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🐧🌿🐈‍⬛🍴

—CAGED AGAIN · Episode 07

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I’m so done with the ghost / mole goddess breaking the fourth wall gag. They’ve used it three times and it’s hard enough suspending disbelief for this show even without it.

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Seiji✨Pan✨Ken

—DEEP NIGHT THE SERIES · Special Episode

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Also i love how north defends Johan to others who already have their preconceived notions about him. Cause north is vocal about his boundaries and what he likes and dislikes especially when others take it upon themselves to touch him. But with johan he's says he's the kindest and takes care of me, he doesn't feel uncomfortable around jo and and so his feelings for johan had gradually grown cause north has seen first hand himself johans heart🤧

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Another episode where they seem superimposed onto the background…wondering if some of their travelogue sequences are deep fakes. 🤷

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Say that again. You think I don't dare to? Hey! Say it again. You're always like this.

ROOMMATES OF POONGDUCK 304 2022, dir. Teddy Hwang

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BL Things that Disappointed Me in 2024

I couldn't let this year end without telling y'all about the things that truly let me down this year. Things that brought down my viewing pleasure.

Dr. Plakao from Wandee Goodday. Specifically that he didn't really get some type of real storyline outside of helping Wandee with his troubles. I wanted to see more of his dating and romantic life. We finally got a taste of some Ace representation and we only got crumbs. I just wanted more of his romance with Blue. I did. I really did.

Third from Century of Love. WTF was he even there for? All he did was get attacked by San and then turned around and sheltered the man and helped him lie to his own friend. Did my boy even get a happy ending? I just felt like he was a waste of a good character.

RyuAtomZen from The Rebound. Because we all saw how the series was selling us on a poly situation between Ryu, Atom, and Zen. The chemistry between the three was great and it was clear that their "love triangle" wasn't even a triangle just 3 points in a circle. All the pieces were there. We saw Zen spend time with Ryu and Atom. We saw Atom spend time with Ryu and Zen. And we saw Ryu spend time with Atom and Zen. They practically all slept together throughout the series and Granny was ready to adopt Atom and Ryu. IT WAS RIGHT THERE and the poly relationship wouldn't have been the craziest thing to come from that series let's be fucking real. Let me move on because I'm ranting now lol.

ViMook from Love Sea. Oh they pissed me off and it was really because they dragged on whatever cat and mouse manipulation game ViMook had going on until the very end. There was plenty of time for them to do all that and move on to being actual girlfriends or at least dating before the series ended. Like I loved them together but their entire storyline was not the fucking vibe. Here's to hoping we get more of Chanya and Aya in 2025.

'Khun Dad' from SunsetxVibes. I'm not even going to get into how disappointed I was with the series overall (I don't have the time) but I will talk about how fucking YUCKY it was for Salin to CHOOSE to call Sun 'Khun Dad' throughout the series. This is the ONLY time I've ever been disgusted by a daddy kink because why in THE FUCK would you want to call your man 'Khun Dad'? It was without a doubt the WORST thing about that series. Gag-o-rama.

Tonkla from 4 Minutes. I was upset that he died. He was the only one whose death was not justifiable to me. There were worse people in that series who lived. He could've run away. He could've fled the country with Korn (or not). It was possible. I have strong feelings about Tongkla not surviving after everything he went through.

TattooAran and HopeSave from Jack and Joker. All I'm saying is that as long as those eps were we should've gotten more development with the 2 other side couples. HopeSave were an established couple and we didn't even get a kiss between them?? And why did they make TattooAran so fucking lowkey?? Why did we get played with MarkProm AGAIN??? A beautiful love story could've flowered between them because the material was all there and we got NOTHING. I'm pressed.

Not seeing Mick in the maid costume in Every You, Every Me. A maid costume was mentioned, even teased, so where the fuck was it? Why didn't I see Blue in the maid costume??? They could've given us a taste. Mick would look so amazing in a maid costume.

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Ossan's Love Thailand - 6th January 2025

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THE EXPERTLY LAYERED WRITING IN THAMEPO'S FIRST EPISODE

My dudes.

The last time I was this jazzed about a series from the very first episode, I was watching Be My Favorite, which went on to become my favorite Thai series. Some of that was because of Krist's talent and charisma as Kawi, some of it was the chemistry between Krist and Gawin, some was the music, some was the production value overall, but most of it was the writing.

SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WRITING IN THAMEPO.

While I was watching the premiere of ThamePo yesterday, I messaged @hallowpen to rave about the script. "It has stakes!" I wrote. "A time limit! Character arcs!" Then they asked me who the director was, and when I told them it's Mui (Aticha Tanthanawigrai), they essentially said, "That makes sense."

Because Mui isn't only a director—she's primarily a scriptwriter.

And she definitely seems to know what she's doing.

The first episode has to do so much right to hook an audience and create a solid foundation for subsequent episodes.

It has to introduce the protagonist in their normal circumstances, then quickly endear them to the audience, establish what they want, show the obstacle(s) in their way, and give people a reason to keep watching. Do this while avoiding the traps of info-dumping or weighing down the narrative with too many characters at once. You have to build just enough of a structure to pique curiosity, but not so much that people can guess where the story is going.

ThamePo did all of that, and beautifully.

In the first scene, Po is interviewing for a creative job so he can return to his passion after spending three years helping Earn, his ex-boyfriend, achieve his goals. This interview shows us that Po is earnest and honest to a fault, which is helpful for endearing him to the audience, but a well-written scene is usually doing more than one thing. At the end of his short interview, the interviewers tell Po that his reason for taking a break was off-putting, and they advise him not to be quite so truthful in the future.

I'm curious if Po learning how to use his natural earnestness effectively will be part of his character arc. Because later in the episode, Po decides to embrace a mild level of dishonesty to get the job with ONER. He reluctantly agrees to give them a resume that his friend edited to sound more flattering, and in his interview, he…embellishes the truth.

This is the first time we see a flashback to the one time Po went to a MARS event to take photos for his friend, and it's fairly unremarkable on the surface. Just a quick shot of him in the crowd—one of many—and then a shot of him editing the footage at home.

No sign that this is setting up some fantastic layering in the script.

Now, before I go on, I just want to say that, y'know, stakes and character arcs and obstacles and time limits are all extremely basic facets of a story. The reason I'm excited that ThamePo has them is because a lot of the queer Thai series I've seen throughout the past five years…haven't had them. Especially in the onslaught of hundreds of BL and GL series produced in the past two years, the vast majority of them just seem to have been slapped together. A rough first draft kicked onto a smoking conveyer belt bleeding text and plot points.

But Be My Favorite is as good as it is in part because Waa campaigned for more time to work on the script. And ThamePo was apparently in the works for five years before Mui found the cast she wanted.

Good stories take time to create, so I'm glad that there are a small number of series actually getting that time.

Okay, so!

Let's talk layering.

Thame's first words to Po are, "Are you a sasaeng?"

For the uninitiated, sasaeng fans are an ever-growing concern in celebrity spaces, and given how much leeway GMMTV has given to sasaeng behavior in the past, I'm surprised and glad to see them allowing them to be a negative plot point.*

*Truthfully, I don't think you can tell an authentic story about modern-day celebrities without at least mentioning the horrific effects that sasaeng culture have on them.

Later, we find out that Thame saw Po at the fan meeting, and Thame gives Po the options of quitting on his own or being fired after Thame exposes the footage he's found.

So now we've seen this fan meeting twice: once from Po's perspective as a job he did for a friend, and now from Thame's perspective noticing some guy in the crowd.

We're incrementally getting more information as it becomes relevant.

And then, finally, after Po convinces Thame that he isn't a sasaeng or even a fan, Thame reveals the part that matters most to the story going forward:

The reason he remembered Po is because, in a crowd of people screaming to get his attention for their own sake, Po was the only one trying to help someone else. And I think that's another hint at Po's character arc: Earn took advantage of his earnestness and his selflessness and hurt him deeply, but he shouldn't have to give up that gentle side of himself to be happy.

This third layer shows us the most important detail of this moment and why the episode keeps coming back to it: this brief memory meant something to Thame.

I think the reason Thame was so aggressive to Po in the office when they met for the first time wasn't just that Thame suspected Po was a sasaeng.

Look at Thame's face in that last screencap: it touched his heart to see someone he assumed was a fan helping a younger, smaller fan. In a cut-throat industry where fame is mercurial, the public is vicious, the media poisonous, and fans fickle, little moments of genuine humanity and kindness must be priceless to the celebrities at the center of it all.

So, from Thame's perspective, recognizing that same "fan" at his workplace? Thinking that fan was intentionally filming a vulnerable moment between him and the CEO? It probably spoiled that precious memory. Maybe even introduced the possibility that Po just used an innocent child that day to manipulate Thame's emotions.

How little does Thame have in his life? We don't know yet, but maybe little moments like that are all that's propping him up anymore.

And we can garner all of this from the gradual layering of one scene.

That one fleeting moment from their shared past shapes everything for Thame and Po going forward. For Po, he was doing a favor for a friend and added an offhand gesture to a child. But for Thame, it was a ray of sincerity in a dangerously murky world he seems to feel strangled by.

One of my favorite directing and character choices in this episode is that Thame is soft-spoken in both anger and vulnerability. He's so tightly controlled at all times because of his public-facing job, and he's in such a low place emotionally, but he hasn't lost his kindness, either. Once he knows Po isn't a threat to him or his fellow members, Thame compliments the work Po's done, and he asks Po to continue his documentary work.

Thame isn't Earn. Po projects that onto him and quickly learns he's wrong.

(I really hope earnestness ends up being one of the main motifs in this series, because it suits both characters so well, and the world they're both in now makes living earnestly extremely challenging.)

All in all, the first episode exceeded my high expectations. I loved the teaser, I loved the trailer, and I'm delighted with the first episode. I hope the rest of the series lives up to this level of quality, but I'm not worried.

Judging by the writing, I think this series is in good hands. <3

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Idk if you're the right person to ask this, but I've been wondering about the use of English language songs in Thai shows. This could just be because I watch far more Thai shows than shows from other Asian countries, but I've only ever seen Thai shows use songs sung in English. If that is in fact the case, why is it that Thailand does it but not other countries?

Second question, why does Thailand do that at all? It's not like any of the songs I've heard are by big name bands. And it's not like there's a shortage of musical Thai talent. So why English language songs? Is it an appeal to English speaking audiences? Is it just because English is seen as "cool"? Not Me was especially hardcore about using English language songs, though I'm not sure why.

If you're the wrong person to ask this, my apologies, you're just the person I know who's the most well versed on Thailand.

It happens in a lot of Asian media, not just BL. Kdramas and most Taiwanese stuff (less so Japan) often use open source or CC English lyric stuff.

I think it's a cool factor. But also sometimes I think it's a way to add lyrical music to the background without distracting form the dialogue (because it's a different language). Sometimes it's done to date a piece (setting) or establish tenor (a modern cafe) or character (a boy's taste).

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dude i fucking love ql. like, if you'd have told me 10 years ago, that there's an absolutely HUGE catalogue of queer dramas, in pretty much every genre, including a gay retelling of 10 things i hate about you/taming of the shrew, online to watch, FOR FREE - i would have been totally beside myself!

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JackJoke kisses at .75 speed

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God these were soooo cuuuute 😭

Meet You At The Blossom extra episode 1 (ENG SUB)

ENG SUB: ep 1 ep 2 RAW: ep 1 ep 2

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Tryna clean up my QL spreadsheet and keep accidentally adding more shows, shit!

This Taiwanese one—BL disguised as a BL casting reality show I think?—is super intriguing. Reminds me of War of Y (though hopefully these guys had an easier time than in that story!)

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I’m excited to see that Destiny Seeker kid in something else—wasn’t totally crazy about his spazzy character but I don’t think it was the actor’s fault

I'm not sure why Friend to Fan (Fan as in 'faen' as in 'boyfriend') still doesn't have an mdl page when it's been heavily promoted these past few weeks but here's the pilot trailer featuring several messy bl tropes all at once.

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playboyy anniversary - week 3 - favourite wtf moments