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You know, while watching My School President, it was one of the most pleasant surprises in a long long while. But one thing I truly did NOT expect was to develop such an attachment to Tinn.
I've loved watching these two boys fall in love, pine and help each other through the ups and downs of school, but I don't think I ever expected just HOW MUCH I would relate to Tinn. And this was legit 2 episodes in. (This post was written after ep8 and before ep9, for reference)
So following is a bit of a long-ish post on why Tinn is my favourite character in MSP and a bit on why his behaviour in the latest episode isn't that surprising to me and was, a while in the making, i feel.
At the risk of being overly personal and sappy on main, I would do SO much to just hug those two boys.
Also it's gonna be a bit of a long one, so strap in.
Spoilers till Ep 8 of My School President
Tinn, i was surprised to see had a very similar upbringing to mine. Like him, I am also an only child. Like him, I also have a strict mom, who is ALSO a teacher and a surgeon dad, who, despite not wanting to, was not able to be with me as much when I was younger because of his work, just like Tinn's dad, who is a writer.
Looking at the initial few episodes of MSP, it's pretty clear that both of Tinn's parents, while loving him so much, had to sometimes give up on time with tinn for their work. (It's something that i think is very common when both parents are working, or writing, as with Tinn's dad) And that Tinn loves his parents a lot.
Not to speculate on Tinn's upbringing, but based on my own experiences, and that scene around Tinn's birthday (spectacled nobi tinn is so CUTE, I just wanna punch his cheeks, my baby) it's a bit obvious that it's not the first time he's had to wait alone due to his mom and dad being busy. You have his mom being apologetic due to unexpectedly being called into a work dinner, her asking to celebrate with his dad, who himself is away at a book signing so, not exactly available himself (on his son's birthday too!).
You might call it a reach, but I don't know, it's something I feel isn't wrong.
If he was immature and spoiled, he might have been petulant and whining and complaining about how no one is wanting to celebrate HIS birthday with him. But he doesn't. He just accepts it. He smiles when his mom offers to let him come to work dinner, refusing with a smile so that his mom doesn't worry about him. He says (with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes) that he'll celebrate with his friend. Maybe this scene was to show that Tinn is mature, doesn't worry his parents and independent, maybe it was just a reason for Tinn to be sad before meeting Gun, i don't know man, I'm not the scriptwriter.
And inferring from the phone call with Tiwson, we can see that he IS sad that his parents can't celebrate with him. He KNOWS in his heart that it's ok, they love him, and sometimes life can just get in the way of things you want and you can't celebrate all your birthdays the way you want. But still, he's still a boy, and can't help but feel sad.
Maybe it's that resigned acceptance you see on his face and the call to Tiwson, where he fakes being ok since he doesn't want to inconvenience Tiw to come celebrate his birthday because he's already at home. Even though he's actually feeling a bit sad and lonely. And he knows that if he asked Tiwson, he would've come just because his friend asked him to. Just because he's feeling alone doesn't mean he should inconvenience people, that's what i think Tinn feels.
(I have a feeling the reason I've felt so attached to this scene at Gun's mom's shop is because I've BEEN in this situation way more times than I can count. And way to go when you write a whole ass ramble based on like just 1 minute of a drama)
When you see as you're growing up that your parents are super busy, and / or your parent(s) is very strict, especially with regards to academics (Tinn's mom is a very typical asian mum, in that regard), you grow up with the desire to keep your parents happy by becoming one less source of stress to them.
And being an only child can get lonely at times. Combine that with a strict mother, who is a bit too controlling over their child, and consistently expects the best from their child, you get yourself a kid who tries to show themselves as mature for their age and is a bit more independent than the parents would think. Also a pretty good liar and good at hiding their true emotions as well. Added if you're an introvert, you become a bit socially awkward and have a hard time making real friends.
(Personal experience talking here)
Plus from what I've seen so far about Tinn's parents, it's obvious that out of the two, it's Tinn's dad who is the more emotionally supportive one in the family. During that dinner scene in Ep 2, we can see that it's Tinn's dad who seems more open with his emotions, and Tinn is very cautious when talking about the music club (which his mother doesn't seem to like) to his mother. He mostly goes along with what his mother says, trying to not rock the boat as one does.
When you have that kind of strict parent(s) growing up, especially if you're a single child and have all of the focus of your parents, is that you become a bit reliant on your parent(s) making your decisions for you and you don't push boundaries and just go about life doing what's expected of you.
You become someone who constantly tries to please the strict parent, because you're afraid of them being disappointed in you. Because sometimes you're more scared of disappointing your parents than actually making them angry.
You more often than not, are seen as the 'golden child' who has ideal behaviour at school, and in studies and extra-curriculars. It's what expected of you and it's not like it's difficult to do so, why rock the boat unnecessarily?
And then when you start discovering that your own wishes and desires and priorities are different from your parent's (which more than often happens, because you are not your parents) and it's something that they might not like or even disapprove of.
That realisation makes you scared because you know you can't show what your true feelings and opinions on stuff because it's NOT what is expected of you. Then you double down on showing the perfect you that everyone likes (especially authority figures and teachers) and hide your imperfections.
That's where the people pleasing part of you comes into play. But inside you might be getting more frustrated and angry.
And then you get into your emo phase
Ahem.
Anyways.
Back to where you're wondering that what has this long winded tangent to do with Tinn.
Now, nobi-tinn, aka Tinn in first year, a bit of a resigned to being the perfect kid who never complains, meets Gun when he's all sad about his birthday.
Gun, who's all cute and handsome faced kid with a bright smile who just sets down a treat in front of you without you knowing who he is and why did he just do that.
Then he introduces himself and it's someone from your own class. And he's entranced by his cute little smile. And a bit gobsmacked as well because 'oh my he's cute' is running through that boy's head on loop.
Then his mother comes in and Gun is like oh, I'm just being friendly so that i can mooch off him and his work. That makes Tinn a little bit disappointed, because he thought maybe Gun wanted to be friends with him for real, but he just wants to be friends to 'borrow' stuff from you. Still he's pleased at atleast SOMEONE cares. Plus it helps that the boy IS cute so he's like, eh, whatever.
But then Gun goes up and is like if you're feeling lonely people, here's a song we can share. And you can see that Tinn is surprised, oh he's a singer?
Then this cute boy he just met busts out a song that RESONATES so much with him and he's like OH. OH HELL. I LIKE HIM. OH NOOOOOOO
Cut to Tinn's trying to get closer to him. But FAILING. MISERABLY. CONSTANTLY.
Poor guy even decide to clean up, change his look and try to confess at the Hot wave contest but only to be thwarted by a damn fight breaking out, which leads to Gun not hearing what was said.
Then both of them are in their final year of high school and Tinn, to his shock discovers that his mom DISAPPROVES of the music club (understandable, since they caused that huge fight, plus all those near fire and probable noise complaints), the place which Gun is an integral part of and where he thrives. And to his horror, wants to shut it down, which is like the last thing Tinn wants because then there's NO way Gun will even like you as a friend, much less have a crush on him. Poor guy, can't catch a break in his romantic life.
He's now stuck on how to help his crush without letting anyone know that he's helping him (because it's NOT what is expected of you)
Then Tiwson gives the idea that become the school president and prevent the club from shutting down. That way Gun might even be impressed by all that Tinn did to help him. Tinn does that. Becomes the School Council President. You're like ok, now the club is safe.
But then Tinn discovers that not only does your crush NOT remember him, but he actually HATES him.
We all know how it all then follows as we can see in the show. You have Tinn defying the school rules, manipulating folk music competitions, offering help anonymously online, ensuring the band actually has instruments to play on, giving him your own DAD'S PRIZED GUITAR (I have a feeling this might play a role in a future episode), lying to your own parents about what you're doing MULTIPLE TIMES and basically giving Gun as leniency as much as possible to help him save his club and actually win the hot wave so that you can actually confess.
All the while going all Elsa in front of him with conceal, don't feel mode because from what Tinn knows Gun hates him and won't accept his help if he knew. PLUS he's realising his mom's probable disapproval and disappointment in his actions. But Tinn has decided that it's time to stand up for what he wants to do and not what his parents want, for what seems like the first time in his life.
Awww Tinn is entering his rebellious phase, all so as to let Gun's dreams come true and let him be happy. Because don't forget, Tinn actually never ever pressurised Gun into liking him back or ever actually let him know just HOW much Tinn has done for him behind the scenes.
Then Tinn and Gun start becoming closer and closer and then they realise he actually reciprocates Tinn's feelings!!! YAY HALLELUJAH 🎉🎉🎉 But you two still can't date because of a stupid arbitrary rule that was put there because your previous club leader was a jealous man so they decide to shamelessly flirt with each other for now and stay somewhere in between mutual pining to secretly dating.
Meanwhile, adulthood and deciding on career is approaching and Tinn's mom decides that Tinn should be a doctor because it's a stable field. (which, personally, i think is bs. It's just the plain old insistence of wanting your kids to be a doctor, a lawyer ir an engineer that is drilled onto an asian parent's heads)
Tinn himself is very unclear about what to take in the future, understandably because this is something your parents can't decide for you. Plus while being with Gun and helping him, Tinn is gradually coming out of under his mother's thumb and letting himself feel what he wants to feel and have his own opinions. He is becoming a bit more rebellious and liking making decisions for himself.
So while Tinn doesn't necessarily want to become a doctor, he's not exactly protesting against it and is still unsure if he really wants to become one, and WHY. (I personally would love if Tinn did NOT become a doctor, or even if he does, atleast makes that choice with his own free will. Becoming a doctor requires a LOT of personal motivation, and being forced into being one is just damaging to one's mental health. This is speaking as someone who has just become a doctor herself a while back)
Then he realises that he wants to become a doctor to take care of his loved ones (admirable and a lofty goal tinn) after taking care of Gun's mom.
At the beginning of ep 8, we have Tinn talking to his mom to get permission for the club to stay over at nights for a week. Then his mom asks if he's started studying for an exam that is coming up in a month and he says he hasn't (I'm the same Tinn 😮‍💨🤜🏻🤛🏻)
But then we get Tinn standing up to his mom to get permission to stay overnight, with some crafty manipulation on his part to get her to agree. If you look carefully, his mom is confused about why Tinn is being this insistent about helping the music club. His mom has had that look before too, at the beginning of the show when he's asking to go in her place during the folk music festival.
And looking at it from Tinn's mom's perspective, Gun and his club are more of a nuisance than anything. And she probably is wary that they might drag Tinn to the wrong path. We as viewers know that is profoundly incorrect, but his mom doesn't.
And then we have Tinn and Gun hiding from his mom in the pool and then using the lousiest excuse I've EVER heard (Tinn you weren't even trying my boy). Can someone please tell me that does it actually abruptly rain out of nowhere in Thailand and then it stops just as abruptly??
Like the only reason Tinn's mom seemed to buy that excuse is that she hasn't caught him lying to her before. Also why do I have a feeling that she really some bias against the band kids? Because why only offer the towel to Tinn when both Tinn AND GUN are soaked????
Then we find out that Tinn's mom has arranged for him to meet with a doctor from the college Tinn might be applying for later who's having a seminar in his school. This is in order to have Tinn give a favorable impression to the doctor.
Contrary to what many were thinking, it's JUST an introduction, not an actual interview or anything. It's kind of like a mom showing off her kid to another so as to improve Tinn's chances of getting in.
One thing I noticed about Tinn while he was being told this was just how uncomfortable he looked. I'm still not clear myself whether it was because he was gonna miss being able to watch Gun perform openly (something he's been wanting to for YEARS at this point) or that he was benefiting from being the principal's son and getting this advantage over his peers who were as interested as him in that field. I personally like to believe it's a mixture of the two, with the former being a larger reason than the latter.
Moving on to the late night school ground heart to heart, you can see just how affected Tinn was by Gun's confession of gaining strength from performing in front of the people he loves. Especially since he knew that he couldn't actually go and watch him. We as audience and Gun could tell that just how sad he was at not being able to attend.
Then we had the wonderful piece of Gun deciding that it was FINE and both of them deserved to go after their dreams and encouraged Tinn to work hard towards his dreams, like Tinn encouraged Gun to do.
Now what follows is a bit of speculation, but not unnecessarily untrue, i think.
But what Gun doesn't know that the only reason Tinn even WANTS to become a doctor on the first place is in some way to take care of Gun and his own parents and Gun's mom.
It isn't Tinn's dream to be a doctor, it is his mom's. It's just something that he's going along with because he doesn't exactly hate the thought of being a doctor. Tinn's dream, atleast for the moment is to be at Gun's side, help HIM achieve his dream of winning the hot wave and be his boyfriend, in that order.
On that note, if Tinn you ever want to become a doctor, I think being a pediatrician would suit you a lot (as suggested by my lovely friend @sarahandtheninjas and i agree with them)
While, he might have gotten a good reason why to want to pursue medicine, his priority is still Gun and passing his school.
And his priority at that moment is watching Gun perform because he wants to provide Gun that support during such an important time of his life. Tinn has enough confidence in himself that he knows he can get in medical school by himself without any prior introductions from his mother. (I don't know how exactly do you even get in medical school in Thailand so if anyone could provide some information, that would be highly appreciated!!)
Plus i believe that Tinn is beginning to chafe from his mother's constant hovering. It comes from a place of love, but i think it would feel very annoying when you're a teen. Like when they both were rehearsing answers to give to the doctor, (which by the way were super generic and expected answers, exactly the ones they would look for, but still boring) you could see that Tinn could NOT CARE LESS about that *stupid* doctor and just wants to see Gun perform.
So in a fit of extreme bravery (seriously, it takes guts to talk back to your mom, especially if she's as strict with Tinn as I think she might be) he says sorry to mom and runs away to the Hot Wave.
Then that absolutely LOVELY conversation between TinnGun follows where Tinn reveals that that introduction wasn't actually that necessary and what's the use of becoming a doctor of he can't take care of the ones he loves.
Also Tinn, becoming a doctor means accepting that you might not being able to spend a lot of time with your family and loved ones, especially if you go into something like emergency medicine or surgery or ob-gyn or even medicine, especially during your specialisation years. I SHOULD KNOW, I'm not only a child of a surgeon, but a doctor in my own right.
(Also, dropping the love word so early Tinn???? That's pretty gosh darn brave of you my boy, but seriously Tinn, do not decide to become a doctor on a whim)
All of those actually reading till this point I love you all so much 😘😘
And after all of that, what I am personally looking forward to in the future episodes is how exactly does Tinn's late stage rebellion play out, because I have a feeling that his mom might be shaping up to be the final boss.
And thanks a LOT for reading
(I might edit this post later after all the episodes are over to add more thoughts and add some screenshots, maybe)
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kongthapatom · 9 months
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Riddle me this: When have queer stories managed to become popular with little kids in Asia before MSP did?
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This year I watched MSP cast promote the drama in schools and so many students ranging from small kids to high schoolers doing MSP dance challenges even months after MSP ended. It makes me ecstatic when I see them watching this drama, even becoming a fan! TinnGun made it seem so effortless to touch the hearts of Asian kids and teens in a way no queer drama has been able to do before. 
MSP really changed my perception of what it will take for queer media to overthrow the hetero agenda in Asia someday. It made me realize we need more feel-good, family-friendly and goofy stories that appeal to everyone and make them laugh instead of convoluted or grandiose stories that lose the plot or those that specifically amplify queer struggles and minimise the joy of love.
That in the end, when real change starts in society, no matter how big or small and culminates with homophobia finally packing its bags & Asian families being won over - it won't be because of dramatic and "realistic" queer stories rife with suffering, grief or heartbreak that got voted best by the critics. It will be because of a simple and sweet love story like MSP, where one boy had a crush on another boy and did everything it takes to help him reach his dreams and found his own happiness in the process, a story that is vibrating with so much of queer positivity, joy and heart that it's impossible for anyone who watches it to not became its fan.
It makes my heart burst with joy that queer kids today are growing up with much better examples of queer love in front of them than our previous generations ever did. Imagine the impact this will have, the difference it will make in young queer Asian lives.
Gun told Tinn that the love songs we listen to in high school are the best love songs ever because they're the original soundtracks of our first love - To think there is a generation of kids right now who are listening to MSP soundtrack and falling in love to the same songs Tinn and Gun sang to each other and will remember MSP as their life's greatest love songs someday in the future - it boggles my mind and perhaps we won't grasp the full extent of what MSP did for its queer audience until many years have passed.
Nonetheless, I'll never stop singing MSP's praises because all they had was a newbie director, rookie actors & a banger soundtrack to do the impossible and make queer characters go mainstream in Asian schools and resonate with kids. We'll soon find out if we'll see TinnGun in college next year being sickeningly in love and serenading each other with an even gayer cuter cheesier soundtrack! (I hope so) Even if we don't, I'm excited for the impact MSP and GemFourth will have on queer romance genre down the line.
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grapejuicegay · 1 year
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Okay, friend
#OH NO I HAVE TOO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS#first of all the obvious red and blue boys#the one who's ready to jump all in at the slightest hint of reciprocation#and the one who gets too into his own head and tries to chicken out of talking about his feelings#but also thinking about all the meta (and specifically jemmo's post) about the ep 10 fist bump#and how they were on the same level through it all and how their relationship is level and reciprocal at every point#and how we're seeing the exact opposite take place here in msp#tinn has just been rejected#and done so in a way where he has no idea that gun likes him too#gun trying to reach out in a situation that IS difficult for them both#but he has a step up on tinn here where he knows that his feelings are reciprocated even if they can't be together right now#and so of course tinn is the one to step back when he tries to make a move under the cover of the mv#because he has just been rejected where gun... just hasn't#and most importantly both episodes ending with immaculate food based flirting 10/10#anyway here's some boys fist bumping about their feelings in ep 6#(and talking about said feelings next to a body of water)#tune in next week for boys not really dating and also performing a tragic romance in ep 7!#my school president#my school president series#bad buddy#bad buddy series#bad buddy brain rot#this isn't about bad buddy but when is anything not about bad buddy anymore#< i love this tag but you best believe i am going to make anything and everything about bad buddy#kk.gifs#oh this is my first gifset of 2023!!!
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circuscl0wn · 1 year
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Gun lowkey went THROUGH IT in MSP
I don't know if someone has clocked or listed the amount of sad things that happened to Gun but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Despite Gun being consistently confident (editing to add: at least around his band mates), assertive, and chipper he actually went through a lot of downers that at least for me would've stopped me in my tracks.
1. Gun's (music loving) dad dying while Gun was doing a singing class test. He got the top score and while he's celebrating his mom calls him to say his dad got hit by a car and passed. He didn't even get the chance to call his dad to tell him the good news.
2. Sound comes in and Gun kicks himself out the group thinking he's a bad leader whose stopping the bands growth. This may seem small but since music is the only thing he kinda has, it has a big impact on him and his identity.
3. Getting rejected by that music scouter in episode 5. Dude was already going through it because he and some of his bandmates did not know what the future held for them especially since that counseling session ruined their spirits.
4. The doctors finding a tumor in his mom and her having to have surgery. He was legit in the hospital begging his mom to promise that she wont leave him behind *SOBS*
5. Guns mom undergoing surgery while he's performing at hot wave. The anxiety he had while performing was noticeable.
6. His band lost hot wave
7. His friend group kinda falls apart and he gets blamed for them losing hot wave (not gonna lie, some of what they said to each other was WILD)
8. His relationship with Tinn was outed
9. The dusty ass teacher/counselor being homophobic after finding out Gun's relationship with Tinn
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He had such a bright/determined spirit and he didn’t let things drain his joy completely.
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khaothanawat · 1 year
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My School President wants to subvert your expectations
(or: if you're not watching this show, you're missing out on something wonderful)
...so. I am supposed to work today, but I don't wanna and also i rewatched all four episodes of My School President last night and if I don't let out as many feelings as possible about it I might explode because I am unhinged.
so I wrote a 4,700+ word essay i'm so sorry oh my god I spent hours writing this good lord
episode 1 / the introduction
episode 1 plays out mostly as a traditional high school series might. we have gun, who is not the greatest student, but who loves music and, even more than that, loves music club - which revolves around his friends and the band they’re in. it is, as we’ll learn a few episodes down the line, his “safe zone”, and the one place in school where he’s found love and acceptance.
we also have tinn, who is the son of the incredibly strict principal and who himself is a fantastic student, good looking, admired by all the other students. he gets voted in as school president, and thus has complete control over the fate of all the school clubs - including, of course, the principal’s least favourite club (on account of how its members keep failing their classes and almost burning down the school), the music club.
the dynamic between tinn and gun is familiar to us - it’s a rivalry, with one side being very charming if a little ridiculous and the other being a traditional tsundere-type character - stern and not particularly forthcoming or unforgiving at first glance. we see little hints though, very early on, that tinn, despite his exterior, gets drawn into gunn’s music.
the end of episode 1 is our first real insight that not everything is going to go quite as expected - thanks so a slow reveal that tinn has doodled a little picture of gun singing, and written next to it the words “you’re cute. so damn cute. cuter than anyone in the world.”
it’s a well-used trope in BL romances to have the handsome, tsundere character be secretly a MASSIVE SIMP for his love interest. we’ve seen this in previous GMMTV shows, with a mid-series reveal that the tsundere has been wildly in love and putting up a ridiculous front the entire time. What MSP is turning on its head is not the fact that Tinn has feelings, but the decision to reveal it in episode 1. the traditional mid-series reveal allows romantic tension to develop in the story, the will-they-won’t-they of each moment existing because we don’t know for certain that the tsundere character has feelings. the reveal is usually used after the first kiss, when the tension is no longer needed by the narrative.
MSP deciding to remove that tension entirely completely changes the way they need to build the romance between tinn and gun, as well as subverting our own expectations around what we’re watching. tinn is no longer cool and detached and stern - he’s awkward and adorable and… completely insane, honestly, he’s just absolutely unhinged. he does not know what he’s doing and has somehow boxed himself into pretending to be a tsundere in his secret quest to help gun save the music club.
now, the tension in the story is whether tinn can get gun to stop hating him - and if, how and when gun will develop feelings for tinn.
(yeah yeah yeah yes, we the viewers know that they’ll end up together, but that’s beside the point)
I can't believe this got so out of hand that I need to use a cut - let's kEEP GOING I GUESS
episode 2 / in which we are made aware that all is truly not what it seems
episode 2 introduces us to another trope - the “secret correspondant” trope. only, of course, it’s not a secret here. we see tinn posing as ‘nong lion’ and messaging the music club to try and help them with their problem (and side note - MSP has the same structure as Bad Buddy, wherein episodes are self-contained stories; an obstacle appears and is resolved in the same episode). in fact, the show turns the trope on its head even further by having gun almost immediately suspect tinn, only to get conveniently thrown off the scent by tinn’s bestie for the restie, and the owner of the sole braincell on the show, tiw. and even beyond that, tinn does a terrible job at hiding the fact that he’s ‘nong lion’, but the show just mines this for comedy, because a huge running line in the show is that the members of the music club are, bless them, absolute dummies.
even so, the episode culminates in tinn openly helping gun in-person (on a stage in front of a bunch of other people, no less!!) and then openly vowing to help the music club win the hot wave contest.
which isn’t a super selfless move - tinn is told earlier that evening by an old music club alumni that music club members can’t date unless they win the hot wave contest. of course, one of the very first things we learn about the music club in the show is that it’s former leader lost the hot wave contest because of his girlfriend, so it seems possible that maybe that rule doesn’t actually exist anymore. but that’s for a later time.
episode 3 / remember episode 2? lets do that again but MORE
episode 3 of my school president takes the concept of subverting expectations and turns it into a whole-ass episode (and it’s perfect).
episode 3 opens with tinn going on another adorable little meltdown about how cute gun is, only for gun to be standing right there listening. another trope again, but this time - i have to wonder whether gun realises what has happened. the narrative has told us over and over that he’s sort of a dummy - the remainder of episode 3 revolves heavily around this, in fact. but he did suspect tinn of being nong lion in episode 2, he’s not always completely obtuse, and he explicitly asks tinn who he was talking about, before waving away the conversation entirely because he has more important hot wave-related things to discuss. this is one of the many instances we see of tinn conflating his own fantasies with reality - something that will become infinitely more prevalent this episode.
speaking of: tinn has to tutor gun. we see them sitting at a table and tinn has somehow made calculus sexy by drawing a heart with equations. they move closer, almost kiss and then- it is, of course, just a figment of tinn’s wild imagination. in reality, he’s yelling at gun for being a gay who can’t math. this is the first time the show tells us to be on our guard in this episode, because tinn’s little mind is going wild and not everything we see will be real.
eventually, tiw suggests they (tinn and gun) move in to his sibling’s apartment for a week to study because tiw is a romantic mastermind, and then, when tinn panics because he does not know how to be a normal person around gun, tiw suggests tinn recreate classic BL tropes with gun. like in bad buddy, tiw says. tiw played by mark pakin, who was in bad buddy. tiw who says that his favourite actor in bad buddy is mark pakin. i’ve gotten off track a little. except i HAVEN’T because -
ok, MSP is written by the same writers as Bad Buddy and directed by one of the assistant directors of Bad Buddy (and 1000 Stars), director au. this is au’s first full director role, but he’s obviously been working closely with backbone of GMMTV aof and aof appears a number of times in the MSP special episode to discuss the process of making the show, which would maybe indicate he had a decent hand in the show - or at the very least, has had a hand in helping au develop his own skills (and to be clear, au worked as part of the writing team for years before this, so he’s not new to the business by any means) (not me speculating on aof’s own staff career growth plans loool). i think it’s not a stretch to say that MSP has a very BB feel to it, and i’m so endlessly impressed that it has managed to maintain that so far whilst also forging its own identity as a show. it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy, or a poor imitation - it feels very much like it’s telling it’s own story, but it’s using a something that BB used super successfully to do so, which is the subversion of tropes. MSP goes one step further with that though, and uses it differently (helped by the fact that because BB is set in college and MSP is in high school, the tropes are naturally a lot less… well. horny.)
MY POINT BEING that that Bad Buddy call out was deliberate. they didn’t use the show just bc they had mark pakin saying the line - i think it’s likely that they felt it necessary to add in mark’s line 4th wall breaking line about himself because it was his character making the reference, but they want us to know what they’re doing. they’re referencing Bad Buddy because this show is, in a way, a spiritual successor to BB - it likely wouldn’t exist as it does if BB didn’t already exist (and wasn’t a huge hit). in the very next scene, we get a reference to the band scrubb, which is a huge 2gether reference - and, looping this all back to the creative team, au was a screenwriter for Still 2gether and aof created/directed Still 2gether. tinn’s character is a direct play on sarawat in 2gether - he is, in so many ways, sarawat, but the narrative is using him in a different way.
oh my god i legit wanted to write a one sentence post about this show how did i get here
OK GETTING BACK TO EPISODE 3 oh my god
episode 3 shows us over and over that tinn creates these vivid fantasies about being in classic romantic scenarios with gun that he then tries to turn into reality, pet tiw’s instruction - only for the reality to be a lot less romantic. in his one actual, real-life chance to get close to gun (the ballroom dance) where he’s not just trying to recreate something from a BL series, he gets so overwhelmed and nervous that he can’t dance at all, which we’re told through the loud and quick sound of his heartbeat.
and then, part way through the episode, the show starts bait-and-switching us.
first: tinn sees gun with food on his lip and fantasises about brushing it away with his thumb (an absolute romance series staple). gun licks it away before tinn can do any of that, because of course he does - but then tinn gets food on his lips and gun reaches over to brush it away. finally, tinn has ended up in a romance series moment with gun, only it wasn’t one of his own deliberate creation. it just happened.
second: tinn and gun talk at the swimming pool about themselves - finally. they’ve been living together for a week, but we don’t see them often having conversations about who they are. gun talks about seeing the music club as his ‘safe zone’. tinn explains why he became school president (to support people’s dreams). gun tells him that that’s such a handsome answer, then asks “have you used that line to hit on anyone?” tinn replies: “you.” we expect by now that it’s another fantasy moment, because we’ve been duped by the show with these moments multiple times by now, but once again the show twists things. the moment is real, tinn really says “you” and it hangs between them for a moment before he quickly changes the subject. but it’s the clearest declaration either of them have made. we don’t know what gun is feeling by this stage, however we do know that gun is in fact the one who gave them a Classic Romance Moment of brushing away food. it’s the show telling us that, whether he realises it yet or not, he’s in this too.
the third bait and switch is the Big One, except it’s not at all: we reach the ballroom dance midterm and tinn is trying to get out of dancing altogether - he still isn’t sure he can do it, he still feels overwhelmed when he tries to dance with gun, his heart races too hard and fast. gun refuses to listen to him and makes him get up. he tells tinn to close his eyes and says “let me help you”. tinn closes his eyes and suddenly the sports hall fades away - he and gun are in beautiful suits, they’re in the music club room (gun’s safe zone!), gun’s band chinzilla is playing and he and gun are dancing. throughout the episode we’ve heard tiny portions of the melody of the ballroom dance song, but now finally we hear the whole song, performed by chinzilla. as they dance together, the scene flashes between the fantasy dance, their practice dance by the pool and crucially, the actual dance that’s happening in the sports hall. as the dance comes to an end, we realise that even though we saw it happen in tinn’s fantasy, it was happening in real life too. the way they danced in tinn’s fantasy was how they really danced - staring into one another’s eyes, smiling at each other, looking completely lost in the moment. gun said “let me help you” and entered tinn’s fantasy with him. gun said “let me help you” and he’s telling us, the viewers, that tinn isn’t going to make this romance happen alone (even with the help of tiw). tinn can’t create romance moments when gun isn’t on the same page.
the final bait and switch happens in a series of parts: prior to the ballroom dance midterm, on the night after they go swimming, gun makes tinn share the bed (rather than the Bad Buddy reference sleeping arrangement they’ve been doing all week). tinn, because he’s a lunatic, asks if he can stare into gun’s eyes and gun obliges. after a moment, we hear the heartbeats again - but it’s gun that looks away and decides to go to sleep.
the episode ends, after the ballroom dance, with gun and tinn having a small moment together outside the school. gun tries to give tinn back the pencil case he borrowed earlier, because he of course does not own a pencil case. it’s one that says “i think about you” on it that gun has, obviously, doodled all over. specifically, he has drawn a cute little monster and written the name ‘tinn’ with a bunch of arrows pointed at it. you think about who now, gun? anyway, tinn tells gun to keep it, because what high school student doesn’t have a pencil case oh my god gun - and they hold hands over the pencil case for a moment. until the tinn’s mother the principal comes out of her office and tinn very gently drops gun’s hands. that’s not relevant to this, i just think it’s Big Foreshadowing. anyway. tinn leaves with his mother and gun is left standing there, staring after him. and once again, we hear the heartbeats. they’re gun’s, because of course they are. we get a flashback to the night before, to tinn staring into gun’s eyes and looking away, and we know for certain that that was gun’s heartbeat and not tinn’s, and that it’s happening again now. bait and switch - tinn’s heartbeats followed us through the whole episode, only for us to end on gun’s heartbeat, and a confirmation that yes, he’s feeling it all too.
again, the show is revealing things early. no longer do we have the tension of whether gun feels something too - now we have the tension of whether gun is going to do anything about it, or acknowledge it at all.
we're only up to episode 4 by now, and I wouldn't say that episode 4 turned much on its head that hadn't already been set up before, but I do think it serves as a way to start building up a number of new plot points, so I'm going to talk about that a little, just so that I can revisit this later once more episodes have aired.
episode 4 / resetting expectations (...sort of?)
episode 4 of my school president introduces us to a new character: tinn's original rival, sound, who joins the music club (because of course tinn has a rival).
I think it's actually really key to point out a tiny scene that happens at the beginning of episode 4, as the show is starting to lay out the plots for the episode. gun and the band are looking for a solo guitarist (hence the eventual introduction of sound). he puts posters up on a notice board. tinn comes along and, because he's a dweeb, mentions that people need permission from the school council to put up posters. gun sighs and obediently starts to take the posters down, before tinn dives in and says that he'll let gun put them up anyway, he'll make a 'special exception'. real smooth, kid.
anyway, this fascinates me, because it's such a good display of how much their relationship has changed by this point. tinn and gun have had a surprising number of scenes together in front of this notice board - mostly with gun fighting back against tinn trying to enforce the school rules as school council president. here we see gun not fight, but immediately give into tinn instead (even though tinn had no desire to win, he's just got so little game oh my god this boy has NO GAME i'm obsessed with him). gun looks thrilled when tinn lets him put up the posters anyway - he respects tinn's word enough now that he wasn't going to fight, which is so the opposite of the gun we've seen so far. it's just a really interesting story beat to throw in.
they have a little moment again (in real life) (initiated by tinn) and gun's heartbeats from episode 3 appear once more, reminding us that gun is also Feeling Things. gun runs away in a flustered panic.
(tinn, it must be said, genuinely has no idea what's going on in gun's head. because tinn is a dummy.)
from here, the dual plot lines of the episode play out pretty traditionally. story A sees gun quit the music club and tinn take the opportunity to get closer to him now that he's not beholden to the no-dating-before-hot-wave rule that definitely still exists. they do get closer. in fact, they go on an accidental date, flirt heavily over some imaginary cake, and tinn finds a position for gun in the student council that would allow him to sing and play music, story B sees sound take over the music club, who are unfocused and not actually using their practice sessions to practice, only to be a tiny teen tyrant about it. the band beg gun to come back. gun feels as though the band will have a better chance to win hot wave without him. tinn sees this happen and convinces gun to go back to the music club, because that's clearly where his happiness lies. even if gun being in the music club will inevitably put the absolutely real and very much something gun definitely is aware of no-dating-before-hot-wave rule back into play.
gun rejoins the music club, but lets sound stay (sound, to be clear, mostly joined because he thought it would piss off tinn, but we start getting the indication by the end that he could also maybe find friendship and support in the club, just as the others did). they have their traditional bbq pork meal together to celebrate being back together. it's sacred.
so, it's all fairly cut and dry - and we as viewers probably already knew where these plots were heading and that the main issues would be resolved in this episode, thanks to the self-contained episode structure of the show.
until we see gun grab a bunch of the pork and run off, away from the bbq, yelling that he'll be back soon. he goes, of course, to tinn. he, quite crucially, claims that the group have finished eating and that there was some food left over and he just wondered whether tinn might want it - once again, we as viewers know this is a lie, and are left in possession in much more knowledge than the characters in the scene. gun is making up an excuse to bring tinn food, and to hang out with tinn. if the question this episode was 'gun is having feelings for tinn; what will he do with them?', then we saw moments over the course of the entire episode that answered that. gun, unlike tinn, has apparently an abundance of game (if anything he's a little too dangerous, frankly). he jumps both feet forward into flirting with tinn, and manages to conveniently set up scenarios in which he can do that - successfully, unlike tinn in episode 3. where he's a little more in control, we don't get a return of the panicked heartbeats from the beginning of the episode.
maybe tinn had put this flirting all episode down to the fact that gun was no longer in the music club. it's not really made clear. however, now gun is back in the club, and he's abandoned the sacred bbq pork time to have a nivea micellar moment with tinn (once again, gun successfully initiating a BL romantic moment in real life, because gun is the only one here with game). he gets tinn to take a photo of them together, and so they stand pressed shoulder to shoulder, hands touching. they're smiling at each other, and the camera jumps back and forth between the way they're looking at one another and their hands. tinn, probably emboldened by how much gun has put himself out there across the entire episode, starts to move his pinky finger closer. his hand is shaking, but we see them over and over barely looking at the camera because they're too busy smiling sweetly at each other, as tinn's finger twitches closer and closer - the slowest build up in the world, as we wonder whether he'll get the guts to do it. and then finally, finally, tinn loops his pinky around gun's, and gun responds in kind, and we see a shot of them taking the photo, they're fingers out of shot but entwined.
this is almost par for the course by now - how quickly this show has put tinn and gun on a playing field of both having feelings for the other, and both being at least somewhat aware that those feelings could be reciprocated.
episode 5 and beyond / is this show impossible to predict?
it's not really something we get to see too often, the very cautious build into something more. the next episode preview doesn't really tell us anything about how that develops (but rather that gun has a lot of other stuff going on, apparently). i think this becomes it's own question - now that MSP have turned the traditional BL pacing on its head (akin to the way Bad Buddy did it before), what do they do next. with BB, we very quickly saw that the obstacles between the lead characters were almost entirely external - it's the basis of the entire show. they couldn't be together because no one wanted them to be. it made the pacing of the romance make complete sense.
with MSP, we're going in much more blindly. the boys are already on a similar page and there's no obvious obstacles between them outside of the definitely very real no-dating-before-hot-wave rule that no one in the present day music club has even spoken about or mentioned (yet?). what this suggests to me, and why this is so fascinating, is that we therefore don't necessarily know the basic conceit of the plot from here on out.
yes, we want to see how tinn and gun ultimately admit their feelings for one another, but at episode 4 of 12, the show has already done most of the work in getting them there. inevitably, we need to be faced with obstacles and there have been a small number of hints, maybe, at the things that could go wrong for them, but it's fascinating because those hints have been very sparse.
there's the perceived rivalry of the music club and the school council - which tinn has accidentally perpetuated a bunch of times, because he's a dummy. episode 4 reminds us conveniently that this is still seen to exist outside of tinn and gun's gay little bubble, when we see the two random students discussing it in the hall (this is of course also how sound ends up joining the club). it's not a particularly violent rivalry though - we're not at Bad Buddy drop kick into the chest two seconds away from breaking out into a sharks and jets style dance number. i wouldn't say it's rife for conflict, but that's sort of the thing: it's almost impossible to predict at this point what will happen. we know that chinzilla will probably perform at hot wave, and at some point tinn and gun will probably kiss. beyond that? it's anyone's guess.
another obvious obstacle that has been (honestly quite lightly) is the principal - we are literally introduced to tinn's pov in episode 2 by the concept of his mother coming in between him and gun, when he dreams about gun turning into her. he's lied to her a number of times in the name of helping gun. her character is generally quite fascinating, because she's a near-constant antagonistic presence, but it's clear she has huge amounts of love and care for her son, and she's trying to do her best by her students. she's also really frugal though - in episode 2 we learn that she and her husband would argue because she felt that music was an unnecessarily expensive hobby. a real subtle moment that i'm sure won't come back in any fashion later down the line...
the other obvious one is of course the no-dating-before-hot-wave rule which, sure, might be real, but might even become an issue in some form or another even if it's not. the reason the music club lost hot wave the year before, as we know, was because the last leader was distracted on stage by his girlfriend. this is how we meet the music club in episode 1, and we see gun vowing to win hot wave next year, because he knows it's what will save the music club.
it seems as though episode 5 is about to introduce new conflicts too, or expand upon things that have really only been very barely hinted at. but, if I know anything it's that promos are unreliable, so only time will tell how that plays ou.
it's important though, in my opinion, that the show really hasn't hit us over the head with anything here yet (except the very real very current day hot wave rule that very much definitely exists - and even then, it has only been mentioned a handful of times at most between tinn and tiw, usually as an occasional reminder to the audience more than a constant driving force for tinn's actions). these are obstacles, but they ultimately haven't been shown to cause too much issue to tinn and gun's story - or at least, tinn and gun have successfully navigated everything with almost no pushback, hence the fact that they're both sailing through their own romantic storyline at a pace faster than an olympic runner.
there's not really an ending to this post yet, because we're only at episode 4. I'm not particularly committed to any theory about where this could go (except the one about the hot wave rule being real YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME IT'S REAL AU), but from a storytelling perspective alone: this show needs a conflict. the assumption it gave us and then systematically tore apart across the first four episodes was that the conflict would be around tinn and gun realising their own feelings for one another, because that's how these shows go. that's not the central conflict in MSP. the central conflict is... uh... one of these other things. or maybe a secret different thing. i don't know. come back to me in like 6 weeks.
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heretherebedork · 1 year
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I love your blog. Love all your analysis and explanations. It feels like you put everything I feel into words .. I look forward to your posts as soon as I finish watching the episodes. I am watching almost all of the shows you are watching too. So ya I am having fun. So thank you.
Now for the ask. On the latest episode of MSP,
When Tinn finally confesses that he likes gun and how he cannot act as a friend. It didn't feel like Gun was all that happy to finally hear the confession. While tinn seemed so happy to finally get the confirmation that gun likes him too. Or may be I am reading too much into their expressions.. or overanalyzing it may be.
What do you think each of them were feeling during the confession scene..?
Thank you so much! That's a real honor and I'm so glad you enjoy my analysis. I love writing it.
So, this is actually perfect for me because it's so in character.
Gun would much rather just gloss over it and be friends and have fun that way and bury those complicated feelings he can't act on below the surface. That's just how he copes with pain. That's how he copes with anything. By trying to pretend it never happened.
So, yes, Gun was upset that Tinn couldn't just pretend like he does. Gun was upset because he is so used to pushing things down when he can't act on them. He wanted them to just go back to being friends because then he could pretend the confession never happened, the same way he's always pretended he was okay about and after his father's death.
In the end, when Tinn revealed that he still understood they weren't going out but that he could flirt... Gun is also happy. He's relieved he doesn't have to pretend even though that was his only plan. Think about how over the top and silly he was , how goofy he got because he wanted it to just be okay. But he wasn't.
This is just like Gun thanking Tinn for telling his mom he wasn't okay. Gun would never keep acting on these things because he buries his feelings under a mask of joy to avoid hurting people. So Tinn is the one who has to and, yes, it's going to bother Gun but he's also grateful because he needs that push, that help, that support, that love.
Gun was not happy at first because he doesn't want to lose Tin as a friend but also know he can't have him as boyfriend. So hearing Tinn say he couldn't just be friends was awful because he doesn't want that. He doesn't want to lose him. He loves him and he wants to be near him. So the first time Tinn confessed felt like he was going to lose him.
But instead Tinn comes through in everything, he comes through for Gun and comes up with a solution that works for both of them because he is so good at navigating that kind of issue. Gun tries to cover it up and just pretend it's not happening but Tinn thinks things thorough and takes his time.
This is also starting to make me think more and more about Sound and Win because I wonder how much of their own worries is because they know they can't act on their feelings even if they can get past being enemies.
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amos-reviews · 1 year
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MSP continues to take tired tropes and approaching them in modern ways. Now that Tinn and Gun have agreed to having a ‘talking’ phase of pre-dating, they seem much more comfortable just being themselves around Gun’s friends. Neither of them are doing anything to make anyone think they hate each other (*), which is the usual trajectory when a secret relationship starts between rival friend groups. And even if they are still denying anything official between them, Gun’s friends are seeing how close they see to be and accepting him into the friend group.
It probably helps that one of Gun’s love languages is touch, even with his friends, so Gun jumping on Tinn’s back, or sitting next to each other with Gunn teasing Tinn about feeding him feels natural to his behaviour normally. It’s just nice seeing faux rivals allowed to become friends publicly, even if the relationship is closer than they can admit at this time. Whenever they do win Hot Wave, and they start telling their friends, I doubt anyone would be surprised or react badly.
(* Kajorn is an outlier in Tinn’s friend group, and will be ignored for this observation)
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ranchthoughts · 5 months
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✨2023: A Summary✨
Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)
Tagged by @lurkingshan (here) and @wen-kexing-apologist (here). Thanks for the tags!
In 2023, I made 175 original posts, including 45 metas about 12 different shows and two large scale projects (the GMMTV Multiverse and the GMMTV Kissing charts). It was interesting to see what meta (and how much) I had written in which months. It's also fun looking back as I approach my one year anniversary of watching and writing about BL - I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've met and gotten to chat with over these past months!
January and February [0 metas]
I wasn’t on BL Tumblr yet! Any and all meta came in the form of thoughts, texts, and powerpoint presentations.
March [6 metas]
My BL Tumblr debut! I started this blog with the intention of 1) more easily gathering and archiving posts for future reference, and 2) collecting my thoughts somewhere other than text threads and my notes app, so I began posting meta the day I got here.
Most popular: what started as me thinking about Win’s rock t-shirt from ep 11 and then grew from there… - reading a lot into a random Thai ql shirt choice? Me?
Favourite(s): Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and coming out (part 1, part 2); Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and music - My first meta ever posted! I keep returning to Tinn and his mother's relationship in My School President...
April [1 meta]
By default, the most popular (and favourite): Gun's feelings are realistic - I love when MSP subverts our expectations
May [13 metas]
Oh damn! This was a big meta month for me. Some of my favourite metas I've ever written were posted this month.
Most popular: The Eighth Sense and Missing Pieces - I am really proud of this one. It also made me laugh that I apologized for the length at the beginning when I would go on to post much, MUCH longer metas.
Favourite(s): Thoughts on genre, tropes, Bad Buddy, and My School President (aka my Bad Buddy and MSP thesis, which began life as a powerpoint presentation... now here's one of those much, MUCH longer metas in question); Wai as a faen fatale (which also began life as part of that same powerpoint presentation and I think perfectly encapsulates my analytical style); Conversations in ITSAY that are about more than they seem (I am really proud of the analysis I did here and the writing style I used to present it). This was also the month in which I started my deeply self-indulgent GMMTV Multiverse project, which later inspired my mission to record all GMMTV kisses.
June [11 metas]
Oh nooo another bunch of my favourites. This is cruel to make me choose.
Most popular: Thinking about Pran's "Pat, you've got to stop doing this to me" (I love this one! and this was the first of several times I've gotten to collaborate with the wonderful @dudeyuri)
Favourite(s): An analysis of the baseball mom shirt, Bad Buddy ep. 5 (my entry into the venerable field of Bad Buddy/ql shirt analysis and also encapsulates pretty much everything I try to do in my metas); An impassioned defense of the Bad Buddy ep. 5 rooftop kiss (combines many of my favourite things: reading deeply into the minute details of Bad Buddy, an analytical framework that just clicks itself together as I write, and literature reviews); and Thinking about Snow White as the engineering play, part 1 (shout out to the two other people going ham on Snow White as an allegory during the Our Skyy 2 madness - @chickenstrangers (here) and @letgomaggie (here))
July [3 metas]
Most popular (and favourite): Thinking about Pat, Pran, and pursuit (I think this was my first time articulating the idea of Pat and Pran's commitment to the bit, a concept which continues to circle in my head. This was also another collaboration with the wonderful @dudeyuri!)
August [7 metas]
Here comes Only Friends... and the GMMTV Kissing Multiverse project.
Most popular: GMMTV Kissing Multiverse updates 1, 2 and 3 (this is so much fun to track and analyze, and I've been really touched by everyone else's excitement for the project too); Various thoughts and musings on Only Friends and ephemerality (the Ephemerality Squad assembles!)
Favourite: Thinking about Boston: a study of episode 3 - I find Boston's mind a fascinating place to explore
September [8 metas]
Oh look! It's more Only Friends!
Most popular: Mansplain, Manipulate, Manwhore: Ray confronting Boston - once again, I love getting into Boston's head. This post was inspired by @wen-kexing-apologist's scene breakdowns, especially their Fight Night one
Favourite(s): The above, and also The Mundanity of Meanness
October [5 metas]
Most popular (and favourite): The first fist bump in Bad Buddy - oof. I've gotta come back to this idea sometime.
November [3 metas]
Most popular: The Latest Update to the Kissing Multiverse - the hotly anticipated post-Only Friends update to the kissing charts
Favourite: the kissing charts, and Thinking about Pat, Pran, and competition - again, I love to think about Pat and Pran. I consider this one to be part of an ongoing series, along with my earlier metas on pursuit and the rooftop.
December [1 meta]
Most popular (and favourite): Not Me and earrings - technically an addition on @chickenstrangers' post, but was a relief to get my months old "Not Me is about ears and earrings!" thoughts out.
some no pressure tags: @chickenstrangers, @distant-screaming, @dudeyuri, @neuroticbookworm, @slayerkitty, @telomeke, @twig-tea, @waitmyturtles
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dudeyuri · 1 year
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My favorite Thai BL moment of 2023 so far has to be the meta moment of Heart kissing Li Ming before Tinn kissed Gun. MSP’s whole thing was the building tension episode after episode toward Tinn and Gun’s first kiss. And then MLC just cut in and made it happen first. I don’t think anything is gonna top that for me this year. I’m laughing just thinking about it. Just another thing for Tinn’s lovesick ass to do this about:
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chickenstrangers · 5 months
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2023 gifs in review tag game
tagged by @khaotunq (here!) to post my favorite/most popular gifs throughout the year. thank you!!🩵🩵🩵
I only started making gifs partway through this year, so there was a big learning curve and i still think i'm pretty newbie but it has been a lot of fun and it's nice looking back on how much i think i've improved, though i have so much left to learn next year
i am going to ramble too much because this is my post, fair warning, forgive my self indulgence
april
this was the very beginning, back in the photopea days before i tried photoshop (i am still quite fond of photopea, 1. because it is free and 2, for stills i think it's just as good as photoshop, but i could never figure out how to make gifs look good with its dithering system. i have seen some remarkable gifmakers using photopea tho so that's a my limited skill problem, and i'm glad i used it to dip my toes into the process!)
i only posted 1 set for abaab this month which looks not good but is still a very fun scene, but this was not actually the first thing i made (see below).
may
most popular: msp finale, tinn knowing all the words to gun's song <3
favorite: moonlight chicken, my first ever gifset and the reason i got into gifmaking because i wanted to capture the way moonlight chicken visually returned to locations and shots to underline its theme of loneliness being replaced by community, which is the mlc repetitions series
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june
most popular & favorite: kiss me again (2018) and the lovely way june say's goodby to his friends (i learned how to add text to gifs for this one, and not only that but timed text! i thought it would get like 5 notes. it's very messy and doesn't look great, but i'm proud that i learned something with it, and i think its very funny and that's all that matters to me)
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july
it's photoshop time now!! photoshop beloved you make such beautiful gifs and also you are So Slow and my computer cannot handle you.
most popular: only friends original trailer set
favorite: jimwen looking at each other set (the start of my most belovedest of series, the followup to the first ever meta i wrote)
august
most popular: part 1 of the can't i look at you edits, cool tones edition
favorite: part 2 of the can't i look at you edits, warm toned edition (i love them both but this has two of my all time favorite wen faces)
hey its my profile picture and also i find it very funny that the Os line up with his eyes, and the second gif i love how impossibly happy they look
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september
my busiest month in terms of gifs, in large part due to only friends
most popular: topmew and fire
favorite: alanwen poetry edit i spent soooo long learning keyframes for the heartbeat effect and then the ghosting effect was a happy accident thank you person in the background walking past at the right moment
(i also love my charn laws of attraction set because he was a surprise favorite character this year, i loved collecting the quotes for how he speaks of himself)
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october
most popular: only friends sandray finale parallel set (it is. very very close to 1k which is. so many).
favorite: he's coming to me edit because it was so fun to make for @dudeyuri
november
most popular: not me sean and black getting along super duper well!
favorite: moonlight chicken haunted house edit, accompanying this meta/creative writing thing. i loved choosing liminal feeling shots for it and i liked how the simple typography turned out
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december
most popular: a little jim and wen set i am very fond of
favorite: the moonlight chicken new years set i posted today. i love this little chicken diner
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hey look i managed to mention moonlight chicken almost every month (i swear, i watched so many favorite shows this year but i loved making mlc gifs so much)
and that's that! thanks for reading if anyone read til the end.
no pressure tags for some amazingly talented creators who have made some of my favorite sets this year (if you feel like talking about some of your highlights, whether monthly or not, because you all make so much incredible work and i'd love to hear about it) : @hoppipolla @sollucets @icouldhyperfixatehim @celestial-sapphicss @chinzhilla @krystaljungs @moonkhao and anyone who wants to, consider yourself tagged <3
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Ok, so now that I've watched the msp our skyy eps and slept on it, my thoughts are finally a bit more than indecipherable sobbing at every tinngun scene lol.
Spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the our skyy 2 my school president episodes yet
Me after just looking at tinngun pics yesterday after the ep ended
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But i will say one thing they've done well in these 2 eps is UNDERSTAND how to do a life swap au. It was one of my bigger fears about the our skyy msp episodes. Because life swap/role swap aus are often hard to get right. And I'm happy they understood the assignment 😃
Because i absolutely LOVE how they've swapped the lives of Tinn and Gun and how you can see it's changed so much about them, but yet at the core they're still the same tinn and gun we know and love!
I really appreciate how they've just kept the fact that Tinn is still so much more confident and ready to *go* for something despite the fear of rejection and Gun's still more hesitant, still the same boy who is still afraid of *why* he's so loved. (I have a feeling that his dad isn't alive even in this universe, though I'll be happy if that's wrong)
I've seen meta saying how Gun not having that creative outlet as in the original universe has kinda made him more subdued (he's still bratty). And it's so true.
Also there's something to be said around Gun's willingness to pine away from afar and just be happy in the moments he gets with Tinn that is so *him* but also a little nod to those in real life who are not as bold as the original Tinn. Gun's insecurities are something MANY of us have irl.
Gun always has been the one who's a bit more hesitant and it's always been Tinn who quietly but steadfastly just patiently waits for Gun, has always seen Gun and just aaahhhhhh it's so GOOD the way these two ALWAYS support each other 😭😭
Like how @bengiyo says it in their our skyy ep 2 recap, these eps show just how much of Tinn's trust and confidence in himself and his feelings were critical to the way the og msp unfolded and gave us so many of the moments we squeal about.
Also credit to @lurkingshan and @distant-screaming for their thoughts on this episode who are articulating what i feel much more concisely and without ending up writing a mini essay lmao
With that who talk of Gun and Por in the school bench scene (Never Let me Go school I see ya!) it's such a beautiful talk. The whole sequence is such a nudge to Gun and to those of us who are hesitant in real life to do a particular thing that there's not much use just thinking about what your alternate universe self will do and instead just try to go for it in your *own* universe.
I also loved all the references to aof's past works in the mv and the ost as usual are bangers. (Someone please buy me the ost album 😭)
If I had to say, maybe there's just three things I'd complain a little about these eps:
One, there should have been more i absolutely LOVED it
Two, i would've liked TinnGun to maybe have (1) new scene and a small cheek kiss at least (this is a bit more of a personal thing) maybe at that 1 year point ? I would've liked to see it at that point at least but that hand holding was also excellent 10/10 sobbed a lot
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Three, I would've liked a glimpse into the lives of the original universe and how they are doing now (I miss them so much MY BABIES) and if that time skip scene had been for the original universe TinnGun somehow i would've loved it even more
Anyways that's all i have to say about these our skyy eps for msp (for now) and thanks for reading through my ramblings 💜
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kongthapatom · 1 year
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My thoughts on ep 11 and ep 12 preview:
Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely here for the ride P'Au and MSP team are taking us on. I appreciate the developments of ep 11 and I adore chinzhilla's friendship. I'm also relieved the ep 11 curse did not unimaginatively separate tinngun and their relationship is stronger than ever. But I'm trying to understand how these events fit into the overarching romantic vision of the show, and perhaps I will feel differently after we've watched ep 12
I was somewhat caught off guard when chinzhilla lost hot wave. I was so sure they would win because the show has already told us about the outcome multiple times: That love is not a dream's greatest enemy but the very essence that fuels it, and dreams are also meaningless without sharing it with the person you love. Love makes Gun sing love songs better and hence love will be what eventually helps him win hot wave with the song he wrote about the people he loves. Because Tinn has been by his side since day one as his most ardent believer and supporter. Shouldn't Gun watch his dream come true with Tinn by his side then? Did that outcome not make the most sense narratively speaking? If this was a more serious show, I would've entertained the possibility they may not win cuz that's quite an idealistic and clichéd storyline. But MSP has been the most perfect romcom to date and there's no other show this would've worked on, so I'm sorry if I was wrong to hope
Through 10 episodes, MSP has built a light-hearted but realistic universe which had no traces of homophobia so the ep 12 preview (which maybe lying) is also confusing me. Since the first episode we've been watching Tinn bend over backwards to facilitate Gun's dream and I always thought, "I'm so glad this is a romantic comedy cuz Tinn would be getting into sooo much trouble for using his position as the school president to help his boyfriend" - because I didn't think for one second this was the kind of a show that would really land Tinn in trouble 😩😩
I do still believe everything that's to come in ep 12 will bring better answers and give them the happy ending they deserve. But I'm a little sad and trying to understand why it seems like the story has gone back on some key points it established before, and if the story is heading in a more serious direction than it set itself up as. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this and if y'all can share your views on this, I would really appreciate it
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shortpplfedup · 1 year
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I know you’ve kinda posted abit about this but do you not think it’s strange how tinn was thinking about printing out the picture of his face like they did in bad buddy but then gun ends up doing it. Then he imagines wiping off food from his mouth to be flirty but then gun ends up doing that too. Also bringing the speaker and putting on that slow romantic song from the ballroom dance like... I think it’s showing us that gun is actually the one who is flirting and trying to get his attention.
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced. I'm so ready for Gun's POV to come back in.
On a more industry-meta note, and I've been discussing this with @bengiyo, I think we're really starting to see a shift where for a long time SOTUS was the template for a lot of BL (an era I think which more or less ended with 2gether as the last real hit in that style) and Bad Buddy (plotting and casting, romcom style), ITSAY (production and direction, drama/melo style) and to a lesser extent Not Me (sociopolitical commentary) are the new templates, and I'd throw Manner of Death (adults, genre and high heat, it walked so KinnPorsche could run) in there as well.
We are getting nods in this show to the precursor pulps like Love Sick, which actually made me realise we don't actually have a TON of series entirely set in high school, as much as it may feel that way because of side couples and flashbacks etc. Anyway, MSP's got some of that DNA, and some from the first wave, specifically 2gether, but this show is so Bad Buddy-esque (they even hung a lampshade on it this ep with a sign that said MESSAGE in case you weren't sure), it SCREAMS second wave. It feels more like this has 2gether DNA because Bad Buddy also has 2gether DNA, not because 2gether is the template, if that makes sense.
Anyway I totally hijacked your ask to ramble about the way Thai BL is building a genre tradition...lol. But yes, my point was that the POV switch/secret pining all along started with 2gether, and was given a twist in Bad Buddy, and given this show has the DNA of both those shows, I expect a version of it here as well.
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aight miscellaneous thoughts that i'm too lazy to seperate into individual posts now
this show might have my favourite friend group ever?? and that includes scoy
still a bit sad we didn't get any flashbacks to last ep with all that happened.
the credits song??? here i was almost disappointed that msp was breaking its streak of 1-performance-per-episode but they came through!!
shoutout to all the bad buddy references - from the song choice to the fistbump to the "can we be just friends?". the show's delivering on these
they're super smart with how they're utilizing mark here for both comedy and meta commentary. Not a single one of his moments have missed and he draws attention very well. Which then makes it even more surprising just how subtly they're sketching out por and tiw.
they've finally hit their stride re: pacing and switching between subplots so that's nice to see
tiw vs noodle lady was hilarious.
the absence of tinn's mom was glaringly obvious last ep when the plot centered around dreams and how parents can influence you and i continue to wonder where she is.
overall, msp is hitting it out of the park. even as i nitpick details, i still wholly love and am enjoying every bit of this show.
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khaothanawat · 1 year
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mumble mumble gun’s enjoyment of tinn being jealous is almost like he’s giving tinn (perfect student, hugely high expectations on his teen shoulders, quite possibly feels very much like he is not allowed to fuck up and make mistakes because of this) space to act in an ostensibly less than perfect way.
tinn feels like he shouldn’t feel jealous of gun potentially also pursuing someone else romantically (even though jealousy is a perfectly normal human emotion to experience). he dismisses it as silly multiple times, like he holds himself to a higher standard than that. gun is so validating of his feelings though. he talks to tinn about it, explains the truth of what was happening. it is silly to gun because it has no merit, but his only response is to gently soothe tinn, and to make sure tinn is ok, and to reaffirm where he stands with flirting and cute physical gestures. gun doesn’t hold tinn to impossible standards and he doesn’t need tinn to hold himself to them either.
idk it’s just very sweet i think they’re so very very sweet
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blbeloved · 1 year
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ChinZhillas as Rabbit God motifs in MSP
Saw a random photo of chinchillas and it hit me immediately for the first time like a thunderbolt!
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My appreciation for the way Director Kornprom Niyomsil created #MySchoolPresident as a love letter not just to BL fandom in general, but to Asian fujoshis in particular, just keeps climbing for the way it stands out as a monument to solidarity between women and queer men #RabbitGod
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When my tears stop clouding my vision I‘ll do a thread on this brand new solo director who used his respect for Asian women, his embrace of women’s culture and a deep appreciation for the value of women’s innovation, to create pathbreaking art #RabitGod
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This creative team loves and respects BL as an art as well as the people who innovated and continue to drive creation of its outputs and it’s clear they have high regard for the fans whose labours of love keep the BL industry growing from strength to strength, as a place of hope and refuge for women, queer men, trans and nonbinary people as fans
ChinZhilla Baby is also the affectionate name Tinn gives to his sweetheart Gun, because the writers and Director have done their BL homework, that’s why an icon to male-male love across Asia is a prominent motif running through My School President.
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The ChinZhilla Rabbit God tribute is only one of several witty meta narratives woven through MSP’s clever and politically astute screenplay. The creators even dedicated the fandom name #MOMMYZHILLA to Fujoshis
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For more on the Rabit God legend and it’s meaning to queer communities in China and through Asia and understand why it’s a BL icon for those in the know here’s a link to a great thread
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