#i can't give the full context for the first one without a full essay sorry.... the realistic wolf thing is a running gag. he is human.

[lunarlicorice]

2-panel comics this time, wow!

(scene from rp) guy on the left doesn't like her and will broke his arm the previous day / this is exactly how the morning after celeste bit egret goes

[projectjasper]

Just wanted to vent... Whereas I'm happy for Jimmy, and how he got a main role as a newbie (Also, Mix, who's first role was a main in ATOTS, and who's now gonna be a main for 2 other series), I can't help but be angry, you know? That GMMTV has so many other artists under their belts that they just ignore, or cast aside, when they do so something great. Examples: Gunsmile, who's always just a side character for comedic relief, even though his best role to date was in 3WBF as a more mature and adult character; Drake, who was the main character in a badly executed project, so they just started typecasting him into rude and bully supporting roles (Why? Because of his eyebrows?); Podd, who, again, who was the main character in a badly executed project, so they just put him back in the basement. Read somewhere that he's almost dust this year because they let Gawin out the basement. Cannot let one out without the other going in, and it would be funny if it wasn't true. Gawin is so talented, GMMTV is a fucking joke sometimes.

Sorry for the feels.

hello, dear anon!! you've brought up something very interesting, so let's discuss it, shall we? (this is going to be LONG, and as it is not directly bad buddy-related, i am putting it all under the cut. have fun reading the essay lkgkdfglfdjgklfdj).

i think the first thing that i want to say is that gmmtv is first and foremost a business. not a creative group, not a production company - it's a full-on business, with a 'beloved' ceo at the top. and so it works as any business model in capitalism - it works for profit, with absolutely no regard for anything (or anyone) else. now we can put that into a more specific context.

gods bless all earthmix fans, i love y'all and go get your content, but two series together in one year? that's a lot, and we all know why it's happening.

it's no secret that gmm holds on to their duos for dear life, and it feels like a very sell-your-soul-to-the-devil situation. i mean, just look at brightwin. they only let them do something apart from the absolutely enormous amount of things that they did together (no pun intended) after getting what i am sure is an insane amount of money from 2gether and everything connected to it. and i am absolutely sure that much like all other beloved (by the fans) gmm duos (including ones like kristsingto, who somehow still do so much stuff together, despite... i mean, everything???), brightwin will still do lots of bts events together and are now probably attached by the hip with the invisible hand of gmm forever. and this kind of thing affects a lot of actors. and i think that, apart from jimmy (who is a newbie) and gunsmile (who is a separate and frankly rather confusing conversation), everyone you have mentioned in your ask was and is being affected by this exact thing.

despite being among the younger actors, frank and drake are very much one of the ogs in this duo model, and even though 'cause you are my boy' wasn't a good series, frankdrake fucking skyrocketed into fame and became fan favorites. but because the series itself was - as you put it - a badly executed project, gmm knew exactly what to do with them backstage and had no idea what to do with them on screen. 2gether was a very clear attempt to lightly reintroduce them to the enormous amount of new fans that poured in, which was successful. and i am going to be bold here by saying that there is no doubt in my mind that they were planning to do something with frankdrake on screen again, but frank's very unfortunate situation set it back. and i am convinced that they are holding drake back in smaller roles right now in order to not really give any association between him and a fleshed-out lead he could potentially play because they want to reintroduce him opposite frank. because, again, and i do hope that the implication throughout this whole text is clear - this is all done because it is most profitable.

now, as for podd and gawin, i would do the opposite of seeing them as a duo. yes, there was an attempt at making them one, of course - they played opposite each other in a successful series - but there weren't that many fans into them bts, so gawin was firmly locked in our metaphorical gmm basement, and there was an attempt to place podd into a duo with someone else again, which failed even more spectacularly due to how bad the series itself was (which is why khaotung is now going through exactly the same process that podd went through with him - a reintroduction, and an attempt to shove him into a successful duo with first). so i actually don't think there is any connection between what is happening to gawin and podd this year - i think there was previously, in a sense of getting gawin out of sight and out of mind in order to reintroduce podd with someone else - but not right now. besides, gawin is hardly entirely free of the basement - he is not a lead in 'enchante' (yes, he is listed as a "main" on mdl, but that is not quite the same - the leads and the headliners of the series are force and book, 100%), he plays a secondary role in 'not me' and out of the 22 series and 1 movie lined up at the recent event, he only appears in one series in a support role. comparing that to three support roles podd will have in 2022, things certainly look better for gawin, but in the grand scheme of things, he is hardly doing great. and this is all punishment for not quite fitting the very successful and profitable model that gmm loves to utilize so much.

this is a trap that specifically the actors who become popular through bl series fall into, but it is certainly not the only way gmm knows how to profit off of their artists. our very own nanon is a clear example of this. three series, two of which he is the lead in, and one movie, where he is also the lead, all in one year? not to make any assumptions, but that's one disproportionally overworked boy... i believe he is the only actor next year who has that much on his plate. i wonder why? perhaps because he is incredibly popular and is also the best actor (or at the very least one of the best actors) gmm has to offer, so they know that lots of people will be tuning in to watch whatever he stars in, and his acting will be so good that they won't even be tempted to leave? i've made a lot of bold claims today already, so let me leave some question marks here, for balance.

another thing gmm, of course, also does every year is introducing someone who is mostly a newbie, and casting them as a lead - just to see how it would go. it's often done in a duo, just to give that additional support (as a lot of fans specifically become fans of duos, and duos are guaranteed to become at least somewhat popular). jimmy is that lab rabbit newbie of the year, along with the actor he is playing opposite, sea. pretty much a no-brainer here, i guess we should thank the gmm gods that they chose jimmy specifically for this role (as, no matter how much we want actors who have already been around to appear more, the newbies are always here, so yay for the fact that one of the 2022 newbies is - as you put it - our doctor).

i can honestly make an analysis of every single fucking gmm actor i know in this manner (and frankly i have only scratched the surface with the ones i've talked about), but this post is getting long, so i will end on gunsmile, since you have mentioned him. i think his case is very peculiar, and i am almost ready to believe that he feels comfortable in his background roles. but if i try to think like a calculating dickhead, i'd say that his situation has everything to do with the fact that he has been around for many years, in many background roles, but despite his very active and vocal fanbase, that fanbase is indeed quite small in comparison and - apart from the russian roulette gmm does with their newbies - they usually prefer to be sure their series will be at least somewhat profitable due to the actors who play in them.

so, what's the point of this huge fucking thing? well, first of all, i have been around for years, watching gmm do its thing, and no one has ever prompted me to talk about everything i've noticed before. second of all, i just want to show that the company is at fault. and i really want to highlight that. i see an alarming number of people angry at the actors for the way the system they are stuck in works, and please don't do that besties, that's gross af. (NOT talking about the gmm actors that did shitty things here - specifically talking about the things that the company clearly decides but that people blame on the artists). it's also not the fans either, because even if we have some influence, ultimately it is the company's job to make the decisions, protect their employees and wrap it all up in nice packaging for the fans if need be. so this is also by no means a criticism of the fans of any duos gmm created (i am one of those fans too) or the fans of particular actors (i am one of those fans too) - we're actually pawns in gmm's huge and awful chess game, and we not really thriving either. so ready your pitchforks for the ceos and the managers and all that - NOT for the artists or the (respectful and nice) fans.