#Too many bls to watch!

[greendragon-13]

Had no idea I was watching a censored version of Secret Crush On You/SCOY, and that the YouTube official version existed. I couldn't figure out why there was no kissing, why it was all kind of bland? I'm an idiot. Now I've gotta start from the beginning to see what I missed.

[snarkspawn]

some KoD/Spirealm sketches

[jemmo]

i don’t want to jump the gun, but i think hwang daseul might have just done it again. two episodes in to let free the curse of taekwondo and i am obsessed. more than obsessed. transfixed. this show feels special in a way hwang daseul’s touch only can give, and just using these two episodes to compare to her previous works, i love that i can already spot the continuity in the kinds of stories she tells, the messages she portrays and how she portrays them. she just knows how to let her characters exist in harmful and difficult places and show how their experiences affect them while also just showing them as normal human beings. it is so so easy to overdramatise these kinds of stories that have these difficult topics and have it be so surface level, but she has never done that. instead, she shows how those experiences shape a person and how they go about living in spite of them. all the way from where your eyes linger to now, she gives us characters that are wholly themselves and not just the traumas they have gone through and i just adore that. i can’t remember what i was talking about specifically, but i remember talking about this sentiment and how it actually helps to build empathy in an audience as opposed to just showing a difficult topic at the most surface level bc you think that makes it accessible and easier to understand and hence empathise with. i don’t think that ever works. it’s only when you do what hwang daseul does, when you give us characters we can get to know and fall in love with and care for that you help us to empathise with their experiences. it’s hard to understand the weight and the hardship of experiencing something traumatic, but when something bad happens to someone close to you, a family member or a friend, you understand and feel that pain astronomically more. that’s what hwang daseul manages to do. and more so, she makes you feel that while also seeing these people as people. you get to see them away from the hurt, you see them smile in moments of happiness and you see that too with people you’re close to, and you feel even more how special and important those moments of happiness are.

and that’s why, whenever hwang daseul is at the helm of something, i will be seated from start to end with endless boxes of tissues ready. i can’t wait to see what else this show has in store.

[pharawee]

"After all, you're my only friend. And you are no less important than anyone, do you understand?"

[gay-meowmeow]

Monster Next Door: *showing MBTI of characters*

Me: *don't know what any of them mean*

[dropthedemiurge]

I've seen things after SOTUS extreme actor harassment, I've been here through BMF "hate watching flashmob" and you know what, this year I will actually stop tolerating BL fans (at least on tumblr) who don't even have the decency to just ignore things they don't like and who think bullying someone is a good fandom sport, and start calling out. No matter if you believe clickbaits or you're a proud member of celebrity witchhunt or just don't believe people and situations can change, whatever, I really don't want to see KristSingto hate if - when - they will come back with another BL series.

Peraya fans have been waiting and hoping for KristSingto reunion for years, they wanted it themselves for so long as well, and we've unfortunately encountered way too many people who don't use their braincells and who encourage others to follow their footsteps when making derogatory comments about (mainly) Krist or Singto who they don't even know about, or their shows. For years. Some even go to talk shit and laugh right at his face. What the hell.

Maybe don't ruin someone else's parade and don't turn a nice community lake into a swamp. If you consider yourself a good person who can have an opinion "I just don't vibe with this person/show", watch it unbiased, be open minded and if you don't have a full picture, ask fans of the actual story or do research and read proper compilations about him instead of blindly stacking your opinions on repeated echoed insults from yt and tiktok. And if you aren't willing to be open minded and rational, well, let the fans celebrate and stick quietly to your swamp.

It's really no fun to gather around to discuss something and slip on poop piles thrown around for no reason. What happened to civil discussions?

[summerfullofsnow]

me when bl fans stop trying to find "the good one" to root for and learn to look at characters as multifaceted beings with their own motivations and personalities

[caresscoffee]

I really do be thinkin about My Beautiful Man entirely too much

[louisapennyfeather2021]

To that new Samsung Galaxy ad in Thai with the new language translator feature, I just had to explain to my mom how I knew what the Thai words meant😭

[yilinglaozou]

I would like to formally apologise for thinking that Cherry magic Thailand wouldn't be good. The original is one of my favourite shows ever, so I was really doubtful about the adaptation, especially since it was going to be thai, but I have never been happier to be proved wrong. This show is a gem. It's so good.

[scarefox]

idk with all the discourse about who's allowed to sing and who not, I feel like a lot of people forgot why humans sing in the first place, where singing comes from culturally...

Especially the Thai culture and fandom reminded me of that you do not have to be a perfect singer to have fun with each other. Singing is originally a fun or emotional activity to share vibes with your group, village, tell stories. (side note: the pagan folk genre is basically also a good witness of the past in that regard)

The whole Thai actor fan meeting and concert habit seems to be a very Thai culture thing just mixed with pop culture and capitalism.

Observing the Thai folks I see at my local yearly Thai festival, they are very similar. They still party hard even if the singer is not that good. They constantly go to the stage to slip the singers some money or gifts, request them to sing certain songs.

[themundanedumpling]

I KNEW THAT SHADY UNCLE WAS INVOLVED

[gillianthecat]

🔥BL Hot Take🔥 (maybe? I don’t know what counts as Hot around here.)

I think Zee Pruk was better at acting against Saint than against Nunew. And I think the character of Fighter suited his skills better than Lian.

I feel like the difference comes across even in these two publicity shots in similar poses, just in the way Zee is looking at his costar (Saint in Why R U? on the left, Nunew in Cutie Pie on the right.) To me, he looks fully absorbed in Saint/Tutor, whereas he looks likes he's posing and working at looking dominant with Nunew/Kuea. It's subtle though, so others may interpret it differently.

Zee just doesn’t quite work for me when he tries to play dominant. He comes across as a bit flat and one-note (though the heavy makeup and/or digital face-smoothing did him no favors in that regard). The fascinating thing about Fighter was that he tried to pretend he was dominating, but really he was a flustered mess at all times, clutching tightly to his insecurities and internalized homophobia, desperately trying to mask it with an air of being unaffected by anything. Even in their relationship, he was nominally the seme, pursuing Tutor, but Tutor kept flipping the script on him. And anytime Tutor took control, Fighter gave it up, basically instantly.

The relationship really did feel to me like Tutor was the actually dominant partner, and not just in the way where the submissive in a d/s dynamic is always ultimately in control because their desires/boundaries must be respected, but that Fighter really was fully submitting to him. Sexually was where it was most obvious, because Saint and Zee were insanely good at their sex scenes, but in everything really. I don’t know enough about kink to know if this would be considered a kinky relationship (my suspicion is not really), but I do know that Fighter was not in charge. And Zee portrayed these layers very well, his anger, his urge to be the big dog, his complete and utter submission to Tutor, and everything in between.

Whereas Lian really was dominant at all times. Sure, he might agree to what Kuea wanted, but it always felt like he merely acquiescing, not giving up control. (Caveat, I still have not finished the series so maybe this changes, but from all the gifs and meta I’ve seen I suspect not. Let me know if I’m wrong though!) And while I think it is possible to play unquestioned dominance in an interesting way, I don’t think quite Lian managed it. It always felt like me a mask he was putting on.

And this part is complete and total speculation, but I wonder how much difference his acting partners made. Saint is obviously very talented and, if I remember correctly, already fairly experienced when they shot Why R U? And so I’m guessing that that allowed Zee to relax into the part and find all the nuances and vulnerabilities of the character while trusting Saint to both take care of himself and to meet him in the emotions of the scene. And perhaps trying to meet Saint at his level of acting made Zee push himself to do more.

Whereas Nunew was much less experienced actor, as well as much younger, and from the chatter I’ve seen Zee took on a protective/mentor role. Which I’m speculating inhibited his performance as Lian because he did not feel as free to let go into the character and trust that Nunew could catch him. And I think Nunew did great as Kuea! It wasn’t that his ability wasn’t up to the role, just that maybe he didn’t challenge Zee as an actor in the way that Saint did.

Again, total speculation! And perhaps it’s just that I find completely dominant characters boring; I like seeing them challenged and pushed off balance. (Maybe that happens more to Lian in the last few episodes, but I suspect it still wouldn’t be enough to make him compelling to me.) But I don’t think it’s just my taste in characters, I do think there’s something that changed in his acting from show to show, whether the character was less of a good fit, or his the environment inhibited his work in some way.

I'm not at all saying that Zee is a bad actor. He's quite talented, and I still haven't seen anyone portray desire in the way he does. And he and Nunew had amazing chemistry in their sex scenes; I really admire their willingness to be vulnerable there.

I would love to see him in a role that really leans into the way he can play vulnerability.

Why am I writing about this now? The comparison has been on my mind for a while, and then today the powerfully vulnerable way that Kwon Hyuk portrayed desire and arousal in The New Employee reminded me of Zee.

[cinnamonsikwate]

these lines are WILD to put in a drama about investment bankers. settle down my guy

[emotionallychargedtowel]

I've been watching Pokemon Horizons with my kids recently. Usually my BL/jdrama/kdrama-watching doesn't have much overlap with my experence watching the Pokemon anime, but the other day a character said something that...well, either it was a reference to something that happens in dramas or I have a serious case of romance drama brainworms.

The main character of Horizons, Liko, was battling a trainer named Rika with the support of a gym leader named Katy and they were kind of on the ropes, or about to be. That's when Katy said this:

Liko was just as shocked as I was!

One of the other students at the school where Liko is studying seemed to understand something about the significance, too.

So, yeah. Brainworms, or a double-entendre?

[iguessitsjustme]

Alright friends, I have seen many wonderful posts about Tinn’s mom, but I can’t sleep so I’m writing one of my own. I have many thoughts and feelings about her because I ADORE her.

There are so many things to talk about regarding her relationship with Tinn and her journey on how to accept and best support him BUT I’m not gonna talk about that. I’m barely going to mention Tinn. I need to talk about this because I haven’t seen it mentioned yet: she is damn good at her job. I love that we had a misdirect at the beginning of the show from Gun’s perspective that she would be an antagonist that’s out to get the music club. Then we shifted to Tinn’s POV and we got to see that she isn’t out to get anyone. She’s a high school principal just trying to make sure her school keeps on running. We don’t know the exact details of what scuffle the music club got into the previous year. But as the principal, it makes sense that she is making tough choices. Clubs that cause problems that result in damages that need to be paid during a time where she has to tighten the budget? It makes sense that she would consider disbanding the music club. Tinn and Gun’s worldview is smaller because they are students at the high school. They can’t see the whole picture that Tinn’s mother sees and has to see in order to keep the school running. Does she make things more difficult for the music club? Absolutely she does, but not because she wants to. It’s literally her job. She needs to make sure the rest of the school can still function.

She also never stops the music club from trying. In fact, I’d say she encourages it, even though they might not realize it. She signs off on letting them compete but only once they’ve improved their grades. It feels unfair and impossible to the band but it is completely reasonable. “Keep up your schoolwork and your academics and you’ll be allowed to participate in this extracurricular activity with the school’s blessing.” That was a rule at my high school. It isn’t her job to just give students what they want willy nilly. It’s her job to make sure the students are set up for success in the future. Once their grades improve, she signs off on it. She might be skeptical and it might not be her thing, but never once does she stop a student from exploring their own interests.

Then we get to the homophobic teacher. She listens to his story while he demands punishment. She asks Tinn if what he said is correct. And she’s asking him because he’s involved, because he’s her son, but also because he’s the school president. Tinn has proven he is responsible and she takes that into consideration. She looks at the situation as a whole. She wants to make sure she hears both sides of the story. So many principals of people in authority will take the teacher’s side and not once ask for the student’s side of the story. But she is fair and she sees her students as people who deserve to be heard. And that entire scene I wasn’t worried about Kajorn’s punishment because I knew she would be fair because she is good at her job. Kajorn needed to be disciplined for using violence, but not for standing up to the homophobic teacher. And she punished accordingly. Then she moved on to tell the teacher what she would do regarding his role in the situation. She was being pressured by the other teacher’s regarding Tinn’s sexuality but she remained professional the entire time and did her job to support her students. And at the prom, standing right next to two of the homophobic teachers, who I’m sure texted her, she loudly told the students to cheer for Tinn and Gun.

She is doing everything in her power to make that school a safe place for students even if that means she has to face backlash. She does that because it’s her job. It’s not her job to judge students. It’s not her job to make life more difficult for students. It is her job to make sure each and every student in that school has the best chance for success when they eventually leave.