Japanese BL Starter Pack
It’s been awhile since I dropped a rec list, so I am here today to share one that is very near and dear to my heart—a Japanese bl primer for those who are new to the jbl game. I created this for @neuroticbookworm to help her on her journey when she decided she wanted to start getting into Japanese works. The fandom (on Tumblr and generally) tends to focus primarily on Thai shows because they are the easiest to access for international fans, since Thailand is working its way toward world domination via ql media and wants us all to be able to watch. But there is a lot of great stuff to watch beyond the easy access Thai channels, and Japan is the country where this genre originated, so its shows are important for anyone who considers themselves a bl fan. Japan doesn’t cater nearly as much to the international audience so tracking down the shows sometimes takes some ingenuity and can-do spirit, but that’s part of the fun!
And so, the list! Bookworm is about halfway through it and having a ball, so I figured it was time to stop hoarding it and share it with anyone else who would like to dip their toes into jbl and isn’t quite sure where to start. A few notes:
I am not here to teach you about the deep roots of the jbl genre or give you a primer on yaoi manga. I am by no means an expert and there are other places to find that information. Start here with this great post by @nieves-de-sugui and then maybe wander over to @absolutebl to read up more on the evolution of the genre.
This list is by no means an exhaustive accounting of every important Japanese bl ever made; it is simply a nice sampler platter of the cream of the crop among various styles you will find in jbl. Watching through this whole list will not only expose you to some fantastic shows, but also give you a sense of what makes jbl unique and how the country’s style differs from others, and point you toward the types of jbl you’ll like most (they tend to put shows in pretty specific style and tone lanes and once you find the ones you like there are lots more where that came from).
If you’re coming to this post as a jbl lover and you don’t see your favorite here, I promise it’s not because I don’t love it very much; I simply had to make some choices to get this down to a reasonable shortlist. Feel free to leave extra recs for others to find!
I’m putting these in a loose suggested watch order that will take you through the various jbl lanes in a kind of popcorn style, because I always think it’s good to change it up so you don’t get too stuck in one mode, and it works its way up to most of the extremely Japanese stuff (you will know what that means by the time you finish). But do what’s in your heart and change up the order if you want, friends, I am not the boss of you!
Cherry Magic (Crunchyroll or grey)
gif by @liyazaki
I believe everyone on Tumblr is pretty familiar with this one, which is not a coincidence—this is one of the most accessible jbls. Not in terms of actual access to watch it, mind you (we’ve all jumped through shady internet hoops to watch it) but in terms of its content and style. Cherry Magic is a classic workplace romcom with a magical twist, and it is charming af. It’s a great exemplar of Japan’s light and zippy comedy lane for bl—a lane in which, importantly, the romances stay chaste even when the actual plot is about sex, or lack thereof. My friend @waitmyturtles would kill me if I didn’t make sure you know that Cherry Magic also has a lovely follow up film. And bonus: there is now a Thai remake airing so if you watch the original you can get in on the discussion about the different adaptations between countries. This is pretty easy to find these days in all the usual places, but I strongly recommend watching it here.
Old Fashion Cupcake (Viki)
gif by @liyazaki
Moving on to a slightly more mature workplace romcom. Old Fashion Cupcake, another Tumblr favorite, is an age gap boss-subordinate romance, and it’s both very adult and somehow wholesome af at the same time. Sure, there is a lot of carnal desire going on here, but there is also a lot of wooing via fluffy pancakes. It’s a tight five episodes and a fantastic example of what Japan, with its extreme technical precision in writing, directing, editing, pacing, and acting firing on all cylinders, can do in two hours. There’s not an ounce of flab on this thing and you’ll want to watch it over and over again.
Utsukushii Kare (Viki)
gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul
Time to get a little weird! Weird is a key feature of Japanese media, and lots of jbls explore unusual relationship dynamics rooted in complex psychology. This is the first show on the list that will likely feel very Japanese if you’re new around here—my advice is to lean into it and finish the show, even if you get uncomfortable along the way. In Japanese media, discomfort always serves a purpose. This is a high school story with a twisted relationship at its center, and I’m not saying any more than that. Don’t spoil yourself and go watch it! This one also comes with two sequels—one short second season and one movie—that continue from the original story. They are less essential but still excellent.
I Cannot Reach You (Netflix)
gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses
Next up, another high school tale, but with a totally different vibe. This show is kind of a revelation in its willingness to tell a story about overwhelming desire—including sexual desire—with young protagonists. It’s rooted in a classic but often misunderstood trope, friends to lovers, and takes the angst of it seriously, giving us a low stakes story that feels extremely high stakes to our leads. It’s also gorgeous and uses a classic Japanese visual style (bokeh) that you’ll be dying to learn more about.
His (Viki)
gif by @gabrielokun
Time for a break from high school, and we’ll sprinkle in a movie for some added flavor. His is a jbl film featuring a second chance romance between a stoic, introverted man who moves to a remote town to start over, and his ex-boyfriend who follows him there unexpectedly, adorable child in tow. Importantly, this movie does not take place in what we often refer to as the “bl bubble” where homophobia doesn’t exist; the leads’ experiences of being gay men in a homophobic society are hugely important to the plot and themes of the story. It’s a beautiful film and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. @bengiyo would surely also like me to tell you that this film follows a brief prequel show called His: I Didn’t Mean to Fall in Love about the characters originally meeting in high school; I do not think it’s really necessary to watch it but completists can start there.
The Pornographer series (Gaga)
By now you should be ready to get into some classic Japanese fucked up psychosexual material, right? Right! The Pornographer series is told in five installments in this order:
The Novelist, a six episode miniseries
Mood Indigo, a six episode prequel series
Spring Life, a 15 minute short
Pornographer: Playback, a two hour film
Spring Life Continued, a 15 minute short
Confused by that distribution model? So say we all; sometimes Japan likes to make us work for it to make sure we really appreciate its many gifts to us. The story across these installments is about a very difficult to love protagonist, what makes him the way he is, and the also-unhinged-but-in-a-different-way man who finally gets through to him. It’s an extremely satisfying love story and one of the best character arcs I have ever seen, full stop. For this one, you’ll want to just pull the word problematic out of your pocket and store it in a drawer; nearly everything that happens in this story is problematic and that’s the point. Lean in! All of these installments except for the film are on Gaga, if you get that far hmu and I will supply you with the final puzzle piece.
Our Dining Table (Gaga)
You could probably use a break after those last two, so it’s time to shift over to a heart-tugging twofer: family trauma mixed with the cutest shit you’ve ever seen. ODT is an example of another classic type of Japanese show: the food drama (you will see the GOAT in this category at the end of this list). In Japanese culture, food is love, and the act of preparing food for your loved ones is a common path to romance. You’ll love this story about an isolated office worker who meets a pair of brothers, learns to cook as a way of connecting with them, and begins to heal from his own trauma as a result. The image above is a scan from the manga, which @troubled-mind curates to make extremely cool comparison sets like this one. Many jbls are faithful adaptations of yaoi manga source material, so it’s good to have a bit of familiarity with them.
Minato’s Laundromat (Gaga)
gif by @liyazaki
Japanese media loves to explore taboo, and often manages to do it in a way that is surprisingly light and chaste. This is an age gap romance between a teenager and his adult neighbor that explores internalized homophobia, emotional repression, and falling in love across seemingly impossible social chasms. It’s also a great example of old school yaoi seme-uke dynamics that still show up across the bl genre. Also, take my advice: end your journey with this one with the first season and just pretend season 2 doesn’t exist.
Eternal Yesterday (Viki)
gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul
Remember what I said about weird? Time to do that again, but with a heaping dose of grief and pain on top. It’s not a spoiler to tell you this show involves a major character death; a major character death is, in fact, the root of the entire story. This is a magic realist tale of first love turned tragic, and it will hurt and heal you. It is one of my favorite dramas of all time.
Restart After Come Back Home (Gaga)
And now for a break for your poor exhausted brain. This film is basically the jbl version of a Hallmark original movie, about a city boy who goes back home to the country and falls in love with a total sweetheart while working together on a farm. Enjoy it, bestie, you’ve earned it!
Tokyo in April Is… (Gaga)
gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul
You’ve probably noticed by now that emotional repression and failed communication are big themes in Japanese works. This second chance romance has plenty of both, and it’s a great example of a kind of muted emotional style that Japan does so well, where the surface of the story seems almost placid and calm even as deep emotion roils underneath. This one (and Eternal Yesterday above) are part of a special line up of jbls on Japanese channel MBS called Tonku (Drama) Shower. The shows air one after another in the same time slot on Fridays (in Japan, perhaps Thursdays for you depending on where you live) and you truly never know what you’re gonna get, but they’re all interesting. Warnings on this one for sexual assault and trauma.
The End of the World With You (Viki)
Time for sexy and weird again, but even more so! This has to be one of the most unique bls ever made; it goes to some truly divine and strange places, and it feels incredibly queer while doing it. Made by the same screenwriter/director of the Pornographer series with a lot of the same sensibilities, but in a more heightened apocalyptic setting. This one has existential angst, a road trip, a redemption tale, and a variety of interesting side characters in the mix.
What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Gaga)
gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses
Congratulations, you’ve reached the end of the list and your reward is watching one of the best bls of all time, and a perfect slice of life food drama to boot. WDYEY now has two seasons (along with a couple specials and a movie that fall in between) because the universe clearly loves us. You can now get it on Gaga for easy access but I’m partial to the versions over at @kinounaniresource for better subs. Wherever you watch, settle in to get cozy with Shiro and Kenji and make sure to always eat before you hit play.
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Bad Buddy x ATOTS aka Damn You WMT
Dear @waitmyturtles, fuck you, respectfully wen-kexing-apologist. Turts, I have shit to do, I do not have time for this. But once again I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT SO, FUCK ME I GUESS WE’RE DOING A FOREST EPISODE.
More specifically, we are doing an Our Skyy 2, Episode 15 Part 1/4 post, probably far earlier than I should be, and definitely instead of doing work I absolutely need to be doing. But Pat and Phupa’s interactions in this part of the episode have me thinking about Phupa and his relationship to queerness.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I had a marvelous time watching Part 1 of our latest Bad Buddy x ATOTS crossover episode. Why? Because it is absolutely incredibly fun to watch Pat personally terrorize the local gay elder.
What I have really been enjoying in these crossover episodes is watching the ways the similarities and differences in Phupa, Pat, Pran, and Tian play out. Each person spends most of the time paired with the character who play the same role in the relationship but whose personalities and approaches to their relationships are very different. Phupa is the support in his relationship with Tian, Pat is the support in his relationship with Pran, but Phupa never bends and Pat always gives in.
The thing I love about Pat is that he is unabashed in his queerness, he rolls up on to the scene and starts flirting the second he opens his mouth, and then he
Literally
Never
Stops
He annoys Pran, he tests the structural integrity of the house with Pran, sure, but he also wakes up next to Phupa and then proceeds to never let Phupa forget that a) he would and b) that they thought they might have.
He rolls up on the scene as Phupa and his coworker are getting ready to head into the forest, and he starts talking openly and loudly about Phupa’s boyfriend, and the relationship problems they are having.
Phupa is less than amused.
Phupa does not want Pat coming with him, Pat sneaks into the back of the truck, Phupa begrudgingly allows Pat to come with him and Pat says “you’re the cutest”
Phupa is less than amused.
I’m gonna skip ahead a little bit and then regress if that is okay with everyone, after Phupa puts bandaid’s on Pat says yet again “what a cute print, Chief”, “you have a cute side, Chief”
“No wonder teacher is head over heels for you,”
Here Pat is, one half of the first queer couple to interact with Phupa and Tian in god knows how long or possibly ever, talking casually, happily, loudly, and openly about Phupa’s relationship with Tian and Tian’s feelings for Phupa. Reaffirming to Phupa in a way that it is obvious that Tian is in love with him.
And still Phupa is not having it.
As they continue their walk, Pat starts smelling the trees and Phupa is like oh jesus fucking christ what the hell are you doing you are making my life a living hell- “What are you doing?”
And in response, Pat is very open and sappy about Pran.
gif from @liyazaki
“Pran smells so good, if he is nearby, I can find him,” and Phupa is flabbergasted. He just stands there for a second, looking Pat up and down like “okay, seriously…what the fuck?” and he is so obvious about it in the way he looks at Pat and in the way he walks away, that Pat is able to tell immediately that Phupa is, once again, not vibing with Pat’s casual references to his queerness, or overt and honest love and admission of intimacy with his partner. Pat knows Pran’s scent so well that he is confident he could pick it up in the middle of the forest. That suggests a level of familiarity with a body that would traditionally be considered uncouth, if you were polite, and doubly so if you are queer.
gif from @liyazaki
When Phupa starts walking like he’s over the conversation, Pat’s easy smile shifts to confusion “What? Haven’t you smelled Teacher’s body before?”
(Translation: Aren’t you also so in love with your partner, and aren’t you so intimate with your partner that you could recognize his scent anywhere you went? Looking at you watermelon soap sponsorship…looking at you tea bag smell pouch…)
And it’s the inclusion of the word body that really strikes me here, because to say “what? Haven’t you smelled Teacher before?” evokes a different relationship than “What? Haven’t you smelled Teacher’s body?” does.
“That’s too bad” Pat says, and leans suggestively close to Phupa. Like a cat toying with a mouse. Pat likes needling at Phupa’s discomfort around explicit references to Pat and Pran’s sex life. And while we know Phupa has most certainly smelled Tian’s body before, Phupa SPINS around, has this brief moment of absolute wide eye about being so blatantly asked a question that alludes to his physical relationship to and with Tian, looks Pat dead in the eye and says “I’m not a pervert like you,”
gif from @liyazaki
Harsh words. Incredibly harsh words, especially because of the connotations of queerness with perversion, especially because iirc from the KinnPorsche LGBTQ+ Facts special on IQIYI, pervert is often an insult used in Thailand for queer people. Phupa is uncomfortable with Pat’s open conversation about his queer relationship, about his queer intimacy and he chooses to meet Pat with homophobia in the way of a slur.
But Pat is having fun, and I honestly believe he expects that kind of reaction. Pat and Pran were awkward witnesses to Tian and Phupa’s little domestic about watching him shower and looking lovingly into their eyes, but Phupa is stiff the whole time, he is aware that he is engaging in that conversation while other people are present, and he can’t take it and he literally flees. And some of that is because he is getting riled up about their fight, but we see in part 2 of this episode that when Phupa is actually angry with Tian about something, he has no problem standing up and planting his feet to confront Tian about it.
Anyway, Pat is having fun, and Pat wants to test Phupa and so, completely unphased he starts talking about how Tian smells, as if he is familiar. He is like "my boyfriend smells soooo good, do you smell your boyfriend's body? Your boyfriend smells good" and it’s a direct display of Pat's comfortability with his partner, their closeness, and their level of intimacy.
“Teacher Tian smells so good” Pat says with the world’s widest grin
“How do you know that?” Phupa asks almost challenging
“I thought you said you’d never smelled him”
gif from @liyazaki
Caught ya. Phupa has indirectly admitted to intimacy. Pat has successfully engaged Phupa in a conversation that is completely about Phupa’s queerness.
And as Part 2 goes on, we are made more and more aware of how little outward public affection Phupa and Tian engage in. If Phupa and Tian touch around other people, there has to be a legitimate reason to do so (Tian fainted, Tian fainted again, Tian fainted a third time, Tian is drunk, Phupa is drunk, etc.). In this episode, Tian is weak and almost collapses in to Phupa’s arms because he exerted himself too much with his heart. Phupa’s hand is on Tian’s back and then Tian is away from him and standing upright, and when Phupa, Tian, Pat, and Pran exit the forest and enter the clearing of the safe house.
Pat is using Pran as a crutch, and Phupa and Tian have placed a child in between them. They are not touching, they aren’t even standing all that close to each other. Phupa is in ranger mode, sure, but he’s not really in front of people he has to impress, he doesn’t have to be completely professional and on guard when they are in the shack together. Especially when his partner with a body that is currently trying to reject his heart, is sitting there looking on the verge of a heart attack.
Phupa is making direct eye contact with Tian here, he is worried about Tian here, his focus is on Tian here, and yet he does not offer any physical comfort. No reassuring touch, no forehead kiss, hell, not even a hand on the back of his head to check for fever. He’s focused on getting the radio working, which is incredibly important in case there is a medical emergency, but he does not spare a second to physically ground him and Tian. He can only look from a distance. Because there are other people around, there is a child around. Phupa can’t be seen engaging in homosexual softness, Phupa has to be seen as a forest ranger, doing his job, his actual job that involves rescuing his stubborn dumbass boyfriend from yet again getting lost in the forest, but does not involve him being in love.
Again, Phupa truly has no one here he needs to impress, he’s in a room with a child, his boyfriend, and a couple of nuisances that have shown him absolutely zero respect since the moment they waltzed in to his neck of the woods.
At dinner even, after things have settled down, Phupa still cannot bring himself close to Tian in front of prying eyes.
Pat and Pran? Literally sitting side by side, knees touching. They are as close to each other as they possibly can be without literally sitting in each other’s laps.
Here is a close up of Pat and Pran literally making physical contact with each other at the knee and at the elbow.
And what Phupa and Tian do not know, is that Pat and Pran can't be outwardly and openly affectionate to one another in public when they are at school and so they make up for it by being disgusting when they aren't in school. Pat and Pran have to keep up a pretense, and its a tragic undertone to their ability to diffuse the brewing Tian and Phupa fight by looking at each other, nodding, and then improvising a fight realistic enough to get Phupa and Tian to pull them apart.
Because Pat and Pran’s relationship at home is a metaphor for external homophobia, because they are so used to it by now, the having to hide, to pretend they don’t like each other, to pretend they are mad, to pretend they aren’t in love, that they can just ease right in to staged fights at the drop of a fucking hat. But even in their fake fight they wind up pressed up against each other.
(hehe, screen shot funny, look at Phupa, he zoomin’)
Because for so long the only way they could have physical contact in public was by fighting, was by beating each other up, was by pushing or pulling each other away from a fight. Pat and Pran understand that Tian and Phupa are having a fight that they also once had, but they can also see the parts underneath it, the parts that make Phupa ask why the emphasis on him in Tian’s story is about Phupa being in love with Tian rather than his work.
Pat is simultaneously taking the opportunity of being hours and hours away from home, from where he has to hide his relationship, to be as openly and obviously in love with Pran as he has always been and is telling Phupa he is safe to be gay around. That he and Pran are safe people to be gay around, are safe people for him to be openly affectionate with his boyfriend around.
And that stems from the parts of Pat and Phupa that are wildly different.
Like, it is very very notable that Pat confesses his feelings for Pran practically as soon as he realizes that he has feelings for him and initiates the rooftop kiss which they share before they are even together, and then they have a bunch of little kisses, and they sneak as many touches as they can, and they make out multiple times in the show
And Phupa and Tian have…a single forehead kiss and then one kiss, at the top of a mountain, where no one would ever be able to see them after their story is complete.
In last week’s crossover episode, the level of intimacy that Phupa engages in with Tian is called out, even by Aof himself with the roleplaying scene between Pat and Pran where they pretend to be Phupa and Tian putting up a mosquito net and conclude that they absolutely must have kissed then.
But we know they didn’t. We know how painstakingly long it takes for Phupa and Tian to reach that level of intimacy with one another.
I'm even thinking backstory-wise, what is forest ranger training like? Is it part of the military? Did Phupa's gay ass have to enlist in a presumably male dominated field and like, go to training, and be around a bunch of guys, and make sure they didn't suspect he was gay?
I’m thinking about the moments in last week’s episode where it seemed like things were going better between Phupa and Tian, and it was always when Phupa was physically affectionate with Tian, putting his arm around him and not letting him go, when they were at karaoke, and when they were drunkenly stumbling home together, again locked in eachother’s embrace, where anyone could see them.
To regress as I promised back to the leech scene I am struck by what the approach to removing the leeches says about Pat and Phupa respectively.
Pat rips the leech off of him and Phupa takes time to put a lighter to them and pluck them off in a way that does not hurt Pat
Pat rips the leech off and bleeding for it, hurting himself in the process, because he is impulsive and impatient, Pat bleeds emotion, he's practically incapable of hiding what he's feeling, and he must obey his emotions before all else. Therefore, in Bad Buddy Episode 5, when he realizes he has feelings for Pran, Pat immediately has to talk to Pran about his feelings, immediately leans in to the emotion he is feeling in the present moment, and initiates a kiss. A kiss that leaves him feeling blissful, and that leaves him hurt because Pran walks away, because Pran has known forever how much he likes Pat, because Pat has only just figured out his feelings, he hasn’t had to sit with them for long, and yet that kiss is an equally strong release for both of them.
When Phupa removes the leech from Pat’s leg he is methodical and patient, he tries to minimize the wound, it takes longer but it has the same result which is why it takes so damn long for him and Tian to get together. When I watches ATOTS and they touched pinkies under that blanket and I went "ah yes! This is the part where you start making out and fucking cause they are adults who have maybe been in a relationship before and who have both been obviously painfully aware of their feelings for eachother since the moment they laid eye on each other"...and then they don’t. Phupa waits, and waits, and waits.
I think the fundamental thing that I see replaying in this episode especially, and with Pat and Phupa’s interactions especially is the elder versus younger queer mentality we got in Moonlight Chicken, with very different characters from Jim and Li Ming, but following a similar pattern of restraint and time versus just jumping right in.
And it’s also why I think the conversation between Pran and Phupa is so important:
gifs by @nanons
Pat and Pran’s need to keep their relationship secret because of their family’s, and because of Pran’s mom specifically is a metaphor for external homophobia. Pat and Pran are extremely comfortable in their sexuality, very open in their love for one another when they are amongst other queer people, or amongst allies, when they are away from their hometown or when they are in the privacy of their homes.
There are a lot of different pieces in play around Phupa and Tian’s relationship, but there is ultimately a metaphor at the most or a blatant sense at the least of internal homophobia on the part of Phupa.
Pat has chosen to stay “in the closet” in order to be with Pran. In a convo with @shortpplfedup about this, Nini said it the most accurate and heart wrenching line: “It's honestly that Pran can't really ever compare to Pat's sacrifice here, and he KNOWS it,”
Similarly, Phupa believes that Tian has made a sacrifice to be with him, and he knows it. Which is why he can’t bring himself to go to Tian’s birthday, because Tian has left before, because he is scared every time Tian goes that he will realize that Phupa isn’t enough. Because Phupa is afraid of being seen as Tian’s partner. Because Phupa is really only capable of being physically affectionate behind closed doors. When they are completely alone.
Cause even in the camp, when the child is sleeping and Pat and Pran are off literally fucking in the tent minding their own goddamn business, Phupa cannot bring himself to touch Tian.
They’re sharing place but not space, or whatever it was that Ayan said to Akk in their Our Skyy 2 episodes. When Phupa gives Tian his medicine, at most their fingers brush, they don’t sit down together, they don’t ground themselves with touch. They share this place, but they do not encroach on each other’s personal space…
…until Phupa falls asleep
gif by @earthpirapat
At which point Tian gets up, and places his blanket on him, and physical touches his arm, his shoulder, etc. as he is adjusting the blanket for him.
Tian initiates the touch, Tian stayed in the village with him, Tian is sacrificing his health to be here with Phupa. Phupa has spent 90% of his time alone with the bouncing ball of sunshine that is Pat, and 5% of his time with the chaotic homosexual energy of Pat and Pran together, and to be real, as much as we know about Pat and Pran’s relationship, and as much depth as we are able to pull from these specific characters interacting in the way they do, Phupa has no idea what Pat and Pran have been through to be where they are.
To anyone who does not know Pat and Pran’s story, they seem like nothing more than two horny young adults in love, who feel no need to hide themselves and their queerness away, that have never had a struggle in their life, and do not understand the trials and tribulations of navigating an older queer relationship, who will last the length of a honeymoon period and then disappear at the first sign of real conflict. Thus, I think Phupa grossly underestimates the company he is currently keeping.
So I think, personally, Phupa is kinda of struck by the sudden and unexpected depth that comes from Pran. That Pran is able to identify and then absolutely hone in and strike at the exact things that Phupa is struggling with. As much as Pat has both relished in the freedom he has to be disgustingly in love with his boyfriend in the woods, and as much as Pat has tried to make himself an obviously safe person to be openly gay around, Phupa is incapable of understanding what he can learn from Pat and Pran’s relationship until he realizes these boys have a lot more in common with him than he thought, and that their relationship and their relationship to one another is more complex and therefore more similar to him and Tian’s situation than he would like.
Pran and Phupa carry the weight of feeling like nothing they do will ever compare to the sacrifices their partner has made to be with them. I didn’t get much in to Pat and Tian here, but their interaction makes it clear that they both carry the weight of feeling like their partner does not need them.
Phupa has literally saved Tian’s life on numerous occasions, Tian is chronically ill, Tian has limitations. Phupa is a forest ranger, who is a foundation in his community, who is skilled and competent, and fiercely independent. Pat is disorganized, and impulsive, his father is the reason he and Pran can’t be open about their relationship, he is the reason Pran got sent away.
We get a fun reversal with dynamics in these Bad Buddy x ATOTS episodes because Tian and Phupa are older, but Pat and Pran have an entire lifetime of navigating and overcoming conflict under their belt. Pat and Pran have already weathered the storm of the fight that Tian and Phupa are having. They have already settled in to who they are, but Pat and Pran (Pran especially) are able to see the ways that always giving in and never backing down wears on a person. Pran learns from seeing the pain that Tian is in that being uncompromising might cause fractures in their relationship in the future.
Tian and Phupa (Phupa especially) are learning how to resolve their conflicts. Pran, who is holding on to Tian and Phupa’s story so tightly because it is shared, because it is open, because anyone who wants to can know about it, pushes Phupa, who cannot cope with being portrayed as being in love with Tian, to read all of the diary Tian published online. Pran pushes Phupa to push through the emotional blocks, to push past his initial concerns, and to assume Tian wrote and published this story with both an understanding of who is partner is and what Phupa is comfortable with, and with no intention of hurting anybody.
Anyway, all of this to say, that this episode has really made me analyze Phupa with an internalized homophobia lens, and though one can never trust a P’Aof trailer, it has left me with two impressions.
On the subject of Phupa and internalized homophobia, and needing to move past that (and more) in order for his relationship with Tian to survive this fight, @shortpplfedup said it best:
“Now I'm thinking about one moment from the preview (but just a moment!) where Phupha tells Tian he's not gonna sneak to look at him, he's gonna OPENLY look at him”
And cause it seems like Phupa learned some things from the Bothersome Boys:
--
Case in point:
Here's multiple hours of my life I will never get back, at least I had fun! Time to go do the work I was supposed to be doing tonight :p
That's all folks!
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