#but also like. i have been neeeedddinggggggg to say something about this and have written fifteen drafts on it

[tinrange]

The Faifah storyline in particular was an extreme letdown to me because there was so much there that I felt could be said. But the show refused to address queerness in plain terms it got lost in the shuffle.

Fou4mod self sabotages and was counting on being left. But the actions he took towards Faifah were not just about him, and if there had been more breathing room in the back end I feel like the audience wouldve been able to process it for the violation of her that it was.

For background, there is a literal epidemic of boys in school taking advantage of the girls around them by running their pictures into AI websites that generate nudes and sexual pictures and videos. The advancement of AI has allowed for the exploitation of young girls to run rampant. Most young people have seen constant uncensored and oftentimes violent porn before theyve had their first sexual or even romantic encounter, its led to a generation thats simultaneously scandalized by anything mildly explicit and desensitized to sexual depictions of anything, and anyone. I think its important to mention that, the conservative backslide in society is evident but the reason many of these kids are so easily recruited through the Porn Is Bad We Hate Sex pipelines is because they feel violated by an internet thats increasingly not for them.

Just as important is gelboys commitment to making sure the audience also sees the internet as a real communicative space. It is not a place of escape or anonymity, instead it functions as a way to continuously posture and to constantly surveil the people around you. The aesthetics of gelboys are cheery, but theyre clear that theres no way to turn it Off and not respond without impacting the relationships you have with others.

With all that said. Faifah is a young trans girl, in school surrounded by all boys. Faifah being trans, and it not being discussed, is not a problem in and of itself. But Fou4mod violating Faifah in the public eye by creating an AI video of them kissing and then posting it while the show acts as if this does not highlight her vulnerability even within the LGBTQ+ community, is. Trans girls and women are routinely sexualized against their will. To have a young, queer, boy do that to his girlfriend? And then move past it, and even parallel Fou4s apology to Faifah with Chians apology to Fou4mod? Its borderline unacceptable and is probably why Fou4 feels much more inaccessible to me in the finale than he does basically any time prior.

The show tries to show that he's grown and wishes to appreciate his friends by reversing when Baabin handed him a drink and he wasnt there to take it, but it simply doesnt work when this huge breach goes unaddressed and all he has to do is sulk to make up for it.

To me, Chian pays at least some of his dues because his striving to be better is shown. You literally watch him suffer through the find out phase after having fucked around. But it's very odd that this show completely sidesteps a problem of its own creation and in doing so sidelines the feelings of another young queer person.

Similar to Baabins behavior in the last episode and his literal xenophobia to Bua as a way to protect his feelings. These characters did genuinely troubled things, and wanting to root for them afterwards is the sign of a great COA. But by those coming-of-age standards there should have been actual periods of growth thereafter wherein Fou4mod, and Baabin actually had the growth onscreen, instead of the audience filling in emotional gaps.

I dont think the show is ruined by the ending, but from what was presented in Chians arc it's rush at the end definitely affects the characters and both relationship resolutions wound up feeling quite unfinished to me, as if they had to cram all those ideas into an hour.

You mentioned you felt the ending of gelboys was a result of romance tropes, im not necessarily inclined to disagree with that despite my post, but can you expand slightly?Romance sells and television is a business, so I understand the frustration in that. Do you think anything in the story couldve been shifted to have you accept the ending for Fou4? Ive been sitting on thoughts about coming of age story conventions in relation to gelboys, do you think theyre used well?

Oh there are so many things contained within that one little comment for me, but I will try to break them down. First, some context on the broader industry, and note that this commentary applies much more broadly than just to Gelboys:

Thai BL (and romance convention) demands a happy romance ending, even when it doesn’t fit the story being told. With shows like Gelboys that don’t really follow BL structure and tropes but are still marketed as BLs, there is a tension there and a question about whether they’ll stick to their themes or fold to the romance ending.

Gelboys is marketing its actors as idols which means their careers will benefit more from a ship ending that will make fans happy and possibly allow them to promote and work in pairs. The way the Thai BL industry is structured around pairs often results in narrative interference to protect the pair even at the expense of the story.

Now, a few things more specific to Gelboys:

I think this show has been generally excellent on coming of age conventions and in representing the ways the current iteration of social media has shaped the ancient courting rituals. I do think the story was rendered a bit less impactful by placing the show in the no homophobia BL bubble (and in fact just never addressing sexuality at all).

Boss Kuno has a long pattern of telling queer stories that don’t fit the BL mold but then sticking BL romance endings on them anyway. He even did it in Paradise of Thorns, which I could barely believe given the themes and tone of that film. So this was not unexpected but still a bit of a womp womp for me.

I think the story lost Fourmod’s trajectory in the shuffle a bit in the last few episodes (basically from the Faifa arc on). It’s not that I think it’s out of character for him to end up drifting back to Chian, but we weren’t very in tune with where he was emotionally for all this back and forth and the ending with Chian was presented by the show as positive when we’ve already seen how miserable Fourmod has been every time he’s caught up in Chian’s orbit. As a result, it felt discordant to me to present him drifting back to Chian out of loneliness as a “happy” ending.

In terms of what the show could have done differently, I would have loved it if they’d left it at Fourmod walking away from Chian and allowing him to actually move on. That actually feels kinder to the character to me than him circling back to Chian. They could even have shown him meeting someone new if they wanted to reassure us he’d be fine. Alternatively, the ending we got for him, but presented as dark and depressing, also would have worked well for me (though clearly it’s not the note Boss wanted to end on).

I liked this show a lot which is why I felt a bit deflated by the ending falling short. But even with that said, I think it’s one of the best coming of age stories in BL.