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waitmyturtles · 6 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 3a -- BBS and Asian Cultural Touchpoints

[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 offer the first half of the third (ha!) of five posts on Bad Buddy. I'll look today at themes that myself and fellow Asian fans of Bad Buddy have caught and related to in this wonderful show.]

Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4

As a lifelong viewer of Asian dramas, and as an Asian-American myself, I know why I'm drawn to Asian dramas. We all have our reasons for belonging to this widespread fandom, whether you're watching queer or het Asian dramas, consuming Asian music, all of it.

What are my reasons? The first and foremost one is relatability. Especially in Asian dramas, I relate to the spoken and unspoken communication of the dramatic characters as they navigate life's highs and lows. I relate to the way Asian dramatic characters engage with their families, their partners, their children, their colleagues, the world and societies around them. I relate to the ways in which societies are drawn and constructed, to the economic and emotional pressures that characters face. As an American -- I don't fully relate to the majority of experiences that white American characters face dramatically, because I'm not a part of the majority. As an Asian? I get almost all of what Asians are going through in dramatic art (save for, say, Korean or Japanese historicals, ha — but I do indeed get Asian patriarchy and sexism).

I'm not queer -- I am a cishet Asian woman -- but what I appreciate about queer Asian media is, very often, the media's tendency to not be shy about the various and intricate ways that discrimination, sexism, trauma (intergenerational, emotional, etc.), and many more social and emotional phenomena interplay in an individual's life.

When I first watched Bad Buddy, I had the strong sense that what I was watching was incredibly relatable to much of my upbringing and life as a young adult, working out issues vis à vis my family and my eventual partner. Bad Buddy, thematically, captured a tremendous amount of the realities of everyday Asian life for young people.

Bad Buddy exists in the GMMTV bubble of No Homophobia (cc @bengiyo and @lurkingshan, as we have spoken about the GMMTV bubble). However, what Bad Buddy didn't shy away from were explorations of many other social/emotional/cultural themes and frameworks of everyday life, from sexism, to youth bias, to boundaries and enmeshment, and many, many more.

I wrote in my first-ever Bad Buddy thesis that the framework of intergenerational trauma was the main theme I identified -- and identified with -- in the show. But, as I was contemplating writing this series of Bad Buddy meta posts, I wanted to know: what did my fellow Asians pick up in this show that they saw, and that they related to? In other words: what makes Bad Buddy particularly special to Asian fans of the show?

So, I did a thing. I gathered together a few BBS Asian stans, like myself, for a lengthy (and still ongoing!) discussion about what we related to in Bad Buddy. I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, @telomeke, @grapejuicegay, @recentadultburnout, @neuroticbookworm, and @lurkingshan (who's not Asian, but has Asian relatives, and gets us!) for being up for creating a spontaneous mini-village together to talk Bad Buddy and its inherent Asianness.

It sounds redundant to identify Bad Buddy, a show made by Thais and set in Thailand, as an "Asian" or "Thai" show. It's definitely not a show that steps back to take a look at itself and say, "oh hey, this is really 'Thai,' what we're doing here." When I asked @recentadultburnout directly about what they might have identified as uniquely Thai about Bad Buddy, RAB thought about it and said -- maybe Pat's ranak ek (Thai xylophone). Other shows of Aof Noppharnach's, including He's Coming To Me, Moonlight Chicken, and even the start of Last Twilight, highlight many facets of Thai life, from the spiritual to the everyday-cultural (even Gay OK Bangkok does this a bit, too). But Bad Buddy doesn't really go there by way of overt symbolism and/or specifically Thai spiritual/cultural practice.

The Asianness of Bad Buddy is far more inherent. It is rooted and coded in the way people interact with each other.

An overt example occurs in episode 10, when Dissaya confronts Ming in the Jindapat home, and announces that she will reveal Ming's secret, dropping the effort she has made her entire life to "save face" -- her reputation AND Ming's reputation.

During my first Bad Buddy rewatch, I was so moved in fury by this scene that I had to blog about it as if I had never seen it before. There's so much encapsulated in this moment: the pressure that Dissaya has put on herself to keep the embarrassing secret that she lost a scholarship; the effort she made to keep Ming's theft of the scholarship a secret, to save his face, and the secrets she kept from Pran to save her face, and to keep up the façade of rivalry between the Jindapats and the Siridechawats. She was letting a whole hell of a lot loose in this moment, because the eternal pressure of saving face in Asian societies is, frankly, never-ending.

"Saving face" is an incredibly important notion in many Asian collectivist cultures. Saving face is about an individual or a family projecting an image of calm, cool collectedness and success, in order to not make waves within a collectivist society for any reason. If you are not working to seem like you are going with the flow of life, if you're not keeping up with the Joneses, the Kardashians, whoever -- you are not saving face. If you are in poverty, and are projecting an image of poverty, instead of pretending to be more wealthy than you are -- you are not saving your face or your family's face. If you allow yourself to get publicly defeated -- you are not saving face. Dissaya gave up a lot of her hard-earned reputation in the moment she confessed the truth in front of Pat and Pat's mother.

My Asian friends and I can click wordlessly into understanding the pressure of saving face; say that I didn't get good grades in school? I wouldn't be saving my parents' face. This kind of pressure to keep up with particular social dynamics within and external to family, within Asian societies, is a neverending drumbeat of pressure.

Besides saving face, there are many other Asian cultural touchpoints that were contained within Bad Buddy that my fellow Asian BBS stans and I noted. They include:

1) intergenerational/inherited trauma, 2) the unique nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures/societies, 3) enmeshed family boundaries, 4) setting up children to compete against each other for the sake of familial pride, 5) patriarchy, sexism, and the reversal of sexism among next generations, 6) the inset/assumed roles of family members based on patriarchy and elder respect, 7) Assumed community within and external to one's family, usually based on where you live and where you go to school, 8) How one's identity is defined based on patriarchy and individualist vs. collectivist cultures, 9) How various cultures within an Asian nation live peacefully (or not) together (for example, what makes Pat and Pran different by way of Pat's Thai-Chinese heritage vs. Pran's ethnic Thai heritage),

and many, many more.

It'll be impossible, even over two posts, to analyze all of these cultural touchpoints, but a few of them engendered quite a bit of conversation among the BBS mini-village that I want to highlight. In this post, I'll focus on the continuation of my first BBS thesis on intergenerational/inherited trauma, the nature of secret-keeping in Asian societies, and will return briefly to the touchpoint of saving face.

One of the most devastating scenes for me in Bad Buddy is in my favorite episode, episode 10, when Pat (after he's learned, throughout the episode, of the extent of the lies that his and Pran's family have shared with their children) confronts his father about his father's demands to literally control Pat's emotions, the way in which Pat related to other people -- specifically Pran. Pat sums up a lifetime's worth of control in one sentence.

@telomeke noted in our ongoing group conversation that this notion of inherited trauma vis à vis Ming is particularly present in Asian societies, not just by way of familial expectation that we, as Asians, embody it and "take it" throughout our generations, as Pat realized up above -- but that ALL family members present are responsible for playing their roles within the framework of the inherited trauma. @telomeke noted in particular that exactly what Pat was doing to hate Pran, FOR his father? That was what Ming HAD to do for MING'S dad, when Ming schemed to get the scholarship from Dissaya. AND, Pat's mother, in consoling Pat, had to play the role of explainer -- which, as we know now, Pat ran away from to meet his beloved Pran on the rooftop before running away to the eco-village.

Pat running away from that moment? That was a huge symbol of the breaking of the inherited trauma that was given unto him by his parents both.

(@telomeke has actually written about their theory about how the Jindapats and Siridechawats ended up living next door to each other -- which seems SO STRANGE on the surface, consider Ming's and Dissaya's boiling hatred for each other -- and the theory links nicely within the framework of inherited trauma. Tel theorizes that Ming's father or grandfather may have actually gifted the house to Dissaya's family as a means of apologizing for Ming's deceit. In which case: the presence of the Siridechawats is a reminder, on an everyday basis, of Ming's folly to steal from Dissaya, which may explain why Ming in particular went so hard on Pat to triumph daily over Pran.)

We as a group unwound quite a bit on the nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures. We know Bad Buddy relies on this cultural touchpoint at the end of the series: Pran and Pat have a full-fledged and committed relationship as a transparent secret, under the noses of Pat's and Pran's parents.

Secret-keeping....oh, man. I could not have lived a fully authentic life in America if I didn't keep a million secrets from my family while I was living out my own independent choices. I actually, literally, could not have gotten married, because the rule of my household was that I wouldn't date. I would just... get engaged. So I'd get engaged through, what, magic? Match-making? No: I'd have to find my partner through my own battle of social and familial conventions, literally against my family, to get to where I wanted to be in life, which was (gasp) married.

@neuroticbookworm illuminated more on this particularly from our shared Indian lens. She wrote,

Keeping your relationship secret from parents is sooooo ridiculously common in India (and I'm sure we can extrapolate to other Asian countries like Thailand). And the justification the children give themselves is always rooted in how they have a "duty" towards their parents, and that they will reveal their relationship after they have fulfilled their duties.

God, I LOVED that NBW brought up "duty" in this conversation. Because! Assumed within the coded language from Asian parents to children, and vice versa, is a sense that children MUST follow the dictates of their parents. 100%, full-stop.

The duties that NBW clarified in this particular conversation specified life demarcations such as "[w]hen I graduate, I'll tell my parents about my partner," and "[w]hen I graduate and get a job and can financially support myself in life, I'll tell my parents about my partner."

What's coded in these statements is a fear that the children will have to reveal to their parents that they were disobedient in the rules their parents set, that no dating shall occur until the time at which the parents rule it's okay. And at least within Indian frameworks, that period of it being "okay" is, more often than not, the period in which arranged matches are examined. Because, yes, that's still the rule in the high majority of Indian culture.

The revelation of that disobedience? That's bad-news bears. It indicates... everything: a lack of loyalty to the family; a lack of understanding the meaning of a child's role to listen to the parents as the parents are elders and therefore are the moral authority of the household; a lack of self-control (which is a huge deal -- that relates to saving face on behalf of the family); a lack of understanding the morals and ethics of saving oneself, in love and sex, before marriage, etc. Even if a family seems fully progressive on the outside, as an Asian, I'm conditioned to question that progressiveness -- as parents may hold different standards of acceptance for their children vs. other young people.

@telomeke expanded on disobedience for us -- connecting it back to the very important notion of "saving face."

I think there's something quite related to secret-keeping, but it's also to do with the ability of Asians, but also human beings in general, of being able to live with duality in life... and secret-keeping is part of it. This also ties in to the East and Southeast Asian preoccupation with the concept of "saving face" [as noted above]. A lot of families are able to live with the knowledge of dirty secrets, unsavory truths, as long as it's not brought into the light and confronted. I'm constantly reminded of this whenever I rewatch BBS Ep. 12 because it's clear both Ming and Dissaya KNOW their sons are in a relationship but it's not overtly admitted. In that way they (and more Ming I suppose) get to "save face" and not have to deal with the truth that their sons are being disobedient, consorting with the enemy, and because it's not in the open -- there is no dishonor brought to the family and to the elders.

God, I love the way Tel put this. That disobedience on the part of Pran and Pat would actually bring dishonor to their families -- because their families have put SO MUCH EFFORT into building their public AND private enmity their entire lives! It affected Chai's relationship with the families as an employee of both families. EVERYONE AT PAT'S AND PRAN'S SCHOOLS knew the guys were the "legendary rivals." And, of course, by being in rival faculties at the same university, the boys could continue this public enmity as well -- keeping up with the roles that were literally assigned to them by their parents.

If the boys disobeyed, they would bring dishonor to their families. Think about that -- and connect that with the heaviness that Pran walked away with after the rooftop kiss in episode 5, AND the weight of Pran's breakdown at the end of episode 10, when Pat assured him that they would run away together.

No matter what a Western viewer (and maybe even Asian viewers, wanting to see a dismantling of these paradigms) would want Pat and Pran to have by way of full openness of their relationships with everyone in their lives (because, in individualistic cultures, that self-driven openness is a given), Pran and Pat themselves knew that that couldn't be their reality vis à vis the social worlds they belonged to. So they kept their relationship a secret, in the end.

The secret that Pran and Pat keep about their relationship is strategic. It's certainly also a stress point: an older Pat asks an older Pran, at the end of episode 12, if he'll ever be able to walk through the front door of the Siridechawat house.

But this is the compromise -- within the larger-scale culture of secret-keeping in Asian societies, AND the private frameworks of the enmity that Dissaya and Ming established between themselves and their families years and years prior -- that will work best for Pat and Pran to preserve the sanctity of their relationship, which I talked about in part 2 of this meta series.

Pran and Pat do not have to publicly appear disobedient to the demands and pressures of their families. They do not have to make their families engage with each other. They do not have to make their families confront the mistakes that their parents made earlier in their lives. They can protect their families from their private and public follies. They can help their families keep and save face. And by doing all that? They can prevent their relationship from being threatened.

I feel this very deeply in my heart as an Asian-American. For the sake of my American spouse, I wanted to protect him from a lot of these pressures, and so I insisted on keeping a lot of our relationship secret from my folks. If I demanded full-blown, public acceptance from my parents? If I brought my "boyfriend" to parties, and introduced him as such with aunties and uncles -- especially if it wasn't indicated that we'd be permanent one day? Damn. No. I'd be embarrassing my folks, with the aunties and uncles saying to my folks, "dang, you can't control your daughter, huh? You let her do what she wants." That would mean my parents would lose face over their ability to control the lives of their children, and that's no bueno in our cultural terms. It would be on ME, as THEIR child, to uphold THEIR ability to save face, as much as its their own work.

Dissaya refers DIRECTLY to Pran doing this FOR HER when, in episode 10, she asks him, "did you forget to save my reputation?" It's brutal, daily work. And Pran goes BACK to keeping secrets in the end, because it would have been impossible, ultimately, for Dissaya to save face, AND for Pran to save Dissaya's reputation/face, if Pran were out with his relationship with Pat, thus proving his disobedience. It would be -- JUST -- better to keep the secret for all those involved.

As this post has gotten long, I'm going to continue talking more about these touchpoints in a second post. I'm driven to talk about this because I think much of the Western fandom might miss what us Asians are reading into shows like Bad Buddy through this coded language and engagement. I very much posit that Bad Buddy -- while it is first and foremost a queer show, made by queer Asians, about queer young men -- is so relatable to so many of us because we've faced similar struggles of survival, and we've faced threats to the sanctity of the love we have for other people by way of needed to fit into the roles set before us by previous generations.

So! With that, thank you for reading, and see you tomorrow, when I focus on competition, enmeshed family boundaries, patriarchy and sexism in Bad Buddy, and more if I can fit it in!

(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles, @solitaryandwandering, and @wen-kexing-apologist by request! If you'd like to be tagged, please let me know!)

[Alright! Stay tuned for more, many more ruminations from the BBS Asian station tomorrow!

Here's the status of the Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist. Tumblr's web editor loves to jack with this list, so mosey on over to this link for the very latest version!

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) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch 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) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 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) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (The BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series is ongoing: preamble here, part 1 here, part 2 here, more reviews to come) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (on pause for La Pluie) 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) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) 43) Wedding Plan (2023) 44) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]

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toomanyopinionss · 6 months

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Scattered thoughts after watching the finale of GEN V

Spoilers Ahead

i forgot how ANGRY homelander makes me. like i haven’t seen that awful mf in my screen in a minute but the candle full of rage i hold for this man is clearly not snuffed out. mr. how to ruin everything in 45 seconds or less. fvck homelander

lord, and the RACISM of this whole thing just has me so fvcking heated, because of course the two pretty cis white kids are the heroes (even though one of them supposed to be dead according to public records, and the other ones boyfriend killed the mf principal) and not the top ranked kids in school, three of which are poc and queer (possibly all queer, emma gives off a vibe). like emma, marie, jordan, and andre are arguably 4 of the most decent students on this campus. the only thing marie has done is fucking exist, and the world has just delivered nothing but awfulness to her. gtfo of here, im so upset.

if the term “morally gray” was a universe it would be this one. cause fuck indira but fuucccckkkkk homelander.

if they don’t do right by andre, im going to be so pissed. the fact that this episode showcased the most of him we’ve seen as a character and it was still half-assed?? i want moreeee

bruh, i know in the battle between action/drama and romance, that the former has to take precedence in this type of story, but even emma and sam got a fucking conversation. are you so serious? limoreau didn’t have time for a 2 minute discussion about their relationship??? the writers could have added a couple more minutes to this 30 minute episode? it’s been CRICKETS y’all, and i demand reparations. i mean we’re not gonna see them again for another, what… 2 years??The jordan and marie moments are so cute, don’t get me wrong, but they are minuscule after episode 5. I be having to run to fan fiction just to satisfy my need for emotional closure. do better

CATE. now ms. gorl, we were rooting for you. and you went and made a mess of things. and quite frankly, trying to get to jordan destroyed my last string of patience for her ass, and it was already fraying the minute she messed with sam. i am officially un-identifying as a cate apologist. if we bein honest, marie should have gone for the other hand too.

bruh, lowkey loved sam’s arch this episode, i don’t know. his character intrigues me, and he’s been through so much stuff, i just wanna give him a hug. When he said “I hate myself.” i felt like crying. homelander needs to keep his greasy no good, bloody mf hands off of him, i swear

Ok this is getting lengthy

i love this show and it’s characters, for the record, in case that wasn’t clear lol

8.5/10

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devotioncrater · 1 year

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The thing is this: we knew that Jack wasn't going to be endgame for Keeley. We knew that from the jump. So now I'm trying to piece together why, to me, their breakup feels off and weird.

And it comes down to three main questions which are all interconnected.

1. Who is this for?

2. What is the context, both in show and in the broader sense?

3. What is the message underneath the choices the writers have made?

Who Is This For?

While the show itself is geared towards adults in the USA, there are storylines within that are written for specific demographics of the general audience. These are the implied audience.

Henry's storyline this episode was a nod to children of divorced parents; Sam's storyline last episode was geared towards immigrants and people of color (although, as others have pointed out, it also felt off in how it was handled); and Colin and Trent's storyline in episode six was for closeted queer people, gay men in particular. Keeley and Jack's implied audience are queer women.

But just because a storyline is written for an implied audience does not mean it excludes the general audience. If anything, it can be argued that it helps broaden the general audience's views on different stories they otherwise may not seek out or watch.

Which is why context is important. It plays a big role in how the general audience outside of the implied audience will form their opinions on the characters, the show, and the issues discussed. Context — especially in shows set in Today's World like Ted Lasso is — also informs how the general audience should interpret the underlying themes/messages.

It is worth noting that storytelling does not exist in a vacuum. Writers have a choice in how to present storylines and they have a responsibility to acknowledge how their choices interact with the real world. Life imitates art, art imitates life; societal norms inform stories, stories inform societal norms.

What Is The Context?

The context here is layered.

It isn't as simple as the microlevel of Jack breaking up with Keeley because she doesn't want to be associated with her anymore. To reduce it down to that level ignores the bigger picture. It's the same as judging a portrait painting based only on how, say, the eyes are rendered. (We knew the portrait will have eyes, but do the eyes fit to the face? How do the eye expressions shift the vibe of the portrait? What message is the artist trying to convey through the eyes?)

Let's talk in-show context, beginning with the characters and then expanding outwards.

Keeley, a bisexual woman who worked her way up to where she is now, is running her own PR firm. Jack, a queer woman who is the daughter of a billionaire, is her investor/employer. The chemistry is there, they get together even though Keeley is still upset over her breakup with Roy.

Jack sweeps Keeley off her feet with expensive gifts and trips. Keeley doesn't mind them, but Rebecca warns her (and the audience) that it sounds like love-bombing. Rebecca takes it a step further by comparing Jack to Rupert, who is established to the audience as an abuser. This idea of love-bombing — and by extension, the idea that Jack can be abusive like Rupert — is further reaffirmed when the waitress tells the two their bill had been taken care of by Jack.

Onscreen, Keeley establishes boundaries with Jack. The two appear to have discussed the love-bombing conversation offscreen, too, as they joke about it in Taste of Athens. The expectation for Jack to be like Rupert is subverted in the croissant scene, but still lingers in the background because of her remaining similarities to the man (wealthy/powerful/keen interest). We the audience need time to trust her after how Rebecca casted doubt on Jack's intentions.

Things seem to go well after that, with the two waking up together and Jack making plans to take Keeley to a family event. Then Keeley becomes a victim of a leaked video, and Jack begins to distance herself because of it. When Keeley says she doesn't regret making or sending the video, Jack leaves after victim-blaming and slut-shaming her.

Again, we knew Keeley was not going to end up with Jack. Their breakup was in the cards, this aspect was no surprise.

Expanding outwards now to other relationships in the show, Keeley and Jack are contrasted against Nate and Jade in both episode seven and episode eight. Where Keeley and Jack are established in a sapphic relationship, Nate and Jade are just beginning their own heterosexual one. Where Keeley and Jack wake up and have breakfast together, Nate and Jade do too. Where Keeley and Jack breakup, Nate and Jade's blossoms and cements labels.

Which, sure, fine, that's how it goes. But if we further expand outwards, we see that Keeley and Jack are the only sapphic relationship in the entire series. An entire series which featured, up until this season, exclusively heterosexual relationships. And still does, now that these two have broken up. There isn't another gay relationship onscreen (unless you count Colin and Michael, even though we haven't seen Michael since episode 3).

Speaking of Colin, sidebar here: The phone scene with Issac and his reaction to what was on Colin's phone is now the second time this season the writers have dangled the expectation of Colin potentially getting outed. Which, judging by Colin's knee-jerk reaction to both Trent and Issac finding out, would be a traumatic experience for him. Being outed is a traumatic experience regardless. This repeated use of fear also specifically plays into the Gayngst (Gay Angst) trope.

If we expand another level outwards, we have the in-show damnation of sexism and slut-shaming and victim-blaming. Multiple characters offer sympathy to what Keeley's fallen victim to. Rebecca, Barbara, Jamie, Roy — they all condemn what's happened and express their support to Keeley in their own ways. This provides context for how the general audience should interpret the underlying message of "A woman's private photos or videos getting leaked online is not her fault. It's an act of violence normalized by a sexist society, and the blame needs to be placed on the person who leaked them."

But who at their core doesn't show that support to Keeley? Who acts as an oppositional view to the underlying message? Jack. Jack, a woman. Jack, a queer woman.

She has her own motives. In a toxic spiral, she begins by cancelling on the event, then she downgrades Keeley to "my friend" in front of a peer, and finally she verbally expresses that it's bad for her personal and professional image if she's seen linked to a woman who's private affairs got leaked. The line in the sand is drawn: Keeley's livelihood is not the priority, Jack's image is.

And this sequence of events all reaffirm Rebecca's earlier mistrust that Jack is not a good person. While Jack is no where near Rupert's level, how she handled what happened with Keeley is still terrible.

And like, yeah, it also serves to show that both men and women are capable of causing harm and abusing their privilege and being egotistical. It reflects real life in that way. But look at the context of the show's treatment of its queer characters in a broader sense and how that context interacts with both the general audience and the implied audience of queer people.

The only sapphic (or queer, if you don't count Colin/Michael) relationship onscreen within three seasons is set-up to fail. The love interest is placed in a position of power over Keeley, which is pointed out by a straight character. Then the love interest is revealed to be toxic, which was also foreshadowed by the same straight character, and she slut-shames/victim-blames Keeley before leaving.

This was a deliberate writing choice. There were so many different avenues the writers could have taken. They could have had Jack fallout with Keeley over the leak in a less internalized misogynistic way, or even over something completely irrelevant to the leak itself. Jack, being a new addition, does not have the same groundwork put into her character to where she is confined to how she'd react. It wouldn't have been OOC of her to genuinely support Keeley, because we don't know her well enough to pass that judgement! On the flipside, it isn't OOC of her to leave, either, because of the same reasoning. But then the discussion becomes: what kind of character is Jack, and what does she represent both symbolically and narratively?

Storytelling doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Going outside of the show now, if you look at queer women stories in television/film, you begin to see the repeated pattern of queer women characters being written as toxic — or worse, predatory — and this characterization is rooted in real life lesbophobia and misogyny. There are tons of resources out there that detail the damaging, pervasive idea that queer women — lesbians, especially — are the same as predatory men. In a patriarchal, misogynistic, heteronormative world where women are hyper-sexualized yet demonized for taking charge of their sexuality, society shames queer women on all fronts.

And because queer women do not center men in their relationships, society historically has viewed sapphic relationships as "lesser" or "not a true relationship" or "just friends/gal pals". It's dismissive. (Until, of course, the fetishization kicks in. However that is a can of worms not to be opened in this meta.)

Queer women barely get screen-time as it is, much less outside of period pieces, and so when every other confirmed relationship shown onscreen falls into the same pattern, the same routine, it's exhausting. It's the same message/theme over and over and over again: "Queer women are toxic. Sapphic relationships don't work."

So why, then, did the writers of Ted Lasso introduce a sapphic plot for Keeley and choose to make it toxic? For a show that takes pride in subverting expectations, there is nothing subversive about this.

We can't judge this storyline by just the eyes. We have to look at the entire portrait painting and then go from there.

Which leaves us with the big double question of: What Is The Underlying Message Here? Why Choose To Portray The Only Sapphic Relationship On The Show In This Way?

#ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso #keeley jones #jack danvers #idk im just. really fckigng tired of seeing queer women relationships fail onscreen #ted lasso meta

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horse-girl-anthy · 8 months

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beneath the cut is an essay I've titled "Ikuhara Fandom, Shoujo Manga, and Eroticism." it discusses potentially upsetting subject matter.

when I first encountered RGU in 2014, I was largely baffled, though I thought the ending was very good. after that, I didn't rewatch more than an episode or two of the show again until 2020. Ikuhara was inaccessible to me as a teenager, but I spent years studying media, so when I returned to RGU, it was like discovering a goldmine. by the end of 2020, I'd watched all of Ikuhara's original shows.

the thing is, I still found Ikuhara challenging. there were things about his works which were seemingly contrary to my value system. I would read interviews of his and he would say things which sounded alarming--to use cliche terminology, he wasn't very politically correct.

if we're being honest, there is a party line in a lot of left-leaning fandom spaces. I used to be a part of that more than I am now; I had rigid ideas of right and wrong. today in the Ikuhara fandom, I often feel like the elephant in the room is that his works aren't the kind of "queer feminist masterpieces" that people portray them as. now, by that, I don't mean that those words don't apply to his works: what I mean is that the way people frame them, the way they discuss their meaning, doesn't bear that much relation to Ikuhara and his oevre.

RGU gets this treatment more than his other works. in fact, certain fans want to claim it as the work which truly aligns with their values, while Penguindrum, YKA, and Sarazanmai actively subvert RGU's message. a lot of other fans just stick with RGU, claiming it as a work without critiquing it. by critique, I don't mean negative criticism: I mean critique as in actual engagement with the text.

I remember that there was a point when I was afraid to engage with more Ikuhara interviews/works, since I thought I would find something out about him that made it so that I couldn't enjoy RGU. after all, when I would hang around in RGU spaces, every so often I'd see someone say that Ikuhara was super problematic. then I realized I was ignoring one of RGU's main themes, facing the truth rather than trying to stay in an idyllic past, so I took the dive. I had my ideas challenged, my values changed, and my entire approach to media shifted by doing so.

it's been strange to be in the English-speaking fandom, where everything is taken very seriously and there's certain universal assumptions about RGU's meaning, when many of the things held as absolutes are simply not so in the Japanese fandom. equally, the creative minds behind RGU are often in conflict with the Western fandom as well. once or twice, I've seen someone point this out and say that RGU is actually problematic/patriarchal, but mostly, it is ignored.

for instance, the character Ruka is massively hated in the western fandom, while as far as I understand, Juri/Ruka is one of the most common Japanese doujin pairings. Mamoru Hosoda, who storyboarded many Juri episodes, claimed that Ruka was in love with Juri. turning to Ikuhara, he often phrases things in a way that could leave you wondering if he's as much of a "feminist ally" as people want to paint him as. of the women's liberation movement, Ikuhara said, "On the one hand you had this social movement, but then in their heads I think almost everyone was thinking: this is lame (laugh), I don't wanna do this (laugh)."

consider this exchange from the same interview for a demonstration of just how differently people in the western fandom approach media compared to Ikuhara and a contemporary of his, art critic Mari Kotani:

Ikuhara: Speaking of sexuality, after Utena I wrote a novel which features lots of hermaphroditic characters. It's a collaborative work, a book called Schell Bullet. Kotani: It is a fantasy world? Ikuhara: It's a future world. Humanity has divided into roughly two groups, Majors and Minors. Because of gene manipulation the Majors are hermaphrodites without male/female sexes, and they have a monopoly on good genetic material. The Minors are humans who have fallen away from the monopolized gene material, they look basically the same are present-day humans, and have two sexes. Kotani: Sounds interesting! Are the Minors kind of like slaves, like in The Human Livestock Yapū?

later:

Ikuhara: The boss is visually female, a Major with a very bold beauty. From the start I wanted the main character's boss to be a hermaphroditic woman. That's because, the way I see it, even the Major women in the real world, that is to say women who are competent workers, seem to have an intense male side.

what I find most interesting in this exchange is how Kotani casually brings up the idea of sexual slavery as a fun angle for Ikuhara's hermaphrodite novel. it's not to say that this kind of attitude is universal in Japan, just as leftist fandom spaces aren't universal here in America. however, there is obviously a huge difference in values between these two worlds.

so, what world is Ikuhara occupying? where did he come from and what are his influences? exploring these questions is what helped me to come to peace with his works, and in the process, I changed my own thinking.

I'm not really qualified to speak in depth on Japan, its history, culture, or values. however, I have looked into specific trends which I know were influences on Ikuhara specifically, so that's what I'll focus on here.

Ikuhara was born in 1964 and became a teenager in the 1970s. it was a period marked by a lot of social movements. he describes in many interviews feeling completely disillusioned when, rather than change society, the movements were crushed or simply collapsed in on themselves. "oh, maybe there's no way to change the world after all." however, one way or another, he seems to have pulled himself out of that despair. his works are all designed to give modern people a way out of the end of history brought on by the failure of radical change and the onset of the neoliberal global order.

as a young creative, he was into the dramatist/director Shuji Terayama and other artists who were pushing boundaries. in the Kotani interview, he stated:

Ikuhara: Terayama's words are interesting too, but what I find the most kitschy and cool is his theatre. Suddenly a completely naked actress would appear, without even a genital cover, and this was in Kinokuniya Hall! The police might barge in saying "Hey, wait a second". I guess this is why they say it's a fine line between a hero and a criminal (laugh), but until then I had never thought that showing your panties or showing your willy could be anything but shamelessness, and now the Asahi Shimbun was treating it as superb culture. I found that gap extremely mysterious and fascinating, and personally I felt a cultural nuance there.

clearly, the libertine values of 20th century countercultures left their mark on him. more than that, he is interested in the conflict between sexual repression and sexual expression, which has only escalated in Japan and in the West up until today.

turning to the anime/manga sphere, I know that RGU has a reputation as being very triggering, but to be honest, compared to its predecessors, RGU is mild and restrained. J.A. Seazer, a musician who Tereyama collaborated with, wrote songs for both RGU and the the 1992 anime film Midori. the story is old, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and it's been adapted as recently as 2016. Midori is an exploitation film: full of child rape, set in a freak show, featuring countless horrors in its 40-minute run. I've watched it and would not recommend it unless you're interested in the ero guro genre.

I bring up Midori as an example of the media landscape Ikuhara began his career in. he was working on Sailor Moon, so obviously, there was less heavy content in the world of anime and manga, but Sailor Moon is represents only one side of shoujo. Ikuhara is more aligned with the Year 24 Group, who revolutionized shoujo in the 1970s. the group produced a wide range of works, many of which had obvious influences on Ikuhara.

I know that Ikuhara is often associated with lesbians, but in fact, I would say that shoujo BL is one of his largest anime/manga influences. the early work Kaze to Ki no Uta is an acknowledged influence on RGU, and Ikuhara did an interview with its mangaka, Takemiya Keiko.

many of the early BL mangaka were inspired by western literature. Demian is not only referenced in RGU but also in Kaze to Ki no Uta. most important for BL is the 1912 German novel Death in Venice, as well as its 1971 film adaptation. for those unfamiliar, the novel is about a man in his 50s stalking a young teenage boy, becoming completely obsessed with him and other underage kids. it is a sexual obsession, but there are other angles to it, and the story has been analyzed in various ways. the fascination seen in shoujo and BL with beautiful young boys, as well as pedophilia, can be in part traced back to this story.

taking inspiration from Death in Venice, shoujo's fundamental character dynamic was established, one that can also be seen in a film such as Midori: innocence versus experience. the ever-present theme is corruption, how abuse and exploitation corrode personalities and create societal damage.

how this is handled can vary from work to work. I understand that grotesque depictions of child abuse or failure to condemn pedophilia hard enough make some people not want to engage with these works at all. I will say, whatever one thinks of Death in Venice, Kaze to Ki no Uta, along with the BL manga of Takemiya's contemporary Moto Hagio, are certainly not child porn. I think there is no excuse for CP, and even if there are things in Kaze to Ki no Uta that I question, it is overall a work of artistic merit, beyond holding interest to me as an early work in the genre.

as I've said, RGU is mild compared to much of what came before it, as well as a contemporary manga like A Cruel God Reigns. however, the core of its character dynamics are in line with shoujo/BL. the twist is that the work focuses on relationships between women.

Kotani: ...Watching it, the relationships between women, including the dialogue, were very sexual, very vivid, right? Ikuhara: But I think what it is expressing is simply yaoi. To do that using shōjo "royal road"-like characters, and with two women, is somewhat rare I think.

Utena and Anthy are easy to compare to BL couples who came before them, like Serge and Gilbert or Ash and Eiji. rather than approach gender issues through projection on to pretty boys, Be-Papas chose to use women, creating their own version of a gendered social system. of course, other Year 24 Group members used lesbians or GNC women to explore similar themes, with Rose of Versailles being another major influence on RGU. however, Ikuhara claiming that RGU is essentially yaoi has fascinated me for years.

Anthy and Akio are experience, knowledge, and corruption, while Utena is innocence, youth, and purity. like many predatory shoujo characters, Akio is obsessed with innocence and purity while also seeking to destroy them. the drama centers on Utena's struggle with corruption, as well as Anthy's conflicted feelings towards her friend's naivety, as she both identifies her past self with Utena and resents her for her ignorance. the story also features intense power dynamics, which, over the course of the narrative, are upset. all of these elements are standard for BL and shoujo.

to dig deeper into the value sense behind these works, here is a passage from the Takemiya/Ikuhara interview:

Takemiya: What I wanted to ask is about “crossing the line” for a girl [implicitly losing one's virginity/sexual purity]. I thought Utena crossed it unexpectedly easily. Ikuhara: Ah, I’m not thinking very deeply, right? Actually, I just wanted to suggest that it doesn’t matter. Because a lot of people seem to get caught up in issues of purity, I wanted to show that it didn’t matter. Takemiya: But doesn’t it seem like more kids these days don’t care about those things? Ikuhara: Yes, and that’s another reason I did it. But I think there are still many people who would try to put it in a box and say purity is important because it is an animation. Takemiya: Actually I think it’s more likely a lot of people will try to use the purity as an index of understanding. I guess you are an adult if you can overcome that. Ikuhara: That’s true, there are a lot of people that want to put a line between justice and absolute evil based on purity. I didn’t want them to do that. Whether manga or anime, I think it can become a motivation for the viewers and the readers in real life. I don’t like when people draw lines, out in society, equating absolute evil with impurity - in an animation which is nothing more than fiction, drawing a line between those that are carnally pure and those that are not.

I think we can all agree that Akio was in the wrong for trying to make Utena feel guilty for sleeping with him in episode 38 of RGU. but going further, Ikuhara and Takemiya say that they want to reject purity as an index of understanding altogether. to me, what this means is not jumping to immediate judgments, not treating issues of sexuality as if they are so deep as to sully the soul.

this is NOT to make some kind of excuse for pedophilia or child porn. I know from my own life how harmful those things are. to close out this discussion, I am going to try to explain what I mean by touching on the use of eroticism in art.

years ago, I was watching Naoki Urasawa's Manben, a show which gives space to mangaka to show off their process. Junji Ito went on it, and I was troubled by the following moment from the episode:

before I got into Ikuhara, I didn't have a grasp on the erotic. when I watched this, my thought was, why are they talking about a toddler being erotic?

after having gained an appreciation for eros's place in art, I understand what they were saying here. eros is hard to define, but it relates to sensuality: a way of interacting with the world which is beyond the intellect. the erotic is not pornographic: it is evocative, a way to make any work of art touch its audience on a deeper level. it is related to sexuality but is not the same thing as it. for Ito, exaggerating the erotic aspect of this character helps him to create even greater horror. the point is not to make a toddler sexy.

RGU relies heavily on this kind of eroticism for different purposes, both within the series and in the promotional art. whenever I see someone trying to ban a specific kind of fan art, I roll my eyes for this very reason. it's not as if there's any significant numbers of people making RGU exploitation porn or anything; most of it is in line with the show itself. for instance:

official art of characters all 13 and younger

Anthy having sex with her brother in the series proper (episode 31)

I have seen RGU called exploitative and fetishized, though not as often as I've seen the same criticism leveled at later Ikuhara works. however, more often than not, the disturbing eroticism of RGU is left uncommented on.

to come full circle, the reason that I now have a lot of admiration for Ikuhara is that I've come to see that the "problematic" aspects of his work help him to tell meaningful stories. all of his anime are designed to spark self-revelation/self-transformation in their audiences. additionally, I now appreciate erotics for what they are, feeling them on the sensual level rather than intellectualizing about them. viewing the above images, various readings can be drawn, arguments made about the impact of their eroticism on the themes they express. however, there is a more primal appeal to them, something which draws the eye. that aesthetic quality, by itself, deserves to be defended. those who dislike it should probably not engage with Ikuhara works. from RGU commentary, episode 38:

Hideki Mori: Are you always trying to work in this type of erotic undertone? Ikuhara: Yes, well... if it doesn't have that kind of stuff... it's not very interesting! Either I'm doing it to make it interesting or maybe I just wanted to see that.

I will finish with two final points. firstly, I think that letting go of one's automatic response of moral judgment is essential when approaching Ikuhara anime. this is not the same thing as advocating for a laissez-faire, anything-goes approach; it is simply saying, before applying preconcieved notions, let the work's textual, aesthetic, erotic, and sensual levels wash over you. if you give the work time and find some aspect of it offensive, that's one thing, but I am glad that I didn't let my kneejerk reactions turn me off of Ikuhara. along with that, don't immediately apply some kind of feminist, queer, or leftist lens to explain everything either. just let the work breathe.

lastly, I want to share Ikuhara's words on what affect he thought RGU had on its audience:

Ikuhara: I didn’t want 'Utena' to become a nice story. A story can be pretty, but it feels like a lie. From the beginning, the story was going to be about saving a friend, so in that sense that was the goal, but it can easily become a nice story, so to break away from that I made sure that it was a foolish story. I think it’s this foolishness that makes ‘Utena’ so popular with adults. Not in a sexual way, but more that watching it at that point makes it more relatable.

to re-emphasize, my point with this discussion was that much of Ikuhara's artistry is ignored because his approach and influences are considered problematic. that being said, it was never his intention to make a work about "sexy teenagers" who adult viewers can masturbate over. none of his works are that: they feature students because anime often features students, and because he has an interest in the threshold between childhood and adulthood. although I am now 26, I can see myself in all of his casts, and the eroticization of the art makes me more invested in the story and themes, not titillated.

#ikuhara #commentary #it's 5am #ive been writing this for 4+ hours lol

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gottagobackintime · 1 year

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Music (and movies) and queerness in Ted Lasso. Particularly in relation to Ted (and Trent)

I want to start with a line from the show that contains the word music.

“If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it.” Said by Mae to Ted in a scene where a few moments later Trent walks up to him after leaving his date to go talk to him. It’s a quote from the VERY queer Shakespeare play “Twelfth Night”. The line implies that the speaker wants to be fed more, to the point of it making them sick so that they won’t desire, love in this case, anymore. Because he’s unhappily in love with someone who he can’t have (Michelle?). BUT he falls in love with someone else later. And in the context of Ted Lasso, this line just so happens to be said right before they show us that Trent is there. Ted also answers Mae, not by asking if she’s asking him if he wants more but “If that’s your fancy way of asking if I want another one, you guessed right”.Another love?And according to James Lance, it was when he was on his way to film this scene that he found out that Trent is gay and that he is “with that guy” as he himself puts it. A man who has a moustache very similar to Ted’s and wears similar clothes.

(Also, this happens in season 2 episode 7. In season 3, episode 7 Ted talks about the red string/thread of fate myth while Trent wears a red bracelet and they are connected by red several times and season 3, episodes 7 and 11 are connected via “You’ve got Mail”, the opening scene in episode 7 being a “tribute” to the movie, and there are other smaller references. And the team, and Trent, watching the movie in episode 11. AndTrent also wears the bracelet in episode 11, an episode I’ll bring up later in this post).

Now, let us get to the music.

Bruce Springsteen If you google “Bruce Springsteen queer” you get a lot of results discussing queerness in his songs and so on, so to put him in this post is a must.

Bruce Springsteen is brought up by Dottie in season 3 episode 11. She tells Trent about the time Ted got onstage and danced with Bruce Springsteen (which turns out to be a lie) but the connection to Springsteen is still there, because Ted did get onstage with a Bruce Springsteen cover band and sang with them. So, we’ve established a connection between Ted (and Trent) and Bruce Springsteen.

Let’s connect it to something else that happened in the episode. They watch “You’ve Got Mail” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (I’ll come back to “You’ve Got Mail” later, the important part here is Tom Hanks). Ted states that the superior Nora Ephron/Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie is “Sleepless in Seattle”,a movie about a reporter falling for a single dad simply because of the way he talks about things and what he talks about. He brings the movie up twice, once to say that it’s superior and once telling someone to watch it. Now what does “Sleepless in Seattle” have to do with Bruce Springsteen? “Sleepless in Seattle” came out in 1993, as did “Philadelphia” a movie about a gay man played by Tom Hanks. Springsteen made a song called “Streets of Philadelphia”, specifically for this movie. A bit farfetched? Eh, perhaps, but I’m including it anyway.

So, in this episode Trent, a gay man, is told by Ted’s mum that Ted once went onstage with Bruce Springsteen and that’s the story he needs to confirm straight away. He practically skips towards Ted’s office to ask about it. Why that story? Surely she told him about other things too. And he heard the stories she told the team. But this was the story he was excited to get confirmed. A story about Ted’s connection to an artist that has several queer connections and who can also be connected to something else that is brought up in the episode.

Queen Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Their lead singer was queer.

And I talked about Fat Bottomed Girls and Queen/Freddie/Brian in THIS post. And I talk a little bit about the connection between Ted and Freddie Mercury in THIS post.

Queen has been used a lot throughout “Ted Lasso”, a lot more than I remembered. When I went back to look at the soundtrack for season 1 and 2, I found quite a few Queen songs. I also discovered that two of the trailers for season 2 had Queen songs in the background. “Under Pressure” (which also features David Bowie, another queer artist) and “We Will Rock You”.

Ted talks about having watched Queen at Live Aid on TV when he was younger, in season 2, episode 8 (that episode is called “Man City”, Ted mentions both Queen and Freddie Mercury. Season 3 episode 11 is called “Mom City” and Freddie Mercury is brought up again and a Queen song plays.) “Tear It Up” plays in season 2, episode 2 “We Are the Champions” plays in season 2, episode 9 “Fat Bottomed Girls” are both mentioned and played in season 3, episode 11 And, while not a Queen song, “Fought & Lost” by Sam Ryder featuring Brian May is also played in season 3, episode 11.

But let’s focus on “Fat Bottomed Girls”. Now, I’ve already talked about it in THIS post, that I also linked above. So, I won’t go over all that again. But a little recap, “Fat Bottomed Girls” is linked to “Bicycle Race” which is sometimes seen as a metaphor for being bi. They were both on the same single and they reference each other. The song is brought up by Higgins when he tells Keeley and Rebecca that Freddie, when he briefly owned Richmond in 1980, tried to make that song Richmond’s song but that it didn’t work. Rebecca then brings up that her dad went to art school with Freddie and that according to him if you would have asked Freddie what his greatest talent was, he would have said “flipping straights”.

We’ve already established Ted’s connection to Queen. And we’ve heard Ted refer to himself as straight just a few episodes ago (episode 7, and I’ve already pointed out the connection between episodes 7 and 11, this is another connection) now we get to hear Rebecca say that Freddie Mercury’s biggest talent was “flipping straights”. Ted is, as far as I know, and I’ve checked, the only person who refers to himself as straight, in the whole show. Not a single other character does that. Once in the Christmas special, once in season 3, episode 7, that’s two times. Will the rule of three apply here? Will he say that he’s straight a third time or will he subvert expectations or if you will, flip the script and say that he’s something else?

Dolly Parton Trent has worn a Dolly Parton shirt twice. Dolly Parton is a queer icon. In season 3, episode 11 Beard feels the need to call dibs on Dolly’s part in “Islands in the Stream” at karaoke. Implying that Ted perhaps snags that part for himself a lot of the time. Ted then walks away singing “Islands in the Stream”. Yet another queer connection between Trent and Ted via music.

Harry Nilsson/ (Judy Garland) Back to “You’ve got Mail”. The last scene of “You’ve got mail” ends with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meeting up and they kiss while Harry Nilsson’s cover of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” plays in the background. We’re shown that scene, not just by witnessing the characters watching it, but by it filling our own screen for a while. “Somewhere over the Rainbow” is of course from “The Wizard of Oz” originally, sung by Judy Garland. A queer icon. The connection to “The Wizard of Oz” and Ted Lasso has been brought up before. But in this episode, it’s very front and centre. Ted is standing at “The Wizard of Oz” pinball machine, staring at the spinning house. And of course, Ted’s connection to Kansas is always there. And it’s brought up in a very important way this episode, with his mother more or less telling him he should go home to Kansas.

So, we have a well-established connection between Ted and Kansas and “The Wizard of Oz”. Let’s talk more about Judy Garland, Dorothy, the original singer of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. As I mentioned above, Judy Garland was and is a queer icon. And “The Wizard of Oz” was and is a big part of the queer community. Then we have the “Friend of Dorothy” euphemism, a way to recognise other queer people, and it’s strongly associated with Judy Garland’s Dorothy. In episode 11 we are introduced to Ted’s mother, Dottie, which is a nickname/shortening of Dorothy. Another very clear queer connection to Ted.

And let us also look at James Lance who has said that there is a story arc for Trent’s shirts. And he wore a t-shirt with Dorothy’s ruby slippers to an event that is connected to Ted Lasso. And when asked why he was wearing that shirt, why he chose to honour Dorothy. It feels like he’s deflecting when he says “Well, every good character’s got to have a good pair of shoes, right. And these are surely, surely,the best pair of shoes in showbiz. So, you know, they get their own t-shirt. There aren’t many shoes to do that.” That’s suspicious. And we now know that James has had a lot of input into Trent’s costume, with him suggesting things and getting a thumbs up a lot of the time. He clearly thinks that clothes are important and can send a message. And he chose to wear a Dorothy shirt to a red carpet. When we now know that the eleventh episode of season three had several heavy references to “The Wizard of Oz”.

And to go back to Harry Nilsson. A song sung by him was on the soundtrack for Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, a queer movie. (And let’s remember that Trent himself said that Dustin Hoffman would probably play him in a movie).

Honourable mention

Mumford & Sons/Marcus Mumford

Why would I add Mumford & Sons and Marcus Mumford? Because Marcus Mumford made the theme song to Ted Lasso and the instrumental songs for the soundtrack, they’ve also used both Mumford & Sons and Marcus Mumford songs in the show. And the band have a connection to Jason Sudeikis. He was in the official music video for Mumford & Sons’ song “Hopeless Wanderer”, inthat video he clearly plays a version of Marcus, and he kisses another man in it. I think that deserves an honourable mention.

So, to sum it all up, there is queer subtext in the music and the artists that they mention and play in Ted Lasso, and these are just the ones that I personally can connect to Ted (and Ted/Trent). I don’t know if it is a coincidence, but I feel like there is way too much to just be a coincidence. To borrow part of Trent’s line “Through thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion.” Number four, that doesn’t even matter (but it actually does), LOVE. Queer love.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #tedependent #trent crimm #ted/trent #ted x trent #nicole watches stuff #I really hope this post makes sense #this post can be summed up with the words:#started making it had a breakdown... bon appétit #I'm sorry to say that I've literally gone insane #just look at this post #I didn't even mean to make this post #I was just going to make a little gifset about the times they've had Queen in the episodes #because I'm a fan of Queen #and then I fell down the rabbit hole #and I ended up with this #and then I thought hey let's go out with a bang you know #if it truly is the last ever episode of ted lasso next week then let's have some fun #the more I looked the more everything connected #like the things that happen in season 2 and 3 episode 7 #also discovered that in one of the trailers for season 2 they have a shot of trent smiling at ted in the press room #a shot that isn't in the episode #so yeah... um...#I went deep #I really hope you all get some enjoyment out of this post #I put more effort into this post than I did when I tried (and failed) to write a researched paper at uni (that paper made me drop out again

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transpersian · 5 months

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Poppy and SFW Spaces - Part 2: About that time that Poppy posted lewd furry art in a SFW channel...

The last time this came up, I didn't want to overwhelm what was already a big post, but now that this is coming up again, it's reminded me to post the follow-up conversation from the server.

Because you know that there was a follow-up conversation.

TLDR:

Two server members spoke up about how uncomfortable the post made them.

Poppy has a conversation where she disagrees in a troubling way, then steps aside to allow for a mod to handle the disagreement (to avoid conflicts of interest).

Saige, who Poppy has disclosed on-stream that she is an FP for, stepped in to essentially parrot whatever Poppy had said (to, you know, avoid conflicts of interest).

First off, I want to make it clear that Saige is in an entirely impossible situation. Please do not attack or judge her for her place in this situation. Instead, look at it my way: as proof of what nearly a year under Poppy's control will do to you.

Anyway.

I'm feeling spicy and like digging into something, so here's Poppy telling a minor that they're wrong for feeling uncomfortable over her shoving her fursona's sexually posed, barely clothed ass in their faces.

Then we're going to talk about their server rules and how the subject of minors and NSFW content is handled. I'm going to properly dig in here, so strap in [EDIT: we're at over 2100 words, so I'm serious].

The offending post and the initial response. Note how hard both of these people are trying to not piss anyone off.

~~~~~~~~~~

So... a few things.

Note the immediate defensiveness and invalidation. Describing what's clearly erotic art as "cute."

"I don't find those particularly spicy." The minors do, though

"They aren't actually showing anything so to me they are mostly just risque." IF IT'S RISQUE THEN WHY ARE YOU SHOWING IT TO MINORS

"There are even more explicit versions and I didn't post those, so that makes these fine." You can use relativity to justify anything. This is not a real argument. Pro tip: always be cautious of relativity when it's being used to argue against your feelings.

"We get into stuff that's NSFW on our streams and we don't restrict that." I'm pretty sure this isn't the own you think it is, Poppy. This is you telling on yourself.

And then...

"we expect people who come there to be mature, the same is true about the server"

I... hm.

Poppy (and Zena, #nozzerasure)...

1. Why do you expect people who come to your streams to be mature?

YOU HAVE LITERALLY NO CONTROL OVER THAT. It's a mental health political drama channel that gets suggested to people who watch similar content. If the statistics you shared a while back are still true, less than 2% of your audience is minors, but that's who marking your channel as mature is for.

Even ignoring the barely censored lewd art for now, you discuss a lot of really adult topics on your streams. These are the rules for a reason, Poppy, and you don't get to decide that they just don't apply to you. IF YOUR CHANNEL IS FOCUSED ON ADULT TOPICS YOU MARK IT AS "MATURE." FULL STOP.

You have ZERO CONTROL over who wanders into your channel. It isn't your decision as to whether your videos show up in front of minors. You are fucking wrong here.

Fix it, or leave it as more evidence of how little you actually care about protecting minors from adult content.

2. Why do you expect people who come to your server to be mature?

You explicitly position it as a place for vulnerable, traumatized, mentally ill, BPD (etc) queer people to go. You have stated that you want your community to be a safe place for the people from Lily Orchard's community to go once they're out. You know that that community contains a lot of minors, many of whom are there for content about cartoons. Why are you outright assuming that these people are mature enough to handle this content? Because if that was really a major priority for you, Poppy, I would think that the absurdly low bar of DON'T SHARE YOUR FUCKING LEWD ART IN SPACES WITH MINORS would be one you'd gladly clear to make sure that those people were entering a safe, friendly, non-sexualized space. You know, because a major problem with LO is her being unable to keep her fetishes and sexuality out of minor-inclusive spaces. I've been researching some things recently and you'd be surprised how deep the parallels go.

And on one last note about this one, I think it's really funny that Poppy tried to act like the other sections of the server are some big secret. "What separate area" come on, now. lol

~~~~~~~~~~

It's weird how she can't just wrap her head around the simple idea of not showing NSFW art in minor-inclusive spaces. This isn't a debate stream, Poppy. Where are you trying to take this conversation?

I do love how the other person calls out the problem with relativity right there. Hell yeah. Just because Hollywood's decided that that's okay to put on TV doesn't mean that I use it as a barometer to dictate what I think is appropriate. Poppy should know better than to use that as an excuse.

~~~~~~~~~~

Saige moderates!

First off, I want to reiterate and stress that Saige is in an entirely impossible situation. Note how she's basically just agreeing with Poppy. I was torn on whether to include who this mod is, but the context of her relationship with them is important to show just how much of a conflict of interest this is. Having your BPD partner, who you are an FP for, be a mod for situations like this?

What was that about conflicts of interest, Poppy? Why is Saige moderating your conflicts on the server, as a mod?

Can you imagine, as a person with BPD, being put in the position to moderate disagreements over your FP's inappropriate posts in the server that she owns?

Anyway.

Looking at these as Poppy's talking points because I don't trust that they didn't discuss this behind the scenes before Saige posted her "verdict."

1. "This isn't harmful for minors to see."

According to who?

2. "On this server, we don't shy away from difficult interactions."

This is pure, basic Foundation propaganda (Poppaganda, heh). They say this, but all you have to do is look at the receipts for my interactions with them to see just how good they are at dealing with conflict. "But that was personally in dating" yes, I know, but believe me, it goes far beyond that. It's just how they handle their personal affairs. I've seen and have extensive evidence for it, I just can't share it yet.

3. "You are responsible to some degree for managing your interactions with an environment."

This is one of those abuses of therapy-speak. Poppy and Zena have been increasingly weaponizing certain definitions, particularly the notion of "boundaries." While boundaries are by definition things that you can state will be your response to specific actions and circumstances, you only have to look at Poppy's Twitter right now to see how that works out in practice.

~~~~~~~~~~

So what kind of expectations do PZ create for this environment?

Well, what is "Safe" versus the other categories, anyway?

Okay. Not explicitly for minors, fair enough. But let's check their server rules.

Solid start. What does that link to?

Oh, okay. Let's go over these.

~~~~~~~~~~

1) No minors in NSFW areas.

Serves to assume that no NSFW content is allowed in SFW spaces. Oh wait. About that first part.

And while one can assume that the person can still be locked out of chats that are specifically NSFW, this area of the server is a space where more NSFW conversations take place, including in VCs (which they clearly are, seeing as they're actively involved in the "reply to voice" chat in the background). There's no avoiding that unless the rules of the space itself change.

Oh wait. Also. About that second part. There's plenty in my previous post, but here's another fun one from last year that someone sent me today.

Maybe they changed the header in the year since, but uh... yeah. It's still in Safe, where there are minors. To be fair, the images were spoilered, but uh... yeah. Again, this is in the "Safe," minors-present category.

Anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~

2) People 23 and older can't act inappropriately towards minors. Check age roles to see if this is okay.

This comes across as weird for number of reasons. For one, this isn't something that should just apply to minors and 23+; anyone who feels uncomfortable with an interaction should be reporting it to the mods.

For another, while it makes sense to warn people that there are minors in the server and to mind themselves accordingly, why is the age gap specified like that? Why does it make a difference if they're 23 or 20? If they're making a minor uncomfortable, it's a problem!

I could say more, but it's just... weird.

~~~~~~~~~~

As for 3...

I want to first talk about that last bit because I know she'll be offended at the very suggestion that it isn't true; I truly do believe that Poppy believes that this is true. Unfortunately, wanting to do something and believing you do something and actually doing that thing are very different things.

But let's talk about this age difference thing again.

Take a moment and think about this: whose perspective is this from?

At what point does someone start "considering the power dynamics in the age difference" when they're interacting with a 22 year old? Maybe it's something to consider if you're over 30, but I wouldn't blink at a 24 year old dating a 20 year old.

So whose perspective(s) (#nozzerasure) are the age-based categorizations of "old enough to date question mark" designed for?

~~~~~~~~~~

Their stance on TWs/CWs

One last thing that I thought was curious...

They specifically have a section of their rules that discusses trigger/content warnings. This is what it says:

Notice how the two things that are marked as things that should be spoilered are violence and actual spoilers for media.

Most servers I've seen either have NSFW stuff specifically sequestered to NSFW spaces, or they spoil NSFW stuff. Why wouldn't this server do that?

Oh. Right.

~~~~~~~~~~

So what's my point?

What's all of this ultimately mean?

Firstly, I need to stress how NONE OF THIS IS EVIDENCE OF POPPY PURSUING MINORS IN "THAT" WAY. While her behavior is certainly concerning and inappropriate, I will not abide by any p*do-jacketing. If you're making any accusations like that, you'd better be bringing evidence, or at least a testimony.

Mainly, what this points to is a troubling pattern of behavior as far as her understanding of appropriate boundaries around sexual content. This directly impacts her ability to create truly SFW safe spaces for minors, especially minors who are emotionally/psychologically vulnerable or seeking refuge from sexually charged spaces.

Some of them may like being treated like adults, but that's not the point. The point is that it's not up to them. These are the rules for a reason.

Poppy, you may not believe that the rules should be this way, but please stop being so fucking stubborn. You're endangering minors with this behavior. All people are asking of you on this front is to be more restrained with your sexual stuff (including the "risque" stuff) in spaces where there are minors present.

Just exercise a little bit of self-control for the sake of making your server the safe space that you work so hard to convince people (including minors) that it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

ADDENDUM

HOLY SHIT THEY CLARIFIED IT

"Safe is only for friendly conversations about up to PG-13 topics."

#zenaandpoppy #poppy and zena

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wen-kexing-apologist · 1 year

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EIGHTH SENSE THEORY

(content warning: I will be referencing suicide attempts and vomit in this post)

I saw other people speculating that Episode 6 might be some sort of medication misuse psychotic break on JaeWon's part and honestly? Having just watched it. I definitely think this man is hallucinating.

I'm not entirely sure if this was something that came from the nature of watching this episode not on Viki, but so much of the episode seemed too bright, too blurry. The way the light hit the JiHyun's white jacket made it look like he was reflecting light, like he was heavenly or angelic in a way.

Like when they are in the car in the beginning:

Or eating on the bench:

Or arriving at the beach:

And something I noticed while watching these scenes, admittedly coming in to it having already seen discussions of a possible mental break, is that JaeWon rarely makes eye contact with JiHyun and they do not physically touch until 12 minutes into the episode.

Not until we have seen them walk up the stairs once already.

First set of stairs:

Second set of stairs:

But crucially here, it's windy, and JiHyun is gripping JaeWon in a way that might equate the force you feel from a strong wind.

Other hints that JaeWon might be hallucinating?

Same food order at the same time, something cute if they actually did that, but something that could also be explained if only one person was ordering food.

JiHyun taking his food with him when he goes to the bathroom but leaving his drink. We saw him take a bite out of the food, so if that food was real and he left it on the bench, we would have seen evidence that food had been eaten. But we never see JiHyun take a sip of his drink AND we never see JaeWon or JiHyun buy that drink. Meaning it is completely feasible that JaeWon ordered two drinks and set that one down for "JiHyun" even though he isn't actually there.

And of course, there is further evidence, in my mind, for this being a hallucination or mental break of some sort due to the many, many instances throughout Episode 6 of JaeWon's face being blurry.

For example, here:

And here:

And...ok you know what? I'm going to stop these examples here

The morning they wake up on the beach seems fake, again it feels too bright, too heavenly in a way:

And the kiss scene is so interesting to me for a few reasons, and is also why I am leaning towards hallucination/imagination. First of all, they are in public, there are other people around on that beach. When JaeWon was holding JiHyun's thigh in Episode 4 and JiHyun's best friend came out on the roof, they slid apart real quick.

And it's not like their attraction to one another hasn't been obvious, and it's not like JaeWon hasn't literally kissed men in front of people before. They aren't completely opposed to being openly queer, but this is a huge, undeniable, and extremely public kiss.

I am also just so in love with the choice the production team made to cut out all sound when they are playing in the water. Because that silence can be interpreted so many ways, the main two for me being: intimate and insidious.

"To cause you trauma," is an excellent response to JaeWon asking why JiHyun kissed him. Because water is, presumably, a very traumatizing thing to JaeWon. I don't think he said how his brother died, but his microexpressions to JiHyun referencing water torture definitely lead me to believe that JaeWon's brother drowned (learning to surf perhaps?) and JaeWon finds both comfort and pain in returning to the sea as a way to feel connected to his brother but also to punish himself for failing him.

Then we get the bed scene. Now, I don't want to presume anything about JiHyun, he's totally allowed to be a slut, but...this show has continuously established this boy as naive and innocent. Like, totally unaware of the implications of asking JaeWon if he wants to "eat ramen".

So to go from not understanding innuendos and still not being entirely certain that JaeWon kissed you intentionally that first time or if he was just drunk, to full on make out sessions and getting dicked down? I am all for JiHyun testing out his slut era, but I don't think that is the case here.

And I'm citing the background music as part of my evidence here. Because the background music is the song "I Can't Lose it All" and comes in at the last verse of the song, BEGINNING WITH THE LYRICS:

"I'm losing my mind

So darling just call

Tell me everything's alright

I don't want to slow

I can't lose it all

Make me feel like I'm suppose to go

Tell me what you thinking about me when I'm gone."

Which honestly, makes me believe JaeWon is imagining all of this intimacy with JiHyun as something that he craves but can't let himself actually seek out. Therefore he is letting himself have it all.

And I just want to give a shout out to this shot:

The way the waves are washing over their feet, in this room that we didn't see them rent, when they were only supposed to stay there for one night and now are apparently on night two in a fancy room instead of camping on the beach. It's a beautiful shot, but also some beautiful foreshadowing to the tragedy at the end of the episode, with the water rising up to meet them.

My final piece of evidence that this entire episode has all been in JaeWon's head?

This shot at the end where JaeWon is sitting by himself, looking at his hand in the sand because I'm pretty sure this shot comes chronologically before JiHyun's drowning. I think it's what any outside observer would actually see if they were to look at JaeWon, and I think the image below, in the brighter light, holding JiHyun's hand, is the hallucination that JaeWon is having.

Which meanssssssssssss............

If we believe the trip itself to be real, but JiHyun's presence on the trip to be false...

JAEWON IS THE ONE WHO IS DROWNING/DROWNED.

If we take this entire trip to be imagined/a dream then he hasn't actually woken up from binge drinking the night before and in that case I would say that he could be aspirating on his own vomit at the end. Either way, I feel like next episode might start with JaeWon waking up in a hospital.

Personally I think the greater tragedy would be JaeWon had a mental breakdown, disappeared without a trace, wound up at the beach here, and drowns, alone. With the resolution being that he is rescued, revived, possibly involuntarily committed or something for a possible suicide attempt...

...which now that I think about it, this could straight up be a suicide attempt of him trying to overdose on his medication, and like the alcohol result above, the drowning could be him aspirating his own vomit from overdosing on pills.

ANYWAY

All of this to say, I think JaeWon maybe took his therapist's question "why not make the relationship deeper?" very much to heart, and imagined a world where he was comfortable confiding in JiHyun and being entirely honest with him.

And also all of this to say that I believe there will ultimately be a happy ending for this show with JaeWon almost dying resulting in JaeWon finally cutting his shitty friend out of his life, JaeWon's Dad possibly being less aggressive after realizing he almost lost both of his sons, and JaeWon and JiHyun admitting their feelings for each other and being boyfriends in love surrounded only by supportive friends. I think JaeWon will end up graduating with his business degree but maybe pursue photography as a career or something at the end.

And I'm tagging @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @chicademartinica, and @respectthepetty because I want your THOUGHTS, I want your FEELINGS, I want your THEORIES and also tagging @lurkingshan because as I was scrolling through tags to try to find the original post about the possible medication induced psychotic break that started my theories rolling, I noticed you point out a lot of the same things I mentioned here so I also want your thoughts, feelings, and theories, or at the very least say that you are not alone in thinking that this was fake.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense episode 6 #t8s #cw: suicide #cw: suicide attempt #cw: vomit #jaewon x jihyun #jaewon #jihyun #GOD I NEED TO STOP WATCHING SHOWS BECAUSE MY FUN LITTLE MINDLESS ACTIVITY HAS TURNED INTO A CONSTANT NEED TO CRANK OUT MASSIVE TEXT POSTS

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tbhimnoteasyonmyself · 2 months

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9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know You Better

First of all, thank you Mickey (@thisautistic) for tagging me <3. Super thrilled that you thought of me for this!!

Now...

3 Ships You Like

1. Kimchay (Kinnporsche)

My babies. I want to protect them both. They're precious and perfect to be put in situations. A force strong enough to have me cooking a longfic after years of not writing a single one. Do I need to same more?? Absolutely obsessed 💜💜💜.

2. Pangwave (The Gifted)

Obligatory mention to my special little ADHD x Autism duo. Don't even arue that they're not canon, if you think that it's bc you missed very significant subtext, I suggest you rewatch this series. Pls and thank you. I will NOT take any criticism.

3. Sandray (Only Friends)

I knew from their 1st sex scene that I was down bad but their trailer sex scene just completely rewired my brain. Is their dynamic fucked up? Yes. Will they hurt each other along the way? Absolutely. But they're on their path to something better and I believe in them. Bc if Ray is deserving of love even after everything that went down then so are all of us. And there's that.

First Ship Ever

Larry Stylinson! (from One Direction)

Straight back from when I was 13, going strong! kskskskssksk I'm not so much there actively in the fandom anymore, but know that I'm there in spirit. sksksksksks Could never abandon the reason for so much change in my life! Good memories!!

Last Song Heard

Nooit Meer Spijt by S10

It's such a good song! I'm not Dutch or Dutch-adjacent but I was introduced to S10 by a friend of mine who's Belgian and I fell in love with her music ever since!

Favorite Childhood Book

A Fada Oriana (The Fairy Oriana) by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen.

It's about a fairy named Oriana that has to take care of a forest but one day, while looking at the river, meets a fish who talks her into neglecting the forest, which causes a lot of trouble. Then, Oriana, has to learn how to repair the damage she made.

It's a book about responsibility, consequeses, the importance of individual action and learning from one's mistakes.

Currently Reading

Património Cultural: Realidade Viva (Cultural Patrimony: Live Reality) by Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins.

It's a book about the preservation of patrimony in Portugal under the context of belonging in the European Union in the 21st century.

It's not a very interesting book nor scientific, just a summary of Portuguese and European laws for people who don't wanna read the laws (?). I wouldn't read it on my own but it's a mandatory read for one of my classes in my Master's so I gotta ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Currently Watching

23.5

I didn't know if I was going to but since GMM seems to be finally trying out more for the GLs, I feel like I need to show my support in this direction so I made the moral choice of watching as it airs to make it clear to them the audience for this is here and we want more of it!

So far ep.1 was super cliché and silly but I liked it a lot!! I want all the clichés for the girls too! Tired of seeing queer women suffer and die on screen...

2. 3 Will Be Free

It had been sitting on my watchlist for a while but I never gotten around to it for some reason... Nevertheless, my latest Wheel Decide™ for what to watch next landed on it, so... I'm watching it now!

2 episodes in only but I'm loving it a lot!! The plot's super interesting so far, really like the way they're going about it. Let's see where it goes!!

Currently Consuming

I'm gonna opt to mention the game I'm currently playing (besides Bloons TD 6, but I'm always playing Bloons, so... not news), which is Heaven's Vault by Inkle!

It's an extremely niche game, focused on figuring out an ancient language and, with it, the history of the world it's set in. It envolves robots, space travelling, discussions on xenophobia and religious intolerence and a lot more. I haven't finished yet but I'm loving the experience so far!

I understand it's not for everyone but I'm loving it!! <3 (not a Mickey D's reference, fuck Mickey D's)

Currently Craving

You know, I could go with bibimbap bc I really want some rn but I'm gonna go a bit deeper and say: after the terribleness of my last 2 relationships, all I really want is one that's not enirely chatastrophic. kskssksksksk That'd be pretty neat. kssksksk

So yeah... This was a lot of fun, actually!! I love to share stuff about media I like!!

Tagging @jukain4216 @lost-my-sanity1 @anthrotmnt @shannankle @defomin @aiyui @fiddlepickdouglas @tinysandwichstudent @sicknsadsicknrad @itsamzz28 @whomanist and any other of my lovely moots that hasn't directly been tagged but comes accross this <3.

All the love! 💜💜💜

#Mickey #tag game #tag games #get to know me

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aro-barrel · 8 months

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A continuation of my thoughts on alienation:

I am always acutely aware of the amatonormativity seeping into every facet of society, but there are moments where I get jolted out of my aro body when people around me begin discussing relationships, crushes, or their single status. That’s when the record plays in my head and all I think is, I can’t relate, I can’t relate. And then I wonder if I’m supposed to acquiesce to the dominant worldview of romance as legitimate and universal or if I can state my position without being dismissed. I’m known as the romance hater and have a reputation as being severely not-romance-brained. People close to me know I’m aromantic, but most people don’t know what to do with it and have already made base assumptions. I think the move to acceptance has made it easy for self-identified “progressive” people to accept my identity at face value, but ultimately have zero understanding of what I represent. The most amatonormative bullshit will spill from their mouths, posturing as conventional life wisdom. And I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut and take it? When I make attempts to dismantle romance as a concept, I'm just some fucking cynical hater. When I lightly joke “Who needs romance? All you need are ride or die homies,” I might get a laugh and they might say “You’re right, romance is overrated,” but they don’t mean it. Not the way I do.

I can explain the banality of romance. The complexity of the spectrum of human relationships. I can offer scientific papers on marriage happiness outcomes. I can explain the way I feel, lovequeer and loveless, but without using the terms that will make people look at me like I’m obscene. Boy can I explain. But when I finish, I sense their dismissal—because romance is a gleaming, golden wonderland they’ve been promised from the day they were exposed to amatonormativity. It’s too beautiful a vision to give up.

I don’t think I can forget the day I told a close friend of mine, “I think I might be aromantic.” They stopped for the briefest moment, then waved me off and said “Nah, you can’t be. You like watching romances in shows.” And so flippantly, my journey of self-discovery was dismissed. And from someone who accepted my gayness and aceness without a hitch. I think, romance as a means of relating and as being emblematic of the human experience has made it too easy for people to equate humanness with romantic love. In order to accept my aromanticism, they must separate their own experiences from mine and relegate me to a categorization that is “less human” and “strange.” In other words, queer. As unfortunate as the story is, I think it’s funny that a non-queer would think my ability to occasionally enjoy romantic plot lines is related in any way to my aromanticism. But I think it displays how strange the associations are and what the “default human” looks like to a majority of people. They can just project the image of “default human person” onto you until you disrupt it and things get uncomfortable.

That friend avoids talking to me about romance now. The excuse is “you’re disinterested” and “you hate talking about that stuff.” Yes, I am “accepted,” but I’ve inadvertently become othered. And the thing is, I fucking love talking about relationships. I love dissecting them and discovering what makes relationships worthwhile. I love queering the human experience. But in the end, the amatonormative world makes it seem as though I am responsible for my alienation. I’m taking a hammer to the fragile romance they put on a pedestal. My existence is disruptive and ugly to behold. I represent possibilities beyond the norm. To accept me as human is to accept the failure of romance.

#i realize this is also the experience of being neurodivergent #the soft rejection you get despite surface level acceptance #the dehumanization once they perceive you as different #aromantic #amatonormativity #aro-barrel

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the-conversation-pod · 7 months

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The ITSAY Anniversary Show, Part 2

WE'RE BACK FOR PART 2!

Following up on our panel for I Told Sunset About You, we brought @liyazaki back to chat with NiNi, @ginnymoonbeam, @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, and @emotionallychargedtowel about I Promised You the Moon. NiNi is probably the biggest IPYTM stan on Tumblr. Join us as NiNi and Ben unpack the nostalgia of Last Twilight in Phuket before the panelists dive into the importance of this half of the Teh and Oh-aew story.

Sit back and listen to the panel discuss Teh's consistent characterization, the way Jai took advantage of that, and the role of queer community in young adult life.

Timestamps

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

1:16 - Intro 8:00 - Panel Introduction 8:45 - How did you come to BL and IPYTM? 14:35 - Expectations of IPYTM 22:40 - Narrative Structure 31:36 - Teh and Oh's Characters 37:57 - Presence or Absence of Queer Community 42:33 - Relationship Conflicts 47:05 - That Snake Jai 1:01:38 - The Ending and Character Development 1:15:23 - Favorite Scenes 1:23:51 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

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

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

01:16 - Intro

Ben

And we're back! Following up on our I Told Sunset About You retrospective we are going to move towards I Promised You the Moon. We brought a different collection of panelists this time, but before we get into NiNi’s session with the panelists, NiNi wanted to first discuss Last Twilight in Phuket with just the two of us. NiNi, describe what Last Twilight in Phuket is for the people who may have missed it because they only watched on Viki.

NiNi

I'm not going to describe it, because I'm just going to tell you: hit pause, go to Youtube, find it and watch it.

Ben

I'll describe it for you!

NiNi

Let me describe it, I never get to describe anything anymore, so I'm going to try.

Ben

I'm proud of you, go for it.

NiNi

So! Last Twilight in Phuket is a… transition piece, if you will, between I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon, that covers Oh-aew’s final day in Phuket. So they spend the whole day together, they wake up together, they go around town together. They discover that everything around them is changing, in a very very melancholy way that honestly made me want to… pull my hair out, scream, and cry all at the same time. And they recommit to each other, and then they literally ride off into the moonlight, on their way, essentially, to Bangkok. I feel like that covers it? I didn't do as well as Ben, but I think I covered everything.

Ben

Last Twilight in Phuket is that summer after graduation before you go to college. It is the best summer of your life. It is a Bryan Adams song.

[both laugh]

Ben

Last Twilight in Phuket is really fascinating as a choice overall. It's available on Youtube still, it's beautiful. You get this 16-minute, almost short-film-esque piece, that is this huge release of some of the tension from ITSAY. Before you're heading into I Promised You the Moon. Like I knew I Promised You the Moon was gonna be a dramatic mess, because Last Twilight in Phuket is tinged with this whole ‘you can't go back’ feeling about it.

One of my favorite scenes is when they attempt to go to the beach together, and it's not the same, because it's a bunch of people there. You get this feeling that they both wanted everything to be perfect between them, and it just cannot be, and it never will be. And I just really love, as you called it, the melancholy hanging over that really beautiful experience. Because it's them saying goodbye to their hometown and everything that it means to them. They know this is the end of an era for themselves, and there's this… trepidation about what's coming next that I eat up every time.

NiNi

As somebody who has left my home for an unknown space, an unknown place, at least twice in my life [laughs] … there is that feeling of trepidation. There is that feeling that when you return, nothing's gonna be the same. It's all gonna be different. Having that actually brought to the fore in the way that everything is already different for them, in terms of the places that they're accustomed to being? Their tutoring school is closed down. The private beach that they went to is closed. Things that they had come to rely on—places and spaces in particular that they had come to rely on as their places—were just gone. And what it sets up is that they have to now find new places and spaces, not just because they're moving to another city, but even in their hometown. Their hometown's never gonna be what it was and they are never gonna be the same boys who ran around Phuket crying at each other… ever again. It's all going to be different. Everything's going to change. And that is sort of the essence of Last Twilight in Phuket. It's setting you up, it's preparing you for what's about to come. And it's also just saying goodbye to the things that have gone. It's saying goodbye even to the present moment. So even as things are happening, they're slipping away.

My favorite scene in Last Twilight in Phuket is the scene where their beach is closed, and they have to go to another beach that's more of a tourist beach, and they're surrounded by people when they're accustomed to being alone in this kind of way. And you wonder like, if Teh is gonna be more reserved because now they're in public. But they're also, like Ben brought up in the last episode, they're also in a tourist space. So they're surrounded by people, yes, but they're surrounded by people who don't know them and who they don't know. So they're free in a way, they're open, and what that allows them to do, they can just be themselves with each other. Teh holds his hand. He puts his arm around him. He hugs him so tightly on that beach when Oh starts crying. It's such a beautiful scene, and it's just so vivid in my mind because of what it represents. They are, like I said, surrounded by people, but the way that the scene is shot, it's like they're the only two people in the world.

That little short is so beautiful, and it's a perrrrfect, perfect, perfect way to close off the I Told Sunset About You story, and open up the I Promised You the Moon story.

Ben

I agree! You should watch it. It's good, and it's also free and it's available. There's no reason for you not to watch it.

08:00 Panel Introduction

NiNi

So our panel of I Promised You The Moon experts: our lovely transcription team, Ginny and Shan, hopped on this one as well as, once again, friend of the pod Mor: @liyazaki. And we were also joined by two new guests. Bookworm, @neurotic-bookworm on Tumblr, and Susan, @emotionally-charged-towel on Tumblr. And I think that we had a fabulous conversation. I can't wait for you to hear it, so let's dive right in.

08:45 - How did you come to BL and ITSAY/IPTYM?

NiNi

Welcome, welcome, panel of experts! Yes, these are the I Promised You The Moon experts. Let's start with ah, an easy, like a softball question: how did you come to BL, and how did you come to this I Told Sunset About You/I Promised You The Moon story? Shan, let's start with you.

Shan

I think I have a very unusual path to BL, I kind of came in via kdrama? Where Your Eyes Linger was my first one that I found when I was just perusing the next kdrama I wanted to watch, and then I realized that there was an entire genre of BL after I saw that, and fell quickly down a rabbit hole. Discovered Thai BL, first Thai BL was 2gether—because that was very popular [laughs] at the time that I was looking around, which was in 2021?—and quickly watched a whole ton of GMMTV shows before I Told Sunset About You came on my radar. And I was kind of blown away by ITSAY, it just felt so different from everything else I had seen of the genre. It felt, in a lot of ways to me as a Westerner, more familiar—it was kind of a classic coming of age story, a classic kind of queer awakening story that I had seen before in Western media in some ways, although very specific I think to a Thai queer experience in a way that was very new for me.

NiNi

Bookworm you're up next on my list. How did you come to I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You The Moon?

Bookworm

My first BL was Kinnporsche, which I watched in May of this year, and I then joined Tumblr just to meet some, I don't know, like-minded people I suppose? And I made some friends and then, all of you immediately told me that I had to watch I Told Sunset About You. You had rules about how I had to watch it [laughs] and so I did I Told Sunset About You with Aiden, and I watched I Promised You The Moon with Shan. This is very different from what I've watched so far: I've only watched around twenty shows approximately, but this feels more like, as Shan mentioned, more of a coming of age. It's also very—much more Asian than the other shows that I watched so far. It immerses itself into the culture, the characters have specific traits that are more Asian. Yeah, it was a very fun watch experience.

NiNi

Bookworm you’re like me, we keep the numbers low but we go for the quality ones. Susan how about you?

Susan

It's funny because Shan was saying that it seems like an unusual path to go into BLs through kdrama, but that's what happened with me too. The first BL I ever watched was To My Star—I just kind of saw it as another kdrama. I didn't really pay very close attention to it, and it's not a show that really rewards, like, half-attention. So it didn't really take hold until a bit later, and actually the first BL that got me really like watching a lot of BLs is Senpai, This Can’t Be Love. I watched that one because it had two actors in it that were on Kamen Rider and my family are really into tokusatsu. That was kind of my path into the genre in general, and then of course you can't read about this stuff, especially in communities like the Tumblr fan community without hearing about I Told Sunset About You. There are some titles that sound more odd in English, without a cultural context for the countries they come from? And those would kind of stick in my mind a little bit more. And then of course you know I just heard glowing things. My big focus for a long time was, and kind of still is, Japanese BL. That's one of the reasons I hadn't watched it until just recently.

NiNi

Ben's gonna love that, you know Ben is a big big fan of the Japanese BLs. Ginny, let's go to you: how did you end up here on our esteemed panel?

Ginny

I guess this is the Asian drama background group, because I came in through cdramas; I was deep in the Untamed fandom from 2020 on, and got into reading translations of Chinese danmei, BL novels, and the few other adaptations that were available. Because I was studying Mandarin, I resisted getting into other Asian countries’ dramas for a long time, because I was like ‘this is language practice.’ But I saw gifs from Manner of Death, and I was like, ‘wait! wait! They let the boys kiss?’ So… then I had to get into BL. I actually held off on ITSAY for a long time, because I'd been hearing that it was good, and I was like, I know a lot of these are are okay and enjoyable but not like, “quality,” and I want to not blow through all the good ones right away. So I started saving it. And then more came out, and more good shows came out, and I realized, oh there's actually a rich field of quality dramas here. And then I just was like, emotionally afraid, because people kept talking about what an intense experience it was? So I didn't finally watch it until earlier this year, and it was everything that had been told to me. Frequently when I go in expecting something to be intense, it's disappointing, or you know, it falls short of that? This series did not.

14:35 - Expectations of IPYTM

NiNi

That it certainly did not. Mor, I know you would have talked a little bit about the way that you came to BL on the ITSAY panel. So I want to kick off the next part of this with you. So we’re coming off of ITSAY in the halcyon days of whenever we actually watched it, and we get to the end and boom: the story will continue. When you saw that, Mor, what was your expectation of what we were gonna get in this continuation of the story that ended up being I Promised You The Moon? What did you expect going into this?

Mor

So, when I am deeply attached to a story the way I was and will always be with ITSAY, I try to go into follow-ups to those stories with as close to zero expectations as possible. It's a defense mechanism, I'm just very afraid of being burned and disappointed, so I try to not let myself go down those mental rabbit holes of what could happen, because getting stressed out and theorizing—it's not going to change the outcome, we're going to get what we're going to get. You hope that the writers will listen to the fans, you hope that they stay true to what we at least perceive to be the spirit and intention of the original story, but ultimately it is their story to tell, So I try to just get on board, strap myself in, enjoy the ride whatever it's going to be.

But my general expectation was that we would see some very relatable situations play out, so, living on your own for the first time, being totally responsible for yourself, finding new friends, having very new experiences—especially for Teh and Oh, given where they grew up. Bangkok is such a different environment than Phuket. And all the while they're trying to maintain friendships, they're trying to maintain their relationship. That age is just so exciting and terrifying and constantly in flux, and I expected I Promised You The Moon to showcase that. And it absolutely delivered: just, in a much more gut-wrenching way than I ever maybe originally anticipated, but one that nonetheless still rang incredibly true to life at least for me, and to these characters, which at the end of the day is all I can really ask for as a viewer.

NiNi

Guts were wrenched and no mistake. Bookworm, you're a recent convert to the legend of IPYTM as I like to call it. What did you expect having finished ITSAY, and getting ready to dive into IPYTM? What were your expectations of the story?

Bookworm

When we got to the end of ITSAY, one thing that was very clear for me was that Teh and Oh were seemingly on the same page? They finally were talking to each other and listening to each other, but only on the burning desire that they share for each other, right? Everything else that encapsulated a relationship, they had to figure all of that out, and that was my expectation. Immediately after I ended ITSAY, that was what popped into my head. And I wanted IPYTM to explore those, um, aspects of their relationship, how they were going to figure out living together, how to… spend time with each other, balance the schedules, and all of the other boring things that come with a relationship. And I think yeah, they were pretty successful, I would say.

NiNi

Shan, I'm gonna come to you next. What were you thinking of, having ended ITSAY, seeing that title card come up and then going into IPYTM? What were you thinking that we might get?

Shan

I came in with a lot of stuff already in my head about IPYTM, because as I tend to do, I had been lurking about on Tumblr—that's how I learned about this show in the first place, I probably never would have found this show without seeing people talk about it on Tumblr—so for both ITSAY and IPYTM, like, I kind of went in with like a notion of what the discourse was around them? So, similar to Bookworm, I felt that the next phase of the story would have to be them figuring out how to actually be in a relationship together which, frankly is one of my very favorite reasons for a season two to exist [laughs] of romances? We so rarely get that part of a romance story.

But I also knew that there was a lot of fandom discontent around this second part of the story. I knew going in that there was a cheating plotline and that people were big mad about it. And I had seen the commentary from some people that Teh had been quote-unquote “ruined” in the second part of the story, and that he was quote-unquote “out of character.” And having seen ITSAY and the quality of that production, and the quality of the writing—like some of the best writing I've seen anywhere in the genre? I just didn't believe that was true, at all! [laughs] So I kind of went in, honestly, ready to fight, and just kind of like prove to myself that those takes were wrong? I went in with a fighting spirit, like, ‘I don't believe that that's true, and I bet this story is so much better than they think, and that fandom just wasn't ready for it.’ So that's kind of honestly the posture that I took into the show. And you know, spoiler alert: they were wrong and I—and we here on this panel—were right.

NiNi

[laughs] Shan came in ready to box. What about you Ginny, how did you feel going into I Promised You The Moon? What were your thoughts and expectations?

Ginny

Very similar to Shan, I had kind of picked up a lot about it by osmosis. I was sure that there was going to be a breakup, I had picked up that there might be cheating, and I knew that a lot of people hated Teh. I left ITSAY loving Teh so much, and also seeing very clearly why people might hate him, the things about him that a lot of people would pick up and be really upset about. So, I think I went in with my expectations… pretty well set for all of that, and… I was just excited to see how the story was going to play out. I also had a lot of trust in the writing and creative talent behind the show, so I was ready to be satisfied by the story, and I was!

NiNi

Coming to you Susan, let's hear it?

Susan

Well, I haven't seen I Promised You The Moon. I don't mind spoilers, I actually kind of like to be spoiled on almost everything as much as possible. As much as I seek out media that has really a lot of emotional themes, I also can't handle them very well. So knowing what I'm in for really helps me. And it doesn't seem to detract from the experience for me.

ITSAY seems so self-contained, and so much about a certain moment in time? And it's so tied to the place. It makes it really hard to even picture what it would look like to tell this story, at a different phase of life, in another place. Everybody's a little bit fearful of second seasons and continuations of beloved shows, but if I'm really sold on the initial show, when I hear there's going to be more? Yeah, I'm nervous, but I'm just like yeah, yeah, more okay, sure, great! Yeah, whatever you say just give me more! This is one of the only times that I did kind of feel like hanging back for a moment and being like, ‘how would that work? I don't even know.’ At the same time, I do usually prefer stories about established couples. It just gets at a kind of complexity that is really appealing. As exciting as getting together stories are, the established relationship story is usually kind of where the rubber meets the road. And I like when things get challenging and complicated and people definitely aren't being their best selves anymore, things like that.

NiNi

Definitely there was a lot of that in IPYTM.

22:40 - Narrative structure

NiNi

So, I'm gonna just switch things around a little bit, I want to talk about how IPYTM is structured, the narrative structure, the story coming out of the very clear five-act structure coming of age story that we got in ITSAY. And I want to really lean on Shan and Bookworm for this. Starting with Bookworm: what are your thoughts on how I Promised You The Moon is structured and organized as a story?

Bookworm

Well when I went into the watch, I was already told that there were going to be a lot of time skips in the show compared to ITSAY. ITSAY was much more fluid and flowing, and it was contained within, I think, just months. But when it came to IPYTM, we had a lot of blocks of time that were left for us to fill. I expected the characters to have breaks—like how the characters would have developed during the times that we have lost, and there would be fractures in the character that we would see? I expected that to happen because that usually does happen when we have a lot of time skips. But it was impressively well-maintained through the time skips, and it did not bother me as much as I expected that it would? Maybe because I was informed beforehand that, this is how, narratively, the structure of the two shows were different.

Also we see the boys grow up a lot more in the show, right? So there was a sense of, sped-up nature in the show that we did not get in ITSAY as well? I have noticed a sense of discomfort around this narrative structure, but I felt pretty okay with it, maybe it's just a personal preference or maybe it was because I had prior knowledge, but it felt fine to me.

NiNi

Shan, you want to pick up on that?

Shan

I think that the way that we jump through time so much in IPYTM is like the biggest obvious difference, right? So ITSAY was structured kind of like a five-act story, where each episode was a complete act; big shift happens in the relationship in each episode. But IPYTM is different. It's kind of, I think, a three-act story split across five episodes. So you've got episodes 1 and 2 is Act 1, where it's the move to Bangkok, it's the new setting, it's the adjustment, to kind of moving into an adult phase of their relationship? And then into the first fracture in their relationship, related to some of the adult choices that they're having to make. That's kind of Act 1. And then there's a big time skip between episode 2 and episode 3. And episodes 3 and 4 are like Act 2. There's a pretty short time period that both of those episodes span across? Like, maybe only a few weeks of time. And that's of course the BIG big fracture in the relationship, when Teh begins to really drift away from Oh-aew, and ends up kissing Jai, and all of the fallout of that that we saw play out. And then there's another big time skip after the end of episode 4, and we're—head into episode 5, which is their kind of time apart and then their reconciliation. So it really kind of feels like three acts, kind of spread unevenly across five episodes. And each of those installments is paced differently. So I can see how—and you know I think I felt some of this myself as a viewer—it feels a little bit, I think hard to kind of keep your bearings in the story? Whereas in ITSAY you were on one continuous fluid ride, like Bookworm said.

IPYTM also has to fall back on some filmmaking tricks that ITSAY really didn't use, I think because of this structure. Things like using a lot more flashbacks, using repeating scenes… ITSAY really didn't do that at all, but it happens quite a bit in IPYTM: kind of trying to remind the audience and ground them in things that have happened, because they're skipping through time so much.

One of the things, that I think is maybe an intentional result of that different structure, is about the emotional tone of the two stories. ITSAY—it’s very emotionally immersive. Like I think on the panel discussion you all had about ITSAY, you talked about how these boys are constantly crying. The emotions are big, right? And that feels very in line with one continuous emotional story, a coming of age story about young boys who are kind of coming into themselves and understanding themselves for the first time. IPYTM, by contrast, feels a little bit more even-keeled. Like, there are emotions, but they're not quite as big. There's a little bit of a remove, and I think that's because they're adults now. Think about the way Teh cries in ITSAY, versus how he cries in IPYTM. In ITSAY he's like honking crying right? He's got like snot dripping down his face, losing his shit, curling into a ball. He has no control at all. In IPYTM when he cries, it's not like that. He does have to kind of keep a lid on it a little bit. He doesn't go quite as deep into his emotions. And so, I think the way that the narrative structure is set up kind of lends itself to that more adult feeling? Of having to restrain your emotions a little bit, and keep getting on with things, and not being able to just kind of wallow in the way that they could when they were young.

I don't think that one of these styles is better than the other? I think they are just different. And I think that as a viewer, we're probably all going to have a preference there. My preference personally—I like big emotion, you know? And one of the things that Bookworm and I talked about around this, was how there's a little bit of a Western/Eastern dichotomy here as well. I'm a Westerner, I like the bigness of the emotion in ITSAY, that really resonates for me. Whereas for Bookworm, the kind of, more emotional restraint that we see in IPYTM? Resonated a little more for her, and I don't know if you wanted to comment on that at all Bookworm.

Bookworm

Yeah, the bigness of emotions in ITSAY was definitely a factor that disengaged me from the emotion? For me, whenever a character on the screen does not want to feel something, and wants to keep it inside themselves and struggling to do so, and you can see it on the face, the struggle to keep their composure? While having all of this emotional turmoil within themselves? That is what will make me feel all of the emotions that they are trying to feel. I didn't really get that sort of immersion when I watched ITSAY, because Teh and Oh did all of the crying themselves. They cried constantly: they cried in classrooms, they cried [laughs] around their friends, there's just a lot of crying.

When it came to IPYTM, the emotions were much more subdued. In both of the big moments in Oh and Teh's relationship, when it came to a head—in episode 4 when they fought, and afterwards Teh goes to Q's house to talk to Oh—in both of those moments, both of them were angry, they were confused, and Teh's having the moment of realization of how he has fucked this up, and all of those emotions were dialed way back down. And I definitely felt much more immersed into the story, when it came to IPYTM than I felt in ITSAY.

NiNi

It's really interesting that that's the stuff that you guys picked up on because, in watching the documentaries—and I don't know how many of you have watched the IPYTM documentaries as yet—but one of the things that the director, Meen Tossaphon Riantong, talks about, particularly in that scene in episode 4 that you mentioned Bookworm, is about how when they were doing it they had to do multiple takes because Billkin was crying too much. He was being too emotional, and he needed him to dial it back because he's a grownup now. It was definitely deliberate on the part of the director.

31:36 - Teh and Oh’s characters

NiNi

While we're on the topic of how Oh and Teh are handling emotion, let's delve a little bit into their characteristics, and how that even led them to be where they are, in the rift that they have in IPYTM. I want to start with Mor here: I want to talk a little bit about the different ways that Teh and Oh handle conflict, and the different ways that they… deal with their relationship and how that led them to be in such a pickle [laughs] during I Promised You The Moon.

Mor

That's a very generous way of putting what happened. [laughs] It was definitely a pickle.

They approach conflict I think in polar opposite ways. Oh wants to talk things through, typically. He's more measured in his approach; you can tell even in ITSAY when they're still in high school that he will kind of wait and absorb and observe. But he wants to be open, he wants to talk things through, and he's very self-aware, whereas Teh doesn't know what he's doing or what's going on. Some of y'all have heard me use this analogy 1200 times already and I'm sorry, but for me, it always comes down to Teh being the equivalent of a human bulldozer. That man, he feels and he acts first, second, and third—and then he maybe thinks fourth or fifth on a good day? [laughs] And I think part of that is just his personality. He's extremely passionate, he has been since he was a kid, and that passion is one of the things that drew Oh to him in the first place. I also think that Oh was basically Teh’s touchstone in many ways from the time that they were kids? So when that relationship was severed, we never got evidence of any other connection that ever came close to that level for Teh. So I think in a way, Teh's emotional intelligence got stunted a little bit when that friendship stopped? And you can really see the difference, the contrast with Oh when they meet up again later in ITSAY.

Oh seems to make friends easily, he's well-liked, he's already incredibly self-aware and comfortable with who he is. When he gets into university one of the first things Oh does is seek out community. He values relationships. Like I said before he's more measured in his approach to life and to friendships, and because of that he has this emotional maturity and awareness going in to IPYTM that's light years beyond Teh? Teh just doesn't know how to put what he's feeling into words, and beyond that, Teh doesn't even seem to be aware of how he's really feeling in make or break moments that really count. It takes him much longer to process it and be able to communicate that. To top it off, Teh's tunnel vision is so focused on becoming an actor, and the friendships he makes are either accidental or they're initiated by other people, and he seems to minimally invest in them? Except for once Jai had him under his spell of course.

Teh also wants things to stay exactly the same, we see that a ton in I Promised You The Moon. Teh just does not cope well with change. It's like he wants to willfully ignore that it's an unavoidable part of life. When their friendship ended initially Teh lost the main person in his life who in my opinion challenged him, which Oh did just by nature of being himself. Oh doesn't have Teh’s one-track mind determination, which of course brings its own set of issues and insecurities for Oh, but it also opens him up to seeing more possibilities, something that Teh has a hard time even conceptualizing. And I think because of this Teh got even more one-track minded once he started drifting away from Oh in IPYTM? Teh’s basically rigid in a time where it is crucial to be flexible. He's blind to the fact that not everyone operates in the same way he does, especially his partner.

So basically you have these two people coming into this relationship with incredibly different ways of approaching life. One partner with subpar communication skills—and I'm being generous with that. [laughs] And they're in a new environment with new routines, new people, new challenges. These are differences that may have never become an issue in a friendship, but a romantic relationship? You can have the best intentions in the world, but when you have that much fundamental imbalance in an intimate relationship, that's a powder keg ready to explode. It leaves the perfect window of opportunity for snakes like Jai to take advantage of that at the first chance that they get.

NiNi

Yes, join me in the “Jai is a snake” corner over here. [laughs] I want to come to you Susan actually, because having not watched I Promised You The Moon, and just listening to everybody else talk about how Teh and Oh have progressed within I Promised You The Moon and the way that their relationship comes apart—but having watched ITSAY, does it surprise you how things went with Teh and Oh coming out of ITSAY?

Susan

Ah, no, not at all, it actually seems really in keeping with the characters, and their kind of styles in how they relate to each other and, how they negotiated their relationship in ITSAY. I think it's really consistent.

NiNi

You heard it here first from our resident behavioral expert, people: Teh is not out of character.

Susan

People get into kind of complementary roles in relationships. It can be kind of one person's job to do certain things and voice certain types of needs, and another person's job to do the things that that role isn't taking care of, and voicing the needs that that person is afraid to voice, while maybe not voicing some needs that the other person is voicing. Big example of that is pursuing and distancing. A lot of relationships have some kind of imbalance between who's pursuing and who's distancing. The thing that I think kind of sums up pursuers and distancers is that it's about what you do when you're in distress. When a pursuer is in distress they're looking for connection, and distancers, when they're stressed, they want to get away. Again and again we see Teh just disappearing, when he's distressed, and kind of making it everybody else's job to track him down.

NiNi

You're taking us to church here. [laughs]

37:57 Presence or Absence of Queer Community

NiNi

I want to come to Ginny. One aspect of the character stuff that came up during Mor's contribution, and it's come up with Susan as well: this idea of Teh being more of a… lone wolf kind of character, whereas Oh always finds community, and when he moves to Bangkok he finds queer community where Teh does not. I have always felt like part of the way that things went between them was because Teh had no community to talk to about the things that he was experiencing and feeling?

Ginny

I'm having so many thoughts in response to what Susan said, and in response to your question. They both do seek connection, but Oh-aew is much much more interested in community, in friendships, in sharing himself in a fluid kind of balanced way. Teh has this intense drive for a one-to-one, deeply intimate, deeply entwined connection. He's not interested in friendships especially: he wants people to, like, bind their lives with his, he wants people to, like, twist their identity into his.

I want to go back to a couple of the things Susan was saying about the pursuer distancer dynamic first, which is that we do see Teh work very hard for the relationship in practical ways. Like he's the one keeping late hours and driving all over town to make sure he can spend the night with Oh, and he never once complains about that or resists that, because he is devoted to Oh in this way. But he has a very rigid conception of what that looks like, and as soon as the idea that they're not on this same career path, on the same path of artistic passion together? As soon as that's shattered, his idea of this unified partner that will walk aside him and share everything important in his life starts to crack, and he starts to look away from Oh-aew, and eventually to look to someone else for that kind of connection and bond that he feels like he needs. And for Teh at this point, his understanding of his sexuality has become kind of a non-issue, whereas his binding of his romantic interest and his artistic passion is where all of his turmoil lives.

Meanwhile Oh-aew has made this wonderful friend group. I recently rewatched the series, and their first interaction where he first meets Q and the other friends… the first time I watched it I was so tense because Oh's loneliness and his homesickness is palpable and painful at that point in the story, and you just desperately want him to have somebody. And he sits down with this crowd of kids and you're not sure what's going to happen. It's not obvious right away that they're queer unless you're paying close attention, like, Q’s fingernails are painted, there's little cues there, other things like that. And then within two seconds of meeting them, Oh-aew starts crying because he's so homesick, and I was like ‘oh god, what's going to happen, I'm so stressed for him.’ But these boys just like surround him, they're so sweet to him, and then it becomes clear. Right there you've established, this is a queer friend group and every time you see them together there's just all these indicators that like, these are people that Oh can be at home with, can come into more of himself with, can be supported by. The way they hold him through the breakup makes me cry. Because it doesn't take away any of his pain, but they're so there for him. He's never alone and he's never unsupported. It makes a tremendous difference to how I think things go at the end. I don't think Oh gets to a place where he's able to come back to Teh at the end, if he doesn't have that community support holding him really through his whole college career and especially through the breakup.

42:33 Relationship Conflicts

NiNi

I want us to delve into some of these different things that Oh’s friends are supporting him through, that Teh doesn't seem to have the same level of community on. Their initial conflicts, the early stuff that was happening, the things that are happening with them in year one and particularly the giant fight that they had in episode 2. I'm going to come to Shan for this.

I love talking about how horrible Teh is in episode 2 of I Promised You The Moon, because that boy was being rancid. But I also want to talk a little bit about how the seeds of that were sown in the little cracks that you saw in episode 1.

Shan

Thank you for allowing me to talk about Teh being rancid in episode 2. That fight is brutal! It starts with Teh being so passive aggressively awful to Oh-aew in front of other people. Oh-aew has come into this restaurant to sit with Teh and his seniors—these are people that Oh-aew is not particularly comfortable around? This is not a friendly crowd for Oh-aew. He is with people that he doesn't know well, that are older than him, that he wants to make a good impression on, because they are important to Teh and and he's Teh's partner. So for Teh to start taking digs on him under those circumstances, and to just not let up and keep relentlessly going no matter how many times everyone at the table tries to deflect him away from it? Just so brutal to watch.

And the seeds were planted pretty early on, right? This was seeded not even just in episode 1 of IPYTM, but way back at the beginning of I Told Sunset About You. The original fracture in Teh and Oh-aew's friendship is because of Teh's inability to roll with Oh-aew acting in a way that he doesn't like. He's jealous of him. He's jealous of how easy things come to him. He is… judgmental about Oh-aew's inability to stick with things, or to know exactly what he wants? He looks down on Oh-aew a little bit for being a follower, for adapting the interests of the people around him. Now in college Oh-aew gets to school and he's miserable, and he realizes he doesn't actually want to do the thing he thought he was there to do. And you know, let's not forget that Oh-aew is sitting in in the program that Teh gave up for him. Now Oh-aew never asked him to do that, of course, that was Teh’s big dumbass mistake. But Oh-aew has the thing that Teh wanted and that Teh gave up, in his mind, for Oh-aew. And Oh-aew doesn't value it the way that he would, and he doesn't like it the way that he would, and he decides to give it up. And he gives it up to follow his new friends into their passion. Now, is that a totally fair way of looking at it? I don't think so: Oh-aew is clearly good at marketing. He has, like, a natural aptitude for it; it makes sense that he would go that way. But from Teh's perspective, he's just looking at Oh following his latest friends into the thing they're doing, and he kind of sees it as part of that same pattern.

So that was seeded so consistently throughout their relationship, that kind of tension point, and the way that Teh judges Oh-aew for this kind of behavioral pattern that he has? And so to see that come out in that fight, and for Teh's resentment of that to just continue to simmer and simmer and simmer, to the point where he cannot keep it together even in front of other people—and he embarrasses himself even more than he embarrasses Oh-aew in that scene with his seniors. It was such a brutal scene but it also felt so real, it was such a real kind of fight that you see long-term couples get into, where one of them just starts digging at the other, knowing all their weak points and knowing all the worst parts to hit, and that's what we watched Teh do in that scene. And all of it was so, like, deeply seeded in the story that we knew exactly why it was happening.

NiNi

Doesn't make it any easier to watch.

47:05 - That snake Jai

NiNi

Now it's time to talk about that snake Jai, and I'm going straight to Mor on this because Mor and I watched this together live while it was happening. [laughs] Come through, Mor. Let's talk. Let’s talk about Jai, let's talk about Teh and Jai, let's talk about how Oh-aew clocked Jai, just bring it out.

Mor

Oooh, that man. That man! The first thing that always comes to my mind that NiNi and I would just rant on, and we could not let it go—because how could you—is that fricking journal. The fricking journal! That was the most disgusting, manipulative… I can't think of something more insidious as a plot device to use. Not only is there a power imbalance already between these two, because yeah, they're not that far apart in age, but Jai is in a place that Teh wants to be in. He is succeeding in the area that Teh is dreaming of being in. Teh is already looking up to him so much. From the first time that he walks into the acting club, he's hearing from other people about how important Jai is, basically. So there's already an an imbalance there.

Jai is experienced. He obviously knows how to read people and use them very well, we see that from the beginning. So I feel like he saw Teh, and just laser focused on him. And using the journal the way he did: it was like he asked Teh to make him a manual—’Go ahead, go ahead Teh, write out to me how I can best wrap you around my little finger and use you! Use you for my devices; use you to further my career, my dreams, my motivations. And once I have wrung you dry and left you with nothing… well, you know, whatever, I helped you! I, I helped—it's not my fault, we're not in a relationship. We’re—I mean, this is just professional! This is acting, Teh! That's how it is!’ I mean so much of Jai, and where they wound up, and just that whole relationship: it comes back to that journal. Again, it was just like a manual of how to manipulate him. It was so disgusting. I was so angry! [laughs]

I'm getting angry now, I've never been so upset watching what felt like a slow motion car crash where Teh is just completely unaware of what is happening, and how he is being played like a fiddle. And you just have to watch it go on, and because he's drifting away from Oh, there is truly nothing to help him. There are no guardrails. There are no safeguards at this point. And that's why to me, it was not shocking in the least what happened. As we saw it in ITSAY, he just feels and feels and feels first. He does not think first. [laughs] And the way that that whole relationship played out from the beginning, Teh was set up to fail.

Whoo! I'm gonna get off my soapbox now.

NiNi

[laughs] No, god, I love that so much. My thing on Jai is, when I saw Jai gaslighting Teh that was one thing, but then when he tried to gaslight Oh-aew—that was when I knew that he was a snake and that was all I was ever going to think about him. But I think that Bookworm has some slightly different thoughts on Jai? So Bookworm, if you want to pull those out and tell us what they are.

Bookworm

Well, make no mistake NiNi, I also hate Jai so passionately. But the thing that struck me as soon as I finished episode 3 with Jai and Teh kissing in that rehearsal room, was that Teh tends to… have trouble trying to separate what his ambitions are and what his desire is. When it comes to Jai he is just somebody Teh looks up to, somebody who is ahead of Teh, who can guide him to the goals that Teh has set up for himself for so long. And, immediately he transfers all of that longing and the visceral need onto Jai. He keeps lusting on the personification of his ambitions, and I would argue that he does the same thing in ITSAY as well. There are certainly other factors but when we see how easily Teh got roped into Jai’s schemes and how he… let his heart sort of go with Jai wherever he pulled, because he was blinded by the ambition and the achievements that he wants in his career. There is a shadow of that in Teh and Oh’s dynamic in ITSAY as well.

Another thing that I tried to keep an eye on after episode 3 was that, if there was no Oh-aew in Teh’s life, would Jai be Teh’s future self? Is that what Teh would become? There is certainly, few things that Teh does that feel so close to what Jai did to him. For example, when he showed up on Tarn's doorstep asking her to tell him that she loves him, but he doesn't want to say it back. It's not a far reach, you can see how Teh can easily become Jai, but there is also a part of him that I think is just not as ruthless. Like Mor mentioned, he is a human bulldozer, everything he does is just chaos and he only stops and reflects when he has just demolished everything in his sight. But he does reflect, right? He stops and he thinks about it. He talks to Oh-aew whenever they stop and have a conversation after whatever mayhem has happened, Teh can go into his mind and he can point out where he's going wrong, and he can see the things for himself without somebody else telling him: this is where you're making mistakes. He would just spell it out by himself, he has that ability to identify the ways that he's hurting the people around him, and the reasons that he's doing that. That is what sets him apart from Jai.

NiNi

So so so so so, so accurate. Given everything that Bookworm just said about the similarities between Jai and Teh, and the difference being Teh’s ability to reflect versus Jai’s: we're given indications in the show that Jai feels guilty—I don't buy them necessarily, but Ginny, do you think that Jai feels bad about what he did? Not that he wouldn't do it again, [laughs] but do you think that he feels bad about what he did?

Ginny

So on my first watch I read Jai more sympathetically than on my second watch… which is less because I knew what was going to happen on the second watch, and more because I saw some of the nuances. Small indicators he was giving that he was calculating the whole time. I do still think—like, Jai is not a monster; Jai is a human person. He clearly has the ability to see what he did to Teh. He knows how badly he hurt him and how he ruined that relationship. And I do think he feels a way about that. Like you said NiNi, he wouldn't do it differently. He's made his choices, and he's never given any indication that he would ever put another human's feelings above his goals.

And in his own way, he might think he is helping Teh, because for Jai, the artistic achievement and the career achievement is more important; the ambition is more important than anything else. And if he got Teh to a place where he performed very well in that play—he got a request from an agent and it ended up launching his career—so Jai might look at that and say, ‘See I helped you, because I gave you something that you really really wanted. So what if I had to break your heart and this other person's heart and ruin your relationship to do it?’ So I think he has feelings about that, but I think Jai's priorities are such that he would never regret what he did.

NiNi

Anybody else have thoughts on that?

Shan

I think that there was an intentional choice in the ending montage to show Jai reacting to the news that Teh and Oh-aew got back together? To give us a little bit of a sense that Jai does remember—I don't think he regrets what he did to Teh in that relationship—but he cares a little bit about it, enough to feel some sense of, maybe relief that they were able to work through it, and that whatever he did didn't totally destroy them forever? Frankly, I don't like the choice to show us that. [laughs] I don't care about Jai, I don't care what he feels about it. But I do think that was included intentionally to kind of communicate to the audience, like Ginny said: he's not a monster, he's a human, and he… very similarly to how we see Teh behave sometimes, he puts his ambitions first over the way he treats others. And I think they wanted us to see the humanity in that, and not totally just write him off as a villain.

NiNi

He can kiss my ass. Go Mor.

Mor

Them showing us that scene, to me, was the final nail in the coffin of, okay, all right, my read on you? Mhm, it’s been right this whole time. [laughs] Okay, yeah, Jai probably isn't a monster but the thing is, from a personal perspective: I've known Jais. Something that NiNi and I talked about having backgrounds in the arts, dance, theater. We have seen Jais, we know Jais, I can see a Jai, I can spot one from twelve hundred feet away. Okay, they're not monsters, but they are—the term gets thrown around way too much, but for me, they're the textbook definition of a narcissist, who thinks that they are god's gift, and that everyone is blessed by being in their presence, and that they are the top dog basically, and everyone else? They're collateral. Maybe they'll be useful. They're not out to necessarily get people but they're definitely out to use people.

And so showing us that scene… What will always stick with me is Jai's smirk? It wasn't a smile in my opinion. Not a smile of ‘oh, you know, I'm glad that this worked out.’ It was a casual over the shoulder… just a smirk. And then the casualness with which he walked off the screen. The fact that there were no words, there were no dialogue—to me, it just spoke to how casually he viewed what he did. How it wasn't that big of a deal, and he's just going to move on. He's going to move on with his life, he'll probably never think of these people again—and to me it really all comes down to intention. Teh may have done things that would have made him very similar to Jai, but Teh never had the intention to blatantly use people the way that Jai did. And while that doesn't make you a monster, it does make you a shitty human being. That really makes all the difference. And that scene to me was showing us without words Jai's intentions.

NiNi

Whooo, yes, let me tell you all about some of the nonsense that goes on backstage, understage, in the flies… like some of the shit that I have seen? [laughs]

Susan, now I know you haven't seen I Promised You the Moon, but like I said you're our resident behavioral expert. So everything that you're hearing, what's something that you want to bring forward here?

Susan

Just as an aside, what y’all are saying about these tendencies in the performing arts community? As someone who spent a lot of my life in a community of musicians, sounds familiar. I was already thinking about a former partner of mine who once told me that his gift to the world was going to be his music, and that my gift to the world was going to be how I facilitated him making his music. So, you know, I can relate to some of that stuff.

So, I was going to say, there's something about Teh that seems contradictory on the surface. And that is, he's clearly an incredibly sensitive person, I mean just look at the crying. He clearly feels a lot, and yet he can act so unfeeling. And what I'm hearing about this other person? This person sounds like someone who doesn't start from the base of perceiving those emotions in the first place. It just doesn't hit them as hard and they feel like they want more, because it takes a lot to, kind of register on your personal scale. So that's going to be my guess about this person. They're not already coming from a place of feeling for other people in a natural way. That's an educated guess.

NiNi

That's a very, very educated I guess.

1:01:38 - The Ending and Character Development

NiNi

I want to take that and sort of slide into the next idea. One of the things that struck me in the end of the show, particularly in episode 5 in that conversation that Teh and Oh-aew you have when they see each other again at the agency. Teh is talking to Oh about how he's having such a hard time coming up with his thesis play, and Oh is telling Teh, there's so much all around you. And I always tie that back to some of the things that Susan was talking about there that's also manifested in the way that Teh deals with his roommate.

Teh is, in his mind, rejected by his roommate at the beginning, and he rejects him right back, so he doesn't even realize or notice when his roommate breaks up with his partner. So when he breaks up with Oh-aew in the end, he's hostile at this point to his roommate. He hasn't even tried ever to build a relationship with him. He's not interested in anything he does. And his roommate says to him, ‘well why do you think I wouldn't understand you?’ He realizes that he has not looked outside of himself at all. And that’s something that comes up again in the conversation with Oh-aew.

I think I rambled myself around a little bit, but I want to start getting into the end of the story and how that plays out, and Teh’s reflection on his own behavior, on how he's been treating people, on the fact that he's not good at paying attention to people [laughs] and that has caused him problems in his life. Shan, I haven't come to you for a little while.

Shan

I actually really love Teh's arc in the final episode. After the big emotional episode, where he makes a big big mistake [laughs] because he's not thinking things through, he gets time: he gets time away from Oh-aew and time to move into a new phase of his life, and time to start having some new experiences, and even time to date somebody else after Oh-aew, and feel the difference in the quality of those relationships and what they do for him.

We kind of see him start to process, and understand that even though his ambitions are being realized? He is not fulfilled. He doesn't feel happy. He is an actor, he has a tv show, he's doing things he said he wanted to do, and he's dating somebody—his co-star, who is the perfect partner for that, right? She helps his career. They look great together. They have the same ambitions. She's very driven just like him… and he's not into it. He's like, ‘oh this isn't really doing things for me emotionally that I thought it would. Having a partner who is exactly aligned with the things I want to do is maybe not actually going to give me the satisfaction and the fulfillment of my desires that I thought.’ And so, I actually think that's a really important arc for him. And then for him to then see Oh-aew, have all of that activated, have all of those old feelings come back, and realize that he actually wants to fight to get that relationship back. And he's bringing some of what he learned.

And I mean, you know, he's still the same person. He still has to do everything in the most dramatic way possible. He has to make it a big grand gesture, instead of a more organic attempt to reconnect with Oh-aew. I loved that in the resolution between them, what Oh-aew says is not ‘I trust that this will never happen again,’ or ‘I feel really confident now that we're gonna, like, be great together.’ [laughs] What Oh-aew says is, ‘I understand who you are, and I wanna be with you. And what I'm asking from you is a commitment to, like, not go off and spin out the way that you normally do when shit happens. Because shit is gonna happen again.’ And Teh seems pretty confident about his ability to, like, commit to that.

I don't believe that Teh is never gonna stray again. I don't. I think he's probably going to end up having feelings for someone else again. It's the way he is. He just gets obsessive about things that draw his attention, and I think that that's probably always going to be the case. And so one of the things that they're going to have to work through is figuring out how that works within the context of the relationship they have, what their boundaries are around that. And that necessitates communication. So that's kind of the commitment that they're trying to make. And the trajectory of that can look different. Oh-aew at this stage in his life wants a monogamous relationship; maybe that will always be the case. And then they'll have to figure out how Teh can control these impulses that he has to make that work. Maybe they're going to learn that if they want to stay together long term, absolute monogamy maybe is not their solution. There are paths before them. But they have to talk to each other. They have to work it out together, and that's the commitment that they're making: that when shit gets hard, they will talk to each other. I really love that; it felt like a very adult resolution. It felt very grounded in… who they are as people and what they can reasonably expect of each other. It just felt so mature. You just don't see that very often in BL. So I really loved it.

I will say, the Oh-aew side of that arc wasn't quite as strong for me. And I think it's a little bit evident in the way that this conversation has gone, Oh-aew—his characterization is not quite as strong as Teh’s. I don't feel that the writing team had as much of a handle on exactly what they wanted to say with him and about him. So I do think there's a little bit of a missing piece to his part of this story. We saw that post-breakup Oh-aew was kind of thriving on his own, actually. He's doing great. He did very well in school, he's started his career. He's still got great friends. He's still got community around him. He is okay, he's content being single. And we saw that after Teh's first grand gesture, that he rejected him pretty firmly. He was like ‘no, you don't get to do this, this is not the way.’ And then we didn't really see a middle step before he then changed his mind and decided to jump back in both feet with Teh. And it's not that that doesn't feel right? It does, because Oh-aew is always going to forgive Teh, always. He said it himself: ‘Have I ever left you, Teh?’ No, he hasn't and he never will, probably. So it's not that it feels unrealistic, it's just that I wanted him to have a little bit more of an emotional arc there, similar to what we got for Teh. So that's my, like, small quibble with that. But overall I loved the resolution for their relationship; I loved the way they came back together and what the show said about the future in front of them.

NiNi

‘Have I ever left you Teh?’ is probably my favorite line in all of I Promised You The Moon. I want to step to Bookworm here, because I want to talk a little bit about Teh and reflection in the end of the story, and the role of the play. How Teh uses it to reflect and try to reconnect with Oh-aew, and how Oh-aew perceives that.

Bookworm

We’re very clear that Teh is somebody who does not like change. Who keeps things going till it reaches that breaking point. I want to maybe reframe it a little bit, and bring it back to the play. I think Teh tends to let things go, because I think he does not like being in the present. He is constantly either thinking about the future, or he's obsessed with something that has happened in the past. That's why Oh-aew was so pissed at that play, because that is not the conversation that he wanted to have. That is not something that Oh-aew wants to even address at that point, because they have moved past all of that, and there are things that they have to talk about that has happened in the present and at the moment. And Teh does not engage that way, it's just not his character, right? He doesn't do that.

Then we got to the ending, and Oh-aew has this conversation with Teh about how he just wants to be in his life, and he doesn't know where this is going to go but he just wants to be together. And then Teh does, again, just a chaotic maneuver and posts this Instagram picture, and it's identifiable chaos, right? That's a Teh that we know. But this time he is trying to solve a problem at the present, and that I think is how Teh has reflected. It may not be conscious; I'm pretty sure he has not sat down and thought through all of this. He's just that—as the time moved, he has done this shift within himself. He has turned that chaos somehow into… a tool that he can use to try to engage with the problems that they have to deal with in the present, and not put it into the future so that it becomes such a huge ticking time bomb that just blows up on everybody's face—or just throw everything into the past and link it to some pivotal focal point that just shadows over everything else.

NiNi

Y'all are blowing my mind, and I'm loving this whole experience. Ginny: Shan mentioned not having as clear an understanding of Oh in this final act as she does of Teh, and I feel like you're a kind of an Oh-aew whisperer. So I don't know if you want to lean into your understanding and share with us what you're taking away from Oh in the final act of the story.

Ginny

I definitely see… his arc and his journey is much more subtle, and you have to be watching really closely I think to read some of what's happening. But what I saw especially on my second watch is that—Oh-aew, up until he hears that Teh has broken up with his co-star, he has a very clear story in his mind about the breakup, and about Teh and why it didn't work out with him. And that story started when Oh-aew left acting. He knew that Teh wasn't okay with it, and even after they made up, Teh wasn't fully okay with it. And that degraded their relationship until the point of the Jai incident. Oh-aew was very clear that it was specifically an artistic partner that Teh was falling in love with—and it was that bond, of having feelings for somebody that shared these ambitions was what pulled Teh into Jai's orbit—and knew that he could never compete with that. And so the story I believe he's telling himself is that Oh-aew is never what Teh wanted or needed. Teh thought he did when he thought that Oh was going to be an actor, and along his side. But as soon as Oh moved away from that path, he stopped being the life partner that Teh was looking for.

One thing that always strikes me at the beginning of episode 5 is how happy Oh is to see Teh in his career success. He smiles when he sees him next to his actress partner on screen, he buys a magazine, and he doesn't seem to carry any bitterness about that. He's genuinely so joyful for Teh and his success. So part of his story is that Teh has gotten what he always wanted. He's got his career and he's got this partner that shares his ambitions which is what he's always wanted and needed—what Oh couldn't be, and the reason they didn't work out. Oh has devalued himself in how he thinks Teh sees him. He does not fully see how important he is to Teh and how much he means to him. When he says, ‘have I ever left you?’ It's very clear that Oh will always be by Teh's side, until that point when he accepts what he believes to be true, which is that he's not what Teh needs. And then he goes to the play… he rejects Teh immediately after the play, but I don't see that as a rejection of the idea of them getting back together, so much as a, ‘this is too much. Why are you throwing this at me right now?’ And then he looks at the messages. That, I think, is when he realized that he himself is what Teh wanted, not the artistic partner. And I think that's part of why he comes back to him.

1:15:23 - Favorite scenes

NiNi

I want to just ask a fun round robin question before we get to the end. What's everybody's favorite scene in I Promised You The Moon? Let's start with Shan.

Shan

I'm gonna go for maximum pain: my favorite scene is Oh-aew confronting Teh after Teh, right in front of his fucking face, [laughs] attempts to get into a relationship with Jai. I have PTSD from that scene to this day! I cannot believe what Teh did in that sequence. The way that he—right in front of Oh!—was making moon eyes at Jai. The way that he went to talk to Jai to try to confirm that their feelings were mutual. The way that after Jai rejected him, he got up on stage to sing a song with Oh and started singing it at Jai! Making weepy eyes at him literally right in front of Oh's fucking face! And then I love that Oh called him on it immediately, hit him so hard with those flowers! [laughs] And I love that he just said, ‘how stupid do you think I am? You're doing this right in front of me.’

I just loved how the show did not shy away from Teh’s audacity in that moment, from how disconnected he had become from his reality. It was just the peak of his ability to delude himself and go into his obsessive episodes, and I just thought it was so well done.

NiNi

I think you and I are both fans of the angst and also the drama. Bookworm, what about you?

Bookworm

I'm gonna continue Shan's rage and go into the next most painful scene, which was Teh going to Q's house to talk to Oh-aew, and the conversation they have on the couch. Like I said before, when somebody tries so hard not to cry, or when somebody's trying so hard to not say something that is just dying to get out of them, and they're trying to hold back the words just to save themselves from the pain? Those are my favorite things. When Oh-aew finally breaks help with Teh, and Teh gets up from the couch and walks away… there's a split-second frame where Oh turns back, and you can see the longing in his face. He is devastated and he wants to say so many things. But he just holds it back and he watches Teh walk away. That was such a well choreographed scene, and how the actors performed it, it was just such a delight to watch, and I came close to breaking. I had tears in my eyes and just… choked up in that scene.

NiNi

Mor, what about you?

Mor

I am a ho for well-done angst as well, so in a way I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to go off about the quiet genius of the aquarium scene. That was possibly the most beautiful parallel I've ever seen in a show, and I see parallels everywhere, I adore them, and it's one that I will never get out of my head. It was like Teh was saying without words, ‘Oh, after all the pain I put you through, after everything it took for us to get here, I am taking us out of this underwater world we were in where we were hiding these feelings and I was terrified to show it to the world. And now? I'm choosing you in front of the world. I don't give a damn who sees us.’ And yet it's in the same sort of environment where he first really let himself feel what he was feeling, that he let himself feel that desire and to show it to Oh.

That underwater scene in ITSAY was so pivotal for them. To go from that—and that that's the only way that Teh is willing to show him affection, is hidden, underneath the surface of the water, away from the world—to then be in this open aquarium in Bangkok, the biggest city in Thailand and he is kissing him. I get chills! I get chills. It was so well done, and it was done without words. You can't beat it for me, you just can't.

NiNi

Ginny I'm gonna come to you. What's your favorite scene in all of I Promised You The Moon?

Ginny

First I have to stop crying about the aquarium scene, because everything Mor said was true. My favorite scene is in episode 5 when Teh and Oh-aew first see each other at the agency. Coming into that scene the first time, I was really feeling like, ‘I care deeply about both these boys, I want them to be happy, but I don't really care if they get back together, and I think maybe they shouldn't.’ As soon as they saw each other? The gravity of what pulls them together sets in for both of them, and you see the longing that still pulls them together, and I went ‘oh! never mind, I need them together again.’

It's the same thing that is still my most vivid impression from ITSAY: the intensity of the love and desire that they have for each other, and how vital that is to both of them. One of the things that really impresses me in I Promised You The Moon is how naturally they play each stage of the relationship. When they're playing partners who have been together for three years, they feel like partners who have been together for three years. It feels lived-in, it feels comfortable, it feels a little bit… stale in the way that things can get if you're not paying attention? But still full of affection; it feels so right for that stage. But as soon as you've had them separated and then seeing each other again? All of that desire comes rushing back. And I love it. It is about the desire but it’s also just about the deep roots of that connection that they share, because they’ve known each other so long and they go so deep in each other’s lives. And the way that that instantly revitalized my personal emotional investment in their relationship was just so powerful.

NiNi

I'm going to hold my scene for when I'm talking to Ben after in the outro, but great, great scenes from everybody.

We're going to close out with Susan, because I have to ask Susan the very important question. Okay Susan, you 've been sitting here, you've been listening to this entire conversation, and I just want to know: are you going to go and watch I Promised You The Moon now?

Susan

Oh how could I not? I feel like having this conversation, it seems almost like a boost where I would be more at a point watching I Promised You The Moon for the first time… It would be more like having a second viewing for my first viewing. That's one of the reasons I actually, like I said, I like to be spoiled? It tells you where to put your attention. I'm going to definitely be looking in different places, thinking about different things beforehand in a way that I think would be better than if I watched it just cold.

NiNi

Mission accomplished! [laughs] All right guys, we're going to wrap this up here, we could keep talking forever but we gotta go!

1:23:51 Outro

NiNi

Ben, so you were lurking in the background of that recording [laughs]. And unlike me, you actually heard what we said, and now having listened to the edit as well: what are some of your thoughts?

Ben

I gotta be honest. I was not chatting with you like I normally am when we're recording, so I was very drunk while you all were recording [laughs] for two hours! I did not remember the middle of the recording at all! I'm sorry, I was not present.

[both laugh]

NiNi

But you have heard the edit. So.

Ben

Oh, everyone sounded so good! I really liked the conversation you guys had getting into the fact that Teh was always like this. There was this huge pushback when the show was originally airing, that Teh was acting out of character, and that they had somehow misunderstood their own characters and ruined them. But I really liked that the panel was very much about how Teh was always this way. And Jai knew that about him and used that against him.

I also love that you all hated Jai, that was so fun to listen to again on the recording. I was very conscious for Bookworm going off about Jai, because she hates him so much! [both laugh] I'm also glad that we were able to get Mor on the podcast twice! We do not talk about Mor often in our recordings, but know that they are one of our favorite people, and that they were able to make time to be with us twice is a real gift.

NiNi

I did quite enjoy what we're referring to as the “fuck Jai” portion of the panel [laughs]. I was gratified to find out that Bookworm hates Jai probably just as much as Mor and me.

[laughs]

I think one of the things that, listening back to the panel, that I really obviously wanted to get across was the fact that Teh has always been this way. This is how Teh always was. This is how Teh probably, in some ways, ever shall be, and to say otherwise is to basically ignore the Teh of I Told Sunset About You. I think that when it comes to Teh and I Told Sunset About You, people got bogged down in the romance and forgot all the bullshit. And, my god, was Teh full of bullshit. [laughs] So watching Teh’s bullshit continue, and him eventually learn to try to curtail it slightly? That was a delightful journey, the way that I saw it. I quite enjoyed that.

Ben

I really liked Ginny bringing forward the discussion about Oh's friend group, and the queerness of that friend group, because I don't think I grokked it the first time, that any of them other than Q were queer. But having watched some of the scenes after Ginny pointed them out, it's very obvious. And I think that that's really well done, because they're queer for the people who know queer people; they're just Oh’s friends for the people who don't. And I liked that.

NiNi

In the ending, I did a round robin with the gang about everybody's favorite scene—because you know me, I'm a scene bitch. I will always find a favorite scene, whether it's in an episode or in an overall show. I will always want to know what everybody's favorite scene is. I feel like that's better than a personality test. [laughs]

So what was your favorite scene in I Promised You the Moon?

Ben

Right now, it is… the scene—I believe it's in episode 4?—with Mek, when he talks about how Teh never showed any interest in him. Because he's only just mildly hurt and disappointed in Teh about it, and it caps off, like another episode of Teh just spiraling in his own bullshit again?

It stands out because Mek was like, ‘bro, we've been here for years and you ain't said shit to me,’ and that's basically Teh. He's so rigid, either people fit into his vision of his life or they don't. And they don't exist if they don't fit into his vision. And it was kind of rude of him to just presume that about his roommate right away, who was clearly trying to make overtures of friendship to him for like two to four years? That scene is currently the one that comes to mind when you ask.

That or Bas coming back to be like, ‘Are we still talking about this man?’

[both laugh]

NiNi

Shade!

Ben

My favorite Billkin and PP scene is probably when they put PP in Oh’s shirt with his heart cut out, and he's watching Teh look at Jai when they're supposed to be singing a song together. And then he beats him with the flowers.

NiNi

I feel like Oh-aew beating Teh with those flowers… it was a pivotal and necessary moment. At the time, it cleared my skin. It watered my crops. [laughs] It fed, nourished, and sustained me. I rewound it several times. I asked Mor to make gifs.

Ben

There's so many good scenes in that show.

NiNi

Can you not pick a favorite? Or does your favorite rotate?

Ben

It rotates. I think what's interesting is, my favorite scenes in I Promised You the Moon are not with Oh and Teh. My favorite scene that PP does from a work standpoint, that I think is one of PP's best, is the audition scene where he's faced with homophobia. And you can see his decision to quit acting happening in real time. Like I thought that was really, really good.

I also really like the scene where Teh is mean to Khim because she can't make acting work. Because Teh is so wrong in that scene.

NiNi

I also go back and forth a lot. But I think if I had to count an absolute favorite scene—

Ben

It's the Jai kiss!

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

It's the Jai kiss! Because Oh catches—and he's like ‘that rat bastard!’

[both laugh]

NiNi

It's the Jai kiss for a lot of reasons. The filmmaking in that scene is so impressive. The way that they build the tension of the scene, of you watching Teh make this terrible, horrible mistake, and then intercutting between Oh-aew coming to find him, and him getting closer and closer to Jai, and then him laying one on Jai, and then that long dolly shot of Oh-aew spotting them through the door of the rehearsal room? So you just see Oh-aew’s face. You see it change, and then there's this looong dolly shot that pulls back into the rehearsal room and then you see Jai and Teh making out. The filmmaking is just next-level, like everything about it—the shot selection, the music, the sound, the camera work—perfection.

So with that said, we've come to the end of our I Told Sunset/I Promised You the Moon third anniversary retrospective. That's it from us, we're about to wrap this up, we'll see you next time. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #i told sunset about you #i promised you the moon #last twilight in phuket #pp krit #billkin putthipong #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #on art #fall series #fall 2023 #thai bl #bl series #season 4 #s4e2

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waitmyturtles · 10 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: 2gether and Still 2gether 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 tackle the impact of GMMTV’s biggest BL, 2gether, and its companion follow-up, Still 2gether.]

Alright! We have reached a major milestone in the Old GMMTV Challenge. This entire project started off on the backs of two now-seminal posts (for me! and I hope for you, too!). The first one was a dialogue I had with the ever-lovely @miscellar regarding how Bad Buddy had addressed BL tropes and turned those tropes around for a singular drama experience. At the time of my asking @miscellar about this, I hadn’t organized myself to do a chronological exploration of Thai BLs as a genre -- I was picking and choosing what to watch, and I knew that what I had watched in Bad Buddy was formative. I wanted to learn more.

@absolutebl had caught the scent of this discussion, as others were sending them asks of this historical nature as well, and they penned this post that listed out the three dramas that they thought best explained how GMMTV came to its current state of programming -- GMMTV’s apology tour, as we called it back then, with Love Sick, SOTUS, and 2gether listed as the three dramas one needed to watch to understand the state of GMMTV’s BL programming now.

So with that, I dove in, and publicly began building out the OGMMTVC, with major help from @absolutebl, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @lurkingshan, @miscellar, @nieves-de-sugui, @solitaryandwandering, and many, MANY others along the way (@manogirl singlehandedly introduced me to MaxTul, for which I say, FUCK YEAH, FRIEND, THANK YOU!).

And the milestone that we’re celebrating today is that I’ve crossed the 2gether and Still 2gether threshold -- 2gether being the last drama on @absolutebl‘s original list. And, of course! I have thoughts on 2G and S2G.

(Before I dive in, I just want to say that I’m saving some juicy, juicy analysis of the pain/suffering/separation type for a separate meta that I’m hoping to publish later this week, offering a comparative analysis of Still 2gether to Bad Buddy and Until We Meet Again. I don’t want to unwind this here, because I want this post to focus in large part on 2gether’s media influence, but -- stay tuned, I’m headed for more pain meta shortly, tee hee!)

So, yeah, 2gether -- wow, right? Haha.

No, not quite, I’m just sort of joking. I’ve had EXCELLENT dialogue with the fabulous @bengiyo and @so-much-yet-to-learn about there being some shining spots in 2gether, which I agree with them about. (For both 2G and S2G, @bengiyo and @so-much-yet-to-learn shared with me some incredibly moving reflections on what it meant that Bright Vachirawit, in particular, was so emphatic about Sarawat being identified as gay in the show -- and how that spoke to the queer community during 2G’s prime. Thanks to you both for those timely comments.)

I think those of us who watched this 2G installment of the franchise know inherently what its major issues are, including a lack of chemistry emanating from Win Metawin, and an overabundance of pure talent and eagerness from Bright Vachirawit that wasn’t met at his level, à la Krist and Singto in SOTUS.

Besides the 2gether series itself -- which I’ll get back to in a minute -- I just want to note the external landscape of the show’s airing. We now all know that this show premiered in the very early stages of the COVID pandemic emanating out of Asia. 2gether’s popularity has long been attributed to people being at home to watch shows, many of whom likely were watching Thai BLs for the very first time. According to 2gether’s wiki, the show reached 100 million views by April 2020 on LINE TV ALONE (thank you to @lurkingshan for dropping the data!). Both Bright and Win have MASSIVE social media followings now, FAR outnumbering the other stableholders at GMMTV (Tay, Off, Gun, Nanon, etc.). And, 2gether’s continued success in and out of Asia is mostly attributed to the nostalgia that first-time viewers may have about 2gether being their first BL.

I thought this was all interesting to note in a recent Instagram post that Toptap Jirakit, who plays Type in 2gether/Still 2gether, posted. He hit the streets, interviewing Thai fans on their favorite BL series. I think it’s likely convenient for his own career that most of the interviewees listed 2G in their top three lists -- but it made me think.

I know, especially from discussions with @bengiyo and @lurkingshan, that there was a LOT of BL fan dismay about the ending of 2G. To be UTTERLY honest, I TOTALLY MISSED the ending high-five, because I was looking for, like, something BIG at the end, and, lol, the high-five totally went over my head. I guess that’s a good description for my feeling of the entire series, which I’ll dive more into in a bit.

First, I want to offer another, but supporting, theory on 2G’s popularity. Taking into account that Toptap IG video (again, acknowledging the self-promotion within it), as well as Bright and Win’s massive popularity, I want to meditate on the wider fandom of BLs vs. non-BL dramas in Asia. BLs in Japan, for instance, are often relegated to midnight-or-later airing times on television. And much of GMMTV’s content is online-based first. I don’t know, as BL fans, if we’re routinely and globally aware that the fandom for BLs -- which is big, maybe even huge -- is dwarfed by, say, the fandom of a mid-sized K-drama. The BL industries in Thailand and Korea are still relatively young and nascent, while other non-BL drama machines are well-oiled across the continent.

In other words -- yes, because of COVID did 2G find a much bigger audience. But I also want to offer that 2G’s...chastity? chasteness?...may have also HELPED this particular series gain such wider appeal. In other words: Asian audiences of a larger mass, outside of established BL fandoms within and outside of Thailand, may have responded more favorably to 2G BECAUSE of 2G’s lack of sex, a lack of innuendo, a lack of insinuation.

(Remember: in majority cishet society, sex is judged. And queer sex? Forget about it. I’ve established in this OGMMTVC that queer sex is even fodder for creating discriminatory material WITHIN the BL genre itself. Sex AND queer attraction give many people the jibbles. Audiences going to non-BL dramas may be doing so because they want to consume specifically het content. Same-sex romance just might not be their thing. And those non-BL drama genres are GIGANTIC -- from funding to viewership, etc.)

In that Toptap video, many fans list Bad Buddy, A Tale of Thousand Stars, and others as their other favorite BLs. Putting BBS aside for a second -- because there WAS intimacy in BBS, just not an overabundance of it -- we can consider ATOTS as another example of a BL that happens to be quite popular in Thailand, demonstratively, while also being subject to similar criticism by BL fandom as 2G in having a lack of intimacy.

While us in the BL fandom will readily make fun of 2G for not having intimacy at all, I do think, for Asian audiences not accustomed to an abundance of sex and/or same-sex sex in media -- the way that us Western viewers have in our majority media -- that 2G was accessible. It wouldn’t have to make your non-BL fan, new to the genre, uncomfortable -- especially to see same-sex intimacy.

(The wonderful @telomeke made a similar point last week in a conversation about queer acceptance vis à vis Thai politics. I wonder if our devoted BL fandoms lull us to think that an ENTIRE COUNTRY might be accepting of the queer community and queer politics and policies. It’s definitely not a reality in any single nation worldwide. There are always going to be complicated dichotomies of acceptance in every single society that humans exist in.)

When I got to the end of 2G, and saw that there wasn’t going to be any kissin’ or huggin’ -- it made TOTAL sense to me WHY this show was popular OUTSIDE of the already-established BL fandom, particularly in Asia. It ain’t my cup of tea, but it was a show that I could see, like, my Asian cousins watching, as an introduction to queer revelations and engagement. And then, if they stuck with the genre, I could see them going to, say, an ATOTS, before going to a BBS, a show that really addressed the development of queer intimacy between men. Numbers-wise -- yes, COVID explains 2G’s popularity. Content-wise? Content-wise, 2G stays in people’s hearts, partly because I believe it didn’t PUSH those hearts, as a same-sex starting gun to their first exposure to BL.

I could get well into an analysis of how sex, generally, is perceived in Asia, and ALL of the cultural nuances and biases AGAINST sex in Asia (cc @neuroticbookworm, as we have talked about potentially writing meta together on this topic from our shared South Asian lens). But I happen to think that some of our beloved BL filmmakers -- P’Aof Noppharnach, Jojo Tichakorn, New Siwaj, Cheewin Thanamin -- have actually addressed it, and beautifully so, and continue to do so. For instance, the ending quote placards in Dark Blue Kiss touch multiple times on Thailand needing more sex education. Just to offer a personal example -- I’ve had to talk to Asian relatives well into their thirties, as an American, about their first exposure to sex, to explain that sex is not... a bad thing. It’s the cultural and social judgments that accompany sex that colors a person’s worldview on sex.

2G didn’t challenge ANY OF THAT. In fact, in casting Win, they chose a dude who was VERY CLEARLY not INTO that -- to me, à la the casting of Krist Perawat in SOTUS.

No sex? No moral challenges, no ethical quandaries, no uncomfortable moments with a same-sex acting partner. Just two dudes dating, cute cute, holding hands at the Scrubb concert (or whatever).

Of course, for my tastes, as y’all know, I desire something more complicated. And I understand that GMMTV HEARD the feedback that many established BL fans had about that 2G ending. And P’Aof Noppharnach, at the time of 2G’s ending, clearly said something to the effect of, not on my watch, I’m actually going to take this franchise AND FIX IT, MY WAY, which, fuck, COULD I LOVE THIS MAN MORE? No -- but YES, I found a way to love him more.

And we got Still 2gether -- a show rooted in its QUEERNESS. QUEERNESS AND INTIMACY AND INDICATIONS OF SEX. I mean, look!

Not just rainbow shirts! Rainbow shirts on multiple people. And rainbow TABLES. P’Aof was like, WE ARE NOT MISSING A MOMENT HERE, PEOPLE. We’re going to fix this. We’re going to claim BL for the queer community who actually serve at the mercy of the audience that consumes BLs.

Before I dig further into S2G, for which I have reams of notes, as opposed to 2G (obviously) -- some quick positive notes on 2G. Wat’s romantic confession in the shelter bus in the forest was seriously heart-warming. It was romantic as fuck. And we see a NUMBER of tropes that make their way into BBS -- bringing over a beverage to someone who is joined by another potential romantic partner; how everything needs to be a competition or a “deal”; all the singing and writing of songs; make-up remover/micellar water (hi @miscellar, ha!); the keeping of a guitar for someone else. I loved seeing those tropes in 2G. I love when shows talk to each other.

Most of all, 2G established Sarawat as committed to his pursuit. Bright was UNABASHED in his role as Sarawat. It was Win/Tine who could not meet Bright’s level -- seemingly out of, what, disinterest? Repulsion? Maybe even a lack of acting talent? It wasn’t obnoxious, per se. It just seemed like Win didn’t know HOW to respond, or even what to respond TO -- all while Bright/Wat CLEARLY SIMMERED in his role. (Like I said earlier, @bengiyo has shared that Bright was emphatic in interviews that Sarawat was gay, while Win was less forward about Tine and who Tine was.)

And I think S2G absolutely grabbed Bright’s talent and spotlighted it. I am deeply glad that the ending of S2G had a such a STRONG sexual insinuation, à la AePete’s SIMMERING attraction in Love By Chance, and even in moments throughout the show as well, and I loved how S2G leveraged Bright’s fabulous acting as Sarawat IN those insinuations. Because -- contrary to how my Asian parents raised me, and how many Asians are TAUGHT to THINK about sex, which is to say, to try to ignore it or laugh at it -- PEOPLE HAVE SEX. And sex, and QUEER SEX, are things to be celebrated. Sex is beautiful, and BELONGS in stories of romance and love. To have had it essentially...deleted?...from 2G removed a huge sense of reality from that piece of drama art.

S2G also focused on a thing that many in the BL fandom actually pooh-pooh: it focused on a committed, ongoing relationship. My favorite BL in the world, Kinou Nani Tabeta?/What Did You Eat Yesterday? is focused on two middle-aged guys in the middle of their years-long relationship. I’m a married mom. I want to see the struggle. I love first love in BLs, don’t get me wrong -- my Cherry Magics, my BBSs, my Old Fashion Cupcakes. But I also don’t mind the struggles. Give me a Minato’s Laundromat, season 2, any day.

I think P’Aof was offering a subversion to Thai BL expectations by showing Tine and Wat in their settled relationship, a year in, where even Sarawat admits -- the sweetness of the relationship has worn off. The guys are working together, living together, working on their relationship together, eating instant noodles together, instead of the green curry and simmered pork and eggs that Tine lovingly made for Sarawat in their early days.

I feel like I’ve said this before, but let me say it again: I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR MEDIA TO SHOW QUEER COUPLES IN LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS. Queer partners are FAMILY, TOO. I had ongoing FABULOUS conversation with @chickenstrangers (THANK YOU, FRIEND!) during my 2G and S2G conversations, and dear @chickenstrangers pointed out to me the nature of a conversation that Sarawat and Earn (FILM FILM FILM!) had, in which Earn complemented Sarawat on his courage in being in a same-sex relationship. And Wat corrects her. (Sorry for the massively bad screenshots, it’s bumbling mom hour around here):

Like I said earlier: 2G gave potentially sex-and-queer-love-averse audiences a BL they could chew on. Win Metawin gave them enough by way of the portrayal to allow audiences to feel like they could be at arm’s-length while observing a same-sex relationship.

S2G, and Sarawat himself, strike to the HEART of queer existence and queer love. Sarawat corrects Earn: I do not love Tine because I’m courageous. I love Tine because I love Tine, because I am a human who loves another human. It’s nothing special. It’s just love that myself and my partner have, that other couples have.

I think what P’Aof did, by way of observing what was going down in 2G -- what was being NORMALIZED in 2G -- was to pull a switch and turn the tracks around, and say, I have got to normalize ANOTHER PATH for these fans that are paying extremely close attention to Bright and Win right now. And he did it, with rainbow tablecloths and shirts; with Tine’s homies, Fong and Ohm, holding Tine down; with Sarawat’s homies, Man and Boss, exploring their OWN loves simultaneously with Sarawat and holding Sarawat down with love and support.

Oh, and, of course. What P’Aof did with Green. Green was arguably a worst-case scenario of a gay character being misused for comedy in any of the dramas I’ve seen on the OGMMTVC in 2G. I honestly do NOT know what GMMTV was thinking when they allowed that characterization to air.

And Green just becomes... SASSY, and EQUAL, and really fun and slightly conniving towards Dim in S2G, and it was FABULOUS to watch (OMG. Guy and Guy’s chemistry and comedy? HILARIOUS. P’Aof ABSOLUTELY knew what he was doing there!).

Watching S2G was another fabulous P’Aof moment. It was like putting on warm pajamas and snuggling in for the smart ride of a drama. Every bad drama should consider having P’Aof come in to save the day (except for The Promise and Step By Step -- let’s never utter those titles ever again, ever).

But, I do need to give 2G credit. 2G opened the door for something: it served as a misstep for GMMTV to learn from. I don’t want to be SO summarizing like that -- again, because very important experts in @bengiyo and @so-much-yet-to-learn, who analyze shows from a very important queer lens, have spoken on the bright spots of 2G. 2G allowed for S2G to exist, for Sarawat to exist as an openly-in-love man with a boyfriend who he doted on. 2G allowed for fans of 2G to then walk the road in S2G, to be exposed to P’Aof’s CRITICAL and EMPATHIC eye in developing queer content, and to be exposed to a Sarawat that was much more able to LOVE and to receive love.

I’ll giggle and laugh at the foibles of 2G. But I saw how Bright, and even Win, improved in S2G. I saw how a director in P’Aof, and his screenwriting team in Pratchaya, Bee, and Au, took a thing that wasn’t representing the queer community healthily enough, and turned it into yet another gorgeous representation, not just of queer love -- but of GLOBAL LOVE, a kind of love, between Tine and Sarawat, that all of us humans who WANT to love another person, can strive for. I will always appreciate 2G and S2G for that journey.

[Alright, we keep truckin’! If you’ve been following my blog in the late-night space, well -- you know where I’m at, psychologically, at the moment. I was ALL KINDS OF MESSSEDDDDD UPPPPPPPPPP over I Told Sunset About You. GEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZ. I am really going to enjoy my ITSAY write-up, and will definitely serve up some comparative analysis between ITSAY and other shows, as per a request from the legendary @lurkingshan, I gotchu, gurl. I see some really important moments from the OGMMTVC journey in ITSAY and cannot wait to get my pen on them.

And speaking of wild and crazy mindsets, I have started YYY -- more on THAT in the liveblogs -- and then after YYY, a return to dear MaxTul. We’ll definitely honor the end of Tul Pakorn’s career as I watch Manner of Death for the first time. Tul’s been a real homey in the space for a while, and I can’t wait to celebrate him.

Here’s the status of the watchlist -- as always, I’ll take any feedback ya got!

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 (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not 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) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review coming) 19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (watching) 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) 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 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) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 29) 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)] 30) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 31) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 32) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 33) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 34) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 35) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 36) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

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