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waitmyturtles · 8 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Lovely Writer and BL Gets Meta On BL (and Everything Else) 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 write about Tee Bundit's Lovely Writer, a drama that I was SURPRISINGLY and wonderfully taken by.]

Lovely Writer is in the Old GMMTV Challenge due to the very strong recommendations of @shortpplfedup, and dear NiNi -- I can't thank you enough for recommending it, because 1) it was a PHENOMENAL SHOW, I enjoyed it immensely, and 2) it dealt with a whole bunch of stuff that's extremely pertinent not only to the development and coverage of the Thai television BL genre by way of macro commentary -- but it also didn't hesitate to cover the kinds of discriminations that the queer community faces inside and outside the entertainment industries of Thailand and the world.

Before I delve into this, allow me a quick few words on Tee Bundit, the creator of the Lovely Writer drama (and the man behind two shows airing right now, in Hidden Agenda and I Feel You Linger In the Air). I've now watched three Tee shows: my first Tee show was TharnType, of which I had many feelings. While TharnType is first and foremost thought of as a MAME show, I felt the show was bad enough to need to hold any other folks involved with it accountable. I understand from BL fanon lore that Tee may have created Lovely Writer in part to offer macro commentary about the problems he faced making TharnType and how shipper fans responded to it and how they respond to BLs in general.

If you're a regular reader of this space, you'll know that I watched my second Tee show, Step By Step, *before* watching Lovely Writer, which was a mistake in hindsight -- I definitely should have tried to watch Lovely Writer first, to get a sense of how AMAZING Tee's filmmaking work could be. I had not at all the same feelings about Step By Step -- the 180-degree opposite feelings, in fact. Step By Step was so wildly bad, so unmoored, incomplete, and messy, it made at least the story structure of TharnType look good.

Finally, I acknowledge that I'm not watching Hidden Agenda, and I *am* watching I Feel You Linger In the Air, which I am enjoying very much, if not for my smell test being very active about the editing foibles that I was made aware of during SBS. (But @lurkingshan has hipped me to the fact that historical dramas, of which IFYLITA is one, is meant to have slower pacing -- and Tee, at least, is utterly killing it on the cinematography and scenery alone of IFYLITA, which is making it enjoyable for me.)

So, with all that said, at least from my perspective, Lovely Writer is Tee's top anomaly of the dramas of his that I've watched so far.

Lovely Writer, man. It was a sharp, well-paced, extremely layered, and ultra-critical examination of BL media, shipper fandom, capitalism, internalized and externalized homophobia, intergenerational trauma, family acceptance, and a whole lot more.

Let me break down why I think Lovely Writer succeeded and why I think it's such an important show to have on the OGMMTVC list:

1) The macro commentary on the structure of the BL media world, from novels to dramas, to marketing and fandom, to the exploration of the actors' private lives, is absolutely necessary for any serious BL fan to watch and digest,

2) The inclusion of intergenerational trauma by way of internalized and externalized homophobia was deftly depicted,

3) The acting itself was superb and met the level of talent needed to tell this complicated story, and

4) The commentary on the "work" of the BL world is a subject that had already received attention in other dramas that were indirectly referenced in Lovely Writer in an utterly brilliant way,

and I might come up with even more reasons to celebrate this show as I pen this review.

The ultimate reason why I loved Lovely Writer was that it never lost sight of what I saw as its overarching message: how discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is mean and entirely useless in all aspects, and how this discrimination is woven in insidious ways in almost every detail of our everyday lives.

By the time of Lovely Writer's airing in 2021, we are five years -- ONLY FIVE YEARS! -- ahead of SOTUS's airing as the first holistic Thai television BL. SOTUS began the process of establishing tropes and conventions, and fell in line with Love Sick and Make It Right in establishing ships -- to the extent of the creation of the first blockbuster ship in KristSingto. Between 2016 and 2021, we have the creation of other blockbuster ships (MaxTul, PerthSaint, TayNew, OffGun), we have shows that buck the BL trope trend (He's Coming To Me, A Tale of Thousand Stars), we have shows that decentralize romance (Manner of Death), we have the creation of the prestige cinematic BL genre (ITSAY and IPYTM), and we have shows that flirt with, for the BL genre, new storytelling structures that hadn't been seen when the genre was born, namely historical flashbacks that gave a cinematic feel to its final products (Until We Meet Again, ATOTS).

Lovely Writer was a pandemic-era show, airing after the incredible success of 2gether and Still 2gether (2020), and that success -- the insane burgeoning of awareness around BL in that moment -- along with Tee's experience in making TharnType, and seeing the hype around TharnType -- likely fed his desire to make incredibly smart commentary about what he was seeing by way of capitalistic interaction with the genre, and, maybe more importantly, how these capitalistic demands were actually affecting real people, including himself, in the process of the creation of this material.

What I loved the absolute MOST about Lovely Writer was the parallel story of insidious homophobia within and emanating out of the media world -- and how that insidious homophobia was ultimately presented next to stories of internalized and externalized homophobia on personal, interpersonal, and familial levels. Bua, Gene's book editor, wants hotter and more explicit sex scenes. The director of Bad Engineer wants, needs, Nubsib and Aoey to emanate attraction and heat. The fans of Bad Engineer (Lovely Writer's show-within-a-show) demand ship after ship -- SibAoey and SibGene -- and become poisonous online if their fantasies aren't catered to. But Gene and Nubsib, as an actual queer pair, cannot be out and together publicly. In fact, not only are studios wary of fan rejection of Nubsib and Bad Engineer itself -- but it's also presented that Aoey's career depends on Nubsib faking a relationship with Aoey, to Aoey's crushing recognition.

What the media world assumes is that fans want an arm's length away from the reality of queer relationships and queer sex. I posited in my 2gether review that that's exactly why 2gether was so immensely popular in real life: 2gether gave fans an illusion that two men could successfully be shipped together, without any depictions of actual intimacy to make the fans feel uncomfortable -- especially if those fans held implicit and/or explicit bias against queer people. (As @bengiyo has written in the past: when queer love gets "too real" for fans -- fans turn. In Ben's words: audiences don't like gay people.) (It's always important to note that out actors, like Fluke Natouch, Earth Katsamonnat, and Bruce Sirikorn, are far less popular actors than the majority cishet GMMTV stable of actors. Fluke Natouch only recently -- in 2023! -- had his first solo fan meeting.)

What Lovely Writer highlighted, in its macro criticism of the BL industry and what this industry has spawned, is the utter hypocrisy of the media world leveraging queer themes and ideas for the sake of selling content, while keeping an arm's length with queer reality. As CNN wrote about gay idols in the K-pop industry, so in the Thai BL industry can a career be wildly and negatively affected if an actor comes out. For the sake of Nubsib's career as his show, Bad Engineer, aired within the Lovely Writer universe -- Gene broke up with him.

And this was presented alongside three family stories -- Gene's, Nubsib's, and Aoey's -- of discrimination and rejection of sons being gay. Gene having a queer revelation vis à vis Nubsib, and being courageous enough to bring his admission home, only to face hypocritical rejection, and then hesitant acceptance, from a father that had been discriminated against in his own past for his own queerness. Nubsib faced incredulous resistance from his parents, specifically in regard to how his parents' careers would be affected by having a gay celebrity son. And Aoey was rejected by his family for his career choice in acting in BL shows while being gay himself -- to the extent of getting kicked out of his parents' home.

From my dear friend @lurkingshan -- another Lovely Writer stan, hey gurl -- I understood that Aoey's storyline affected a lot of Bruce Sirikorn's fans (and I am super-duper glad that the one glowing part of Step By Step, the character of Chot, was embodied by a glorious Bruce). Man, did Bruce ever EAT his role of Aoey, depicting the heartbreaking insidiousness of internalized homophobia. We think he's after Nubsib -- but he needs to chase Nubsib for the sake of keeping up his BL career. We find out that Aoey is attracted to Gene -- but Gene is already managing the complicated realities of his relationship with Nubsib, and must deflect Aoey's repeated flirtations attempts. I saw the show setting up Aoey as a despicable character, but my heart broke for him: as he was rejected by his family, he had only the ephemeral acceptance of his fans who were only interested in his potential to be shipped in fantasy with his co-worker.

Alongside Aoey's story of internalized homophobia was that of Gene's father -- which gutted me. (Nu Surasak, who played Gene's father and was also the teachers' foundation head in ATOTS -- damn, he is a HELL of an actor.) Gene's father simply did not want Gene to be gay, because Gene's father himself had experienced queer discrimination as a young man. And we saw how Gene's father's internalized homophobia nearly ripped his family apart.

And then, Gene's father HIMSELF demonstrates a process of behavioral change, when he begins to RELATE to where Gene is coming from in his love for Nubsib. I gotta admit: I did not see this coming. Not just Gene being so brave to come out so openly to his family, but to demonstrate that PARENTS can change, in such a visceral way. This was so meaningful to me in part because many of our BLs today show parents that automatically accept their sons -- without a process of change and acceptance happening before our eyes.

And THEN: how Gene's father came to Gene's side when Gene decided to leave Nubsib for the sake of Nubsib's career. And how Gene's father related, tear by tear, emotion by emotion, to everything Gene was going through.

WHAT A DECISION TO INCLUDE THIS STORYLINE. To have a PARENT embody a story of THEIR OWN queer revelation? @bengiyo has written before about the importance of queer elders in our beloved shows -- and while Gene's father presents a more complicated reality than out-elders, the fact that Gene's dad could holistically RELATE to EVERYTHING Gene was going through was truly remarkable to watch.

(I want to note that if you didn't know, there is a movie-length Lovely Writer special episode. It's structured around Nubsib wanting to surprise Gene for his birthday. The middle part is somewhat incomprehensible -- hi, Tee -- but the ending wraps up Gene's father's total acceptance of Gene's and Nubsib's relationship in a gorgeous way. I highly recommend finding it if you haven't watched it.)

Lovely Writer's very complicated storyline -- from Gene writing a novel, to Nubsib filming a show, to Gene and Nubsib's childhood, to Aoey's interventions, to Gene and Nubsib's families, to the fans, to the studios and managers (ZORZO!!!!), to EVERYTHING this show held -- could not have worked if Up Poompat and Kao Noppakao didn't hold it together. They were the fucking GLUE to this story. THESE DUDES ATE. Step By Step did NOT allow me to appreciate Up's SCOPE. (I mean, Put was TOTALLY intolerable, and Up did him fantastically, but Gene was just, WHOA.) I just need to give them their flowers, because I loved Kao in Until We Meet Again, but I did NOT appreciate how capable he was at very intricate storytelling as a main lead.

I want to wrap this up by noting that Lovely Writer was not the first show to offer macro commentary about the BL industry. Cheewin Thanamin (who made a HILAAAARIOUS cameo in Lovely Writer as a press conference host, I was HOOTING) offered commentary on BL actors in YYY, where one actor tells another actor, this is a job, and we have to do this to get paid. War of Y, another Cheewin show, also gets into this. As we recall, Step By Step also attempted to offer macro commentary about ships and the BL industry -- to the morbid extent that that criticism was edited out after ZeeNew fans raised protests.

I love it when media comments on media -- the hypocrisies, the vagaries, the capitalist realities. For the Flukes, Earths, and Bruces that are out: we don't know how many more actors are in the closet, out of fear for the sake of their careers. Lovely Writer forces fans -- the BL fandom -- to reckon with the hypocrisies of watching queer media, and of accepting queer realities vs. only being accepting of queer fantasies that do not otherwise challenge heterosexual power. Queer joy is joy. What Lovely Writer did for Gene and Nubsib was to center and highlight that joy, and to show that they, together, could surmount the ridiculous obstacles of the demands of media and capitalism, to allow their love to thrive and grow. What a story. I want and hope that Tee Bundit can demonstrate this SHARP critical eye on his work again in his future.

[Alright! Next one up: my review of Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon. What a turn from I Told Sunset About You. I love relationship-growth stories, and IPYTM was one of the very highest order.

I mentioned previously that I may need to take a week or two off from the OGMMTVC due to some insane life shit happening at the moment (FML, MOVING). I've been coping by letting myself fall a little behind on shows. I’ve paused on Not Me, to give it the attention it deserves. But I will be picking it up again soon, very slowly, and I’ve very much enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. After Not Me, I hope to be settled enough in to start in on my usual faster pace to get through 55:15 Never Too Late, for more macro commentary -- this time, from GMMTV itself, on the BL industry.

And then onto my long-awaited Bad Buddy and Our Skyy 2 rewatch. I'm having some seriously fantastic and in-depth conversation with a few Tumblr friends about how BBS has impacted us, and I can't wait to bring them into my big-brained posting moment about re-watching Bad Buddy and offering some insights into our conversation.

List below! As usual, feedback welcome, etc. (Tumblr's new web editor is jacking with this list and not letting strikethrough what I've watched. For the very latest list, 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) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review coming) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review coming) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) 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) 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) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 39) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 40) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 41) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 43) Only Friends (2023)]

#lovely writer #lovely writer meta #meta on meta #bl meta #tee bundit #step by step #up poompat #kao noppakao #bruce sirikorn #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #cheewin thanamin #yyy

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zindoesart · 1 month

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わーいわいわい　わいわいわい！

featuring: girl who dances like an out-of-touch dad when not given specific instructions typical teenage gamer girl girl who forgot that goth dances are inappropriate for this part of the song and is hoping nobody notices

#pixel art #love live!#fanart #kurosawa ruby #watanabe you #tsushima yohane #tsushima yoshiko #screenshot redraw #YYY

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absolutebl · 2 years

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BL Directors - Overview

Some DMing has made me think perhaps it’s time for a master post about some of the directors we have who always (or often) specialize in BL. I’m interested in better training my eye to spot BL director style (I think I have Cheewin & New down). This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list, but there are certainly ones whose names come up a lot, and some who have a very specific style. So I’m hoping many of you are as interested as me.

A word on address in Thai:

Many bloggers will refer to directors as P’New (for example) to distinguish them as directors, also because this is often mode of address used by their actors in bts and on promo circuit. Quite apart from the fact that there is a good chance I am older than many of these directors, the correct form of address to ANY ADULT from an outsider or stranger (like me) is Khun. So technically I should use K’New. However, to distinguish in my posts a director like New from say an actor like New of TayNew, I will occasionally use the moniker “Director New,” otherwise, as with other Thai names I will just use the person’s ชื่อเล่น chuelen.

New Siwaj

BEST KNOWN FOR: Until We Meet Again, Make It Right series (2016, 2017, 2019 co-directed with Cheewin)

OTHER NOTED BLS: Star and Sky series (2022), 7 Project (2021), My Gear And Your Gown (2020), Love By Chance 1 & 2 (2018, 2020)

FORTHCOMING: Absolute Zero, Between Us

OFTEN WORKS FOR: GMMTV, Wabi Sabi, MAME projects

LIKES TO CAST: Mean (will be co-directing Remember Me), Title, BounPrem, smol Earth, Yacht, Sammy, Plan, BoomPeak, Perth

STYLE: basic but high tech (he likes a lot of different camera work); redundant transition shot (he likes to reuse the same one for a given location in a series - Dean’s house = the koi pond in UWMA, for example); staged distance (long) shots; central aperture framing; neutral tones and backgrounds; school settings; good at encouraging genuine emotion, gets his actors to cry a lot; likes location shoots (forests, beaches)

NOTES OF INTEREST: He’s the producer but not director for Dear Doctor, I'm Coming for Soul; he’s the cinematographer but not director for En of Love: Love Mechanics; he was the screenwriter & director for both Love by Chance and Until We Meet Again

CONCERNS: none really, his style can sometimes feel redundant and a bit dull, like he’s phoning it in (see my thoughts on Star) but that’s about it, no negative rumors that I’ve noticed, he is very inconsistent in his story picks and therefor results (since he is so workmanlike he needs a very strong narrative to carry him), some stuff of his I love, others I can’t stand.

TRIVIA: New’s cousins in the industry include Captain (Noh in Love Sick) and Primrose (Aim in Love Sick)

Cheewin Thanamin

BEST KNOWN FOR: Why R U? (2020)

OTHER NOTED BLS: That's My Candy (2022), Secret Crush On You (2022), the YYY series (2020), Make It Right series (2016, 2017, 2019 co-directed with New)

FORTHCOMING: War of Y, Bed Friend, Middleman's Love

OFTEN WORKS FOR: LINE TV, Channel 3, GMM One

LIKES TO CAST: Zee, BoomPeak, JimmyTommy, MaxNat, YoonLay, Poppy

STYLE: commercial; bright, cheerful, favors primary colors, a touch campy and slapstick; no manga framing techniques; likes close-ups and mid-shots (few distance shots and when they are there, VERY staged); no drone work mostly dolly & steadicam; likes beach locations; loves a pillow clutch trope; very much signature Thai BL; good on higher heat; touch voyeuristic; later work has a queerer POV

NOTES OF INTEREST: Cheewin cut director’s teeth on the set of Love Sick 2, co-directing with two others. I don’t know the particulars on Cheewin’s preferred gender/pronouns or sexual orientation (translated into English) but Cheewin uses queer coded Thai linguistics (of the kind I discuss in this post), most specifically preferring ha, ja, and kha when being interviewed. So I would guess Cheewin identifies (by western definitions) as queer and/or gender fluid.

CONCERNS: almost always weak on story and plot, some marketing (fan scamming) rumors on some projects

TRIVIA: Cheewin played side role Christina in the Make it Right series, and the press conference host in 2021′s Lovely Writer.

Aof Noppharnach

BEST KNOWN FOR: Bad Buddy (2021), A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021)

OTHER NOTED BLS: Still 2gether (2020), Dark Blue Kiss (2019), He's Coming to Me (2019), Our Skyy (2018)

FORTHCOMING: Moonlight Chicken

WORKS FOR: GMMTV (content production director)

LIKES TO CAST: EarthMix, Ohm, Nannon, Tay

STYLE: cinematic, thoughtful, sometimes a little overworked; attention paid to setting; likes strong scripts; LOVES a long shot (crane work I think); pays more and better attention to audio, background music, and sound than many other Thai directors, specifically will choose orchestral music (less singing, thank fuck)

NOTES OF INTEREST: he clearly prefers experienced actors and established pairs or pre-existing friendship dynamics to ease the way for the intimacy scenes; he obviously tests and pushes his actors and is a bit of a perfectionist (actors and viewers seem to appreciate this)

CONCERNS: I have concerns around Moonlight Chicken because I don’t think his strength is in higher heat and messy gay, but as a director he hasn’t really failed us yet, so...

TRIVIA: Is the screenwriter behind the My Dear Loser series. So far as I can tell linguistically, identifies as gay. Produced but did not direct Cupid's Last Wish, Baker Boys, Fish Upon the Sky (so, lets keep him directing and NOT producing, okay?). Has had cameos in Baker Boys, Bad Buddy, A Tale of Thousand Stars, Our Skyy and Friend Zone. Appeared in BL: Broken Fantasy documentary. According to tumblr comments is openly gay (someone drop a primary source in the links to confirm?).

Other Thai directors to keep an eye on:

EXPERIENCED THAI DIRECTORS NOT FOCUSED ON BL

Ma-Deaw Chookiat - director & noted screenwriter, he does a range of genres, not just BL. He is responsible for the first gay YA drama out of Thailand, The Love of Siam (2007), as well as Grean Fictions (2013) which is not a BL but features many BL actors in their first major roles, and similarly dramatic and not BL but gay Songkram Yeng Poo To Be Continued: Secret of a Heart That Doesn't Exist and Dew the Movie. He’s from Chiang Mai and often casts northern actors. Amongst BL fans he is best know for Manner of Death and Triage. His BL is “BL light” often not really owing anything to the film genre but just the original y-novel story. He has neither a queer lens nor a BL style, but more of an objective outsider almost documentarian approach. This results in content that’s a lot more like western queer indie cinema than BL. He likes a strong almost literary story, driven by characters, and following that character to see what happens (VERY few tropes). He’s heavy on action and mystery elements, and likes complexity and movement in space, time, narration, and camera shots (I think he uses hand held quite a bit). There is no guaranteed happy ending with his work, but he will include gay threads whenever he feels like it regardless of genre (see Slam Dance) which is relatively rare out of Thailand.

Nuchy Anucha - co-founder of G Motif, one of the largest video production companies in Thailand. Nuchy is trans and explicitly queer in all her work, she is the genius behind Not Me, but she is not focused on BL.

Thitipan Raksasat - works mainly as a marketing director and comes out of musical theater, he did the two X-rated and not really BL but hella gay installments of Love Next Door, and most recently Love Stage!! He brings a queer lens to his work and good high heat, and I really hope he does more BL.

Mike Phontharis - Mike’s stuff is all over the place, messy, he’s absolutely does not specialize in BL and does a ton of work. I clearly am not a fan of his style because I’ve struggled with all his BLs, which include: The Tuxedo, Golden Blood and Siew Sum Noi.

Jojo Tichakorn Phukhaotong - I did a whole post on him here.

EXPERIENCED THAI DIRECTORS FOCUSED ON BL

Andy Rachyd - basically birthed Thai BL, and the Thai Pulps, helmed Love Sick (YAY!), both Water Boyys (BOO), Make It Right 1 & 2 (I am trash because I love them), and 'Cause You're My Boy (AKA My Tee), mentored New and Cheewin. Now he does mostly terrible pulps (Thank God It's Friday, Friend Forever, Physical Therapy) and there are some challenging rumors about him. I don’t really know more than that. He has a soap opera style approach to his filming and is pretty darn terrible on story structure.

Lit Phadung - with only a few exceptions has focused on BL since the unexpected success of SOTUS in 2016. His stuff includes the SOTUS series, Meow Ears Up, My Engineer, Our Skyy, Love Mechanics. He has broken away from GMMTV but I think he’s a better director when he has their backing, funding, organization, and talent pool - it allows him to do ensemble pieces and broad characterization with lots of minor characters and group scenes, at which he excels. He is supposed to be directing My Engineer 2.

Tee Bundit - mostly focuses on BL and helmed TharnType, Lovely Writer, and Something in My Room - so yeah, his style is all over the darn place and hard to pin down. I can say he is good at spotting and cultivating chemistry, and he likes a clean, pretty uncluttered picture that feels graphic if not exactly manga influenced, he loves mid-shots and I think is mostly using steadicam and dollies in his stuff. He is the kind of director that feels storyboarded, whether he is or not. He’s behind much anticipated forthcoming BL timeslip historical I Feel You Linger in the Air.

Jane Botta - specializes in BL and was the screenwriter of Together with Me and director on Nitiman, Oxygen, Our Skyy, and SOTUS S. His style it a bit slow and I worry about his pacing, but I generally like his work. His next BL is supposed to be Trouble Maker.

Aam Anusorn - is a pretty famous new wave Thai filmmaker who comes out of documentary work and does a lot of co-funded projects with other countries including gay narratives like Present Perfect series (w/ Japan) and Call It What You Want (w/ Taiwan) which is also an exposé on the BL industry. He’s a risk-taker who’s been recognized throughout Asian for example he has funding from South Korea to film in China, and also did the BL documentary BL: Broken Fantasy. In addition to those already mentioned he helmed 2 Moons 2 and DID NOT HAVE A GOOD TIME. I would call him a queer director NOT a BL director so I hesitate to even put him on this list. I doubt he will ever do anything “typically” BL ever again. But he does seem to be somewhat driven to queer up the genre so he’s worth keeping an eye on. I have to say, as a genre fan, I dislike everything he’s done except 2 Moons 2. So I think he and I have VERY different taste.

Nob Sathanapong - Nob’s first BL is the interesting, but unsuccessful Love of Siam-esk 2016 piece Sweet Student Boy (this is Chimon’s BL, often forgotten, not without reason). Since then he’s done BL (occasionally working for Star Hunter): La Cuisine, both Gen Y series, and forthcoming Ai Long Nhai. His stuff is... messy.

Phadej Onlahung - came up in the pulps and not much is known about him. Everything he’s directed has been gay if not BL: Dear Doctor, I'm Coming for Soul (I loved it), I Love You, Love Poison (TERRIBLE), Love at 7-11, The Best Twins (also TERRIBLE) and forthcoming Cafe in Love. So very much hit or miss for me.

NEW THAI BL DIRECTORS

Aoftion Kittipat (Aof) - the director of Cutie Pie who clearly has a STRONG yaoi/manga influence to his vision. He’s one of the only Thai directors who does. His scenes and aesthetics are very staged and he pays careful attention to framing details (and spends his money on getting the vision RIGHT). Cutie Pie was his first major directing gig but I really want more from him. However, he has his fingers in LOTS of pies (DomundiTV, Mandee Work, & Emojii Music). He also helped write Why R U? and is producing Middleman's Love & Bed Friend. (The characters that showed up at the end of Cutie Pie.)

Niink Karnpicha - a young up and coming director specializing in BL, Niink is clearly still working out his POV and style. He trained under New and often works as his assistant director (Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, My Gear And Your Gown, Love By Chance 2, Until We Meet Again). His helmed projects have a similar almost slap dash workman-like approach, whether as screenwriter (7 Project, 2Wish) or director: What Zabb Man! and En of Love series. Like New, as a result, his directing style can come off feeling (oh how do I put this?) a bit lazy. I’d like to see him rise above this and develop his own voice.

Chacree Rujiviphat - only known for the Close Friend series and while I was not wild about that series content, I did LOVE the directing style and queer lens, there’s a solid, focused (gritty, but not really because still Thai) honesty to his style. His close camera work is very clear and clean, almost like something from Korea, and I’d love to see him handed a full length BL.

Pepzi Banchorn - has been a co- or assistant director on KinnPorsche, Bad Buddy, Dark Blue Kiss, and Great Men Academy. I expect and hope we will see her helm her own BL soon as one of the few women consistently involved with directing BL in Thailand, it’s time.

OUTSIDE THAILAND

Tsai Mi Chieh - Legacy director and queen of Taiwanese BLs her works include: About Youth, H3:MODC, Crossing the Line, H1: Stay Away From Me, and Love is Science (BL side). Her entire body of work is in queer media, including Dear Uranus and Hijra In Between. She captures intimacy well.

Chiang Ping Chen - directed Taiwanese BLs Plus & Minus (2022), Be Loved in House: I Do (2021), Craving You (2020). His preferred tropes and handling of intimacy is distinctly domestic. In other words, he likes close camerawork, home settings, and casual physical affection.

Nancy Chen - directed HIStory4: Close to You and the Papa & Daddy series. She’s newer to BL but as problematic as H4 was, it did include some good elements (in the main couple) like negotiation and representation of lube, and Papa & Daddy is explicitly queer. So I would keep an eye on her with regards to queer rep.

Ray Jiang - We Best Love & My Tooth Your Love. He seems to love long shots and working closely with experienced actors taking input from them, giving them space to play with a script.

Adiamond Lee - Light; Dark Blue & Moonlight; H1: Obsessed; Jump the Boy - she’s an out queer director to keep and eye on, but I’m not wild about her stuff so far.

Hwang Da Seul - AKA Our (Evil) Queen directed Korean BLs To My Star & To My Star 2, Blueming, and Where Your Eyes Linger, she’s also a professor in the Department of Film at the Korea National University of Art. So she’s training the next generation of BL directors. Her style is varied, she doesn’t seem to stick to any particular technique or trend. But if you watch her stuff in order you can actually see her improve over all as a director, picking up and trying different techniques. She is also one of the few out of Korea to give us 2nd seasons. I haven’t been wild about them, but that’s my issue.

Park Sun Jae - directed Peach of Time, the Color Rush series, and Mr. Heart. Clearly can’t be entirely trusted with happy endings but is very strong on story for Korea. He’s atmospheric in his approach with a dream-like POV that suits magical realism more than it does plain old contemporary BL.

It should be noted that there are more women directors in BL (and in general) in both Korea and Taiwan, than there are in Thailand.

Quick Terms Guide (Camera Work)

hand held (the hardest) - pictured: Until We Meet Again

steadicam (and/or tripod) - pictured: La Cuisine

dolly track - pictured; Secret Crush On You

jib - pictured: Until We Meet Again

crane - pictured: Until We Meet Again

car rig (set up) - pictured: Cutie Pie

drone (aerial) - pictured: HIStory 4

This post is dated mid year 2022, not responsible for keeping director’s oeuvres updated, that’s what MDL is for.

I talk about about BL production studios and how they function, or don’t, here.

Filming & Lighting Styles

Peekaboo Framing (dirty)

Central Aperture Framing

staggered couple framing

Linear cinematography + near perfect framing, in distance shots

Yaoi (manga) filming, staging & framing techniques in BL

Diffuse point lighting, AKA Fairy Lights in BL

Unidirectional focused lighting

Backlighting & Silhouettes

Spotlight on romantic couple moments

Look sometimes we just gonna end on my biases fucking around with a boom mic. I did a lot of work for this post, this is my reward.

And yours for making it all the way through!

(source)

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zurxmxru · 18 days

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NEW YYY SINGLE TEASER OUT !!! U-CYU is probably my fav song on this one 🥹🥹 BUT YEA IM HYPEDDD

#love live #love live sunshine #yyy #Youtube

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senso1954 · 4 months

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first b&w film from paris '22 came back ♡

#raph.txt #yyy #my photos #so shaky...

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taperwolf · 2 months

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youtube

Submitted without comment.

#love live #love live sunshine #ruby kurosawa #you watanabe #yoshiko tsushima #yyy #Youtube

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zhaozi · 11 months

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lay busking with bakedbrownie

#lay talay #lay talay sanguandikul #yyy #my engineer #thai actor #m:gifs

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lemongrabandlsp4ever · 5 months

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Ultimoose Equius Zahhak edit

Here is Ultimoose from Yin Yang Yo! as Equius Zahhak from Homestuck. I really love how this turned out! I was listening to Dancing on Glass by Motley Crue and Closer by Nine Inch Nails while I was making this.

#Equius #homestuck #homestuck troll #homestuck edit #edit #my edit #yin yang yo #yyy #equius zahhak #homestuck equius #zahhak #ultimoose #moose #troll #Spotify

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artbooksandstuff · 2 months

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#ayakopost #ayakoart #love live sunshine #ruby kurosawa #yyy #yoshiko tsushima #you watanabe

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celestial-sapphicss · 1 year

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so i'm still in recovery and can't go anywhere, i'm going to try and better my skills at photoshop! also i'm celebrating a year on this hellsite 🥺

but since I lack inspiration, send me a prompt! my MDL has a pretty extensive list of all the shows I've watched & love!

although I don't promise quality content but i will try my best and your prompts (i.e. your trust in me sksks) will make me very very happy 🌹🙈

nonetheless, here are these two cuties for a serotonin boost <3

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waitmyturtles · 9 months

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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