#though i think est and william are the pairing i have the second-least urge to see more of their stuff for

[jaggedwolf]

jaggedwolf makes a meager attempt to rank the GLs/BLs she watched in Q1 2025. to be clear even the least favorite was an entertaining time, and even the most favorites had moments that made me want to shake the show and go this is silly, structure this better. ramblings below in reverse order.

Pluto (2024)

Namtan good? Namtan good. I did enjoy the first half of the show where you could kinda tell May totally knew who Ai was but Ai is a dummy who can somehow believe that she is not constantly giving the game away. The mutual lying felt well-balanced there. Liked Ai's sad little faces as the saddest woobie in the world up until the point that there was so much sobbing that I experienced sympathetic sinus pain, despite shedding no tears myself. I did not know that was possible.

Amazingly, the show did convince me of the "love at first sight" thing that I am typically a grinch about - Teen Ai had so much swag, poor Teen May is dealing with a shitty constrained life, and you can see how that moment would be locked in May's mind.

It all goes downhill after that first meeting reveal. First, the show drags out the reveals so much. At first I thought they dragged it out so that the reveal would happen before the first time they had sex, which they were also dragging out, but no, it doesn't get revealed by then anyway! Might as well have started banging earlier smh.

Second, the number of twists pile up to soap-opera levels. May defending Batman (haha) was okay, but having her justify it to Oom as protecting her from her dad did not make me sympathetic to May at all, because Oom literally goes "lol I don't care" about May's dad's threats. I almost wish May had just been a cocky rich lawyer type back then. But what makes me most annoyed about this point is that Oom is more enraged about the impact that May's defense has on Ai's friend than Ai is! That is too much simping for your love interest, and Ai is forgiving even before she knows there's blackmail involved.

We also get Ai involved in the blinding of May without ever knowing May's name, and Oom getting amnesia for the dramatically convenient number of years, both of which are very silly.

Thirdly, well I don't know if this third point is actually such a con that it wraps around to being a pro, actually, because thirdly, everyone is so terrible to amnesiac Oom that I can't get mad at her for the deranged ultimatum. I'm very fond of Ai, but I am unimpressed with her going on about being a good big sister...and then doing the ridiculously cruel move of sending clueless Oom back to the woman who already broke her heart! Oom's friend needs to be cajoled into telling her the truth! Like damn, Oom knows she lost two years, just tell her there was a breakup.

Oom was a character I liked far more than I expected, tbf, and getting an episode from her perspective was great, even if it added to the evidence that no one in this show was capable of being normal about unrequited pining - not Oom, not Paul, not Pang, not Pim, no one.

This was a show where I approved of the couple being separated for a year, because yeah, you two need to chill out in your own lives there. And yet, I do actually like these two together, I just need them to never keep secrets from each other again because when they do, they are menaces to each other and everyone around them.

Other stuff I didn't care for: Whatever was going on with the side trio, especially the sloppily edited-out subplot for Pim, between the attorney thank you and the laptop apology.

I thought the May-Kosol and May-Ben reconciliation scenes were very well done, and again, they could've been even stronger if defending Batman wasn't something May was "blackmailed" into.

The Heart Killers (2024)

A rarity for this list, THK did not not actively annoy me at any point. I had fun watching it, liked bad mom actually dying in the end, thought everyone's motivations made sense, enjoyed watching Khao, First, and Joong make expressions, but...

(1) Dunk is a bad actor. I am not someone with high acting standards, you know, my floor for this is very low, but I found him distractingly stiff and/or jittery in ways that did not make sense for the character. Am unlikely to be watching any shows with Dunk in a main role in the future - unfortunate, because I thought Joong did well with Fadel in this role.

(2) The setting is so unreal that I could not take it seriously enough to be emotionally invested, haha. No one is good at their job. The assassins are so bad at being hidden. The assassins' momboss is so bad at keeping tabs on them. The police are so bad at tracking obvious assassins. Kant is so bad at being an informant. There are no stakes here. My one exception to my lack of emotional investment would be Kant and Bison's reconciliation on the island. I thought that well done, especially with the use of the safeword.

Above points aside, I had a good time watching this show, with all its Jojo-typical zaniness. Only Friends is not on this list of shows because I watched it much longer ago, but I also wasn't emotionally invested in any of the couples there while liking the show. Curious to see if I feel differently about Girl Rules.

Final note: Fadel continuously horrified me with his hygiene choices. What is the point of wearing gloves while cutting vegetables if you are going to run your hands through your hair in between! Why would you run through your hair the very same hand you just used to jerk off! Bad Fadel.

Thamepo (2024)

Oh, Thamepo. You started so strong, and yet ended so weak.

I was sold on this show within the first two episodes. Thame as the kind of boyband leader who is secretly martyring himself for the others, despite what it looks like from the outside, is perfectly targeted towards my ids. The juxtaposition of Po as someone who's been left behind with Thame as someone who's been forced to leave was a great way to spark that initial conflict between them, and meant I didn't question how open they became with each other so fast - those were very sore spots.

Each of the group's members getting an episode devoted to their re-recruitment worked, and I liked the group as a whole. I do find myself fonder of the BLs/GLs when there's friend crew shenanigans happening.

I didn't mind the slowness of the burn for Po and Thame. They are both painfully passive dudes, and I was not yet annoyed at that trait. Okay, the jealousy over the ex scenes made Thame look unappealing, not cute, because what do you mean you're not getting back to resuming your first makeout with your boyfriend because of your little jealousy fit. SMH.

The episode where Pepper and Gam are revealed to the public and break-up really worked for me, I did not expect to like these side hets so much. I was cross on their behalf that the other two gallivanting around in public is what got them exposed.

Evil CEO lady was an excellent evil CEO lady, except for the very end where they try to go oh you secretly wanted them to be happy right, and it's like no, just let her be an evil CEO lady who wants to make money and boost TPop, that's fine.

Now, let's get to the stuff that really bothered me. I loved the breakup scene on the roof, it's the only time I've teared up at one of these shows, and it made sense for the particular flaws these guys have. And yet...that Po does not call Thame as soon as he finds out ONER is sending Thame to Korea alone, the thing Thame has said from the very beginning that he would hate and would make him miserable, made me think poorly of Po. At that point the reason for the breakup is moot - Po's presence is no longer risking an opportunity that Thame actually wants.

On Thame's side, I thought the deletion of his contacts here was clearly when his memorization of Po's phone number would come up again, but it didn't.

IDK, the thing about binging a bunch of romance-focused canons is that it makes one grapple with one what likes from their fictional romances. For this type of couple, who are presented as sweet forever boyfriends dealing with unfair constraints? That presentation doesn't work if I'm not convinced by the end of the show that their first instincts are to work together as team, to strategize together, to reach for the other person. The Korea news was a prime opportunity for that display, before the discovered letter and the concert surprise.

The concert surprise was quite silly to me. Mick is secretly on their side? Their brilliant plan to keep Thame is to...show one (1) video where they say they're not letting him go?? They lucked out with evil CEO lady being sick of their shit instead of simply enforcing the contract that we never got full details of. (I would be more forgiving if their plan was to make evil CEO lady sick of their shit, but that didn't seem to be the case)

Finally, Po going back to work at the suit shop...really did not work for me. I do not demand an uncharacteristic level of ambition for this fellow but (1) at the start we are told the suit shop job pays sufficiently little that both of Po's parents are sending him money and he wants to get a good job to pay them back* (2) he is a good director who likes the work and is big enough after the MARS single video that his ex has heard of it.

Uncle's speech on dream jobs led me to the opposite conclusion that Po reached. Namely, that perhaps directing doesn't have to be a Dream Job TM for it to be something Po does well and gets paid well for, and maybe he could go direct for a company less torturing than ONER. Or maybe even direct his boyfriend's music videos.

* forced to reckon with the possibility that this is a rare scenario where jaggedwolf is going damn you, have more filial piety please

Bad Buddy (2021)

I had the opposite trajectory with this show than I did with Thamepo. I started off mostly annoyed with all of the boys and men, except for Pran. I find Nanon's expressions very endearing, what can I say, this has upped the probability of me watching his het stuff one day. Also, Pran is a dweeb who is the least interested in fighting, which I respect. Architecture and Engineering should be majors with heavy workloads, why do these boys even have time to fight? Can Pat be less annoying? Will these dads shut up?

Yet, the plot and characterization unfold so skillfully as the show progresses that I found myself more invested with every episode. The way Pran's and Pat's history is doled out, the ever-classic scenario of Pran being aware he's had a crush on Pat since high school but all Pat knows at first is that he has to keep messing with Pran and he has to keep helping him, the realization of just how badly both their families have fucked them up. On that last point, two things that made me so sad were (1) Pat wondering if he's doing something wrong picking the play just because dad disagrees (2) Pran constantly saying he's quit guitar while clearly still loving it, just because of his mom's reaction back in high school. Awful! Look what you did, you fucked up two perfectly good kids!

Thus the way they hide even their friendship from their bros makes perfect sense, because the stupid faculty fight sets off every defense mechanism they've formed against their parents. Also sense-making in a lovelier way: that competitiveness remains a core of their connection, because that was the first way they could publicly interact with each other, you know? It's what was acceptable.

+100000 points for the reveal of the conflict between Pat's dad and Pran's mom. Great job making the rivalries seem gendered in the initial introductions, with the dads competing in industry and the moms competing over their babies' fortunes, but giving us a hint soon after with it being Pran's mom who is most enraged at the Christmas concert. Having the characters wonder if Pran's mom vs Pat's dad was a romantic connection and then taking a complete left turn into the university scholarship theft? Brilliant. Like yeah, that would make you hate a guy so much.

Pa and Ink were a very cute side-pairing (the steps scene? so cute. the darkroom scene? Love should be required to make her voice go wibbly wobbly in every show she's on), and since I saw 23.5 before Bad Buddy it was fun to see the actors in a different dynamic, especially Love playing the character with more of a PoV here. Appreciated Ink's friendship with both the boys, loved both Pat and Pa being so bad at flirting, loved their hotpot dinner. Though it remains ridiculous that Pat and Pa were sharing a room in college, what siblings would ever be cool with that? ...Maybe their dad does suck enough that being away from him his worth it.

I only have two complaints regarding the girls. I wish we'd gotten more of them with Pran and Pat instead of whiny useless Wai. Even before he acts like Pran has to apologize to him for his boyfriend choices (and never fesses up to trying to out them!), he is guilt-tripping Pran into taking responsibility for shit that's not his problem, like the play and the fighting. Go away dude, you are pointlesss and it made me postpone the Jimmy BL on my list because I needed a break from his face.

Secondly, I wish we'd gotten more between Pa and Pat during episodes 11 and 12. Does Pa get to learn what dad did to Pran's mom? Does she not have complicated feelings or opinions on the way her dad's former favoritism of Pat has been revealed to be something worse and more unfair to her brother?

As for the ultimate ending and the secret not-breakup...at first I was very frustrated, because those parents can fuck right off, thanks.

(Also, uhhh the timeline is very weird? We get a four years later jump from the middle of sophomore year, but somehow Pa is just graduating/packing. Which I could handwave if they hadn't said the architecture program is five years, because then wouldn't Pa and Pran be graduating at the same time....gmmtv will you ever give me timelines that don't confound me....)

With more thought, I still don't care for the parents here. I don't like that Pat is still working for his dad and trying to pander to him when dad gives no good energy back, I don't like that mom even has control over Pran's guitar at all, your grudging acceptances mean nothing to me!!! But...I do buy this for both Pat and Pran 😭 Those are the parents they are each so wrapped up in, they got that filial piety, yada yada.

Fundamentally more important to me than telling the shitty parents to fuck off is that Pran and Pat remain a solid team till the end - which was a consistent throughline of the show, wasn't it? That no matter what it looks like to the viewers, to their classmates, to their families, they have always been on each other's side, ever since the day Pran rescued Pa, and that will always be true <3

Still, I'm going to headcanon them saying fuck it and being open in 2-3 years after the show. (And Pat working elsewhere.) Huh, I wonder if there's good fic for that.

23.5 (2023)

Ah, GMMTV's first GL, and the first show I watched this quarter.

23.5 is distinct from the above shows not just in being a fluffy high school show, but in being the most protagonist-heavy of them all.

Here I mean protagonist in the singular.

Pat and Pran trade PoVs as easily as they change leads in that race to their dorm rooms, Pluto and ThamePo start with Ai's and Po's PoVs but soon May's and Thame's plots dominate and THK is juggling four leads.

Structurally speaking, 23.5, lives or dies on the merits of Ongsa, our 15-year-old accidental catfisher whose headspace dominates this show.

As you may guess from this show's position in the ranking, the show very much lives. Because, you see, Ongsa is such a loser of a lesbian. (And such a lesbian of a loser.) I mean, hopefully most viewers are going "Ongsa, take a chill pill, the world is not that bad or scary and neither are your friends and family, probably".

Being 15 is the worst, in general, and Ongsa is specifically the kind of 15-year-old whose internal anxieties loom larger than the world as it actually is, and so the show's cultivation of a narrower perspective works to its benefit.

We do get tidbits of Sun's perspective, but she's the most opaque of any of these shows' leads. Which is fine for this sort of show. As with Bad Buddy I enjoy the "person with hopeless gay crush" x "person with zero self-awareness about why they want to mess with/help first person so bad" dynamic, which generally works well in a high school or college setting. Sun is remarkably ready to white knight the second she meets Ongsa. Her episode 7 jealousy plot delighted me despite my usual antipathy towards jealousy plots, because it did not feel like she was blaming Ongsa, only herself.

I didn't mind their breakup chaos even if it made me wince at the teenage behaviour. Like, IDK, they are teenagers, I will allow for them taking turns being the worst within bounds and if I feel it's evenhanded, which I did. Ongsa was awful during Sun's birthday, Sun was awful about Ongsa not telling her parents, and Ongsa proceeded to be awful about handling a breakup. The last led to some pretty funny sequences.

The Aylin/Luna conflict however.... I thought they were a perfectly charming side-couple till the lunch where Ton gets a plateful of food to his face. (1) He deserved that, stop bothering women who don't care about you (2) Aylin confessing her bullying to a gigantic group added nothing because uh, why were any of them owed any that info, we already knew all of it from Sun and Alpha's conversation in a previous episode, and Mawin interrupted her before she could even finish her story.

Justice for Aylin to eat her lunch without Ton or Mawin present. TBH both those guys annoyed me with the amount of screentime they got in the last third of the show, Ton peaked in ep 7, Chareon should stop being bugged by him. The only thing I liked from this subplot was Aylin and Sun's rooftop conversation - those two have some cute friendship scenes.

Uhhh let's see what else did I like. Both sets of parents are alive and not shitty! After watching more GMMTV shows, I am incredibly impressed by this. Good job parents. Alpha's older sistering stuff = very good. The teacher romance = wonderful.