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waitmyturtles · 1 year

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Make It Right (Season 1) Edition

TW: dubious content, sex without consent, sex and alcohol

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. I’ve covered Love Sick and SOTUS so far, and today I offer my thoughts on the first season of Make It Right. This is a long post, folks.]

I admittedly started Make It Right with hesitation: there’s a lot of commentary here on Tumblr that MIR is a wholly problematic entity, a über-pulp of high school pulps, one that unabashedly doesn’t apologize for its questionable content or intentions.

In the course of my undertaking my Old GMMTV Challenge, I asked for advice on taking on Make It Right, most of all to understand the trajectory of the high school pulps from what Love Sick had started. I thought this was an important endeavor, considering what Love Sick had invested a tremendous amount of time in depicting -- AND considering that one out of two Thai BLs (it seems to me, ha, that’s kind of a joke, kinda) are based in school settings.

What I did not expect, at all, in watching Make It Right, was to see an utterly sophisticated commentary on first sex, teenage sex and love, and queer discovery. It totally surprised me and I was deeply moved.

I want to base this review in a few groundings that gave me tremendous perspective into what I was watching.

1) I had the good luck to be able to engage with @bengiyo during my watching of this show, and he’s become a dear drama friend in the process. Ben gave me a perspective that, once I heard it, I realized that I needed to hold onto it and look for this perspective in any past and future dramas that I watch.

Ben gave me the perspective that the show’s writers and directors -- New Siwaj, Cheewin Thanamin, Yuan Tin Tun, and Andy Rachyd of Love Sick, all prolific Thai BL creators -- approached the making of Make It Right with experience and knowledge about early queer male experiences and discoveries. Ben wrote to me the following:

“[New Siwaj] understands that many early sexual experiences are with other boys. And Make It Right asks what life could be if they just didn't turn against each other for it.”

How could I not be moved after I read that. You don’t need a magnifying glass to understand the implications of what Ben was indicating. All I needed was to reflect on my own teenagehood, and think about the casual homophobia that I grew up around -- and think about how devastating that homophobia was to people who wanted a fair shot at growing up happily, in a safe environment, discovering themselves without blame and shame from others.

Once Ben said that to me, I really sat up and paid full attention for the rest of my watch of MIR.

2) Ben also helped me to understand the New Siwaj oeuvre. I started MIR thinking that I hadn’t seen any of his work; but as it turned out, he was a screenwriter on Love Sick, AND he’s a screenwriter on a non-BL drama airing right now that I’m watching, Double Savage, featuring two former New Siwaj BL leads in Ohm Pawat and Perth Tanapon.

So, a quick note on New Siwaj. I’m not familiar with his PROLIFIC body of work (Until We Meet Again, Between Us, A Boss and a Babe, My Only 12%, Love By Chance, the list goes on), because I haven’t gotten there on my watchlist -- but many of you, dear readers, have watched these.

His work can be up or down, right? (Feel free to spoil me on ABAAB.) What Ben noted for me is that New is better with collaborators -- and that’s maybe why I found Make It Right to be so INCREDIBLY consistent and engrossing throughout the entire first season. For me, there wasn’t a bump. (Well, maybe except for Rod and Nine, which wasn’t my favorite ship, but I’ll quibble about that later.)

I’m glad I’m watching New Siwaj in order of the airing of his shows. I didn’t do that when I first jumped into Thai BLs. I went from KinnPorsche, to The Eclipse, to ATOTS, to Bad Buddy. Part of the goal of this project is to get oriented in the trajectory of Aof Noppharnach, whose work makes my bones ache in reflective emotional pain. But at least I get to start New’s work in chronologically correct order, and at least have an awareness of his impact on the genre.

So I’m keeping in mind that part of the magic of MIR/season 1 is the collaboration that a VERY young (like, 21-young) New Siwaj engaged in with his colleagues to make a show that, I can say with certainty, was unlike what early Thai BL fans had seen yet. MIR leveled UP by way of progressive queer content in BLs at this moment in time, in 2016, right before MaxTul debuted in Together With Me (which I understand to be the first high heat Thai BL, and is next on my watchlist).

3) The third grounding that I need to unwind is about the problematic nature of the way in which the two main ships, TeeFuse and FrameBook, were introduced. Both ships began with dubious content — one as a drunken hook-up without consent (TeeFuse) and the other as a non-drunken hook-up without consent and with initial refusal (FrameBook).

A lot of what I saw by way of commentary about MIR before picking it up was a discomfort with the way the ships were introduced like this, and how old the actors were in these scenes (Ohm Pawat was all of 16 and in braces in this first season).

Before I go on, I want to say that, unequivocally, I will never defend sex without consent in real life.

Will I defend it in art? That’s more difficult to unwind.

WHY?

Reflecting back on what Ben said about New Siwaj — what New and Cheewin were clearly going for here was a reflection on the young queer experience for teenage males in 2016.

Now, I’m not a young queer male. But I was young, once, in a big city during my college and post-grad years.

I’m also older than a lot of the majority audience here on Tumblr. I was a teenager in the 1990s. The age and eras of consent — the popular acceptance of a language of consent to sex — was not parlance in my youth.

I wonder, in MIR, if I was seeing what we label as “problematic content” as a reflection of scenes of realistically-inspired ways in which queer experiences actually came about at the time that New and Cheewin were young themselves.

In other words — why would New and Cheewin write and direct these scenes in these ways in the first place? What drove them to make their art this way?

I would argue that New and Cheewin included these scenes because they were reflective of what they themselves may have gone through as very young men.

Like I said — I was once a young lass in a big city, before the age of consent. My hook-ups? Many included alcohol. I didn’t have sex without consent, per se, but as that infamous song stated — there were certainly blurred lines at many times. I certainly wavered at times before and during a hook-up. I sometimes waffled before deciding to move forward in an intimate moment.

I think, in 2016, for New and Cheewin to make Make It Right, that as artists — if they needed to explore those blurred lines for the sake of their show, and what their show meant as a reflection of a young queer male experience — then I would defend their right to make their art.

Myself and @bengiyo would also argue that we -- as viewers of Thai BL -- bear a responsibility for not judging past historical works through a currently modern lens (I’m paraphrasing dear @bengiyo here, who said this much more eloquently than me).

A major responsibility that I think us viewers should bear when consuming queer media -- especially cishet viewers, especially viewers who do not identify as queer -- is a required self-questioning and self-reflection on WHY an idea or a scene might make you feel uncomfortable. What makes a viewer uncomfortable about witnessing a queer hook-up that may occur outside the boundaries of consent? Boundaries which were only beginning to be talked about in popular media in 2016? (Is it because the hook-up lacked a kind of communication that you want to see in art? Is it because the sex was messy, and not perfect? Is it because, implicitly, a non-consensual queer hook-up might make you uncomfortable? Is it because, implicitly, you might judge someone for having lots of sex? IT IS OKAY TO ASK YOURSELF THOSE QUESTIONS AND EXPLORE YOURSELF -- I encourage it. You will discover characteristics about yourself that you might want to explore and improve on. Self-discovery is a fabulous thing!)

Remember that the start of 2022′s Between Us was remarkable for the sensuality of asking consent from Win to a drunk Team. And that was a New Siwaj piece, too. Can New grow vis à vis his art? Of course. Extrapolating from that: should his art of 2016 be negated for elements that we might argue are “missing,” particularly from the early scenes of intimacy? No. Because 2016 was already a vastly different era in BL, as this project is proving, versus the media we consume today, which has had the benefit of DEVELOPING, and being INFLUENCED by what we’re calling the problematic art of the early years of BL.

In other, much shorter words: things get better when there’s history to learn from. This BL art that we love so much will GET BETTER, because we’ll have new and old filmmakers creating community and consuming each other’s art, and they’ll be influenced by it, and pushed to make even better art.

AND: I would argue that if New and Cheewin needed to process the problems and the awkwardness of first queer intimacy for young teenage men -- then we as viewers have the right to watch it, or to walk away. But as I said before: we as viewers bear a responsibility to understand the context of what we’re watching before we write it off -- because I believe we have to look into ourselves to discover what really makes us uncomfortable about some art. And we have to give room to artists to make art that very may well reflect their own personal experiences.

PHEW.

Okay, then. On to the actual show! A show that -- for all of what I just meditated on -- is ABSOLUTELY WORTH WATCHING.

I immediately fell in love with the first two ships, TeeFuse and FrameBook. Tee’s unabashed crush on Fuse, and Fuse’s pain at his being two-timed by his girlfriend, Jean, was presented with an unexpected crispness -- it just MOVED, fast, and smartly, to get where we needed to be to get Tee and Fuse together for their first encounter.

Frame and Book started similarly -- more consciously on Book’s end, but similarly, with a dumped-and-broken-hearted Book going outside of his boundaries, and discovering Frame, literally, on the other side of those boundaries.

I love that @absolutebl called Fuse a “chaotic bi,” and I’d throw Book in there, too. For me, the show centered on their struggles and realizations, and I really like how these two in their couplings, when juxtaposed with each other, demonstrated a VERY real sense of what happens in real-life love.

Because real-life love is MESSY. Season one ends with Fuse in two (TWO!) relationships. Frame and Book, after their first (problematic, yes) sexual encounter, deal with an extensive aftercare sequence.

When I think about these two couples -- I look back and ADMIRE the details of how complicated they were presented.

Fuse waffles between Tee and Jean. He’s OVER THE TOP in love with Tee, my gawd. Those two at the resort. The looks they’ve giving to each other as they’re presented with the couples sweets by the owner’s sweet son. (I LOVED THE MEANING OF THAT SCENE, I LOVED IT, I LOVED IT -- when you are accepted by CHILDREN, the world is a MORE PERFECT PLACE. The way Fuse held onto the child while sitting next to Tee. SWOON.)

Still in 2016 -- as what happened for most of Love Sick and Love Sick 2 -- Fuse’s reality in MIR/season 1 is that his relationship with Jean is not worth ending yet, even if she’s two-timing him. Fuse and Tee need to work out things with each other. There’s not a glimmer of what an OUT relationship looks like yet. We don’t even know yet, at the end of season 1, if out is what they want.

What Tee wants is to KNOW that Fuse is HIS. And I think season 1 ends with Tee realizing that Fuse IS HIS, despite Jean’s presence, because Jean’s presence is a necessity for Fuse in that moment. While Jean two-timed Fuse, Fuse’s reality is that he has a girlfriend, and that duality -- loving Jean vs. loving Tee -- is certainly a dilemma that’s presented as needing more time for Fuse to unwind through, thus leading us to the second season.

It makes sense to me. New and Cheewin are still admitting, even in this more open world of queerness versus Love Sick (think of the very out and adamant Yok, who fearlessly says he’s gay to everyone -- including his disapproving mother), that casual/intentional/internalized/externalized homophobia still exists. And that may drive a high school student to not leave his het relationship while having a queer revelation, AND while his girlfriend is two-timing him.

I just really liked the reality of that. Life rarely gives us clean dualities. Life instead gives us lots of gray areas. Make It Right clearly exists in the gray. Fuse is in the gray. He’s chaotic. Pulled in a lot of directions. And sweet Fuse is just figuring that shit out -- all while falling more and more for Tee.

I want to give Fuse a HUGE MOM HUG. That’s a lot to deal with. We need to know why Fuse still stays with Jean, and we need to continue to see Tee and Fuse working that out in season 2.

Going to Frame and Book: Frame and Book begin with a problematically wild hook-up, and with Book needing quite a bit of aftercare afterwards.

We complement shows like Bed Friend and Big Dragon now for containing scenes of aftercare and testing -- it’s fabulous. I had NO IDEA Make It Right went there in 2016.

I mean, they’re teenagers! Like, as a mom, I’m like -- WOW, Frame just GOT Book IN HIS CAR and was like, WE ARE GOING TO THE CLINIC, and we are going to get you medicine so that you can feel better. Some viewers might argue -- well, Frame, if you hadn’t pushed the sex in the first place, Book wouldn’t have needed the aftercare.

Correct. HOWEVER. Book was clearly -- like me, when I was young -- waffling. WAFFLING IS REAL. He was figuring out if he liked Frame, he was figuring out if he liked guys. He was figuring stuff out, and we saw him figuring stuff out, and coming to terms with his feelings.

My heart. The pain and confusion I felt in that waffling. Book knew Frame was a player. We could see his hurt when Frame jumped on the chat apps. We viscerally SAW and HEARD Book’s pain when Book mistook Frame’s aunt as a lover (yes, that happens, lol).

The thing that I loved about how this coupling was written was that Frame could see that pain and hurt, too. He wasn’t ever oblivious to it. HE DIDN’T IGNORE IT. Book had been dumped by a girlfriend on a chat app. He was worried it would happen with Frame.

Frame was direct with Book. Frame was very bisexual and sexually active. Yet, after their first encounter -- we (at least the viewers) did not see Frame in another hook-up. Frame knew Book was suspicious of something else happening, and Frame took his time to explore if Book would be serious about falling for Frame.

And Book fell! He fell so hard! He wanted, not just Frame -- he wanted a THING with Frame, he wanted stability and commitment with Frame. He demanded it. Book! My man! Oh my god, my heart.

Frame had to work around Book’s insecurities and issues with confidence and trust to get Book to trust him to be together. I think Frame was even a little surprised, when they were together in Book’s place, to discover that Book wanted exclusivity.

And what I loved about seeing them come together was that Frame was willing to meet that challenge. He had to get Book out of his lack-of-trust-and-confidence space to get Book to trust Frame. Frame just pushed for it. He saw what Book wanted, inside of all that waffling, and was able to give Book what Book demanded.

It was complicated, it was funny, it was disorganized, and it was really heartening to see Frame confess his love so loudly in the school gardens -- reminiscent of another confession moment on a school campus.

The TeeFuse and FrameBook couplings delved into a tremendous amount of detail at the kinds of things that derail relationships, queer or not. I appreciate that New and Cheewin and their collaborators didn’t shy away from the ugliness and messiness of early courtship in school settings. And I also appreciated that New and Cheewin also showed homophobia, as Book’s friends confronted him about his relationship with Frame, with Book dealing with how to confront them back; and Tan confronting Fing about her potential dalliance with Mook (oh, yes -- GL side dalliance, fam!).

I might argue that the one quibble I had about the show was New’s sometimes-penchant for too many ships in one show. I know @bengiyo is more sympathetic to the RodtangNine ship, but I don’t quite think I needed it. @bengiyo said to me that it was an important ship because Rod was first attracted to Fuse -- and then moved on, and was able to fall for Nine. The moving on was an important flow to show that an attractor doesn’t need to get stuck and obsessed only on one person -- that that demonstrates growth.

I’d just argue that the show had SO MUCH going on between TeeFuse, FrameBook, and FingMook, that there wasn’t quite enough room to get emotionally close enough to RodNine to care deeply enough for them. For me, as well, the acting of Rod was painfully bad. But that’s a minor and personal quibble.

While this piece is tremendously long, amazingly, it’s not over, because I haven’t watched season 2 yet. I’ll watch season 2 after watching Together With Me, to be chronologically correct (watchlist below). I’ll offer just one last note on the thoughts above.

If you read this and decide to give Make It Right a shot, I totally encourage it, and all the self-exploration that I spoke about before. I DEEPLY BELIEVE that TeeFuse and FrameBook are very much worth the time, for how sophisticated the writing around them is.

If the show gives you the jibbles, sit with that and try to ask yourself why. If it’s too much, turn the show off and walk away. It’s not worth the triggers you might experience.

But I think there’s joy in watching imperfect things, because life is imperfect, and art can be imperfect, too. I don’t expect perfection in the art I consume. (Case in point: the AkkAyan debates around Our Skyy 2 x The Eclipse. Case in point: the Bad Buddy finale. Case in point: the finale of Eternal Yesterday.) I can’t wish for art to always go the way I want it, because I might demand closure that makes me comfortable.

I’m old enough to know that what I’ve learned from life is that -- instead of demanding clean starts and ends -- that things are often messy and painful and hurtful, and that the joy of my life is discovering myself in how I managed those things.

And I think that’s what Make It Right captures. The boys are learning how to manage, to make it right, for themselves, as they discover themselves as young men and young adults. And I can’t help but think that that will always be a beautiful journey that I want to see in the art I watch, time and time again.

[Man, oh man. As usual: thanks and shout-outs to the family, ESPECIALLY to @absolutebl and @bengiyo for the encouragement to add and watch Make It Right -- and very especially to @bengiyo for engaging me in the most beautiful and awesome dialogue to this show. Thank you, friend.

I’m on to Together With Me, with the encouragement and convincing of @manogirl and @miscellar to explore the MaxTul ship and the first high heat in Thai BLs. Let’s go. And thanks to everyone else for their input on TwM: @shortpplfedup, @lurkingshan, @aliceisathome, @liyazaki, @aprilblossomgirl, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @clairificusrex, @respectthepetty, @nieves-de-sugui, and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle.

Here’s the watchlist, for those who are following!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) SOTUS (2016) (review here) 3) Make It Right (2016) 4) Together With Me (2016) 5) Make It Right 2 (2017) 6) Love By Chance (2018) 7) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) 8) He’s Coming To Me (2019) 9) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) 10) TharnType (2019) 11) Theory of Love (2019) 12) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 13) 2gether (2020) 14) Still 2gether (2020) 15) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 16) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 17) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 18) Not Me (2021-2022) 19) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 20) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 21) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 22) My School President (2022-2023)]

#turtles catches up with thai bls #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #fuse x tee #tee x fuse #teefuse #frame x book #book x frame #framebook #new siwaj #cheewin thanamin #ohm pawat #make it right #make it right season 1 #make it right meta

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absolutebl · 2 years

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Top 10 Whipped Boyfriends in Thai BL

Fighter for Tutor - Why R U?

Wat for Tine - 2gether

Kong for Arthit - SOTUS S

Sky for Jao - Secret Crush on You

Solo for Gui - Oxygen

Bbomb for Jin - Nitiman

Tee for Fuse - Make it Right

King for Ram - My Engineer

Gun for Bar - Tossera

Forth for Beam - 2 Moons 2

BONUS

AePete for each other - Love By Chance

This post as of mid 2022, not responsible for the ultra whipped to come after that date, although feel free to leave a comment with your favs.

After ep 3 I might have to add Takara for Amagi onto this list:

(source)

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bl-bam-beyond · 1 year

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A LOOK BACK at TEE & FUSE

MAKE IT RIGHT: THE SERIES (2016, THAILAND)

With their start being that of a sexual assault and subsequent guilt and a whirl of emotions.

Fuse (PEEMAPOL PANICHTAMRONG aka PEAK) was a heartbroken young man as he learned Jean his sweet girlfriend wasn't so sweet. That she was cheating on him. He went out and drowned his sorrows in alcohol with friends.

Completely drunk he was taken home by Tee (KRITTAPAK UDOMPANICH aka BOOM) but Fuse was unable to tell Tee his address so Tee brought him home.

A drunken question about has Tee ever had sex with boy (he hadn't) and if he wanted to try (he did)

Fuse awoke the next morning clearly dazed, confused and deflowered.

Tee felt guilty. Really Guilty. Because Fuse couldn't consent to the encounter as he was impaired. And Tee quickly caught feelings for his friend.

However though the start was not great these two young men fell madly in love. Even though Fuse had split emotions as he did not drop his girlfriend but he began a "relationship" with Tee.

@pose4photoml did you see this one?

#A LOOK BACK #THAI BL SERIES #MAKE IT RIGHT: THE SERIES #My GIFS #SEASON 1 #TEE & FUSE #A ROCKY START #MYGIFSET #2016 #BOOMPEAK #TEEFUSE #MyGIFedit

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madeinjapan-thailand-blbambeyond · 5 months

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MADE IN THAILAND

PEEMAPOL PANICHTAMRONG

[Nickname: PEAK]

KRITTAPAK UDOMPANICH

[Nickname: BOOM]

#MADE IN THAILAND #THAILAND-JAPAN BLOG #From My Main Blog: BL-BAM-BEYOND #A MAIN BLOG FEATURE: A LOOK BACK #THAI BL SERIES #MAKE IT RIGHT #MAKE IT RIGHT SEASON 2 #BOOMPEAK #TEEFUSE #My GIFS #MYGIFSET #MY-GIF-EDIT #BL-BAM-BEYOND FAMILY OF BLOGS #2016 BL DRAMA SERIES

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leaderintitleonly · 8 months

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Mun really hurt herself but she's OKAY NOW and back to writing, I swear.

:( Teefuses tomorrow!

#heigh ho mun #aw gawd it hurty!

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teefusionla · 7 months

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#clothing #clothes #website

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laytalaybestboi · 4 years

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BL COUPLE GIFS

Here are some bl couple gifs and these are in the order I watched them in. Enjoy!! :)))

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juneviews · 3 years

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axelle judges bl shows > Make It Live: On The Beach

summary: Tee and Fuse make a memorable trip to the beach on their third anniversary and together they reminiscence on their early days.

where to watch: dramacool

grade: 6/10

pros:

- familiar faces with a familiar soundtrack I guess?

- the acting & production weren’t bad I suppose.

cons:

- nothing happens?? like genuinely there’s one plot point in these whole six episodes & it’s an annoying one. I feel like if it was another ship that was more enticing they could’ve gotten away with it, but teefuse were already quite a dull ship (no offense) & it was more than 2 years after the end of make it right, so I just don’t know why this show happened at all.

- the text on the screen every five seconds was soooooo annoying & added nothing to the show whatsoever, only took from it.

would I rewatch it: nope

I decided to watch this 2 years after its release despite having never had the need to watch it for some reason... and yeah I regret that lol

#make it live on the beach #teefuse #axelle judges bl shows #bypiningbisexuals

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annoyed4thsister · 3 years

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My favorite BL couples

I miss Frame and Book😢😢😢

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heretherebedork · 3 years

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Yes, look to your 'friend' before you confirm if she's you're girlfriend. That's very believable and not obvious at all. Not in the slightest.

I feel bad for Jean and then I remember that she answered a phone call in the middle of a movie and I stop feeling bad for her at all.

But, Fuse. Fuse, darling, having a girlfriend and a secret boyfriend has never ended well for anyone involved on any level ever. Especially when you do things with both of them at the same time.

Teenaged idiots, idiots everywhere, but adorable idiots at least.

Poor Tee.

Omfg watching Fuse try to manage them both is like watching a puppy try to catch a tennis ball in an actual tennis match.

#make it right #mir #teefuse #francis watches old bl #just me cackling #poor fuse #but of his own making #so i can't feel too bad i guess

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jimkookinie · 4 years

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Rewatching Why R U again and this scene still hits different lmao 😜

#thai bl #bl drama #thai drama #why r u the series #zonsaifah #saintzee #fightertutor #tharntype #mewgulf #make it right #teefuse

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waitmyturtles · 11 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Make It Right (Season 2) Edition

TW: suicidal ideation, suicide attempt

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. I’ve covered Love Sick, SOTUS, Make It Right (season 1), and Together With Me so far, and today I offer my thoughts on Make It Right, season 2.]

Alright! Like I mentioned last week in my analysis of Together With Me, this review of Make It Right, season 2, is out of order chronologically from my watchlist (pasted below), as I mixed up the air dates of TwM and MIR2 -- MIR2 aired before Together With Me. I do have some quick thoughts on what I saw in TwM that may have been inspired by MIR2 -- we’ll get to that later in this post.

I’ve been noodling a lot on how I want to frame out my thoughts on this gorgeous second season of Make It Right -- and to focus in general on why this series hasn’t gotten the kind of historical love that I think it ABSOLUTELY deserves. Separately and recently, I’ve been feeling very wiggly and bummed out about what’s happening in BL fandom by way of episodes of Step By Step being edited to remove meta commentary about shipping culture and the BL industry -- and it made me wonder whether there are points to be made about shipping culture regarding MIR and its historical significance. The absolutely wonderful @miscellar has noted for me that MIR gave rise at least to Thai teenage actors participating in this culture for the first time. (Thank you for all the conversations, @miscellar!)

The whole Step By Step debacle last week got me heated. But I think, after VERY helpful and calming conversations with @bengiyo and @lurkingshan (THANK YOU, MY DEAR FRIENDS!), that the general historical regard for MIR is not directly related to a criticism of whole-scale shipping culture per se. (I’ll save all this shipping criticism for another post and another day, very much informed in part by this incredible post by @absolutebl from last year.)

Despite all of this, I think there’s something here about the ways that the majority BL fandom accept the complications of queer life, and depictions of queer joy and emotional equity, that I want to pick apart later in this post.

Before I do that: let me offer some critical thoughts on the second season as a way of addressing pitfalls that may have held MIR2 back in the historical reminiscence of respect and/or nostalgia that other shows, like Love Sick and SOTUS, have around them. Thanks to @lurkingshan for talking this through in part with me.

1) After reading more about MIR on Tumblr and Reddit, it really seems to me like the number one reason why people haven’t glommed more onto MIR/MIR2 is because of the youth of the actors and the heat of the show’s few intimate scenes -- which, as I wrote in my post on the first season, is interesting to me, because teenagers have sex in real life. At least for me, the youth of the actors did not make me uncomfortable, and in conversations with @bengiyo, it was amazing to me to see queer love BEING ENJOYED by young men -- and in @bengiyo‘s paraphrased words, to see those young men not suffer in their societies and families because of that queer love. (Let me also reference Perth Nakhun’s recent video about the BL industry and his joy about acceptance in shows.)

2) @lurkingshan, I agree with you that there are MANY editing fumbles in this second season, particularly related to how sex was portrayed between classmates Lukmo and Yok (Yok, who very strongly defended his out sexuality to his mother in the first season). New Siwaj and his side couples, man. Rodtang and Nine still confound me. But I agree with @lurkingshan when she stated to me that the weirdly filmed and edited sex scenes -- which, I think, were likely included as a way to hew closely to MIR’s canon novel, but that is ONLY a guess -- undermined Yok’s actual very emotional, VERY beautifully acted journey in realizing that a bisexual Lukmo was falling in love with him (Yok), a very out and gay young man. Sex scenes that included mortars and pestles (yep), weird pacing, food metaphors...it didn’t seem to work, and undermined Mo and Yok’s emotional journey. But I really don’t know if I’m missing something by way, again, of cultural reference back to the canon novel.

The other major editing fumble that @lurkingshan and I both noted is that interspersed in Frame’s tending to Book after a major emotional disaster for Book, is that Frame seems to have gotten a tattoo of their names that he then gets removed -- but we never saw him get the tattoo in the first place, and the reason why he gets it removed isn’t consistent with the ending of the series.

Many of you know New Siwaj better than me (A Boss and a Babe just ended, and I heard there were thoughts about the ending), and I’m going to get to know him more later in my watchlist. I know he likes to throw in all this side couple action without always tying knots eloquently. I’d say again (sorry @bengiyo!) that the RodtangNine ship was unnecessary, and that while Mo and Yok were fine -- that Yok’s trust journey to Mo was really the most compelling part of the ship, and that was about it.

All of what I’ve just stated can, and has, definitely held MIR/MIR2 back in the historical regard, like I said earlier.

BUT.

I will make a VERY STRONG ARGUMENT, as I did for the first season, that it is ABSOLUTELY WORTH watching through that stuff to get to the gold of the second season. Overall, this second season gutted me.

While I’ve mentioned New Siwaj as a director and screenwriter throughout both of my MIR posts, I haven’t talked enough about Cheewin Thanamin, New’s collaborator on both seasons of MIR. I posted a lot during my late-night blogs about how Cheewin and his character in the show, Christina, were an ABSOLUTE WONDER in this second season. This is Cheewin/Christina comforting Yok after Yok worries about Lukmo’s investment in their relationship:

Imagine watching this after Love Sick and SOTUS -- two shows that did not address being gay. And then we have Christina/Cheewin going right to the heart of it in MIR.

I bring up Cheewin not only because his Christina was a wonder, but because he directed the much more recent Bed Friend -- and, as I noted in my post-watch flip-out after finishing MIR2 -- that I saw a LOT of MIR2 in Bed Friend and vice versa.

Not to spoil anything, but not only do the two main ships, TeeFuse and FrameBook, have happy endings -- but they have emotionally complicated journeys to get to those endings during the second season.

As @absolutebl has noted often, the second season of MIR is even more chaotic than the first. (If I’m doing a Bed Friend comparison here, I’ll think of episodes four/five/six, where Uea’s trauma seems to just pile up, and us viewers are like -- how the HELL are they gonna get out of this.)

Tee and Fuse are confirmed in love, but Fuse does NOT leave his girlfriend, Jean. Frame and Book are confirmed as a couple, but Book is held back by an unrevealed insecurity, that turns out to be related to a sex tape he was unwittingly filmed in by an ex-boyfriend -- and then the video is released to the audience of his high school classmates.

Fucking chaos. My dear man, Fuse -- bro should have DEFINITELY LEFT JEAN earlier in the series, because Jean was DEFINITELY TWO-TIMING HIM with a dude she was calling HER BROTHER, that Fuse had NEVER MET in the course of their relationship (?!).

And, poor, sweet, patient Tee. Tee, being courted by dudes all around him. Tee who, after FINALLY being able to be with Fuse, after Fuse FINALLY comes to his senses -- Tee holds himself back, and gives himself the space to recognize what’s happening between him and Fuse. He sees what’s happening with his mom and her new boyfriend, and how the new boyfriend’s behavior might be a little concerning -- but that the boyfriend decides to ultimately hold himself responsible for his own behavior to make Tee’s mom happy and stable. And after all of that -- SEEING how his mom’s boyfriend will stabilize himself, SEEING how Fuse stabilizes himself -- Tee finally dives in with Fuse with love and commitment. GORGEOUS.

FrameBook. MY GUYS. Frame, head over HEELS in love with Book. Book, SWEET Book, holding back with secrets about his past. We learn that Book is very bisexual, having had a boyfriend in the past who filmed their sex. Book, questioning himself as a “good person” in the case the video got leaked, and Frame confirming with conviction that he would be at Book’s side if anything ever happened. The video gets leaked, and Book loses it. Frame is by his side as much as Book will allow it, with Book pushing Frame away constantly, to the point of a suicide attempt that Frame saves Book from.

These are stories of unintended trauma. Uea’s life story in Bed Friend was one of unintended trauma. What New and Cheewin are showing us in MIR2 are the stories of trauma that arise from these young men -- these LOVELY, well-intentioned, queer young men -- FINDING THEMSELVES in a society that is DESIGNED by paradigms to be INFORMED by toxic masculinity, internalized and externalized homophobia, cishet societal prioritizations, and much more working against them.

Fuse doesn’t leave Jean literally because he feels bad for her. Because society TELLS HIM he SHOULD feel bad for a girl who, what? Pretends to like him? Book is driven to a suicide attempt because a same-sex sex tape could bring down the careers of his demanding and absent parents, and could condemn him at school. Christina comforts Yok as Yok waits for Lukmo to get over his ex-girlfriend, with Christina saying to Yok, “Lukmo is not like us, Yok.”

This second season focused on how the bigger aspects of bigger society could have potentially held the guys back. Even after Tee and Fuse are very much a couple, they overhear homophobic comments in a cafe, and Fuse needs to pull Tee back. Fuse no longer has any reason to hold back his love for Tee, and he’s certainly not going to let social homophobia stop him, after the mistakes he went through with Jean.

I didn’t realize what was happening by way of comparing Bed Friend to MIR2 until the last two episodes of MIR2. Remember that the last two episodes of Bed Friend were just joyful. (I mean, Pran’s dad gets his, and Uea’s mom freaks out, but whatever -- they ended in the right places for Uea and King.) (And, yachts.)

For me, the last two episodes of MIR2 slowed everything down into a burst of joy, like Bed Friend. The boys went to the beach. Cheewin took them to the water before he took Uea and King there in Bed Friend.

Book survived. He’s beyond thankful for Frame’s interventions and loyalty.

Fuse has the most gorgeous confession to Tee.

They become boyfriends. Two months go by. Frame and Book are asked to model same-sex wedding photos (had we seen that yet in a Thai BL, in 2017?) And then Frame proposes -- like, actually proposes!

Besides that proposal, there were so many other moments, as I blogged about, in the last episode that really moved me, and again, took me back to Bed Friend. I’ll repeat myself from that last blog post and from earlier in this post:

I think what New and Cheewin did was VERY intentional in including stories of trauma. Make It Right was meant to show journeys to queer joy and emotional equity on behalf of young queer men -- young queer men JUST LIKE New and Cheewin themselves at the time they made MIR.

As I wrote in my final Bed Friend review, there were folks on the Bed Friend tag that wondered if Bed Friend needed the last two episodes. I strongly argue that the series ABSOLUTELY needed those episodes, to show the LOVE and JOY that had grown between Uea and King after everything they had gone through -- that queer men DESERVE JOY, even if, AND ESPECIALLY IF, they’ve gone through journeys of trauma at the hands of microsystemic and macrosystemic society that generally condemns queerness, and does not celebrate it.

Make It Right and Bed Friend showed that our boys can fight, win, and be happy. THEY CAN DO IT. THEY WILL NOT LET SOCIETY HOLD THEM BACK.

Goddamn. We got two proposals in MIR2 and in Bed Friend, in a country that has not legalized same-sex marriage.

Both MIR/MIR2 and Bed Friend were marketed as high heat shows (thanks to @lurkingshan for this link!). Especially with Bed Friend, I think myself and other viewers were thrown with the subsequent trauma-informed storylines.

But I think that was Cheewin being fucking REAL. He was real about both his shows.

As compared to Love Sick and SOTUS -- MIR2 was complicated! It WAS chaotic. The dudes WERE young. Fuse was complicated vis à vis Jean. In real life, Ohm and Toey’s ship ended when Toey and his girlfriend were bullied by BL fans. That shit’s messed the fuck up.

I can absolutely understand why MIR/MIR2 doesn’t live in the history books as a must-watch, the way that folks have nostalgia for Love Sick or even SOTUS. MIR/MIR2 are not at all linear stories. (Not to say that Love Sick was linear -- but it treated its characters much more lightly.)

Cheewin gave us stories of how complicated queer joy is in the face of the social impediments that the queer community -- in this case, queer young men -- face. That brutality can be hard to deal with. It’s not fluffy. These are not fluffy storylines. Book WAS DEVASTATED by every single implication of his unwitting sex tape being released. Frame’s heart and patience WERE hurt by Book pushing him away. Tee’s patience WAS tested, time and time and time again. In real life, the OhmToey ship ended BECAUSE fans demanded a fluffy false reality to that ship continuing. Both on-screen and off, MIR carried complicated baggage.

I argue that for fans of BL, that Make It Right/Make It Right 2 are must-watches, because of that complicated nature. When Together With Me airs after Make It Right, we get streamlined down again -- ONE major couple, one focus, and guaranteed high heat, with only light (and sometimes toxic) side couples.

Make It Right instead lifts viewers into the complicated soup, and that’s where I like to live in my favorite dramas. I like trauma-informed storylines, because if a show is successful at unwinding them, the payoff is usually SO much more satisfying.

But trauma also hews to reality. If I see my beloved characters struggling AUTHENTICALLY? As a person, as a mom, as an ally, I’m all that more connected to what I’m watching. Because I know that trauma for young queer men, in REAL life, is VERY REAL, within the paradigms of homophobia and other societal guardrails that implicitly inform how we all behave vis à vis each other.

Make It Right, as I wrote in my review of the first season, was ultimately about young queer men making their lives RIGHT FOR THEMSELVES. Subsequently, Bad Buddy did it for its boys. Bed Friend did it for its boys.

Make It Right did it first. Make It Right, in its two seasons, took us through very detailed journeys that got our boys to their right places, in a most beautiful, sophisticated, and emotional way.

I’m thankful that New and Cheewin took us on these journeys. Whatever biases we may hold against the series -- question those biases. Go on this journey with these characters, and celebrate young queer love, because it’s absolutely worth celebrating.

[Oh man -- I’m a little wiped! Not only did MIR2 totally gut me, but I decided to take on Step By Step to join the protest against extreme BL fandom (lol), so I’m a little behind on starting SOTUS S. But that’s up next. And I know I’m also going to be taken for a spin over the course of the next two weeks with Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy/ATOTS, so expect a few delays from me on this project with those detours as well.

Talking to @bengiyo and @lurkingshan about Make It Right/Make It Right 2 was an UTTER pleasure. THANK YOU AGAIN, FRIENDS. I so appreciate you both taking the time to unwind with me.

Here’s the watchlist as it currently stands. One quick update: after @manogirl suggested watching Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey 1 and 2 for its BL cuts/OffGun exposure, I’ve decided to add it to the list. @manogirl, you were totally right about my adding a ship focus with MaxTul/Together With Me before, so I’m following your lead again with OffGun. THANK YOU for your thoughts! (And thank GAWD those cuts are short!)

As ever, I’ll always take recommendations and thoughts from the fam!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) SOTUS (2016) (review here) 3) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (watching) 7) Love By Chance (2018) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) 11) TharnType (2019) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) 14) Dew the Movie (2019) (not an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but I want to watch this in chronological order with everything else) 15) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 16) 2gether (2020) 17) Still 2gether (2020) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 19) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 20) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 21) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 22) Not Me (2021-2022) 23) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 24) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 25) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 26) My School President (2022-2023) 27) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here)]

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absolutebl · 2 years

Photo

Wait a minute... I’ve seen 'em before?

BL Actor Guest Cameos!

I’m choosing only leads or mains or icons showing up in other shows.

A Man Who Defies the Wold of BL 2 feat Izuka Kenta from the Pornographer (AKA the Novelist) series - I love this one because he’s an iconic character in the Novelist, a college kid seduced and gaslit by an older man, where as in ABL2 he plays the opposite, a seductive older man who messes around with the heart of a younger one. Japan is, as usual, being very trixy. (He ALSO shows up in Ameiro Paradox)

Kieta Hatsukoi AKA My Love Mix-Up! feat Shirasu Jin from Life Love On The Line - Japan being cheeky again by putting an actor who perviously played a character who could not come to terms with his sexuality, having a real hard time coming to terms with someone else’s sexuality this time around.

Secret Crush on You feat Saint from Love By Chance & Why R U? (Thailand) - yes he’s got a producer credit, it was still fun to see him pop in and smile.

Cutie Pie feat BounPrem from Until We Meet Again (+others) - they came, they shilled for marriage equality in Thailand, they conquered.

What’s Zabb Man feat Bas from 2 Moons (+others) - yes, Thailand’s Star Hunter studio does a lot of crossovers, but I found this one particularly amusing.

SOTUS S feat Gun (for OffGun) at the time from Puppy Honey (Thailand) - it was just amusing to see OffGun show up in their nascent form.

Plus and Minus feat Akihiro Kawai & Lance Chiu from See You After Quarantine? (Taiwan) - they even snuck in the name Haru (the fake name that started the romance in SYAQ) but they clearly aren’t playing the same characters.

Plus and Minus feat Arron Lai & Hank Wang from Be Loved in House I Do (Taiwan) - ostensibly playing different characters but only JUST.

Nobleman Ryu's Wedding feat Lee Sang from Wish You (Korea) - this was really cheeky since he was previously paired with the same lead, in other words this was a cameo of “the other man”.

Ocean Likes Me feat Park Bum Jun from Behind Cut (Korea) just looking gorgeous in the background of a crowd scene. I mean, I get it, why not?

Mark from Bite Me and Love By Chance popping in to play an actor member of the cat tribe in Meow Ears Up, he also showed up in love

Mechanics as the momentary love interest for Nuea we all actually wanted to see happen.

About Youth feat Wilson Liu from HIStory 3: MODC & HIStory 4 as a senior student speaking English.

Choco Milk Shake feat Yeon Seung Ho from Long Time No See (Wild Dog) as the one good ex-boyfriend.

I dithered over Mean and Prem in The Yearbook, but then decided not to bother. Kinda my general feelings about that show.

And...

BL Character Crossover Cameos!

Since characters are IP this is a much more dangerous territory. Often you’ll notice they aren’t called by name, or the name is spelled differently than the original. But we ALL KNOW what’s going on here.

Why R U? feat TeeFuse, the main characters from Make it Right (Thailand).

Why R U? feat TharnType, the main characters from TharnType (Thailand).

Korea also got in on the game and had MaxNat (whose couple originated in WRU?) appear in their remake of Why R U? as a background couple. Very clever.

Tan & Dr Bun the leads from Manner of Death (MaxTul) in Triage the series (Thailand) - this is a full on character couple cross over, named (and married) and authorized, and rare to see. It’s because the same author is responsible for both source y-novels.

HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count feat Cheng Qing from HIStory Stay Away From Me (Taiwan) - he’s not named, but he is referred to as an idol and he alludes to his secret relationship so I think we can assume he’s the same character.

The side dishes from HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count (they got engaged) show up and get married in HIStory 4 Close To You. Which was cute. It’s a bit more than a cameo spanning several episodes, but it was very fun to see. And they play the same characters.

Be Loved in House I Do feat Hao Ting from HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count (Taiwan) - I think we can assume from the advice he gives that this is the same character on the, shall we call it, Taiwanese timeline as opposed to...

My personal favorite, Hao Ting & Xi Gu (in an alternate timeline and billed only as Taiwanese tourists) from HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count (Taiwan) showing up at the end of Life Love On The Line (Japan) in the only known country cross over of BL characters. I love the irony of this, since apparently took Japan (NOTORIOUS for it’s unhappy and dark BL endings) to give these two an actual happy ever after.

For once, we all preferred the Japanese ending.

And then they did it AGAIN in Plus & Minus.

And AGAIN in Kisseki: Dear to Me!

Honestly it feels like, sometimes, Taiwan is constantly trying to apologize for HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count with all these cameos, WHICH THEY SHOULD.

In Thailand it’s director Cheewin who likes to do this a lot. He’s also very cheeky in Y-Destiny doing a love triangle (sort of) between YoonLay (YYY’s KnottPunn) and PerthLay (My Engineer’s RamKing) as one of the story arcs - making his pair (from YYY) the “winners.”

He got ahead of himself by featuring the main couples for Middleman’s Love in Cutie Pie but then JimmyTommy pulled out. So this is a very brief look at a series that never was (in this form?) crossing over.

Like faux crossover.

However, TutorYim, also from Cutie Pie, show up very briefly in Jun & Jun as friends of Simon for no apparent reason.

When Korea goes all on of a trope they really, the same year all their crossover couples started to appear (2023) they also had Love Class original couple show up in Love Class 2.

Honorable mention to Ae’s Tote from Thai BL Love By Chance getting a cameo appearance in Taiwanese BL About Youth.

(source)

post dated Aug 2023, not responsible for studios being cheeky after this date

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