Teh, he was always in the wrong when it came to Oh. Oh hoped they could share a passion together and Teh only saw someone stepping on his dream.
Hello again, Tuty the Homophobic Dog.
Oh, Teh, why do you have to get salty about your mom praising your brother for being able to help you afford school?
Tarn, you will regret telling Teh to go after someone else because you don't want him to waste his time waiting for you.
I love the bass beats at the mention of Oh-aew.
Sometimes you briefly forget how beautiful PP Krit is, and then you see him again and you're like, "Right, I didn't imagine that."
Gosh, Teh was always petty.
Very sad foreshadowing about Teh later waking up early to study with Oh.
This whole scene of The deciding to mess with his hair is almost Japanese in styling. It's rare in Thai shows where they hold a shot and let the actors enter and exit the frame, trusting the audience to remember where things are.
Lol, Teh is so embarrassing sometimes. Even the teacher had to call him out about the hair.
I'm still fond of Khunpol's acting as Bas after all this time. He was new to Nadao at the time and was very nervous to work so closely with PP.
He's always good at saying things to hurt Oh, but then instantly regrets it.
Oh, Bas. If it could have been you it would have been you so easily.
I sometimes wish we'd dug more into Oh's family relationship, because it feels like Teh often said things that reminded Oh of his dad.
Truly this is a beautiful shot of all of MoRaoYuLok together. Teh positioned between Bas and Oh is exquisite.
The score for this show really is just so fantastic. Underlines every moment beautifully.
Billkin is really beautiful when he has to show sympathy for PP's character crying.
PP's legs? Undefeated. Closest challenger was Todd Techit.
Goddamn these two make each other ugly cry so easily. Even on this gorgeous beach!
Poor Bas. He noticed so early.
Oh always cuts to the emotional core of their problems.
Billkin's eyebrows are doing so much work.
Ending on what Teh might say to Oh from the interview and having him not exactly say those things to Oh? Crushing.
Ke Yi Ma? Ke Yi.
Billkin singing Skyline just blasts you at the end. My goodness.
Something that still surprises me each time I come back to this is how much these boys cry at each other about each other. Normally you'd expect some kind of machismo or gender dynamic where one of them is maybe stoic, but no, these two know each other too well for that. Their relationship just feels so huge. Really the only other two characters that have close to this feeling are Pat and Pran, and Our Song explicitly asks if it's okay if they're not as huge as something like this.
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2023 BL/GL/QL Round-Up Post
I thought for posterity I'd post a reflection on everything I watched that completed in 2023. For me, that means anything that started in 2022 but the last episode was in 2023 is on this list, but anything that will still be airing after 31 December 2023 11:59 my time (EST) is not on this list, even if the bulk of the show did air in 2023.
A few stats:
110 discrete pieces of content (series/films)
clocking in at est. 600 hours of NEW BL/GL content only
from 9 different countries (Cambodia [1], Philippines [3], Hong Kong [1], Japan [18], Korea [19], Myanmar [1], Taiwan [6], Thailand [56], Vietnam [7])
~50% of the content I watched on this list is from Thailand
~85% of my content was on YouTube [40%], GaGaOoLaLa [23%] and iQIYI [21%].
[Note that this year a lot of older GMMTV shows moved off of YouTube and onto Viki so if you're looking at these stats to decide what to pay for, this won't account for that.]
This doesn't include re-watches or catching up on old shows [e.g. I re-watched Love Sick, My Ride the Series, Semantic Error, ITSAY/IPYTM, Our Dating Sim at least 3 times lol, and anything with a s2 I re-watched s1 to prep, among others, watched Fujoshi Ukkari Gei no Kokuru (2019) for the first time] or non-QL [e.g. Heartstopper s2, Our Flag Means Death s2, Taskmaster s. 15 & 16, Uncanny Counter s2, One Piece s1, etc.] but does include films as well as shows, though I don't count special episodes separately (so Wedding Plan counts once, though I watched both the show and the special).
I hope you all appreciate that with this much content, and with my general brand of being unable to make decisions, I really struggled to narrow down a top 10 list. What follows is the best I could do lol
Top 20 Shows I'd Recommend From This Year:
Moonlight Chicken
Our Dating Sim
Bed Friend
The Eighth Sense
La Pluie
Sing My Crush
Tokyo in April Is...
Wedding Plan
Laws of Attraction
I Cannot Reach You
I Feel You Linger in the Air
What Did You Eat Yesterday S2
I Became the Lead in a BL Drama
If It's With You
Love in Translation
Our Dining Table
My Personal Weatherman
My Beautiful Man: Eternal
My School President
Be My Favorite
+10 I liked but I would only recommend with caveats:
Love Class 2
The New Employee [for the Rainbow Rice Cakes]
Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru
Never Let Me Go
Kiseki: Dear to Me
Unintentional Love Story
The Day I Loved You
End of the World with You
A Breeze of Love
Jack O'Frost
Bonus: Not a BL but worth calling out:
One Room Angel
Midnight Museum
Grand Guignol
The Warp Effect
Sadly, of the GLs that aired this year, I wouldn't recommend any of them. The best one was Show Me Love, which was not actually good but had very gorgeous women and a LOT of flirting.
The other huge thing that happened this year was that I stopped lurking! Thanks specifically to @lurkingshan and @bengiyo demanding everyone start talking about La Pluie, because they got me to post my first meta post. And because I started actually talking to people, I started making actual friends, and participated in organizing things like the Be My Favorite clown checkpoint for ep 11. I also disappeared a month because of life, and am still catching up on everything I intended to write this year. But it's been really rewarding finding this corner of tumblr with likeminded people who like good shows, like to think about these shows, and who are interested in talking about them in a way that's insightful and respectful.
It's been a long time since I felt comfortable enough participating actively in a fandom, and I just want to say to everyone I've interacted with this year: Thank you!
Full list under the cut for anyone curious! [Mostly in order it aired but may be slightly off].
Love Bill
Director Who Buys Me Dinner, The
Star Always Follow You, The
Cutie Pie 2 You
Between Us the Series (Hemp Rope)
Reason Why He Fell in Love with Me Special & S2 [international release]
New Employee, The
I Will Hit You/I Will Knock You
Individual Circumstances
609 Bedtime Story
GAPYuri / GAP the series
My School President
HitBiteLove the Series
Never Let Me Go
Moonlight Chicken
History 5: Love in the Future
Oh My God (ToDo) the Series
Warp Effect, The
End of the World, With You
My Blessing the Series
Our Winter (miniseries)
All the Liquors
Once in Memory: Let Me Be Yours
Shoulder to Cry On, A
Jack O'Frost
Our Dating Sim
Midnight Museum
Me, My Husband, and My Husband's Boyfriend
My Colleague at BL Shop might be My Meant-to-Be
Unintentional Love Story
Chains of Heart
Bed Friend the series
Bad Brother the Series
Stormy Honeymoon
Eighth Sense, the
Bad Brother the Series
Future Series
Tin Tam Jai the series
Crush on You
House of Stars the Series
Happy Merry Ending
Boss and a Babe, A
Pastsenger the Series
Love Mate
Love Syndrome the Series
Promise the Series, The
Day I Loved You, The
Our Dining Table (Bokura no Shokutaku)
Our Skyy 2
My Story the Series
Starstruck
Love Tractor
Naked Dining
Luminous Solution, The
Omai Series / Is My Roommate A Foreigner
Stupid Genius
Step By Step
La Pluie the series
Tie the Not
Sing My Crush / Follow the Wind
Tokyo in April Is .../ Shigatsu no Tokyo wa
Senior Love Me?
Be My Favorite
Show Me Love
Dinosaur Love
Low Frequency
Stay Still
Stay By My Side
Jun & Jun
Wedding Plan the Series
Laws of Attraction, the
Love Class s2
Minato's Laundromat S2
Hidden Agenda
Bon Appetit
Why RU the Series [Korean adaptation]
Be Mine Superstar
Star, The Season 2
Love In Translation
My Beautiful Man: Eternal
My Personal Weatherman
Bump Up Business
Naughty Babe Series
Only Friends
Grand Guignol
Dangerous Romance
If It's With You / Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite Mo
Y Journey: Stay Like a Local
I Feel You Linger in the Air
Venus in the Sky
Kiseki: Dear to Me
I Cannot Reach You
You Are Mine
Breeze of Love / Weather Forecast of Love
Mr. Cinderella 2
Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru
One Room Angel
Marry My Dead Body
Lucky My Love the Series
Pure Vanilla: Recipe for Romance
Absolute Zero
Memories, The
My Dear Gangster Oppa
Shadow
What Did You Eat Yesterday? S2
Middleman Love
Beyond the Star
Bake Me Please
You and My Stars
I Became the Lead in a BL Drama
#2023 round-ups#bl meta#multi bl#typed so i can stop thinking it#twig talks#top lists are so hard for me this is the best I could do#if anyone wants to know anything about any of these shows feel free to ask!#best of bl 2023#long post
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If y'all don't stop tagging me in "list your favorite ________" challenges, I swear.....(kidding)
You know I'm indecisive and that the second I'm asked questions like this everything I have ever known or loved just falls right out of my head :'(
ANYWAY. I was tagged by @colourme-feral to name 9 favorite TV series. Nine? Not ten? Alright, whatever. Now presenting, in no particular order
wen-kexing-apologist's Top Nine Favorite TV Series
I think, much like last time where I listed my ten favorite characters AND THEN LEFT OUT PIKE MOTHERFUCKING DEXTER LIKE A GODDAMN NOOB I can't be certain I am forgetting one that I cherish greatly.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
I'm putting this first because A:TLA was a show I watched live in my youth and I remember running the hating Zuko to loving Zuko gauntlet in real time.
But seriously, you can't give me the single greatest redemption arc written in human history and not expect me to cradle this show close to my chest for the rest of my life.
There are so many shows we grow up with that we remember fondly and that in the grand scheme of things aren't that good, protected by young minds and nostalgia AND THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM.
Seriously my poor mother has had to listen to hours worth of rambling about the incredibly strong adult themes, three dimensional characters, and conversations around war and the portrayal of no one society as inherently evil from both of her children.
This is my boy and I will love him until the end of time, I'm sorry that I hated you when we first met. In my defense the narrative compelled me to do so.
Sense8
Queer, sex positive, beautifully crafted, orgies as a symbol of human connection, the way the world is so small and that people from all over the world have skills that are valuable, that save lives, that are needed and necessary. Humanity and complexity given to people involved in the drug trade, humanity and complexity given to drug users, humanity and complexity given to gang members, humanity and complexity given to prisoners. Love, loss, tragedy, trauma, trans joy, throuple, couple and whatever the fuck Daniella is doing, one really good weed brownie curing transphobia.
The ending wasn't perfect but that isn't the Wachowski Sister's fault, it was Netflix's fault.
I Told Sunset About You/I Promised You The Moon
This show, especially I Told Sunset About You, may be the single most emotional a show has ever made me. I think I cried four times per episode for ITSAY, the only time I didn't cry four times was Episode 3, where foolishly I made it through 98% of the episode went "this edible ain't shit I don't know why everyone is so emo about Ep 3, it's been the most mild so far" AND THEN FUCKING BAM
Teh with the steel fucking chair!
When I tell you I spent hours, numb, staring up at the ceiling?? It's not an exaggeration.
When I tell you I thought about this scene for more than three and immediately burst into tears??? It's not an exaggeration.
This show altered my brain chemistry, this show altered my DNA, this show was so fucking good and ruined me so thoroughly that I wasn't even able to make my brain come up with things to analyze.
in this show, WHERE THERE IS SO MUCH THERE TO ANALYZE. I am making a friend watch it right now so I'm hoping I will have more to contemplate and talk about as I rewatch it now that the emotional impact has softened.
Moonlight Chicken
Look no further than my Gay Meta Masterpost pinned to my page to understand why I love this show so much. It is gorgeous, it handles the subject of disability well, it's the show that got me to start posting meta and as a result it is the show that got me all the friends I have on tumblr now.
This show is perfect, the acting is spectacular, the inherent queerness that runs through the narrative, THE LIGHTING. Aof knocked it out of the motherfucking park with this one.
The Eclipse
Folks let me tell you what happens when you go from Not Me to The Eclipse...
you fall desperately in love with First Kanaphan Puitrakul and his masterful acting ability. I love this show so much. P'Golf had things to say and she was not afraid to say it. The queer characters got to be complex and messy and wrong sometimes, none of the main characters were morally superior, they all contributed to maintaining the system, they all helped harm other queer people. This show was made with pocket change and a dream and it gave me two of my favorite kisses in BL, one of my favorite stories in BL, and my sweet summer child
my beloved Baby War Criminal who is my favorite character ever in BL. Look at him. He is under so much pressure. GOD I LOVE THIS SHOW. And I love Thua too.
Our Flag Means Death
Setting aside the problematic fans, I watched this show eleven times. It was one of the only shows I'd seen where every couple was queer, I love how gradually the writing team was able to move this show from comedy to something more serious, I love the way Stede returned home only to find that he had been forever changed, I love the way Blackbeard was on his way to grieving and healing with healthy coping mechanisms, and the commentary the show gave on how exposure to toxic masculinity and internalized/externalized homophobia (in the form of Izzy) can alter that course. I love that traditional roles and expectations are subverted in this show. That Pete and Lucius are in love, that Olu gets thrown around by Jim, that the show allows for an older queer person to both realize his sexuality and experience his first queer love.
And also
it introduced me to one of the first nonbinary characters I had seen on screen. Jim Jimenez you can murder me whenever you wish, it would be my absolute honor.
What We Do in The Shadows
For one, it's hilarious
For two, Jackie Daytona exists.
For three
It gave me Guillermo de la Cruz, the sexiest motherfucker alive.
The Owl House
Queer, neurodivergent representation????? In my TV show??????? A main plot point being around the all consuming nature of white supremacy and religious zeal. Hunter? Dear sweet, awkward, traumatized Hunter? RAINE MOTHERFUCKING WHISPERS?!
Listen, I'm a simple bitch, okay? You put an enby in my television and I will be forced to stan.
I mean look at them!
Word of Honor
*points to username*
If I didn't put WoH on here I would have to give up rights to my username.
This is the show that started me on the BL spiral and having read the novel, I have to say that I have never seen a show change a character and expand upon a story as well as Word of Honor has.
The sex appeal, the swagger, and the lowkey unsettling obsession The Scorpion King has in the TV show compared to the book?
Expert execution of fundamentally and fully changing source text. The costumes are gorgeous and the way I was driven to the brink of insanity by how gay this show was despite censorship is truly unmatched. I know censorship can dampen a queer story experience, but damned if i didn't go feral and say "I can't believe they got away with that" at every given opportunity.
And
It gave me my beloved Adult War Criminal, Wen Kexing, who as we all know, has never done anything wrong in his life, ever.
___
Bonus Round:
aka shows that I haven't or that haven't finished yet so I am contractually obligated not to put them on a list.
180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us
I have two episodes left, it is absolutely killer, and if it continues to be as strong as it is this will be a 10/10 show for me and join the ranks of my favorites. This show is driving me mad with both hands and barriers and I need everyone to know that.
La Pluie
There are three episodes left for this to go wrong which is the only reason why I haven't put it on the list. But similarly to 180 Degrees, if it continues the way it is going now this will be a 10/10 show for me and join the ranks of my favorites. I LOVE what they are doing to subvert the soulmate trope. It is a masterpiece so far and I need more people to be watching this.
Tagging:
@solitaryandwandering, @ranchthoughts, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @so-much-yet-to-learn, and @neuroticbookworm
Your choice whether to participate or not and apologies if you have already been tagged.
#atla#sense8#itsay#ipytm#moonlight chicken#the eclipse#our flag means death#the owl house#what we do in the shadows#word of honor#avatar the last airbender#mlc#toh#woh#ofmd#wwdits#la pluie#180 degree longitude passes through us#tag game
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ITSAY/IPYTM thoughts
In three parts because that's how I wrote it.
Oh-aew in a shirt which seems like the most meta English t-shirt text ever in Thai BL(ish) world (and there have been many others) but also seems like something Oh-aew would somehow own.
Part 1
I wasn’t assuming I’d have a ton to say about I Told Sunset About You. I wasn’t even planning on starting it at the particular moment I did, I just had it in mind I’d do so soonish. But wow, this drama hit me like a ton of bricks.
I tend to enjoy it when there’s a small gesture or moment onscreen that brings me back to uncertain romantic moments of young adulthood. Oddly enough, it’s often how someone leans (not kabedon-ish looming fwiw)—make of that what you will. (There’s this one moment in Between Us that hit me with something I can only describe as the world’s hardest pang.) But yikes, having so many... I guess first love feelings come up so hard and fast is really unusual and compelling, but almost too powerful for a sensitive creature such as myself. It’s certainly beautiful in an important way I think art is meant to be beautiful. But it’s less uncomplicatedly enjoyable than some things.
I don’t always have to identify with one character over another, even if one character is positioned as the protagonist of a story. I don’t always identify with anybody, though certain stories will pull me in in that way. But man, ITSAY gives me vertigo. Teh’s paradoxical mixture of obvious feeling and self-conscious reserve might normally make it so I’d be seeing things firmly from his perspective, but instead I whip back and forth between Teh and Oh in a borderline-painful way. I guess I just want so badly for them not to hurt each other.
Billkin’s left eyebrow jiggles like even Teh’s face is fidgeting nervously. At the point I’m currently at in the series, it feels like this kid is going to explode leaving only a fine mist. PP Krit is so still as Oh that it’s at least momentarily tempting to perceive him as solid, confident. But his steadiness is one of watching and waiting SO intently.
I feel like I could write an essay about the blinking alone, much less the overall category of looking. I don’t especially want to write it, but it’s there.
About midway through episode 2 I found myself kind of relieved to confirm there are only five episodes. I wanted to hurry through those most acute push & pull moments. But here I am at the beginning of episode 4 and it feels like it’s been a dang eternity.
Part 2
Back again after ending ITSAY and getting 4 1/2 episodes into IPYTM. I’m not writing about this show because I decided to do so, but because I don’t seem to have a choice. Not that I wouldn’t choose to do so, it’s just moot.
I think I’ve finally put into possibly inadequate words a thing Billkin does a lot as Teh. Sometimes his face just kind of goes... offline. He’s telegraphing despair while his face settles into a stiff mask. I find it a lot more true to life than what many actors do in similar scenes, but also very relatable in a way that’s painful! Again, in an art way. In a way that puts into practice the fact that we don’t only watch and read stories to pass time but because they help us understand ourselves. But part of me is annoyed, like a kid who’s been told to get in the car only to find they’re being taken someplace totally unforeseen and unappealing.
I find myself not wanting to explain what PP Krit is doing as much, but not because what he’s doing is less carefully crafted, certainly not because it’s less affecting. I said earlier that I was bouncing back and forth between identifying with each of them but not long after that first note of mine I stopped being able to identify with Teh very much. It might be a stretch to relate the events of this show too much to an experience of my own, but I was probably the Oh-aew in my first serious relationship, which was a very long one that was completely tied up with my entire college experience and a long first stage of adulthood.
I don’t judge Teh too harshly, but he just seems SO young. Like, younger than I may ever have been. Part of what makes this show good at what it does is that I don’t quite know what’s going on with him a lot of the time. There’s certainly a part of me that wants someone to explain what goes on in his head, but the ambiguity works for this show’s narrative style.
Maybe this will become more apparent, but am I supposed to have a strong conviction as to what Jai’s deal has been? Because that guy seems determined to give some of the most intense mixed signals I’ve ever witnessed. I feel like the director was going okay in this shot you’re in love with Teh. Okay now in this scene you feel like Teh’s kinda gross.
Honestly Teh is super gross! Billkin is a cute kid and Teh has many endearing qualities but he is a MESS. About half the time (well, half the time we see him onscreen, who knows what he does during time-jumps) the kid is barfing feelings like No-face from Spirited Away after he’s eaten nearly everybody who works at the spirit bathhouse.
I strongly suspect these characters and performances would bring up different things for people other than myself. This show is taking my personal buttons and stomping on them; presumably for others it stomps on slightly different or even opposite buttons, and for others it might trigger very little whatsoever of their own personal baggage.
Well, back to it I suppose.
Part 3
I feel less urgency now that I’ve reached the end point of the two series. Which is good for me but it means I have less to say at this point.
I’m very curious as to how a rewatch of these two series would feel to me. At first I thought a rewatch might be great—often that way I can relax and appreciate things more, since I’m not distracted by suspense as much. But I could just as easily wind up dreading certain moments. So many public scenes, yall. So much shame being experienced!
I would like to take a short moment to appreciate Hoon. His mom-pleasing powers may have complicated things for Teh, but it was such a relief to me that he was a sweetheart and a good brother.
I’m glad there’s a happy ending but I’m relieved Oh-aew got several chances to be resentful. (Not that I would have been unhappy with some less-than-happy endings. Too happy an ending would have been odd tonally anyway for this show.) I’m pretty sure I laughed out loud when Oh-aew was like but this time if you have a problem can you tell me and we can talk about it?
I was so glad Tarn got a little cameo at the end. It felt like giving her her due. Recognizing how that moment made me feel makes me realize how much I appreciate Tarn having interiority and agency as a character.
In other news, maybe I’m now one step closer to being able to see Na Naphat onscreen without immediately thinking of him as Tawan from Kinnporsche. And usually saying “f*cking Tawan!” in my head. It hasn’t happened yet, but I hope to get there. I’m sorry Na Naphat, I guess that performance was almost too good.
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I know you’ve kinda posted abit about this but do you not think it’s strange how tinn was thinking about printing out the picture of his face like they did in bad buddy but then gun ends up doing it. Then he imagines wiping off food from his mouth to be flirty but then gun ends up doing that too. Also bringing the speaker and putting on that slow romantic song from the ballroom dance like... I think it’s showing us that gun is actually the one who is flirting and trying to get his attention.
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced. I'm so ready for Gun's POV to come back in.
On a more industry-meta note, and I've been discussing this with @bengiyo, I think we're really starting to see a shift where for a long time SOTUS was the template for a lot of BL (an era I think which more or less ended with 2gether as the last real hit in that style) and Bad Buddy (plotting and casting, romcom style), ITSAY (production and direction, drama/melo style) and to a lesser extent Not Me (sociopolitical commentary) are the new templates, and I'd throw Manner of Death (adults, genre and high heat, it walked so KinnPorsche could run) in there as well.
We are getting nods in this show to the precursor pulps like Love Sick, which actually made me realise we don't actually have a TON of series entirely set in high school, as much as it may feel that way because of side couples and flashbacks etc. Anyway, MSP's got some of that DNA, and some from the first wave, specifically 2gether, but this show is so Bad Buddy-esque (they even hung a lampshade on it this ep with a sign that said MESSAGE in case you weren't sure), it SCREAMS second wave. It feels more like this has 2gether DNA because Bad Buddy also has 2gether DNA, not because 2gether is the template, if that makes sense.
Anyway I totally hijacked your ask to ramble about the way Thai BL is building a genre tradition...lol. But yes, my point was that the POV switch/secret pining all along started with 2gether, and was given a twist in Bad Buddy, and given this show has the DNA of both those shows, I expect a version of it here as well.
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Things don't have to have substance, bunch of straight shit has no substance and is still entertaining at the very least. BL should be allowed have masterpieces and... the direct opposite. Not everything has to be a work of art and it's fine for it to not be.
Not sure what the context for you hating KP is (I don't follow you and this showed up in the KP tag), but the actors can actually act and have great onscreen chemistry and that's why I personally enjoyed the show despite the flaws it has in addition to the Meta the fandom produced and the engagement the creative team allowed for the audience to have.
Can't say most of BL shows produced and their team + fandom can come up with the things the KP fandom has or had put in the effort/complexity the KP creative team has.
Most BLs have the most mediocre actors paired with the most lackluster scripts so, at least for me, it was a gem. Also, I'd been waiting for it for 2 years before it came out. *shrugs* It was different, it was mature, it stepped out of the university setting I was so mind numbingly tired of.
Sorry fandom ruined it for you. It was, for me, one of the most engaging fandoms since ITSAY and Not Me and for that, I personally liked it despite its various shortcomings.
hi anon! first of all! my main problem isn't that kp doesn't have substance per se. i agree wholeheartedly that bls should have amazing, complex, mind blowing shows but also allow room for more silly and turn-your-brain-off kinda series and everything in between. we as queer people deserve the same range of shows and reps as cishets get in their own television, but my issue with kp is that people keep acting like it was a revolutionary show. it was not! it could've been, for sure. i expected it to be, and i'll be honest and say i was completely let down by the end result because i, too, waited over 2 years for it to come out, i was really excited because i adore apo and the premise of the story seemed fantastic, but alas, amidst all the troubles this production went through, the final product did not survive and we ended up with a show much different from that very first 9 minute "teaser" that made us all enthralled in what apo and mile could offer.
to me, kp had so much potential to be a great, thought-provoking, mature show that completely deviated from everything we've been used to in thai bls, but what came of it was a contradictory plot with many many plotholes and characters that didn't make sense or added anything to the story. apo is a good actor, and so is mile, but none were phenomenal or oscar worthy as some of you try to make them out to be, and the rest of the cast was mediocre. the production crew had many issues too and the vp actors are two shitbags im not gonna waste my time on.
like. fine!!!! you can enjoy kp i don't mind!!!! just please stop putting it on this pedestal as if it was the best thing in the world. be realistic pls. it *is* exciting that it offered something totally new to the thai bl scene, yes, but that by itself doesn't grant it a gold star. the show *was* lackluster and we all know it could've been so much better had they followed that original teaser. or, hell, focused more on the actual story than on those saturated sex scenes.
as for the fandom. well. i have a lot of bones to pick with like 90% of the people who engage with kp content, but i do admit some beautiful fan work came out of it that deserves praise. but overall, a very much braindead fandom by the stuff i've come across. again, it's not like there was a lot to work with considering the changes they made to the plot (like the house porsche and his brother live in, which does not add up to the situation they are living in, when in the original teaser they lived in a very small apartment.) and most of the show was just a display of hot men that i was personally not interest in, but the lack of critical thinking and the will to overlook serious problems and situations for the sake of finding actors attractive was honestly baffling. when kinn >sexually assaulted< a drugged porsche, people thought it was cute. when vegas drugged porsche and attempted rape, he was a little meow meow. when vegas, again, kept being completely awful and disgusting with porsche and then proceeded to torture pete, it was a love story. when accusations came out that pete's actor had done terrible things, no one gave a shit because y'all are much more interested in seeing men fuck than in the wellbeing of those who he hurt. like wake the fuck up, what's wrong with you all? shows are allowed to be complex and problematic, my complaint is not that. i don't care that vegas is vile and that kinn is flawed, but i do care about how you people willingly excused their behaviours for vanity. i swear petev3gas girlies are the most repulsive people i've ever seen and i hate each and every one of them with a burning passion. it's fucking hilarious actually how many maaaaany of them are all very anti-th4rntype and m3w and "sexual violence is terrible!!!!" but were so very quick to turn the blindest of eyes to the countless awful things vegas did and have the fucking gall to root for petev3gas.
anyways. like kp if you want, but i'm sick and fucking tired of y'all holding the show to this high standard when many others are far better and more cohesive, with a much better message, characters and storylines. please develop some critical thinking skills that tiktok and twitter probably sucked out of your brains and learn to accept that not everything you like is a masterpiece and that's okay.
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hold on i’m having a Thought about Hoon.
so most of the time he comes across as unemotional and detached, if you only read his mimics. but his actions always speak such a different volume!! he gives teh the ticket to go to bangkok! he picks up teh when he’s devastated and crying and he doesn’t judge!! he gives teh the money for 2 semesters in advance!!!
but there’s more! so in ep 2 (i think) there was a little foreshadowing of his conflict with the role he’s been assigned by sui (and society in general probably, though i want to be careful about making assumptions about a society i frankly know nothing about), when sui told the guests that it’s Hoon now who is the provider for the family instead of his father. i find him a little hard to read but i got the feeling that he was sorta not comfortable with this role, or at least with being compared to teh and being set up as an example for him in this way.
but the most telling scene was when their mother yelled at teh for giving up his space for oh-aew. when sui said something along the lines of ‘why can’t you be like Hoon?’ it was Hoon himself who tried to hold her back, he didn’t want to be played against his little brother! he didn’t want to be compared to teh à la ‘Look At This Perfect Son Of Mine Who Has a Stable Job AND a Girlfriend Which You Both Apparently Lack’! and the way he hugged teh afterwards is just *SCREAM*. so honest and caring and. even though he might not know all of the circumstances he just understands. i love him your honor
so yeah idk where i was going with this but. i just think he’s neat
#i told sunset about you#itsay ep 4#itsay spoilers#[head empty only special brotherly bond between teh and hoon]#i told sunset about you 2020#itsay meta#r.txt
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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Last Twilight In Phuket and I Promised You The Moon 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 conclude my thoughts on Nadao Bangkok's trio of shows, from I Told Sunset About You, to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.]
Whew! I needed to take a quick break from the OGMMTVC slate of reviews to live life: I moved domiciles, and took myself on a therapeutic journey of rewatching the very long and intense series that is Until We Meet Again (I therapize in weird ways, fam), but anyway! Ya girl is BACK on her bullshit, and I am finally reviewing (heads-up, dear @shortpplfedup!) the utterly wonderful Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You the Moon, ending the Nadao Bangkok section of this project that started with I Told Sunset About You.
Just to take a quick 10,000-foot-look at these three shows together: repeating myself from my ITSAY review, we know that ITSAY, LTIP, and IPYTM are on the OGMMTVC list as THE prestige BLs of Thailand -- the BL dramas that likely cost the most money to make, and that took the most solid cinematic turn of any of the BLs on this list. And they are centered and cemented by the mindblowing performances of PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, who were both up for the very remarkable challenge of making theater-level content in two short series and one special episode. (For my tastes? We don't see this level of acting again until Bad Buddy -- but I'm a BBS girlie and thus very biased. But anyway!)
Forgive me as I pen this review a little differently from my previous ones where I lay out an outline, because the dominant thought I have about LTIP and IPYTM was that I will forever respect Nadao Bangkok for going in totally different directions with each piece in the ITSAY framework.
I spent a great amount of time in my ITSAY review celebrating the show's very intentional conversation about place by way of Phuket, and how the history of immigration and the demographic landscape of Phuket so very deeply influenced the layers of meaning in that show (and I thank the WONDERFUL @telomeke once more for spending so much time with me talking about this!).
As we needed a bridge from Phuket to Bangkok: I just love that Boss Naruebet, the main screenwriter and director for both ITSAY and Last Twilight in Phuket, took the time to create a singular episode in LTIP about place, and centering place for the sake of our two beloved leads, Teh and Oh-aew, in order to hammer home ever more deeply what Phuket meant to them, to Boss, and what Phuket should mean to us as the viewers.
Besides the gorgeous celebration of the spaces that meant so much to Teh and Oh-aew -- of course, what we also saw in LTIP was how time can change places. How the boys couldn't get to their special beach spot anymore because the entrance was boarded up. How their tutoring school had closed.
And that theme of change -- and the ache of change -- is, of course, what takes us right to the doorstep of I Promised You The Moon.
But before I go to Bangkok to unwind on IPYTM, I have one last thought on LTIP. In my ITSAY review, I felt the need to unwind and celebrate ITSAY's homage to Phuket as a melting pot, the meeting place of so many cultures (Thai, Chinese, Malay, Peranakan), because to me: Phuket, as a singular place, represented change at home, change from within the home and external to home. Teh's tremendous emotional outburst at the incredibly chaotic decision he made to give up his university spot for Oh-aew -- that devolvement happened literally inside of his home, a traditional Chinese-Peranakan home in multicultural Phuket.
Phuket itself represented a place where Teh could change himself, because the cultural fabric of the place of Phuket changed and changes with the nature of the people that live and breathe within Phuket. That's how immigration and migration change a place -- that's how time changes a place. I posited in my ITSAY review that that was exactly what Phuket was meant to represent as a place of home for Teh and Oh-aew: that a place that was historically and inherently built on change could sustain this very modern relationship between two young men, at least one of them (Teh) raised in an otherwise very traditional and old-fashioned Peranakan culture.
As LTIP unwound (gosh, the name cards of the places they visited, listing place names in English, just made me swoon), and we saw the boys SEEING the change of THEIR place happen before their eyes, I felt that what I was seeing was such an empathic metaphor for the steps of adulthood that they were both about to take. I totally remember taking IN the place where I grew up, one last time, before I hit the road for college. I think I was too young in that moment to put the following into words, but: I knew that the place I was leaving was never going to be the same.... in large part because the way I would see that place called home would change, as well as the place itself actually changing, and getting older itself.
From those steps of change, do we go to Bangkok and to I Promised You the Moon.
The most obvious structural change that separates IPYTM from ITSAY and LTIP is the change in the main screenwriter and director: Boss Naruebet is replaced by Meen Tossaphon.
Now -- oh man. I gotta get my thoughts together on IPYTM.
I. LOVED. I PROMISED YOU THE MOON. I. LOOOOOOOVED IT.
This is likely going to be controversial! There were many parts of IPYTM that I ended up loving more than ITSAY. Lemme get into it.
If you have been a regular around this blog, you might be able to surmise why I loved IPYTM. IPYTM did not beat around any bush -- it did not ignore the bullshit of everyday life in a relationship.
My very favorite BL of all time, What Did You Eat Yesterday?, deals with two middle-aged men in a long-established relationship. We meet them in the middle of their time together. We get all their origin material well within the series.
The wonderful @bengiyo often writes, in his Stray Thoughts posts and elsewhere, how refreshing it often is to see an established queer couple managing the quirks of their relationship as it happens. We so often watch shows that center relationships that start in a series with a queer revelation. The very high majority of our shows are about the chase, a confession, a fleeting sexual moment or two, that first kiss.
I think we were so lucky to get Teh and Oh-aew in their young adulthood, in their four years in university in IPYTM, to see a full life stage -- how AMAZING is that -- complete before our eyes.
But before I go on to talk about why I LOVED IPYTM, and why I think it's important for the OGMMTVC project, I want to explain why there were many parts of IPYTM that I liked more than ITSAY.
ITSAY had explosive emotional moments. They shook me so hardcore that I had to stop multitasking while watching the episodes, and nothing usually slows me down.
@neuroticbookworm and I have spoken, as two South Asians, about the nature of the depictions of these explosive emotional moments on the part of Teh in ITSAY. I've talked before (most recently in my review of The Love of Siam) about how important it is that Western viewers understand that while the interaction that Asian directors and screenwriters have had with Western and Western queer content is important and present (Jojo Tichakorn is revealing himself on this almost weekly as Only Friends airs) -- that there is a VERY long history of Asian content featuring non-happy endings and/or open-ended endings.
Why am I talking about non-HEAs with Teh? Because @neuroticbookworm and I both posit that ITSAY could have ended very authentically -- for the story itself, and for the region from which ITSAY comes -- if Teh and Oh-aew did not get together, especially considering the absolutely torturous emotional breakdowns that Teh was having about his attraction to and love for Oh-aew.
But they DID get together, and it was a triumph for prestige Asian queer content. ITSAY may very well have been talking to the heartbreaking ending of The Love of Siam.
I compare those emotional volcanoes to IPYTM's narrative process. We don't get those emotional volcanoes. Instead, we see a much more established couple (maybe not necessarily more mature, but at least established), two years into their relationship, about to start a new chapter in their lives as much as they can be together. And I think, without those emotional volcanoes: we were able, in IPYTM, to get more into tonally quieter, but still incredibly emotional and heart-wrenching details about Teh and Oh-aew's relationship that deserved time and the spotlight to work through -- such as Teh's slow falling for Jai.
To the point that their maturity is in question: give me a series about a developing relationship, and I will give you my heart. I want to see more and more shows about dudes working on their shit in a relationship. I want to see queer dudes experiencing the highs and lows of living a mundane life together, à la What Did You Eat Yesterday?
As we saw in ITSAY: Teh has a thing about change. Change is really, really, really hard for him. He had to change his mindset about the kind of person he was falling in love with in ITSAY. He was falling in love with a fellow young man, and it sent him off the rails.
Teh continues to be chaotic as fuck in IPYTM -- and that's all happening in the context of him watching, and being with Oh-aew, as Oh changes himself over time.
And: OH!!! MY. BOY. OH-AEW. CLAP EMOJIS. FIND YOURSELF! OMG. Oh-aew's trajectory in IPYTM stole my heart. Oh FOUND HIMSELF, AND found his community. The hair color change? The wardrobe change? The glistening legs? (PP KRIT.) The tattoo? Quitting acting -- which, of course, made Teh sooooo superior-feeling -- to find a career that he LIKED, and was GOOD AT?
Oh-aew was my boy in IPYTM. He was such a LIGHT against the continued darkness that Teh lived in. And Oh-aew knew it, and my god: Oh learned a lot about self-preservation in the time they had in college together.
As I wrote about in my Theory of Love review, I am a true sucker for behavioral change stories in dramas. Oh-aew gave me tons of that, in SUCH an empathic, well-lit way. Teh also gave us a change story, with the delightful essence of the kind of fucked-up chaos that only Teh, and Billkin as an actor, can muster.
Repeating myself from my ITSAY review: Teh, for me, is a reflection of my very favorite chaos boy, Fuse from Make It Right. In the second season of Make It Right, Fuse continues to date his girlfriend, Jean, while his attraction to his same-sex lover, Tee, continues to grow.
Teh watches Oh-aew change. Teh questions why Oh-aew got the teacup tattoo. Teh sees Oh-aew hang out with Oh's cadre of queer friends. Teh sees so much of LIFE happen through Oh-aew: that Oh is indicating a permanence to their relationship vis à vis the tattoo. Teh sees that Oh is comfortable in his own skin, in his growing, strong identity as a queer man. Oh-aew, to me, is truly reflective of the internal change that can happen when one leaves home, when one leaves a place to go to another place -- a tremendous journey.
Teh...... oh, Teh. Teh is not on that same journey. He goes to a more fucked-up place. He, idiotically, falls for Jai -- literally, verbally, visually, right in front of Oh-aew -- all while Teh increasingly becomes unmoored in his relationship with Oh.
Now, let me clarify something. I LOVE CHAOS BOYS. I needed @lurkingshan to check me as I was unwinding on Teh and Teh's cheating: Shan had to yell at me, "TURTLES, TEH WAS CHEATING!!!" lol.
Because! Because I actually sympathized with Teh a bit. Teh acted like a total fucking jackass, an idiot of the highest order. But I sympathized with him.
I sympathized with him because, unlike Oh-aew, Teh came from a more old-fashioned background. Of course, he learned early in IPYTM that his mother knew about his relationship with Oh-aew. That should have given Teh comfort to live his authentic life in Bangkok, and I think it did, to some extent. But, Teh was such a brilliantly written character as to have not actually be able to shed EVERYTHING about his past life, his past identity, his past values coming from an old-fashioned culture, in fast time.
That's what happens in fantasies, and it doesn't always happen that way in real life. Not to say that IPYTM is real life -- but I think Teh's path towards change and maturity reflected a different and difficult style of realistic growth that I am glad the show did not shy away from.
I understand that there are a lot of people that either don't like, or didn't watch, IPYTM because of the cheating plot. Let me just say, as an #old -- cheating happens.
Teh felt disconnected from Oh and Oh's change journey, his growth. Teh found an outlet for his misplaced emotional yearnings in Jai. Jai took total advantage of the moment to extract a performance out of Teh. Teh was used. Teh was dumb enough to not recognize this. And he jeopardized his relationship with Oh-aew. And to Oh-aew's damn credit, Oh said -- fuck THAT, and walked.
All of that? Waving my hand in a circle and clinching my fingers, all of that? REAL SHIT. Real talk. Man, do I LOVE IPYTM for going there.
I knew -- of course I knew, the gifs are everywhere -- that Teh and Oh-aew would get together by the end of IPYTM. But to see that their relationship NEEDED to take a very healthy break, and that Teh NEEDED to be faced with very real consequences of his unthoughtful, chaotic behavior, was a demonstration of accountability of the highest order in a drama that I heartily welcomed. It was mature AF, and it established Oh's boundaries and feelings in such a gorgeous, respectful way for a young queer man to represent. God. I'm clutching my hands. It gives me the same good feelings as Pharm setting his boundaries in UWMA.
I think, if this kind of growth story bores people (?) -- I unfortunately have to say that I think this is where more and more BLs are going, on this route, on the WDYEY route, on the Love In Translation route that my friends @lurkingshan, @bengiyo, and @neuroticbookworm are telling me about right now.
And to take this route in a prestige, cinematic BL. To take the route of demonstrating growth, maturity, accountability, and responsibility in a BL of the highest quality order, means a lot to me as an #old, who is fascinated by internal change over the course of time. Which.... is also the story of Phuket, the story of Bangkok, the story of the queer community in Bangkok, the story of the continued growing strength of the LGBTQ+ community in Thailand and globally.
And to tie this all together: in IPYTM, I did not question the ending. I LOVED THE ENDING. It was a happy ending for the romantics. It was an open-ended ending for the realists like myself. Oh-aew said: I don't know if things are gonna work, homeboy. But you're my man. You will be my man. (When Oh-aew wakes up in bed and sees a vision of Teh before they got together for the last time? Oh yes, I screamed. Asian family pain, baby.)
And Teh says: deal. And almost immediately commits another crime of chaos with that Instagram post. But, as I wrote in my notes as the show ended: he was now engaging in external chaos, not internal chaos. Teh will make the commitment to WORK on his chaos WITH Oh-aew, IN the context of a relationship. No more holding it in. If Teh takes risks, he'll take Oh-aew with him, together, because that's what being in a bonded relationship is about.
I felt unsettled when ITSAY ended. I felt that Teh's emotional peaks weren't fully resolved. I was so right about this when I went through IPYTM. And IPTYM closed that for me. IPYTM gave me the very authentic emotional journey and process of change that had been hinted at in ITSAY, the journey that, I think, could NOT have ended with ONLY ITSAY. IPYTM showed me that Teh was going to continue fucking up, because I knew it would happen with where he was in ITSAY. Man. And IPYTM sewed it up convincingly.
Nadao Bangkok, I think, took a HUGE risk to demonstrate this VERY sophisticated change journey in a prestige BL. And they did it of the highest order. It was a celebration of Bangkok, of finding your communities, of finding your friends, your love, yourself, and -- my head is spinning at how WELL it was filmed, and how well the story was told. I love ITSAY, but IPYTM will be my baby. I desperately want Thailand to go to this level again, and I believe they will.
[Alright! I am indeed back on my bullshit and crushing through 55:15 Never Too Late, for its macro BL storyline featuring Khaotung Thanawat and an EarthMix cameo.
Next week, we have my review of Not Me, which I personally loved, but I will not shy away from offering some quibbles about the quality of the storytelling.
A quick note on the list below, as I've made some additions! I've added a rewatch of The Eclipse, in part to compare issues-based series between TE and Not Me. And, on the high recommendation of @lurkingshan and @bengiyo, I am retracting a vow I made to never watch another MAME show again, and am adding Wedding Plan. Shan and Ben have remarked that this show represents a 180-degree turnaround from what I think of as MAME's basis of passive and aggressive bigotry in her work. Maybe she's learned that equity sells. In any case: I'm giving this show a shot to see if the turn is indeed an honest one.
But for now, the OGMMTVC weekly slate of reviews will pause for at least a couple weeks, as I rewatch Bad Buddy. I have a few ideas for a couple of pieces, as really: Bad Buddy is the reason I'm doing this project. To learn about the history of Thai BLs, the tropes, the styles, everything -- reaching the BBS rewatch is a touch of a culmination, as I undertook this project in large part to understand what Bad Buddy was built off of. I can't wait, I CANNOT WAIT, and I have been engaging with lots of friends over the past few weeks about our mutual love and respect for BBS, and I just can't wait to put some of our thoughts into reverent words.
Here's the status of the list; this list has been jacked by Tumblr's new web editor, so for a more up-to-date version, please click here!
1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here)
2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here)
3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here)
4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here)
5) Make It Right (2016) (review here)
6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here)
7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here)
8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here)
9) Together With Me (2017) (review here)
10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here)
11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here)
12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review)
13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here)
14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here)
15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here)
16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review)
17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here)
18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here)
19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here)
20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here)
21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here)
22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here)
23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here)
24) 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 here)
25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here)
26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here)
27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here)
28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM)
29) I Promised You the Moon (2021)
30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review coming)
31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here)
32) 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) (watching)
33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch
34) 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)]
35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)
36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist
37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here)
38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch For the Sake of Re-Analyzing an Politics-Focused Show After Not Me
39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)
40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023)
41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here)
42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)
43) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon)
44) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType)
45) Only Friends (2023)]
#last twilight in phuket#ltip#last twilight in phuket meta#ltip meta#i promised you the moon#i promised you the moon meta#ipytm#ipytm meta#i told sunset about you#i told sunset about you meta#itsay meta#nadao bangkok#boss narubet#billkin putthipong#pp krit#tehoh#teh x oh#oh x teh#teh x oh aew#oh aew x teh#turtles catches up with the essential BLs#turtles catches up with thai BLs#turtles catches up with old gmmtv#the old gmmtv challenge#ogmmtvc
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I Told Sunset About You is about
noses
ITSAY is about about: backs, knees, and chests
#itsay#itsay meta#itsay images#ranch collections#i told sunset about you#some of these screenshots are ohaew scrunching his nose - sorry it's so hard to see
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I Told Sunset About You Rewatch Ep 4 Stray Thoughts
Teh broke all of our hearts last time by bringing Oh to the edge and then running away. We made it through the most Skyline episode of the series, and now it's time to pick up the pieces.
Oh, Teh, you can't just go back to studying like normal after last night.
The gay experience of having the mother of the boy you love ask you to keep an eye on his heterosexual endeavors.
Oh-aew fascinates me. He is walking such a complicated line with Teh. He doesn't mind being discreet about their connection, but he does want some assurances that Teh is serious about him and reciprocal about these feelings. Oh was right to ask about Tarn, especially if Teh feels jealous of Bas.
These two convey so much of their angst even when they're just laying on floors or couches. Nothing worse for gay crisis than seeing your friends being happily hetero on socials.
Poor Tarn. She wore her sexiest bra today in the hopes that she would make progress with Teh.
Look at Tarn. Chest out. Purple blanket. Purple bra. And yet he still chose Oh's red.
Mhmm, this is what I have always said. Tarn had so many reasons to expect things from and invest in Teh. Things were said.
I like Tarn reminding Teh that she has things she really wants to focus on that he's been distracting her from only to waffle.
Truly, Billkin is so good at nervous pacing.
Look at Oh showing up deep in Teh's blue, only for Teh to be awkward and distant. My love for Oh's straightforwardness knows no bounds.
Oh asking Teh to reply to his messages is such sad foreshadowing about the future. He always asked Teh for completely reasonable things and Teh always read way too much into it.
I love their friends. They know instantly that something happened between Oh and Teh again.
There he go score peeking again.
Oh literally ran from that boy.
"You've never understood me. I'm hurt." Give PP all the awards, honestly. We're gonna have another conversation in the street in IPYTM like this that's going to hurt.
Teh 🤝 Saengtai - "Aren't my actions enough?" NO. YOU STAY CONFUSING PEOPLE!!
Teh's mom steadily foreshadowing the consequences of Teh prioritizing Oh over himself.
Oh is literally wearing a tattered blue shirt that says "THINGS I'LL NEVER SAY."
Lobby scene, my beloved.
Lol the back of Oh's shirt almost says SUSS.
The way so much happens in this scene with the way Oh chooses to move relative to Teh. You can feel Oh's frustration and yearning pouring off of him.
When Oh moves away from the kiss he almost initiated? Incredible acting.
The PP Ru He version of Skyline. Still undefeated.
There's just so much about this hug under the stairs. Oh is saying that he can understand that Teh needs time before they can do anything more public.
Float scene, my beloved. Poor PP had such a hard time filming this from all the fish nipping at him. He was shaking when they got him out of the water because he's afraid of fish.
Straight people will never get the underwater kiss back. Not after this scene. It belongs to the gays now and forever.
Love that Billkin and Smile nailed their kiss in one take. Meanwhile, he and PP had to practicing scuba diving to learn how to take in air so they could spend an entire afternoon filming this kiss.
Can you believe that they still managed to continue the narrative about Teh's feelings about boobs during this kiss? Like wtf? This kiss is not fluff! There are huge dramatic stakes here.
Of course these two can make buttoning a shirt feel intensely intimate after that moment.
Friends don't have the greatest underwater kiss ever, Teh.
"You feel it too? What did I do wrong? Why are you doing this?" Gays, cuddle pile at my place. If you grew up Knowing, you understand this scene.
"I think I'm not sure. One day, I'll stop feeling this way." No, but this is the primary gay fear about love. Also, why can guys like Teh only admit their feelings when they describe them as temporary?
These two went from the greatest kiss ever to one of the most painful breakups of all time. They have the range.
Skyline now? Really!?!
Oh, Teh. You really are such a little brother.
"Are you proud of me?" Right after Teh broke up with him on the premise that this was all temporary? Incredible. We all knew what this was. Someday I would love to see this whole scene. PP looks like he gave everything to that scene and we only got a snippet.
Oh, the bra scene. It's really something to see Oh crying on the floor because he can't be what Teh wants. It gets me every time.
I really like that the Yongjian failed masturbation scene occurs immediately next. We just do not get a break in this episode. This is very much the spiral.
And then we go to the final break up with Tarn scene. God, Teh really can be such an ass sometimes. I really hope Tarn found love later.
And now to Bas, my sweetest boy. He's correct that Oh can't give up on himself because of Teh.
Love the friends coming to see Teh off, and Bas has refused to wear his color. He's mean-mugging this man all the way for leaving Oh like this.
Really hate that Teh genuinely thinks he's helping Oh as he decides to give up his spot for him. He thinks he's keeping a promise.
It really is so awkward that Oh and Tarn had to talk about Teh, and it's timed so well for Teh to come back home and face the consequences of his choices.
Smile is so good, seriously. The panic and anger she's feeling is so intense.
Everyone is so good at ugly crying in this show.
Everything Tarn said is true and correct. Smile and Billkin did that in a single take.
I remember Boss talking about Billkin and Na getting stuck in character together in this scene, so he just grabbed Nat and the girlfriend and just threw them into the scene. Nat improvised this hug.
As if all of that wasn't enough, they prepared his new uniform for him as a gift, along with two semesters of tuition. Goddamn.
I feel bad for MoRaoYuLok, because they were never able to help Oh and Teh really.
Now, to the ugly IG fight. This part is just so difficult to watch.
Billkin hyperventilates if he cries too hard. This is much harder to watch since NiNi told me that fact.
And now he has no study materials. He literally gave it all to Oh.
How dare they end this on the Lost in Translation instrumental.
JFC I forgot how it's just one hit after another in this episode. It's almost an hour of losses starting from the hammock. So much of this episode is really just the fallout of Teh bailing at the end of episode 3 and just spiraling about it. Oh told him earlier. He never understood Oh, and now look at them.
Whew. I don't have time to finish tonight, but I probably shouldn't anyway.
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having a mental breakdown currently over two boys putting hibiscus flowers behind each other's ears
#itsay livewatch#i told sunset about you#im havin a. how do u say. NORMAL REACTION.#SOOOO NORMAL i swear#i have made 30mins worth of actual progress w the episode#as opposed to spending the last hour playing and replaying scenes#so i don't miss ANY REACTION ANY META ANYTHING#gay ppl real mygod
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oops i started watching lovely writer
#lovely writer#i had a break from bl's and consumed only wlw content but i saw the gifs of this show and the meta aspect really spoke to me#especially as someone who isn't actually a 'bl fan' nor fits the traditional 'straight woman' target audience#i find it really nice that they are taking the whole industry under the loop but they do it in a light romcom way#im not caught up yet and i am a little bit confused by all the sound effects but thats just because im not use to them#also from what it seems the actors of this show aren't as forced into the standard 'fanservice' roles which is really good#im just cherry picking bls to enjoy and there's honestly zero pattern in it; between gsp/mod/itsay and now lovely writer who even knows#which of these shows will catch my interest
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itsay ep 4 meta, Teh’s decisions pt1.
Teh relinquising his place.
I feel so much for Teh and I love him so hard. I don’t believe in right or wrong decisions when it comes to decision like those, where complex things are at stake, and humans are complex, and nothing is really as final as it feels. Maybe that’s because I am older, and i have been there. I wanna protect him, and tell him he will be okay.
I believe in making decisions, and dealing with the consequences. Labeling a decision right or wrong, for overthinkers especially, us perfectionists, is that really helpful, or did you maybe just decide best you could in that situation, and now you will face the consequences? I am not talking about basic moral stuff. I am talking about the complex ones, the multilayered ones, where so much seems at stake that neither answer seems to do it all justice either way. Where something will always die along the way, by giving life to the other.
Because Teh, teenagers, youths, lovelies, listen to me, there is never just one way, one path to yourself. Don’t believe you have to know it all, have it figured out and know the straightest path and walk it... i mean, it’s a huge point this series points to, I believe. I remember when life and decisions felt that urgent to me.
So look at what Teh knows in that moment, what he has on his hands.
They have told him that Oh is not gonna do the test, and will work at his parents resort. So it’s really not as much that Teh thinks Oh can’t get in, but that he fears he won’t. He feels guilty for that, because it is his fault, that Oh can’t concentrate.
His vision for their future is at stake, because even if a huge part is his loyality and his promise to help get Oh in, another just as huge part is that he wants Oh there with him so desperately.
I really believe he does not think of giving Oh his place until the waiting list pops into his mind again, when that student doesn’t show up. When she does show up, all that desperate hope that surged must be overwhelming and he is put on the spot.
And is it really that he is giving up his dream? No. He might give up parts, like the special China project. But he is not giving up on being an actor, he is not even giving up on this school, as apparently he has the option of applying trough admission test again. He could as well just go next year. Go to a second best school. What I am saying is, he does not give up his future, and I really hate in his stead that everyone is making him feel like he did.
What a help by the way. Second guessing a decision someone else made when it’s done. When you must know, they could never do this light-heartedly, or carelessly. Even if I understand where Mom is coming from, because of course she comes from good intentions. Yet. That is not helpful.
Yeah, that one hits close to home, sorry.
There’s also Teh’s big mistranslation of love. He thinks helping is his way of love, the way he can secure and earn it, and express it. So he needs to be helpful, because that is love right?
What can he still give of himself that might ‘help’ the situation at hand?
I truly believe that given all those factors and the five minutes to decide remaining, that Teh did chose the only thing he would, being him.
Is it the ‘right’ decicion for Oh, one that Oh can accept, being all that he is?
No, it is not, that’s why Oh makes his own.
And do I love the show for this. I just wish so hard for catharsis, that people will see and support Teh in making HIS decision, leting him be who he is and respect him enough to accept his decision, and grow making their own. That’s what growing is?
Because this decision is just one in a long line of other ones. Other decisions will follow. Nothing is lost, everything is to come. Teh will deal with the conseqences, and he deserves helpful understanding hands reached out to him, while he picks himself up from the floor and make the next decision.
Also someone please get some liquids into him, boy has lost a lot of water.
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I Promised You The Moon - Episode 1 Thoughts - aka did John Hughes direct this and not tell us?
Oh I had to wait so long today to see episode 1 as I was working but I am so very happy I waited till I was in bed and with a cup of tea... which I then cried into four times. So that’s where I’m at. This is going to be long, I’m not even sorry in the slightest!
For ITSAY, I made so many posts about this show and how moving and beautiful it was, how the symbolism and writing was exceptional, how the music was absolutely incredible and how much I adored BK and PP’s chemistry. P’Boss’ work is special and the feel of Part 1 was a delicious kind of awkward, indie movie full of metaphors, fraught pain and emotion and pretty breathtaking storytelling of love and growth. I fell absolutely in love with Teh and Oh and their story, obsessed with Teh as a character (as I see a lot of myself in him and I love when he spirals) and I just felt utterly moved by the whole show. So I never needed Part 2. Part 1, for me, is perfect. And I certainly didn’t expect to love Part 2 as much or feel as much emotion because I just thought it wouldn’t be possible especially with a change of director and city and storyline... but I genuinely think that was a good idea after seeing Episode 1.
I just finished it and I’m kinda tear stained and the first thing I couldn’t get out of my head was just how much it reminds me of the late dear John Hughes movies from the 80s. Those of you who are a little old like me born right at the beginning of the 90s, will have been brought up on those movies filled with 80s synth music, stories of growing up, artsy camera work and filled with colour and emotion. Those movies are some of my all time favourites and I absolutely felt their influence on Episode 1 and maybe the rest of the season, I don’t know! I really wonder if P’Meen used them or was aware, hahaha. Anyway...!
But first off, I cannot, and I mean CANNOT handle the music. Part 1 really did floor me with the use of the score and how it was such a huge part of the reason it was so beautiful. Phuket Dreams has me in tears about 3 notes in... so cue me crying at the remixes of the old score with 80s synth sounds and almost Dream Pop echoy sounds. That right there is my jam, my absolute favourite music and the way IPYTM is so clearly going to be full of it makes my heart very happy. Especially those last scenes with Oh, that sweeping 80s style music taking him from heartbroken pain to dancing to forget had John Hughes all over it and just felt so impactful. So I will bang on every week about the music I’m sure.
As for the beginning and the casual buying of condoms (yesssss god damn Nadao, thank you for safe sex lessons for LGBT+ youth and a nod to actual sexual expression, I’m mega proud) leading into the way Hoon and Suri were involved (they didn’t give me Tuty 😭) in transferring Teh, it felt like such a gorgeous transfer from ITSAY vibes to IPYTM... watching Teh’s mamma so proud, Hoon watching over him as always and then gently leading into the first moment that made me cry...
How dare they put a remix of the old score over Teh being told by his mamma that she accepts him as he is so casually and softly, in a way that not only lets Teh know he’s loved but welcomes Oh as someone she cares about deeply and is happy being someone her son loves. It was beautifully done and I couldn’t help but think of Teh’s teary face on the Cape at the end of Episode 5 and thinking how proud I am of him. The way Hoon stroked his hair - help.
Teh. Now I made no secret of the fact that I loved every moment of watching Teh go through it in Part 1, how his very physicality and struggle played out especially him writhing all over his rug! But we had to see him grow. He isn’t the same boy he was but he still feels like Teh, just a little more comfortable, a little more mature in some ways and just READY for life. He feels tentative but also prepared to grow more and I just adore him. Oh, on the other hand, the one who was much more secure in himself in terms of his self and sexuality in Part 1 is now absolutely thrown into the unknown and isn’t handling it well.
Oh was established so beautifully as a Phuket boy. His name is rooted in his home, he lives in shorts and by the sea, he’s shaped by that place and what it means to him... his signature scent is coconut! He literally embodies Phuket... so it doesn’t in any way surprise me that we are watching him flounder and feel lost. It feels so human and so many moments felt so moving. When he told Teh that the best part of his day was seeing him, when he imagined the waves on his mind, when he listened to his mamma talk about the coastal weather... it’s hardly surprising that he cried as he was asked to explain his name. That was the second moment that got me. I was a wreck. Watching him break down and fall to pieces infront of total strangers just because he was recounting the meaning of his name, the foundation of who he is, the thing he misses to very much... he doesn’t fit, he doesn’t feel at home and he didn’t feel himself. It was beautifully done, for me. I caught my breath the second he started crying because it was so utterly human and raw. I have felt the way he does and recognised every second on his face. PP has come so so far with his acting.
Then we get the mention of Yongjian. NOW SOMEONE TELL ME IS THAT TEH AS YONGJIAN IN THE TITLES? If so, how dare they spoil it?! I am going to weep uncontrollably if Teh gets his dream. But the way Teh spoke of their future, the way he tried to recreate their past with Yongjian’s speech. Their entire history as friends and boyfriends is rooted in that story, that character, the idea of being Male protagonists... and Teh is so sure of their future. Also, you cannot also avoid the meta of it all with BK and PP. That moment and their words felt so personal to them too and their own real lives!
Do not even start with how their first kiss in Phuket was underwater and arguably their first kiss in Bangkok is the same albeit in public. DO NOT LET ME THINK ABOUT THIS TOO MUCH.
The issue is that, Part 1 set out for us how they ended up where they are. Oh fell into acting, it was never his dream from the start. Then it all became a fight, a thing to win from his rival and in the end a thing to prove. We haven’t really ever see Oh show a passion for the stage and acting, not really. He worked so hard to get his place in Uni but there’s so much irony at play. Their entire story of rivalry has actually caused this current situation. Oh “won” the coveted Uni spot (helped in part by Teh) and Teh “lost” and was making do. But we see how that’s not how life goes. Oh never really felt he knew what he wanted and so he just ploughed on. He’s now in a situation where he has to start deciding, has to be his own person and he’s just... lost. I can’t wait to see him find it whatever it may be! The difference with Teh is that he may not have got his number 1 desire but his passion is ENOUGH. He loves what he’s doing and that moment where Khim (is that her name, I forget now, it’s so late, but Goy’s character) was explaining the lights was gorgeous. Teh’s passion was ignited, you could see that “oh wow” moment... and you can see the difference in how they’re going to progress, Teh didn’t need the top Uni because his passion can carry him and will help him succeed whereas Oh doesn’t know what his passion is and perhaps he’s where he is for the wrong reasons after all. The story telling is lovely to me, if completely heartbreaking.
The tears came again at “but I’ve already given so much of our time to other people”. Oh the tears. The boat scene from ITSAY is my favourite scene of the show and that line is one of the most beautiful bits of writing I’ve encountered for a long while... and to see Teh use it and remember it and effectively set out the issue they’re facing was heartbreaking. They made that promise on the boat and they’re breaking it. Oh-aew is trying to be what he thinks Teh needs and Teh is wide eyed and filled with this new world and getting to indulge his passions. They’re both so human and both trying the best way they know but they’re so young and so unsure and have so little life experience that they don’t know how to be adults or how to manage all of this stuff. They know they care and love and are each other’s person but they have such a lot to learn.
So the introduction of Q and the boys... and let me say they’re glorious... feels both beautiful and tragic because they look like they will be accepting and also potentially LGBT+ themselves or maybe Q (I see your gorgeous painted nails, sweetheart and the way you didn’t question Oh saying “partner” for a second)... but also they’re what Oh is using to fill the time he promised to Teh. It’s not Oh’s fault. He deserves friendship and a world of his own too but he was relying so much on the familiarity of Teh and Teh’s presence to keep him grounded and comfortable but he can’t do that all the time. He is trying so hard to be good and thoughtful and kind that he’s not telling Teh the truth. He’s doing what he said he wouldn’t do on the boat, but we can’t blame him in the slightest, he’s the sweetest boy.
I have so much to say but I guess that’ll do for now. I really loved the episode. Yes, it’s different but I think I realise now why it needed to be. In a way I’m kinda of happy about it because ITSAY stays sacred!!!! It stays as that beautifully fraught and emotional indie movie of my heart filled with metaphorical depth. It can’t be touched as far as I’m concerned but with IPYTM it feels just as moving, just as emotional, just as impactful but in a different way that reflects maturity. I don’t think it would have worked if it still felt fraught and characterised by ITSAY vibes. They’re not kids, they’re not insecure about who they are anymore in terms of their sexuality and they are moving into adulthood.
I know it’s going to break me. Episode 1 had me genuinely crying into my tea but I also know that it had the potential for its own special brand of symbolism and meaning. We can already see some special moments which seemed to be saying way more than the words themselves like the speech on light and how we see things and the way Oh even used it himself to see a different perspective at the end. That felt really very meaningful. They’re going to need to be able to see different view points as they navigate what will probably be a shit ton of pain! They will need to adjust to the light, to their circumstances to be able to survive and for their bond to be what is important without allowing other stuff to pass into their line of sight. Oh saw nothing. Empty stage, no Teh, not even himself... he opened his eyes too soon. He needs to learn to adjust and learn how to see the world and his place in it so that when he opens his eyes he sees what he desires and has worked for and made for himself rather than emptiness.
The last thing for me is the chemistry. What more can you say other than they’re perfect? They have the most natural, enigmatic, intense and sweet chemistry. They work so beautifully together. They sell even the smallest of moments and they absolutely destroy with emotion. I just feel every second of Teh and Oh’s emotion and that is such a damn skill. Their talent, man.
So I loved it. I am going to be dreaming tearstained in 80s synth music tonight! I can’t wait for the rest to emotionally destroy me a little more.
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