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fydramas · 4 months
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@asiandramanet creator bingo ㅡ free choice
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waitmyturtles · 4 months
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Pain, Trust, and Separation in Some Asian Dramas (The Second Post In a Series of Utterly Un-scholastic, Highly Personal Big Meta)......
AKA, Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 2 -- How Themes of Pain, Trust, and Separation Create Structure and Narrative in Bad Buddy and Other Asian BLs
[The following is a preamble I use for my Old GMMTV Challenge posts, here we go! 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.Today, I offer the second of four posts on Bad Buddy, and the second in a Big Meta series on pain in some Asian dramas, including QLs and/or het romances. I'll look today at how ideas of pain in love, trust in love, and separation of partners/family members creates narrative drive in Bad Buddy and other Asian BLs. THIS IS A LONG POST, caveat emptor.]
Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4
Well, after a lot of titles and a chewy preamble (thank you for getting through that, y'all!), I'm here to say that I'm combining my two ongoing meta series into one big ol' post here that I've been dying to write for months. In the course of my watching the shows on the Thailand-based Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist, as well as watching shows from my BL gateway of Japan, I've noticed that the themes of pain and trust in love, along with voluntary or involuntary separation, have been used to create dramatic and narrative structure within Asian dramatic stories to many emotional effects.
I'm celebrating the incredible Thai BL drama that is Bad Buddy in my OGMMTVC series at the moment, and within my Big Meta series on pain in Asian dramas, I examine how themes of pain so very often harken back to artistic, and even traditional, viewpoints of how pain, suffering, and melancholy are natural cultural assumptions within many collectivist Asian societies. In my first Big Meta on pain and suffering in Asian dramas, I wrote that "accepting pain and suffering is a part of the life we decide to live, from an Asian cultural perspective." Suffering is a naturally assumed part of life, a very distinct and identified part of a Buddhist's lived life, and even outside of Buddhism, accepting and living with difficulties of all kinds -- wealth disparities, the struggle for a good education and/or a successful career, the struggle to conform to collectivist familial and/or social expectations, etc. -- are extremely common themes that are unwound on in Asian lives on a minute-to-minute basis. The idea that an Asian must live with pain is often a root of intergenerational trauma, passed along from generation to generation of Asian children-to-adults. The social mores by which Asians are raised and live, to assume what Westerners might call a lack of unconditional parental love and affection, are certainly in part rooted in an assumption that living with pain and without the, say, luxury of turning over one's emotions at any given moment, are an automatic given.
As I've plodded through the OGMMTVC watchlist, I noticed very often that separation of people -- whether those people are lovers, children/parents, or simply just adults within a group -- is often a major narrative turning point in the course of a dramatized relationship. Of course it would be; it's a common trope within the romance genre, for instance.
But I find the separation of people otherwise connected to each other -- and the assumed pain of that separation, and the trust that people may have to return to each other -- particularly fascinating within the realm of Asian dramas, for reasons relating to the assumption of pain and suffering in one's life within Asian cultures that I mentioned above. In other words, the pain of separation, and the trust that one might have that one person will come back to another person -- are givens within the scope of Asian life.
In the following dramas, I note that separation is either a central storytelling point, or is a central focus of side characters:
1) The Thai filmmaker, Aof Noppharnach, has explored separation of people/lovers in many of his shows, including Still 2gether, A Tale of Thousand Stars (in multiple forms), and in Bad Buddy (also in multiple forms, romantic and/or familial).
2) Also from Thailand, Until We Meet Again and I Promised You The Moon are two non-GMMTV dramas in which separation of lovers plays an important concluding narrative role.
3) From Japan, the movie version of Cherry Magic: 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! captures an important central narrative of separation that leads the franchise's two protagonists, Adachi and Kurosawa, to explore depth in honesty and intimacy that they may not have otherwise achieved in their everyday lives.
The painful separation that occurs in Aof Noppharnach's shows is most often related to the outside forces of life as it needs to be lived -- very often economically -- within or external to Thailand. In Bad Buddy, Pran leaves for Singapore for two years. I'm going to unwind much more on Pran leaving for Singapore in the final installment of my Bad Buddy OGMMTVC meta series, particularly by way of how he can do it, emotionally. But I want to offer a quick note about Pran's departure that the show gives a hint to (despite the pain that we feel in our hearts for Pat's loneliness from Pran, as depicted so beautifully by Ohm Pawat and his silent and longing existence as Pat in the first half of the Bad Buddy series finale). The BBS finale has Pran stating that he'll only be away for two years, and that the pay and the opportunity for an excellent architecture job were better in Singapore. In conversation with the fabulous Thai blogger, @recentadultburnout, RAB mentioned that this is a common occurrence among young Thais -- to move overseas for better job opportunities.
In spite of my heart breaking a bit for Pran being away from Pat when I first learned about his leaving for Singapore -- when RAB put Pran's departure in that context, I had to slap my cheek a bit. Because! I'm a child of Asian immigrants. Separation from family for better economic opportunities is a HUGE part of our paradigm of life between continents. As my Asia-based uncle, my mother's brother, once put it, in regards to my mother: "one of the children in our families always had to move away." For my mother's family, it was my mom who shipped off. Besides individuals seeking better economic opportunities for themselves, the economies of many Asian countries are dependent on the reception of remittances from overseas family members sending money back to their home countries, as my mom did for years; the Philippines is particularly notable for having a nearly 9% contribution from overseas remittances to its gross domestic product. In other words? The separation of loved ones is literally built into the financial frameworks of many Asian nations.
The separation of children or partners to overseas locales for the sake of better salaries and/or opportunities is simply a more assumed part of the cultural paradigm, I'd argue, in Asia than in the West. Family separations for jobs are extremely common in Asia; in the West, I'm not sure they are as assumed, especially for extensive separations, as the value placed on keeping a family unit together for cultural or spiritual reasons seems to be more a part of the Western fabric of life (despite our high rate of divorce).
We see an even more permanent economic separation happen in Still 2gether between two side characters -- Type, played by Toptap Jirakit, who is Tine's (Win Metawin) brother, and Man (Mike Chinnarat), who is Sarawat's (Bright Vachiwarit) friend. Man chased after Type during the first 2gether season; in Still 2gether, they're navigating their committed relationship, as Type contemplates, then accepts, a permanent job offer in Phuket, hours away from their home base in Bangkok.
As @lurkingshan put it, I might be the only person on the planet contemplating Type's and Man's relationship (lmao, it do be true), but I found Type's last conversation with Man, on the beach, to be particularly direct and moving for someone who has no immediate plans to move back to the side of the person he's dating.
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I think about this scene against the structure of the short series that is Still 2gether, which is centered around the protagonists of Sarawat and Tine being temporarily separated as they prepare to compete in a university-wide tournament. Sarawat has the most lovely contemplation on love during this separation, and even Aof Noppharnach himself admits that the glance that Sarawat and Tine give to each other as they pass each other in the lead-up to the ultimate tournament is his favorite scene he's ever filmed (!!!) (and that scene is sooooo reminiscent of Pran's and Pat's pinky-hold after their public "break-up").
In other words: Still 2gether is ALL about separation, and contemplating the strength of love relationships in the face of those separations. While Sarawat and Tine will get back together, after that tournament -- Type and Man are separated for the foreseeable future. There is no end indicated to the patience that Type wants from Man. The conversation is just, THERE, and hanging -- there's an acknowledgment that long-distance relationships are tough, but Type isn't offering to quit his job and move back to Bangkok. Instead, Type and Man are left to accept the reality that there is no end in sight to their separation.
And I think this was incredibly bold of Aof Noppharnach to include in a GMMTV BL that otherwise ended happily for Tine and Sarawat, the main protagonists. What I admire about Aof's works are these sly inclusions of open-ended, sometimes melancholy non-resolutions, either for his main or his support characters, that leave us as viewers often slightly unsatisfied or unfulfilled. He did this in particular with the character of Aof in Gay OK Bangkok, a web series that he screenwrote in 2016; and many might say that Pran being away in Singapore is also not the most satisfying of endings for our beloved PatPran in Bad Buddy. To me, these decisions to do this artistically are just incredibly reminiscent, again, of the kind of pain that we as Asians have been culturally attuned to accept, for the sake of economics, and/or for the sake of the betterment of our loved ones.
Besides economic separations in Aof Noppharnach's works, we also have separations related to family demands and desires. In A Tale of Thousand Stars and Our Skyy 2 x A Tale of Thousand Stars, we see Tian leaving Phupha's side for two years to study for a graduate degree at Tian's mom's insistence; and we see Phupha refusing to join Tian, after Tian has graduated and moved back to Pha Pun Dao, on trips Tian takes back to Bangkok to celebrate his birthday with his parents.
When I rewatched ATOTS earlier this year, I noted that both Phupha and Tian were remarkably bad communicators throughout the original series -- and I posited that, in large part, their terrible communication was borne out by way of the both of them being raised in traditionally masculine Asian households that seemed to not allow for leeway regarding emotional revelations. BOTH Phupha and Tian were expected and intended to follow in the footsteps and demands of their family members. To the end of the ATOTS storyline in Our Skyy 2, Phupha brings up his parents -- and he hears what he has been wanting to confirm from Tian's parents, in their desire to have Phupha take care of Tian for the rest of their lives.
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Phupha in particular needed to have multiple gateways opened to him, vis à vis Tian's family, in order to properly and openly confirm his permanent love and commitment to Tian. If Phupha didn't have that? He was willing to be separated from Tian, either temporarily, or at length. Phupha needed a kind of culturally accepting door opened to him -- as a man raised in what we assume to be a rural and traditional environment that may very well have not allowed for a gay man to live openly and honestly. Phupha indeed follows in his father's footsteps, to the extent of never leaving Pha Pun Dao, and demanded that he have Tian's family's approval before making the final commitment to Tian to love Tian forever.
I find the cultural nuances of nuclear family separation, or separation encouraged by nuclear family, to be particularly heartbreaking in many of Aof Noppharnach's works. We know that Jim and Jam, brother and sister in Moonlight Chicken, ran away from their Isan hometown as youths to find their lives in Pattaya, where we meet them in the context of that show. But separation either from nuclear family, or more impactfully, done by nuclear family, is most evident in Bad Buddy.
Besides Pran voluntarily leaving for Singapore, we know that Pran has been involuntarily separated from Pat before -- when Pran was transferred to a boarding school in 10th grade by his mother, Dissaya. Before that transfer, Pran and Pat were technically "separated" by their parents in so far as they were not supposed to become friends -- all while competing heavily against each other in every category of life.
That boarding school transfer? That wasn't just separating Pran from Pat. What I found remarkable about that separation during my recent BBS rewatches is that Dissaya HERSELF chose to be physically separated from her own son, for the sake of her rivalry with Pat's father, Ming.
I'm thinking about this particularly from the words she used with Pran as they sat at breakfast together before Pran started his second year at university, when Dissaya said that Pran could date anyone, men or women, as long as he "didn't date [the next door kid]."
My interpretation of that perspective is that Dissaya did not want Pran to relieve the heartbreak that she herself experienced when she was close with Ming in her teenage years.
In other words: she chose to send her son away in the face of her ongoing, lifelong fear that Ming and his family would once again wreak havoc on her and her clan.
In the continuation of the intergenerational trauma wrought upon Pat and Pran by their parents -- as a mother myself, this seems to be particularly egregious. Dissaya would have rather had her son AWAY FROM HER, than to contemplate her son even being WITHIN physical proximity to Pat in the context of her hatred of Pat's father, Ming, and the fear that she had that the Jindapats would negatively influence the Siridechawats again.
(The wonderful @telomeke reminded me, in conversation on this topic, that the first question Dissaya asks Pran, after learning about the first faculty fight in episode 1 when Pran re-encounters Pat for the very first time, was, "Did he hurt you, Pran?" Dissaya cannot bear to allow the Jindapats to hurt her son, or her family, ever again.)
I wrote in my first Big Meta on pain and suffering that Asian parenting expectations and mores are far more conditional than they are in the West, as parenting mores in the West are centered around unquestioned and unconditional love from parents to children. So much of Bad Buddy meta out there focuses on the internal experiences of Pran and Pat. When I sat back to think about Dissaya making the decision for herself to be separated from her son for years -- and then to also contemplate pulling Pran FROM COLLEGE when she learns that Pat goes to Pran's university -- I mean. We know Dissaya and Ming both tried their best to embody their hatred of each other into their children. But Dissaya takes it a couple steps further, by attempting to literally control Pran's physical existence vis à vis Pat, which -- and I'm going to sound like a judgmental Westerner here, even as an Asian -- strikes me as out of line by way of just pure emotional projection onto one's children.
When Pran goes to Singapore, at the end of the series, it's out of his own volition. Again, I'll write more about this at the end of my BBS OGMMTVC meta series. But what he experienced by ways of many TYPES of separation from Pat throughout his life -- competitively, emotionally, and then physically -- are extensive. He was physically separated from Pat by Dissaya. He was theoretically "separated" from Pat emotionally, by being discouraged in having a friendship with Pat. He is physically separated from Pat *again* when he goes to Singapore. And I posit later in this piece that Pat and Pran had another theoretical "separation" when they are pretending to be broken up throughout the course of their relationship.
When I think about what teenage Pran must have felt to be *physically sent away* -- BY and FROM his own family, for their sake of his family's desires to avoid ANOTHER family -- it explains a hell of a lot more about Pran's tendency to dissociate, particularly during stressful times. (We see this when he's alone at the demolished bus stop, and cutely in Our Skyy 2, as Pat encourages a grumpy Pran to go to Pha Pun Dao.)
And where Pat balanced Pran out -- where Pat could offer the kind of companionship, and relaxed and equitable communication that Pran had never had with his family -- was where Pran could finally experience truly open and SAFE love from and with another person, another person who wouldn't *send him away* if Pran didn't play by their rules. Instead, Pat fought by Pran's side, and Pran was willing to fight, too, and they remained together, and safe in their love and trust.
Whew. Dissaya separating Pran from his own family, from herself -- to leave him alone at boarding school -- seriously punches me in the gut, especially as a mother myself. I'm thinking about a teenager, on the cusp of adulthood, alone to contemplate his unending love for Pat, and I'm like.... I wouldn't leave a kid alone like that for a moment. But for Dissaya, her husband, and their pride? It seemed to be a worthwhile decision in that moment. A decision that we know would blow up in their faces in episode 10 of Bad Buddy.
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In Pran's first separation from Pat -- Pran did not have personal agency. He did have agency later on, as he moved to Singapore, which again, I'll contemplate in a further meta.
Two instances where I was impressed by protagonists leveraging their agency vis à vis temporary separations from their partners was in Until We Meet Again and in I Promised You The Moon.
UWMA's Pharm was first and foremost presented as a blushing maiden. HOWEVER: Pharm demonstrated quite a bit of sexual agency early in the series. He was forward in his crush on Dean. He contemplated openly being gay. And he wasn't afraid to push Dean away when Dean was moving too fast sexually.
At the end of the series, after Dean and Pharm have resolved their spiritual connection vis à vis the embodied spirits of Korn and Intouch meeting once more -- Pharm wants to know if the love between him and Dean is real, and independent of the influence of the spirits of Korn and Intouch. So: Pharm asks for a break.
Throughout UWMA, Dean is the obvious seme, and Pharm is the blushing uke. I squealed in DELIGHT when I first watched Pharm asking for the break. Yes, Pharm loved Dean -- and what I saw in Pharm's asking for a temporary separation was truly out of that love, to confirm between the both of them that their relationship was very much indeed a forever relationship. God, I get chills thinking about it: Pharm was safe enough in his sphere with Dean to ask for and to GET the agency-driven space that HE NEEDED to feel fully confident in the relationship. That was a risky move that paid off for the two guys in dividends in the end. Dean had no choice but to say yes there.
The fabulous Oh-aew in I Promised You The Moon goes even further than Pharm. He fucking breaks up with Teh! After Teh cheated on Oh-aew! YES, HOMEY, YES! No wibbling on Oh-aew's end. Oh-aew was devastated, yes. But he knew he had to have Teh out of his life in that moment, for the sake of Oh-aew's own happiness, growth, and development. He even rejects Teh's reach-out at the end of their college careers.
What stuck me as so golden about the ending of IPYTM was that that break-up wasn't actually presented as temporary. They were apart for OVER A YEAR (thank you kindly to @shortpplfedup for the temporal fact-check!). Oh-aew held his ground. He needed his time and space. He needed to grow! And he valued that, individually.
I'm celebrating these two instances of agency-driven separations because of the style of their intention vis à vis the protagonists asking for, needing, and leveraging these separations. With the economic and involuntary separations I talked about earlier -- it's like there was a higher need, whether it was for money, a better career opportunity, fear, or selfishness on the part of a family to create the separation.
With Pharm and Oh-aew: the separations they demanded were purely personal and for their own growth. We know now that Pharm and Oh-aew get their endings with their partners. Pharm has a purely happy ending with Dean in Between Us. Oh-aew's ending with Teh is open-ended -- we don't know what chaos Teh will wreak next -- but at least we know they're navigating that chaos together again.
The last drama I wanted to take a look at regarding pain, trust, and separation is the fabulous movie continuation of Cherry Magic: 30 Years of Virginity Will Make You a Wizard?! (I always love writing ?! whenever I talk about Cherry Magic, lol).
The central separation in the movie of the two protagonists, Adachi and Kurosawa, comes about when Adachi is transferred to Nagasaki for work. As @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan can attest to: a Western viewer of Japanese BLs will often find themselves screaming to a screen, "JUST TALK ALREADY!," and a uniquely common aspect of Japanese doramas is that so much of communication in Japanese culture is silent, unsaid, kept internal by collectivist social pressures to not make waves with another person -- which automatically creates ongoing questions of trust between partners. When Adachi (Akaso Eiji) shares with Kurosawa (Machida Keita) that Adachi will be moving, Kurosawa shares in words that he's happy for Adachi, but through very simple body language, communicates that he is feeling otherwise.
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Later in the movie, Adachi gets into an accident in Nagasaki, and Kurosawa rushes to be by Adachi's side. Kurosawa is clearly traumatized. And Kurosawa finally reveals his feelings about the entire situation -- a rare display of direct emotional confession.
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We think that Adachi moved to Nagasaki for this job opportunity -- separating himself from the incredibly devoted and head-over-heels-in-love-with-Adachi Kurosawa. Adachi knows well enough that Kurosawa is suffering in this separation. But later in the movie, after Adachi has moved back with Kurosawa, do we learn Adachi's true intentions. Adachi wants to make himself invaluable at work -- so that Adachi's and Kurosawa's shared company will not separate them if the company finds out about their relationship.
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This particular conversation between Adachi and Kurosawa -- after their separation, after they've moved in together -- is a huge turning point in the movie for Adachi, who had usually been the reluctant uke in their relationship prior to this moment. In this conversation, Adachi expresses his fear that outside forces will eventually separate them, and he wants to do what he can to ensure the safety of their relationship.
To me, this is incredibly reminiscent of the compromises Pran and Pat make in Bad Buddy to keep their relationship secret -- another theoretical "separation" -- from their parents for the health, safety, and viability of their relationship.
As well, this conversation between Adachi and Kurosawa moves forward into Adachi's desire to come out to their families. He was inspired by the immediate aftermath of the accident, in which Kurosawa was the last person to find out that Adachi had gotten hurt -- only after Adachi's family and company were notified.
The nuances of this separation between Adachi and Kurosawa -- and what the separation LED TO, which was an eventual and permanent commitment between Adachi and Kurosawa -- are incredibly layered. Adachi made an economic separation from Kurosawa. But it was also rooted in his desire to acclimate his company to his company's dependence on Adachi, so that the company would choose Adachi's contribution to the company over the potentially taboo reality of his same-sex relationship with a colleague in Kurosawa. In other words: he wanted to leverage the separation and his work performance upon his return, to render the company no choice in choosing Adachi's economic performance over his personal and private choices.
(One insight into Japanese culture is that for decades, Japanese corporations have wanted their employees to be married, to complete a seamless connection between household and "office" families. The Japanese BL Kinou Nani Tabeta?/What Did You Eat Yesterday? makes reference to the fact that the main protagonist, Shiro, becomes an independent lawyer because, as a gay man, he may have been pressured to take a wife in another, more group-oriented corporate setting.)
AND, following this, Adachi wanted to come out to his and Kurosawa's families, to also acclimate them to their relationship, so that their families would also not threaten the sanctity and safety of their relationship. And his gamble worked -- and their families accepted them, and they were able to make a permanent commitment to each other.
Without a strategically economic separation, Adachi and Kurosawa could not have achieved key moments of communication that led to their ability to find safety in their external environments, and make a personal and private permanent commitment to each other. The separation to Nagasaki was Adachi's lever to move their relationship forward.
It's so nuanced, so layered, and so strategic on Adachi's end, to use the work separation and his commitment to his company as such a motivator to propel his relationship forward and permanently with Kurosawa -- especially vis à vis the unique nuances of spoken and unspoken communication in Japanese society, which are remarkably different than the styles of communication we see in Thai dramas.
In Pran's and Pat's conclusion in the Thailand of Bad Buddy, they go in the opposite direction: for the sanctity and safety of their relationship, they act out a break-up scenario (with Dissaya telling Pran, "come back to your family," ha), and keep their committed relationship a secret. And this happens *two years* before the context of an actual, physical separation when Pran decides to move to Singapore after graduation.
It's a bit of a switcheroo from what we'd expect by way of open vs. closed communication between Japan and Thailand. But both scenarios, from Cherry Magic to Bad Buddy, work brilliantly well to ensure that all relationships are safe and solidified.
I'm not sure that I can say, globally, that separation from one's nuclear family, or separation from a partner, are common occurrences in manifested everyday reality. As I mentioned before, the economies of many countries are dependent on the physical separation of their citizens to other locales to send back monetary remittances. But more often than not -- when partners are partnered, they tend to want to stay by each other's sides.
I love that many Asian dramas do not shy away from the many realities as to why partners or children may be voluntarily or involuntarily separated from loved ones. Our beloved dramas show us the devastation of involuntary separations, as rendered by Dissaya unto Pran. We see that economic separations can actually LEAD to a solidifying of relationships in the case of Adachi and Kurosawa. We see that family-motivated separations, in the cause of Phupha and Tian, simply needed the investment of time for their relationship to reach a point of comfortable commitment. We see that agency-driven separations by Pharm and Oh-aew can lead to emotional clarity. And, we see that theoretical, secret-kept "separations," of the kind that Pat and Pran created for themselves, to protect their relationship, were risks worth taking, simply for them to be together and happy.
Pain and happiness are not emotions independent of each other. At least in the eyes of my Asian cultures, human beings embody all emotions, all the time. Humans are certainly primed, internally and socially, to seek happiness and balance. But as I've posited here in this post -- is there pleasure without pain? The pain of separation, the trust that partners and family members can learn from each other through separation, and the lessons and communicative ability to solidify relationships after the obstacles of separation, are all themes of life that, I think, are worth unwinding on, in glorious emotional detail. And I love that our beloved Asian dramas do not shy away from these examinations.
(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles and @solitaryandwandering by request! If you'd like to be tagged, please let me know!)
[Well, this one was a doozy -- if you got through it all, I thank you! Next up, next week, is another post I've been dying to write for months. I had the opportunity to engage in lengthy conversation with a number of FABULOUS Asian Tumblr bloggers, all of us Bad Buddy stans, to reflect on our experiences as Asian reviewers watching BBS and to talk about what we related to. I have a list, a WHOLE LIST! of themes to expound on. I'm calling it Asian Cultural Touchpoints Within Bad Buddy. And I may need to split it into two posts, because there's a lot to talk about. Join me and my friends next week in our continued Bad Buddy brain-rot sesh!
Here is the status of the Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist. Tumblr's web editor loves to jack with this list; please head on over to this link for the very latest updates!
1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) 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) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (The BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series is ongoing: preamble here, part 1 here, and more reviews to come) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] (watching) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch For the Sake of Re-Analyzing an Politics-Focused Show After Not Me 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here)  44) Wedding Plan (2023) 45) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]
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liyazaki · 11 months
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it feels imperative that I share that I, Mor- who feels (& sounds) like I should be starring in a DayQuil commercial right now- will be attempting to watch & GIF MSP between & during work meetings tomorrow.
if I don’t make it, remember me as I was: a certified fucking clown.
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bl-bracket · 10 months
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Round 2: Hira and Kiyoi Final Kiss (Utsukushii Kare 2) vs Teh and Oh Aew Underwater Kiss (I Told Sunset About You)
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[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]
Hira and Kiyoi Final Kiss: "It’s an important plot point (because Kiyoi has said he won’t kiss Hira until he stops putting him on a pedestal and now Hira is making progress on that front, and because Hira hasn’t initiated physical stuff in the past, and initiating is itself a way of treating Kiyoi more like an equal). It’s also just a really well-acted and effectively shot kiss, and as a result it communicates so much about the characters and shows a side of their relationship not portrayed elsewhere in the show. And of course, it’s super hot. That includes the kind of weird but suggestive details that are typical of the show, like Hira passing candy/candy spit to Kiyoi through the kiss and then switching into this really distinct sexy voice that makes it sound almost as if he’s changing personalities."
Teh and Oh Aew Underwater Kiss: "this was iconic, it changed the game, no one was the same afterwards, it made underwater kisses what they are today, Teh only being able to kiss Oh Aew when they’re underwater and hidden, the symbolism, the angst, all of it is insane"
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freensrcha · 1 year
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Since you're here, why don't you watch my shoot, too ? It's okay. I should go. It'll be my time to express my charm.
TO MY STAR 2: OUR UNTOLD STORIES
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trainingdummyrabbit · 27 days
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anyway besties uhhhh if ur kickin round there, im on sheezy now too :] im having a lot of fun adn shrimply messing around <333
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9 People You’d Like to Know More
tagged by @wen-kexing-apologist and @thewayofsubtext  <3
Tumblr keeps eating every draft of this post that I write, argh! 
Last Song I Listened To
When I started writing this, I was being lazy and letting the YouTube algorithm pick songs for me and I was listening to this song, Unfucktheworld by Angel Olsen. I've been exchanging song recommendations with a friend for a while now and I guess she has gotten to know me pretty well because this is way up my alley.
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But then another song came on--We Ride by Brave Girls (a.k.a. BB Girls)--and that became the new last song I listened to. It's another song that a friend recommended to me. This time it was a friend I've been emailing with back and forth about East Asian pop music. He's a big fan of City Pop, a genre that came out of Japan in the 80s, and he sent me a list of some recent kpop songs that are influenced by/reminiscent of City Pop, including this one. I took to it right away, and it was a big hit with my daughter. 
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Currently Watching
I Told Sunset About You - I’m just one episode in to this one and I can already tell it’s going to hit me where it hurts. I took a break due to family visits and related stuff but I’m fixing to dive back in. 
Moonlight Chicken - I got stalled out on this one just as it was getting good, thanks to some life stuff. I need to pick it back up!
Star Trek: Discovery - I’m a big Star Trek fan and recently rewatched everything from TNG through Voyager, but I hadn’t kept up with any of the newest series in years. I’m so glad I decided to start Discovery because it is shaping up to be one of my favorite Star Trek series. There are a lot of reasons for this. Really great LGBT+ representation is a factor. This is also is the first Star Trek series that has inspired more actor crushes in me than DS9. Michelle Yeoh in a corset! Tig Notaro as a cranky engineer! I’m dying over here. 
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Minato's Laundromat season 2 - I was looking forward to this as soon as it was announced, but with the usual anxiety that comes with a second season of a BL. I wasn’t 100% sure about the direction of the season at first, but now it’s settling in with some really interesting themes. 
Reservation Dogs - I wasn’t entirely sure about this show when I first started watching during the first season. But not only did it grow on me, it has also been getting better and better. The latest episode, which focused in part on an abusive government-sponsored boarding school (of the sort designed to rob Indigenous kids of their culture), was one of the best of the series so far. 
Edited to add: I forgot about Kamen Rider Geats! My family has been catching up on it and we're almost caught up just in time for the finale. I'm liking it a lot more than I thought I would when I watched the first few episodes, but not as much as my partner (who said he thinks it's one of his favorite Kamen Rider series he's seen). I'm really impressed with the cast, though. I'd especially like to see the actors who play Keiwa and Buffa in more things in the future.
Currently Reading
I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act by Isaac Butler for a while now, but I’m having an annoying situation where it keeps getting returned to the library even though I’ve renewed it. I could just start another book, but I don’t want to! This one is really interesting. 
The vast majority of people spend a significant amount of their time watching (non-documentary) movies and TV series, which involves watching actors engage in this specific art form. And we have opinions about what constitutes good or bad acting. Yet most of us know so little about how acting is done, what kinds of theories underpin acting practice, how actors prepare for roles and scenes. I wanted to not only find out more about that, but also dig a little deeper into the differences between approaches and how they’ve branched off and clashed and so forth. 
So far I’ve gotten a lot of good background and plenty to think about, even though I’m just getting to the point where the Method/System/whateveryoucallit is starting to take on in the US. I’m guessing it’s going to get even more relevant from there.
Current Obsession
I’m always obsessing about lots of things so I’m probably never going to be able to identify just one. Some currents ones are:
waiting for Utsukushii Kare: Eternal to be available with English subtitles somewhere, somehow
foraging blackberries, making jelly out of them, and baking biscuits to go with the jelly
waiting for it to be fall already because I hate sweating and I love wearing layers
finding my Animal Crossing character some decent glasses
thinking about possible BL/Jane Austen parallels for tumblr posts
finishing a post about psychological aspects of Utsukushii Kare that I’ve been writing off and on for months and that has gotten so long it will probably have to be split up into 3-4 posts
Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau perfume (my beloved)
I didn't tag anyone. It makes me anxious and I think pretty much everyone I know on here has been tagged! Except @porridgefeast, who's welcome to do it if she feels like it but (of course) no pressure.
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harmorii · 2 years
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dottore commiting arson when :(
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gillianthecat · 2 years
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Any other bl that gave you the same vibes from hwang da seul stuff?
hmmm. nothing really comes to mind of the stuff I've seen so far. I guess the closest are the Korean BL's I've seen, so she is clearly working within that tradition (partially invented that tradition?). maybe i'm just influenced by @absolutebl's writing on the bubble worlds of Korean BL, but all of the one's I've seen have kind of this feeling of being their own complete world. (although Hwang Da Seul's feel less like inside a sealed bubble than the other ones I've seen, for reasons I don't have to brain power to expand on at the moment). And obviously the language and even things like fashion, architecture and landscape give them a more similar feel than say a Thai BL would have. Of the ones I've seen, I would say Cherry Blossoms After Winter give me the most similar feeling, something about its worldbuilding and use of subtext, I think. (Although the only other three I've seen so far are Semantic Error, Color Rush and My Tasty Florida, so I don't have a very big sample size yet.)
Outside of Korea? Nothing automatically makes me think "this is like Hwang Da Seul," but I can come up with some BLs with similarities if I think about it.
In Thailand? I Told Sunset About You has similarly gorgeous and thoughtful cinematography and... structure, I guess? The intentional way that the script/directing is selective about what information to share and what to leave as subtext. And I Promised You the Moon doesn't feel very Hwang Da Seul to me except that, like To My Star 2: Our Untold Stories, it's a non-BL sequel to a beloved BL, which many people hated because it wasn't the sequel they were looking for. Which I totally get! But I loved them both for their dive into the question of: now that they've fallen in love, how do they build a relationship?
Also Not Me, in a strange way, although they're very different. Again I loved the cinematography and look of the series, although its quite dissimilar from any of Hwang Da Seul's. But mostly it also gives me that feeling where the holes in it are just as fascinating as what works. And it also feels like it has a clear directorial point of view/purpose.
Despite similarly beautiful cinematography and (often) strong storytelling, all the Japanese BLs I've seen feel very different to me, in a way I can't define at the moment.
Thanks for this ask, anon! At first I was like oh no, i have no idea. But then it turned out I had more to say than I thought. If you want to write in again, I'd love to hear your answer to the same question.
edit 9/14: Please do barge in with any suggestions of BLs that remind you of her works. I'm not sure if anon was looking for recommendations or just wanted to hear me ramble, but I'd love to see what y'all think fit.
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dribs-and-drabbles · 2 years
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BL ~ Drama Asks
Tagged by @biwichapas over two weeks ago (!) but thank you for thinking of me!
1. If you had to watch one drama forever what would it be?
This is too hard...maybe one of either Bad Buddy, To My Star (1&2), or HIStory 3: Trapped.
2. If you could change the ending of a drama which one would it be?
I have to say HIStory 3: MODC, of course, but maybe controversially I'd change He's Coming to Me. Hear me out: I cried. I cried SO MUCH when I thought Mes and Thun weren't going to get a HEA. I mean, it made sense... Mes was a ghost and Thun a human...how would this work? But the series handled that journey of grief really well so by the end I could accept it. BUT then they brought Mes back. Now, it would have worked if either a) he didn't come back at all and Thun could move on, fallen in love with someone else, and forever savoured that memory, or b) if Mes had come back as a human again - then they could have had a proper life together. As it was, coming back as a ghost still, there is an inevitability that their time together will end at some point when Mes does have to leave. I don't know... I was left unsatisfied because it was only a HFN.
3. Name your favorite drama and tell who your favorite character was.
The series currently top of my top ten list is Bad Buddy...so I should say that. Favourite character...ah this is hard...Pran? Maybe...
4. Name a drama you dropped within the first few episodes ~ we all have at least one!
Tharntype 2 (I just couldn't...), Peach of Time (partly availability issues, partly the prospect of not getting a HEA), Top Secret Together (it just got bad but I think it was a victim of the pandemic), and I have started Coffee Melody but don't know if I'll finish (It's slow and I don't have time for things that don't grab me).
5. Name a popular drama you’ve never watched and why?
I Told Sunset About You (and I Promised You the Moon). First it was availability issues, then I felt a bit wiggy about watching it because a) the characters are so young and b) I had heard it was a bit to 'real' for some people and I just didn't want to go through the angst.
6. Name a drama you regret watching.
I don't regret anything I've watched. I would have stopped watching anything that may have ended up being a 'regret watch'...so I guess I could just repeat those.
7. Name a drama you thought you’d never watch but did and did you end up liking it?
HIStory 2: Right or Wrong. It took me a while because I wasn't sure about the student/teacher dynamic...but it's a great series and the age gap/potential for abuse of power was dealt with well enough.
8. Name a pairing you want to see?
Well, I've been wanting to see Poppy in a lead for a long time and I have already suggested a polyship with him and the two Perths...but actually, thinking about it, I want to see TONG and POPPY together. Both EXCELLENT goofy/character actors but I believe could pull off something more mature and dramatic. So, yeah, them.
9. Name a pairing you didn’t think had chemistry?
Maybe controversial but I don't really think Jimmy and Tommy have chemistry, certainly not as Saifah and Zon in Why R U?
10. Name a pairing you have seen in another drama that you like?
I presume this means in a drama I haven't seen...but if I like the pairing I probably would have seen the series, so I don't really have an answer. Instead, I'll offer a few secondary pairings who I would like to see lead a series (the actors or the characters): Pitch and Bank from Golden Blood, Jack and Zhao Zi from HIStory 3: Trapped, and of course Ram and King from My Engineer.
Tagging @jemmo @liyazaki @taytawan @minhhyung @pranpats and @laowen if you haven't done it and feel like having a go...or anyone else who wants!
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talkingbl · 1 year
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KBL v. Thai BL: My Two Cents
So, I see the Thai BL v. KBL discourse on twitter and thought I'd chime in on it.
Most common KBL stan arguments I've seen:
Thai BL is bad. Bad acting, bad direction, bad editing, etc.
Most, if not all, Thai BL actors and stories are problematic.
Thai BL is just porn with no plot.
Thai BL actors are 70% jumpscares.
Most common Thai BL stan arguments I've seen:
Most KBLs are boring.
KBL stans are xenophobic and/or fetishize the Korean look.
Even if some KBLs are good, they're not all that much better than Thai BLs.
KBLs are just het kdramas w/2 men instead of a het couple (i.e., little actual LGBT representation).
Arguments I see from instigators who're pretending to take the high road:
Taiwanese BL better than them all.
"Only good LGBT content out of Thailand are the ones starring [insert their favorite femme actor here]."
My Take.
Both sides have some decent points and some completely idiotic takes. I agree with KBL stans that a lot of popular Thai BLs feature terrible acting and plot. Not all, but maybe 7 out of every 10 Thai BLs I've watched (mostly popular ones) either lack significantly in the acting or the editing department (with some lacking in both). Few are outstanding pieces of cinema (though I don't think those ones that aren't are meant to be).
Not only are so many Thai BLs just poorly made (and no, I'm not talking about looking expensive, I'm talking about hiring looks/nepotism/name recognition over talent), so many of them are just ill-conceived to begin with. Most popular Thai BLs are adapted from light novels which are just straight up erotica. And when you take the sex out, there's nothing of substance left. Nothing wrong with that (IMO). But I do see the argument from KBL stans as I, like many others, watch media to immerse myself in an entertaining and sometimes profound story (not necessarily just to get my rocks off). Obviously, a story can do both but it needs to be done well and be well-balanced.
Next, relative to actors in other industries a lot of Thai BL actors have been exposed for being homophobic/rape apologists/colorist/etc. Thai BLs also feature harmful tropes such as making darker skinned characters the bad guys all the time (while pale-skinned characters are innocent angels who can do no wrong), or actively shun darker/less eurocentric features. THAT BEING SAID, there's a couple of caveats I want to point out with this line of thought:
Thailand is by far the biggest producer of live action BL content and is simultaneously the most visible. Of course, there's going to be more instances of abhorrent behavior that make it to the twitter trends than that of any other industry.
Korean men are also not angels? Lol. Like did we learn anything from all the one hundred eleven million times kpop idols have been exposed for racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and all the other -isms and phobias out there? Just because your fave KBL actor isn't hitting the media circuit like the Thai BL actors are (thus, giving more opportunities for them to expose themselves/be exposed), doesn't mean it's not happening or that they don't think that way.
Point is, both can be horrible with regard to the problematic aspect lol.
As for the Thai BL stan arguments, I agree that most KBLs I've seen are not that interesting beginning-to-end. Many of the ones I've watched are either just as bad as the worst Thai BLs plot-wise or horribly mid with no camp/kitsch factor to save it. Very rarely do I come across a KBL that gets me hooked either due to outstanding production or outstanding story (or both, ideally). A lot of this, I think, is because I hate the kdrama-style of production/directing that can suck the soul out of a heartwarming story.
Now, don't get me wrong, I hate the Thai rom-com style of production/directing with the heat of a thousand suns but the rare saving grace is usually its camp "so bad it's good" value. Either way, both take many Ls in the production department, regularly.
That said, I agree with a lot of Thai BL stans that a lot of KBL stans are reformed kpop warriors who simply prefer the Korean look (which is where we get so many KBL stans calling non-kpopified Thai actors "jumpscares"). I want to be clear here that I don't think all or even most KBL stans are xenophobic, but I said this a long time ago that many KBL stans who talk about the superiority of KBLs and the "inferiority" of Thai BLs move weird to me. You can like something and not use xenophobic dog whistles basically calling Thai BLs (and, come to think of it, even Filo BLs) poverty content and Thai actors ugly for looking too non-Korean.
Please understand, I'm not saying folks can't like what they like. It's about how you express that that changes things (e.g., saying X actor is not attractive is very different than roasting a certain skin tone or virtually unchangeable physical feature across swaths of people). Also, I hate when Thai BL stans use this argument as a way to get out of addressing poor quality we get from Thai BLs that prefer a marketable face/name over good acting/story. Exposing latent Korean superiority complexes is not the way to win the argument about Thai rom-com quality being piss poor.
Finally, the so-called bench riders who are really just anti-Thai BL (rather than pro-KBL): Taiwanese BLs are not magically superior to all just because you want to pretend to be better than the other KBL stans while also simultaneously hating on Thai BLs. Don't get me wrong, I love some Taiwanese BLs but 1) those folx using Taiwanese BL as a crutch are usually not being genuine, and 2) Taiwanese BLs have the most suspect incest relationship-to-socially acceptable relationship ratio of all time lmaoooo. Taiwan is not stranger to terrible concepts and questionable acting. We cannot continuously pretend that all non Thai BLs are the Citizen Kanes of our time whilst this fact persists.
Worst of all are those who stan ITSAY/BkPP (claiming that it's not BL and they're ~serious actors) but roast every other Thai BL (and hell, all BLs in general). Like girl sthu, ITSAY is a BL and BkPP are full time singers now. /j but forreal, I have a lot to say about this group of stans that I'll save for another post. (a/n: I adore ITSAY and am seriously impressed with BkPP but some of their stans are just...yeah)
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crookedwesper · 1 year
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So I watched I Told Sunset About You and I have to say that I’m ashamed of myself for waiting so long to watch it because it was amazing. Though I will say that at times I felt like voyeur because it was so intimate that I felt like I was seeing something that should be private. I honestly felt like an intruder at times not gonna lie.
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bnprm · 1 year
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what’s your favorite bl?:)
i’ve gotta say bad buddy is my fave of all time just bc of how emotionally attached i am ;-;
however semantic error has got to be one of my all time faves too
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bl-bracket · 9 months
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Best Siblings Round 2: Hoon & Teh (I Told Sunset About You) vs Mob & Ayato (A Man Who Defies the World of BL)
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[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]
Hoon & Teh: "1. He bought a plane ticket for his baby brother with his hard earned cash so he didn't have to take a long bus drive for his uni interview. 2. Knew all along and was quietly supportive 3. Put his baby brother in the moped cart and covered him so he could cry in peace, without pressuring him into talking about what was upsetting him, since he was not ready yet 4. Let his baby brother ugly cry tears and snot on his shirt -and we're talking about Billkin, the king of ugly crying- and then calmly told him that it was alright and that he could like whoever he wanted."
Mob & Ayato: "They’re living in a slapstick parody world, but it’s still clear how much they love and care about each other. Mob completely freaks out about Ayato “succumbing” to to the BL world, and sure, it’s coming out of internalized homophobia, but it’s rooted in his love for his little brother."
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xnoel · 1 year
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i was thinking about what tv-show or book i should start on now that i'm caught up on my only 12% but i felt too tired for all of it so i'm gonna start re-watching cherry magic instead
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freensrcha · 2 years
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what drugs have they put in this 😭
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