#tol rewatch

[disaster-j]

TOL Rewatch Week One

Just rewatched episode one with beloved mutual @magicaldreamfox1 and AAAAAAAA this show really does so many things to me

I have like a million and one thoughts but two main ones-

I am still so fucking pissed about Khai being made into a genuine asshole for drama reasons in the show instead of just being a dumb slut (affectionate) who thought his feelings for Third were Extra Special Friendship Feelings as if all friends dream about building a life with their bestie and get anxiety over the idea of said bestie not being by their side always.... yeah Khai is so much gayer in the novel y'all don't understand I will never shut up about this particular change. Never ever. HE SHOULD'VE BEEN A SIMP FROM THE GET GO. I get that the drama was important to fill up eps but like they did Khai a grave injustice by erasing so many of the scenes that showed his good side, his scared side, his confused side, his deeply in love with Third side. I will never forgive them for making the show Third biased when the story is supposed to be about Khai's journey.

What would've happened if Two had never intervened. Like I've already written a fic about Third giving up on Khai after overhearing him in That Scene but even then he'd at least tried and like his crush had been acknowledged by people other than him. But what if Two had never found him that night he decided to give up. What if neither Two nor Bone had tried to intervene during that time and Third had pulled away from Khai???? WHY AM I MAKING MYSELF SAD THEY'RE MY FAVOURITE SHIP But like imagine KhaiThird having a friendship break-up imagine Khai losing his fucking mind bc Third was his everything and he just didn't realise it until he'd already lost him imagine them remeeting a few years after they've graduated and Khai desperately trying to get back in Third's good books and Third being his meanest self trying to hide how much he still loves Khai AAAAAAAAA someone write the fic pls i am on my knees begging

Other notable thoughts I had while watching the episode

We should talk more about the fact that Khai went and got his ass beat defending Milk's honour AFTER he found out she was messing with him. Like he just did that huh. And he had no reason to think it would help him get her back or anything he just did it bc he felt like it. My poor lil meow meow my favourite puppy boy I love him.

All the Khai is autistic/nd posts are correct

All the Khai is demiromantic posts (me im making all them posts) are soooo correct

Khai's not nearly as Straight in ep1 as he'd like to believe. To quote Dreamy, why are you as a man "riding" "charles". He's a bottom. I said what I said.

THE WAY KHAI SAYS LOVE YOU TO THIRD STILL KILLS ME APPARENTLY

Third is the og bl exploiter girlboss. He was capitalising on his sexuality and close male friendships before it was cool.

Two and Bone BOTH knew Third liked Khai in ep1. Two definitely noticed Third in the scene where they wrap up filming, tho he's obviously been eyeing him a while. And Bone absolutely Knew when Third walked away while they were teasing Khai about Milk. He literally frowned at Third walking off and then turned pensively to Khai. Maybe this is when he decided to confront Khai about Third's crush?

Fake Protagonist is still undefeated as best bl ost I said what I said.

Two and Bone are the best friends ever. This friend group is perfection like no other BL has executed a friend group this well, where everyone gets appropriate screentime and no one exists just for comic relief or to further the plot, they all have their story arcs, their own motivations and flaws and endearments, and they don't go off on their own after the show ends. And they ALL actually get along well. Not Me could've had this if the writers weren't Black antis.

It will be so fucking hard to watch one episode of tol per week literally itching to go watch more as I type AAAAAAAAA

And yet. We persevere. See y'all next week!

[cherrymagicalboys]

week one theory of love rewatch list of things i am 🥰 about

third- “we’re almost out by the way” baby boyyy

khai’s little shuffle bringing third snacks BABY BOOYYYY

for that matter just how khai is casually intimate toward third in a way only dumbasses can be. absolute fool. idiot supreme.

all the times third cries what can i say i love hot guys in tears

[bellarkeandclintashaandsuch]

Theory of Love Rewatch: Episode 1

Wow I forgot how much happens in ep 1.

I love Two questioning him. I don't know if he already knew about Third's crush or was just starting to suspect here. But I love it. And poor Third's conceal don't feel look.

And how they went from Bone's face saying okay, sure, Third. Khai is telling the truth, to Third seeing him at the movie. Ugh!

And the saddest person eating a burrito you ever did see 😭

And then Third is out here trying to call Khai on his nonsense, but Khai's not even around to hear it!

And this scene! I think this might be one of my favorite scenes. The emotions! The sadness. It's overwhelming. And the lighting and everything. Ugh. And then Two's there. And his voice is so gentle when he asks if Third likes Khai. And Third's devastated face. (But he's so beautiful when he cries too.) Ugh, I love it. I was so relieved someone knew, and Third could talk to Two about it.

What a way to end episode 1.

[theoryofmylove]

Sadly I did not finish my chapter in time for ToL rewatch day T.T so I'm gonna reblog some of my favorite ToL stuff for now.

[lurkingshan]

Theory of Love: The Romcom Rewatch

It's happening, folks! @bengiyo sealed his fate with a comment on the most recent episode of @the-conversation-pod, in which he mentioned that the next time he watches Theory of Love, he wants to start with watching the film in parallel with the episode that references it. Since this show is an all time favorite for me and my bestie @neuroticbookworm, there was simply no way we were going to let this golden opportunity pass us by, and we're dragging a few friends in with us. As always, never underestimate my ability to turn a stray thought into a whole project.

So here's how it will work! Every Saturday for the next 13 weeks we will watch the featured film + its corresponding TOL episode and post our shared thoughts about the relevant themes and points of interest. Here is the full list of films in order:

Dear Dakanda

Love Actually

Friends with Benefits

Crazy Stupid Love

10 Things I Hate About You

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Flipped

The Proposal

The Last Moment

Begin Again

He’s Just Not That Into You

My Girl

Stand By Me

I wanted to share this on tumblr in case anyone else would like to join us, either by reading along and engaging with our weekly posts, or by watching and posting your own thoughts. We'll aim to post on Saturdays, but anyone should feel free to jump in and join us anytime throughout the week. We'll use the tag [#tol romcom rewatch] to make it easy to find everyone's posts. If you're having trouble tracking down any of the films, let us know and we will crowdsource the issue.

Hope to see some of you as we discuss!

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Dear Dakanda (2005)

[impala124]

Okay, I just finished watching Ep 1 of Theory of love for the first time and a lot is happening on my screen, an enjoyable lot.

First things first, I'm happy that this is a BL, because if this were a het romcom, trust me, I wouldn't be watching it any further. I understand that we're going for nuance here, but I just can't stomach one more romcom about a woman having unrequited feelings for a guy who takes her for granted, I just don't have it in me. If the roles were reversed, I might consider giving it a chance with a lot of caveats. With all that said, I loved this episode.

The sequence of Third scouring through the trash to find the box, which contained the things Khai gifted to his girlfriend, to Third opening his own box of trinkets of his life with Khai over the past three years with the intention of throwing it away in the trash is just *chef's kiss*.

I'll probably end up writing more about this episode after watching Dear Dakanda.

[neuroticbookworm]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 1: Dear Dakanda

Yesterday I watched Dear Dakanda for the ToL rewatch project and unsurprisingly, spent the whole time facepalming over Mhoo. The movie looked gorgeous, and the cinematography constantly put me in my I Told Sunset About You feels. Yet it was clearly evident that Third had learned all the wrong lessons from this movie, as @lurkingshan pointed out here. The movie follows Mhoo as he makes his way through college, while pining for his best friend, Dakanda, the whole time. He chooses to never speak of his desires and ultimately gets his heart broken when Dakanda starts dating. As the movie ends on an ambiguous note with Mhoo emphasizing how his friendship with Dakanda will never change, I couldn’t help but notice the romanticization of pining, the implied purity of choosing friendship over romance, and how it affected the friendship that Mhoo (and Third) hold so dear.

Both Dear Dakanda and Theory of Love looks like a friends-to-lovers narrative on the surface, but I propose that it is actually a pseudo friends-to-lovers narrative. Mhoo and Third become infatuated with Dakanda and Khai from the very first moment they meet them. Third accepts and enjoys Khai’s friendship, while simultaneously watering his affection for Khai in secret till it’s rooted deep in his heart. This colors every interaction between them, because the parameters of relationship that Khai and Third are operating under are very different. Khai thinks that he is just ditching his dudebro best friend to go spend time with whoever is his Girlfriend of the Week, but for Third it serves as yet another painful reminder that he is never gonna be as important to Khai as Khai is to him.

The show even underscores the difference by having Khai genuinely cross a line that is egregious, by heterosexual male friendship standards. When Khai gets caught by Third after he cancels plans to watch Toy Story 4 together, and instead takes his new girlfriend to the movie, Khai apologizes to Third the next day. Because he knew that watching all the movies of the Toy Story franchise together was an important friendship ritual, especially for film majors such as them, and that it was a real dick move to violate that pact.

Third’s pining causes him undue pain, because his actions when it comes to Khai are not in line with what a friend might do, but rather what a lovesick fool would do. When Khai asked Third why he threw his girlfriend’s stuff in the trash after Khai had asked him to return it to her, a friend would’ve immediately told him that she was the one who told him to toss it all in the garbage. But what did Third do? He stood there and let Khai scream at him, then slinked out to the garbage cans, retrieved the box from inside the trash can, came back in and gave it to Khai, and got the door shut in his face for good measure. Good fucking god.

I am not overlooking Khai's abhorrent behavior in this episode, I felt extremely uncomfortable watching how he treats Third like a doormat every chance he gets. But I will say though, Khai could take Third for granted because Third let him, from the very beginning of their relationship. Mhoo and Third’s secret feelings make their respective friendships disingenuous and lopsided from the get-go, and it was almost tragicomic, watching them convince themselves to pine their hearts out in secret, all in the name of protecting their friendship.

[twig-tea]

Some background on Dear Dakanda for the TOL rewatch

Thanks to @bengiyo's idea and @lurkingshan's incredible energy and skill for organization, I joined the Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch starting this week, alongside @solitaryandwandering and @neuroticbookworm. It was really interesting starting with an older Thai film–this was one of the reasons I was immediately drawn to this project, I wanted to get exposure to some of the older Thai media that has been a shared touchstone of these content creators, in order to get more of the references. Theory of Love does a lot of the work laying out which films it’s referencing for the audience, which makes this easier; plus I just love that show so you don't need to twist my arm to get me to start a rewatch. 

The first film was Dear Dakanda (2005); in Thai, the name is puen sanit i.e. best friend (or close friend), which is also the name of the first episode of TOL. Shan already wrote about the film itself, and how it relates to the first episode, but as we were watching I was noticing a lot of ties to QL and so I wanted to capture some of that here. What follows is what I was able to find on this film based on internet searches, MyDramaList, and my own knowledge of QL from having been watching it for a decade. I'm by no means a Thai media expert, and coming at this film twenty years later, so if anyone else has context they want to add, please do!

Side note: Why is this interesting? There is something I really like about how identifiably queer people are just around in Thai media, both behind and in front of the camera, and it was interesting to see that in something 20 years old. It’s also just neat to see how small the industry is, and to notice similarities between the work these people produce. I’m well aware that we can’t conflate working on queer stories with being out, and that, especially back in the early 2000s, being out was often a barrier to creating queer media and would mean you could not get work, and that the on-screen opportunities for queer people were often very stereotyped and problematic, so I’m not trying to glamourize the past here. I just think it’s all worth noticing and thinking about. 

This film is based on a bestselling and award-winning short novel, The Red Mailbox (2000).

The producer, Keng, puts a lot of what follows in context. Keng was a screenwriter for the film The Iron Ladies (2000) (shout-out once again to @happypotato48 for putting that one on my radar), and started his own production house which was absorbed by GMM and was the predecessor to GDH 559. He’s produced a bunch of QL over the years, including Friend Zone, Tootsies and the Fake (2019), and most recently Flat Girls (2025). He also produced How To Make Millions before Grandma Dies (2024) and co-executive produced The Paradise of Thorns (2024). And, relevant to what's about to follow, he produced My Girl (2003).

The director, S, has also directed several works with queer elements, including Girl from Nowhere, Wake Up Ladies 2: Very Complicated, and the original Club Friday. This was his first solo directing gig, and folks were anticipatory of it after his work as one of the six co-screenwriter/directors of My Girl (2003), for which he co-won a Thailand National Film Association award for best director (this was the first of any of the six's solo efforts). He didn't win that award again for this film, but he was nominated, which is pretty impressive for a first solo outing. The other screenwriter/directors for My Girl have cameos in Dear Dakanda as seniors at university. It's worth noting that there is a character in this film that is apparently reprised from My Girl (the barber), so those following along should be on the lookout for that!

The cinematographer, Beat, won a Thailand National Film Association award for this film. He has also worked regularly with S since, on Girl from Nowhere and Wake Up Ladies 2, and he was the cinematographer for the BL Not Me (as well as several other GMMTV shows folks in this space might recognize, like F4).

One of the two ADs, Petch, also directed an episode of Girl from Nowhere and has since become a director for Konghtup; he’s co-directed both Two Worlds (BL) and Apple My Love (GL).

The other AD Nontra was one of the screenwriters for the original Hormones (2008) film [which I will be honest I haven't seen and don't know if it has any queer elements the way the show does]. The screenwriter for this film, Nitis, was another co-writer for the original Hormones film, and also won a Thailand National Film Association award for this film. 

And finally, the composer Vichaya works regularly with GDH and composed the original score for I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon, as well as Paradise of Thorns, Cutie Pie, Tootsies and the Fake, The Stranded, Friend Zone, and more. The score felt like a familiar friend while we were watching this film.

The actors were also familiar faces. The lead actor playing Moo/Khaiyoi, Sunny, was the het romance lead in My Ambulance (which is the Nadao Bangkok series that first included Bilikin and PP as a paired side couple–one that was so popular, they used the demand to see them again to fund the creation of ITSAY). 

The actor playing the eponymous Dakanda, Noon, had a bit part in Gay Ok Bangkok s2

The actor playing Nui the rival love interest, Ae, had a supporting role in Mhom Ped Sawan (GL); before that she was the inappropriately flirty client in The Trainee (shoutout to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for noting that she tried to come between Off and Gun in that, which is a very hilarious coincidence); she was also in Vice Versa (which is extra funny because Gun appeared as Third the character from Theory of Love in that show). [Also, Vice Versa people feel free to correct me because I haven’t rewatched that show, but wasn’t her character sapphic? There was definitely something between her character Joob and Jeab’s character Dol, though I can’t remember if it went anywhere.] 

All three of these main actors were nominated for a best actor, best actress, and best supporting actress award from the Thailand National Film Association respectively.

Knowing that all of these people were involved in this film and then moved on to work on these shows and films that many of us have seen and loved helps give credence to the parallels we noticed while watching (e.g. the way visuals and characters from this film clearly influenced ITSAY as Shan mentioned in her post; there were also definitely jokes about Ae’s role in this film in Vice Versa that I did not get at the time). 

[disaster-j]

IT'S TOL REWATCH DAY AHSJJSJSJWS

[cherrymagicalboys]

theory of love did white dirty with that emo boy haircut smh

[bengiyo]

Theory of Love Romcom Rewatch Episode 1: Dear Dakanda (2005)

Once again I am watching Theory of Love because @lurkingshan gets specific pleasure out of making me change my mind about this show. Unfortunately, I regress every time I start this over. Shan already posted her reaction to episode 1 along with Dear Dakanda (2005), as did @neuroticbookworm. @twig-tea posted some useful insights about the team behind the film and their future works in QL. I will begin today with a review of the film, and then my reactions to Theory of Love based on its use of the film. 

Dear Dakanda

Dear Dakanda follows the journey of Khaiyoi as he visits an island town and develops a relationship with a nurse treating him, while also reflecting on his friendship with his friend Dakanda. Over the course of the film, we see Nui, the nurse, clearly falling for and flirting with Khaiyoi. However, Khaiyoi seems to either not notice or ignore this as he spends much of the film writing letters to Dakanda, his unexpressed crush from college. 

The film paints a beautiful portrait of Chiang Mai and Koh Phangan. Meanwhile, it’s obvious to everyone that Khaiyoi has palpable chemistry with both Dakanda in college, and Nui on the island. Unfortunately, Khaiyoi is so stuck in his own head that he’s unable to express his feelings to Dakanda before she gets involved with someone else, and he’s too caught up in Dakanda to properly face Nui’s feelings. 

I enjoyed the way this film incorporated white tourists into the background and foreground of this film. There’s an especially good moment where some tourists push across multiple boundaries to ask Khaiyoi to draw them. I also enjoyed the casual inclusion of queerness on screen. It was nice watching this 20 years later and recognizing some of the moments in college from how much exposure we’ve had to them through BL.

Overall, I found myself a bit frustrated with the protagonist. Despite the high production and efficient editing, I found Khaiyoi to be rather difficult to read. I don’t feel like I ever understood the core of his reticence around telling Dakanda his feelings, especially when it was clear that Dakanda’s family supported him and all of their friends already presumed they were together. 

Theory of Love Episode 1

Now that we’re back in my third watch of Theory of Love, I find myself immediately regressing and empathizing strongly with Third. It’s always interesting how strongly I support Third, even if I have grown enough to recognize where he’s in the wrong. However, it’s notable coming off of watching Dear Dakanda that Third makes the same mistake I’m making in empathizing too strongly with Khaiyoi.

Others have already written solid pieces about this, and so I want to focus on how this shows odd placement in the bubble affects my experience. Third is a member of a popular group of amorous straight men famous for their sexual prowess around campus. Despite his known aversion to female attention, he has a position in this group of peak masculinity. Moreover, the lack of visible queerness in much of this show, coupled with Third’s lack of experience with overly queer media, makes him seem deeply closeted and out of touch with his own community. 

Each time I return to this show, we have the conversations about how Third is actually a bad friend to Khai by being so mad at him for things Khai doesn’t even know about or do, and how Khai really only overstepped with Third in episode 1 when he broke their movie pact to hang out with a girl. It’s already obvious that Third doesn’t care about Bone or Two’s escapades, but he’s constantly pressed about Khai in a way that isn’t fair.

Yet, I struggle with the concept of fairness here. Romance stories dictate that Third is in the wrong for withholding his feelings here, but anyone who grew up closeted would have genuine hesitation about coming out in sex a presumably heteronormative situation. It’s obvious that Third would connect with a character like Khaiyoi, especially because Khaiyoi never makes it clear (at least to me) why he’s holding back with Dakanda. Third would also love Khaiyoi’s sad beard and dramatic displays around his offense. 

As always with a Gun character, I end up reading a lot about Gun into the character itself (something I think casting directors are hoping we’ll do). I apply a lot of de facto queerness to Third because of my history with Gun (The Blue Hour (2015), Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (2016), Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey 2 (2017)), and as such I find myself so frustrated about how isolated he is from other queer people whenever I meet Third again. 

Finally, it bugs me that Third is so wrapped up in hetero romcoms as the guideposts for his own romantic achievements with Khai. He would have been better served if he’d been as deep into queer cinema as I was in 2019, and probably wouldn’t have set himself up so hard for failure. Still, this is a TV show, and I wonder if the writing team wanted to unpack het romance through this story. 

I’m excited to see how badly Third read Love Actually (2003) tomorrow.

[thepancakelady]

𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓸𝓵 + 𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓹𝓮𝓼 >> tae darvid as tin and tee thanapon as tol

[lurkingshan]

Theory of Love Episode 1: Dear Dakanda

And we're off! We begin this week with a 2005 romcom classic from Thailand: Dear Dakanda (the Thai title is more like "Close Friend"). The plot, in brief:

Mhoo buzzes off his luscious mane of hair and heads south to hit the beach. An accident on a boat lands him in the hospital with a broken leg and flirting with a local nurse, Nui, and as he gets to know her we flash back to his uni days in Chiang Mai to see what he's running from: Dakanda, the girl he met during Freshy games, fell in love with, and stayed close friends with while pining after her hopelessly throughout college. In the end, he ends up confessing only via letters after he already gave up and ran away, and the film ends on an ambiguous note.

For those who have seen TOL, I think the parallels here are fairly obvious, and the posters above confirm: Mhoo's story is Third's story. Like Mhoo, Third never says a word about his feelings, choosing to keep it to himself and cry and rage alone. And similar to Khai in these early episodes, Dakanda seems totally oblivious to her friend's feelings as she enjoys spending time with him.*

*There's another parallel to a Thai BL here: Nui is clearly an inspiration for Tharn in I Told Sunset About You! I won't get into that as it's off topic for this discussion. But it's fun to watch old Thai media and newly understand how shows we love were referencing it.

This movie is so much about how Mhoo hurt himself with his slience for years, and ultimately gave up without giving Dakanda a chance to even respond to his confession. Unfortunately, Third doesn't seem to have learned anything from watching it. We hear in his review of the film that he romanticizes--and ends up emulating--Mhoo's behavior rather than recognizing that Mhoo set himself up to fail and things might have gone differently if he was willing to be more honest with his friend. As @bengiyo pointed out, the fact that Third gets caught up in these heterosexual romance films and takes all the wrong lessons from them is part of the conflict at the heart of this story. I love how the show signals that by pointing us to this film right at the start. And with its story over the next 12 weeks, TOL will be in dialogue with this film, ultimately rejecting the notion that Mhoo's refusal to communicate and ambiguous ending was romantic.

As for this first episode, I love how it drops us right in the middle of Third's dramatic pining spiral as it sets up the world of the show. One of the things the show is super clear on is that Khai's player behavior, while kind of dickish, is fairly normal and accepted--Two and Bone act exactly the same way--and Third is only pressed about it because of his feelings. But as the film framing this episode signals, Third never says anything, just gets increasingly resentful as Khai keeps unwittingly reminding him that they are not on the same page.

And of course, he makes it worse for himself by agreeing to help Khai deal with his exes, a truly self-destructive choice that only fuels his jealousy. And every time Khai behaves selfishly or thoughtlessly or does anything to remind Third that their feelings are not mutual, his anger only grows, but Third can't help but press on it like a bruise. I groaned when Third went to catch Khai at the theater with the date he ditched him for; stop torturing yourself, my guy! For his part, Khai has some maturing to do, as he is far too willing to be an ass to his friends in the name of hooking up, and he also just doesn't get that he is constantly hurting Third's feelings by treating him so casually. But for the first half of the show, we are firmly in Third's story and perspective, and I'm excited to see him get to the end of his rope.

Tagging in my other watch partners in case they have anything to add: @neuroticbookworm @solitaryandwandering and @twig-tea.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

I feel compelled to say something even if it sounds ridiculous. I was thinking about the TOL Rewatch today, and the fact that it's Love Actually day. And opinions on the film aside I think it needs to be said, that although portuguese people are not a monolith, the portuguese representation in that film makes us all cringe, in how bad it is. Even if they are representing the immigrant population in Marseille, my point stands. It's not only wildly inaccurate, but also kind of offensive.

That's all.

[riosnecktattoo]

can someone gif the bit in 3x02 when Colin tells Penelope to hide in the study and he opens the door and cause of the height difference she literally just walks under his arm where he's holding the door open