#benkaaoi

[bornfreakdraws]

Yuji x Megumi for them JJK asks? 👀?

They're so soft ugh

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

BELOVED WHAT YOU MEAN ONE OF THEM IS DATING A GUY

@benkaaoi I am assuming you are talking about my tags on the MaxTul post I reblogged recently.

I discovered it a while back thanks to this post by @lurkingshan

In the post she links to this instagram post

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @mewvien

Were Mew Suppasit confirms that he is dating Tul.

[projectjasper]

For them fandom! Only Friends? 👀?

ah! what an excellent choice *tips hat* thank you so very much

favorite male character

boston! i stand with my cancelled wife forever <3

favorite female character

i'm gonna say yo. she was really sweet and i am always partial to a jennie panhan character.

least favorite character

battle to the death between top and mew, mew's annoying moralistic ass would win by a small margin.

favorite ship

sandray.

favorite friendship

boston and ray! really, the only dynamic i wish boston could have still had, if circumstances were different.

favorite quote

"i think you should quit trying to be someone you're not", said by nick to boston in the finale.

'this made me so happy you have no idea' moment

boston finally enunciating what he wants, when he says "to me, the word boyfriend is about feelings, not physical things". we had a messy journey on the way there for sure, but i loved him finally figuring out and admitting to himself what he wants and needs. he no longer denied wanting that emotional and romantic connection with one person, but also stopped trying to pretend like he doesn't want to be in an open relationship, where sex is concerned. he ends the series, knowing exactly what his boundaries in a relationship are and what kind of a partner he needs to look for, so they would be compatible. happy end, woo!!!

saddest moment

hey! i am not immune to first and khaotung being incredible actors. sandray fight scene in episode 10 [3/4].

favorite location

probably the pool. so many people thrown in there dramatically. absolutely incredible.

give me a fandom and i'll share my opinions

[chinzhilla]

!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BON! 💙 ✨ 💙!!!

thank you beloved!!! 😘

[kptssecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @benkaaoi!

Hi dear,

when I saw your likes I was immediately fired up and decided to choose multiple tropes to include in your gift.

Merry Christmas, I hope you like it!

*****

Stage Fright

“A Christmas play?”

Porsche only barely held back a defeated groan, doing his very best to keep his features under control. He was a professional, after all. Did he really want to leave a bad impression before he had even started? No. He simply couldn’t show just how displeased he was with what he just heard.

Erika Bantadtan, the head of the performing arts division at Bangkok’s renowned Chulalongkorn University, looked back at him with a mix of impatience and annoyance. Porsche knew his reaction wasn’t necessarily what she might have hoped for, but could she really blame him?

Erika was also the director of this year’s graduate stage play, a production which Porsche had just successfully applied to as assistant director, in order to gather important experience and receive extra credits towards his arts and communications degree.

Read on AO3

[forcebook]

I associate you with pink, with Enchanté and ForceBook, with pastel aestethics and the word kindness <3

the word kindness!!!! i’m

omg thank you so much beloved for associating me with all things beautiful and soft!!

ily 🩷

[dribs-and-drabbles]

The Thai Communal Wardrobe item #52

Sky in Your Heart ep 6:

Only Friends ep 2:

We Are the series ep 13:

The Trainee ep 12:

for @benkaaoi 💚

[avorbl]

Takara’s Treasure/Takara no Vidro Episode 1, 3, 6, 7, 8 - Takara and his treasure Dedicated to @benkaaoi

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req'd by @benkaaoi

such is the nature of the favored character

text: The emotional backbone of a wet sock

[heretherebedork]

Instantly thinking of @benkaaoi with this one. But I also really love how Jane is just genuinely so supportive of Ryan and trying to get to him to try harder at doing what he does.

I also love how Jane is starting to see Ryan as a whole person more and more. He's no longer seeing the young man who freezes rather than ask a question but is starting to see everything behind that curtain instead, not just the anxiety but also the talent and the understanding that Ryan has but doesn't yet know how to express.

And the apology was so awkward and sweet and Ryan really does overreact but it's because this is a boy that does not get apologized to very often. Plus, Jane really does apologize and explain what's going on.

And now the flirting is beginning! Ryan is falling so hard and so fast it's just cute. I'm not even sure he knows... but I think he might suspect.

[pharawee]

Favorite Kiss Game

Rules: create a poll with five nine of your all time favorite onscreen kisses, setting any standard for qualification you choose. Then tag more friends to join in!

I was tagged by @lurkingshan & @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle. Thank you so much! 💜💜 I just had a look at my most recent gif folder because the moment someone asks me my favourites I forget everything I ever watched. These moments speak to me though or I wouldn't have wrestled photoshop for hours to turn them into gifs. 🙏

1. Sun & Q (7 Days Before Valentine) aka the artsy existential kiss.

2. Ken & Seiji & Japan (Deep Night) aka the "baby's first throuple" daydream kiss that was way better than what we actually got in the end.

3. Him & Nail (For Him) aka the "the production company is dead to me but these two ate" kiss.

4. Thanwa & Peak (Knock Knock, Boys!) aka the "they literally kissed in a closet and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" kiss.

5. Pete & Kenta (Pit Babe) aka the "this chaste little kiss changed my whole brain chemistry and I shall now sit here consumed with headcanons for the rest of my life" kiss.

6. Prom & Nont (Playboyy) aka the "kiss me like I'm my missing twin" kiss.

7. Achi & Ji (To Be Continued) aka the "fcking finally!!" kiss.

8. Sprite & First (Twins) aka the "this show doesn't even deserve FrameRyan GIVE THEM ANOTHER SERIES YOU COWARDS" kiss.

9. Wayu & Jao (Two Worlds) aka the "uhm didn't you just impale your leg in a death trap oh ok then good for you" kiss.

I'm tagging: @sanvees @sparklyeyedhimbo @bunnakit @zhouxiangs @bengiyo

and also (what's up with tumblr not tagging correctly?)

@visualtaehyun @leonpob @benkaaoi @markmybirds (please ignore if you've been tagged before or don't want to do this 💜)

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

I love you and your Let Sand and Top Hate Fuck agenda. 10/10 keep it up

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

I will keep up the TopSand Hatefuck agenda till the last episode, the only thing that can stop it now it's a possible reveal that the theory some people on here that Sand and Top are secret brother is right.

Althought after this ep I no longer think that it's a possiblity. The fact that they only seem to have casted Sand's Mom and Boston's dad. And the fact that Sand basically acted super similar to Boston this ep. Makes me think that Boston's dad it's Sand's dad.

Anyway. TOPSAND HATEFUCK FOR THE WIN!!!!

I have been starved of a good hatefuck from my media. The thing about it is that in most shows the hatefuck is part of a romantic realtionship (tv tropes calles this a slap slap kiss - because something it stops at a kiss and the fucking is only implied) but Only Friends could give us a pure hatefuck. Two people being angry and bitter and fighting and then fucking because it's that or death.

I want the Buffy x Spike fighting and fuck while the house collapses on top of them except GAY!!!!!!

Give it to me Jojo!!!!!!

[caprisun-rat]

im just a little creachure....

im not sure who to tag, but if you see this pretend ive tagged you!!!

Thank you for the tag @illumi-nati-png 😁. I should be sleeping, but this was far too entertaining. 😅

Anywho I was challenged to do this piccrew game.

Me and Moon the cat. I pretty much live in shorts these days until the howling gales of Yorkshire force me into trousers. I think I was possessed by the spirit of a pe teacher at some point in life. 😅

Anywho... I'm tagging @marvagon @bobbole @ibrithir-was-here @mashumaru @thirrith and @debellatis because I keep seeing you nipping in to like and reblog and wanted to say hello. 😅

[petrichoraline]

@gillianthecat @littleragondin @voicesofreasons @respectthepetty @poetry-protest-pornography @benkaaoi idk I felt like tagging a few people, im so in awe I want to spread the word lol

EDIT: in order to turn on the eng subs open on yt 💕

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

[forcebook]

HELLO WIFE!!

One song that reminds me a little of GunCher is Fire Boy by PP Krit. It feels like something Cher would sing to Gun 💙

hiii beloved spouse!!!! 🩷

so….. is it bad that i can see this song playing during THAT scene in the last part of ep 10??? akdkskdks

cher literally going “i might look cute on the outside but sometimes my heart can be cruel. so you like to deceive me, trick me into loving you? alright, i’ll show it to you, tonight” 🔥🔥🔥

aldkskdkskdkskdkskdkskdskdkskdkksksk it’s the same vibe tbh!!

and then cher pausing while sitting on gun’s lap to whisper the chorus to him 😳😳😳

“don't play with hot fire, it will be bad. i'm afraid it's not safe, just stay away from me. don't play with my emotions. ‘cause I'm a fire boy, fire boy, yeah”

and then gun’s like “i don’t mind getting burned by you” 😳😳😳

but anyways. SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY!!!

thank you for participating, my love 🥰