#dff2023

[moutheyes]

The Year in QL: 2024 Top 10 and Appreciation for Original Scripts

For the first time in five years I managed to sit my ass down and finish a yearly roundup post, so I'm cross-posting some of it here. You can read the whole thing (including expanded blurbs) HERE; it has some number breakdowns and the rest of my ratings.

Top 10 of 2024

10. The Rebound (8.0)

My good friend C. has excellently articulated a “grand theory of anime” that I kept thinking about while watching this show:

an anime is any series that combines (1) “manic purity,” (2) internally consistent, if deranged, character motivations, and (3) suspension of disbelief wrt worldbuilding/setting.

The Rebound is anime. It is anime in the form of a batshit insane live-action basketball BL that was tailor-made for me as a viewer and for Meen (a real-life basketball player! I’m not sure if hoops is his side gig or if kissing men is his side gig, and honestly I don’t care!) and Ping as actors. There is absolutely no way to fit this series into any sort of real-world logical framework, and in fact its closest comp title might be the under-appreciated sapphic-ish anime Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, because it follows a very similar trajectory in which the first two-thirds of the show takes you on a series of sharp descents into chaos involving mafia elements, underground betting on street ball, toxic old man yaoi, and wildly disproportionate stakes like kidnapping and worse, the culmination of which made me black out from the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins, but then they… go back to high school? to play high school basketball? You have to respect a script that does not respect reality.

The actual basketball in this show was barely recognizable as an organized sport, but on the other hand the story was so engaging, with thoughtful emotional arcs, multiple instances of unrequited love, and a second lead people could actually root for—and did, to the point where some folks felt poly-baited. I don’t know if I want to fight Golf Tanwarin or if I want to give them all of my money to make more shows like this.

9. Only Boo! (8.0)

Sometimes a show doesn’t need to do anything groundbreaking to win me over. Sometimes it just needs a protagonist who is a charming bundle of hopes and doubts and desires and unceasing gumption, and a love interest who is Doing His Best, and enough youthful earnestness to melt a cold dead heart (mine). Only Boo! was a triumphant debut for Keen (Moo, who I wanted to eat with a spoon) and Sea (Kang, stoic and self-sacrificing), and the first two-thirds of the story—everything leading up to the idol arc—was pitch-perfect, as bad student/aspiring idol Moo shamelessly flirted his way past food vendor Kang’s measly defenses, opening his eyes to not just the possibility of love, but also his own dormant dreams of being an artist. While the last third, centered around Moo’s idol life, suffered from uneven execution, especially regarding some of the subplots, the show had done enough by then to establish Kang and Moo’s relationship as one that was worth seeing through, and every bit of sweetness at the end felt earned.

8. Dead Friend Forever (8.5)

This was unlike any other show I watched in QL this year—an anguished, ambitious horror fable that showcased BOC’s best young talent at the time. DFF was a mashup of ’90s slasher flicks, even older closed-room mysteries dating back to Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None, obviously), contemporary horror as social critique, and folk and spiritual elements from Thai horror.

This was dark as hell; the shit that Non (played by Barcode, who broke me with this role) went through, at the hands of his supposed friends as well as almost every single person who was in a position to help him, was really difficult to watch. As vicious and manipulative and cowardly as the teens were, though, the more tragic and enraging failures happened at the adult and societal level. Family that shunned instead of accepted, enabled instead of educated, adults that preyed instead of protected, police that obfuscated instead of investigated, and so on. The visual storytelling was stunning, the thrills and twists were more of the hold-your-breath variety, and the final set piece was a bold choice that required a lot of careful setup to pull off, and I loved the way it all played out.

7. Peaceful Property (8.5)

This was GMMTV’s best show of the year, as well as its most creative offering since The Warp Effect, boasting a fresh concept and original script, solid production value (the vibrant color palette made me so happy), and a main cast that not only played off one another well (a real challenge when it comes to comedy!) but also had genuine chemistry beyond the romantic kind. Also, a personal weakness: the repeated motif of a communal dining table. The ghost hunter/exorcism setup served as a natural backdrop for slapstick, supernatural/horror elements, and camp, but there was an intentional gravitas baked into the story from the outset. I was really hooked by the socioeconomic commentary (should have seen it coming with the real estate angle, dammit) vis-a-vis the ghost of the week, which asked some important questions—who gets to have their story told, whose lives are deemed valuable and whose are deemed disposable, and, of course, the true meaning of a home.

6. Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart! (8.5)

Perhaps more than any other project this year, J&J represented a truly maverick vision. The script was a maximalist whirlwind, the production quality was superb, and for the most part the show accomplished what I think it set out to do. Every episode was jam-packed, which meant the series itself felt laden in the best way, like a holiday feast. There was an increasingly ill-advised series of heists! So many disguises (including drag)! Pointed commentary on the cruel realities of socioeconomic disparity! Sadistic rich people behavior! Lovable grandma and young neighborhood spitfire stealing scenes! So much groveling!

The focus on community was a strong thread throughout, with Jack and Joke’s individual journeys woven firmly through. My personal preference would have been a grittier, more bittersweet ending, given the build-up to a high-stakes climax, but for a largely self-funded and self-driven passion project, this was genuinely impressive from start to finish. It managed to balance heart, humor, action, romance, and social commentary, while showcasing powerhouse performances from YinWar (these two men can Cry), and will remain one of my favorites purely on those merits.

5. Love in the Big City (9.0)

There was no way I wasn’t going to watch this, but the more I learned about the production process and its struggles and triumphs, the more invested I became, to the point where I was worried that I had overhyped it in my mind. Turns out, one of the best novels about queer urban life can in fact also produce one of the best shows about queer urban life, one that celebrates all the joy and wonder and messiness of dating and romance while still foregrounding the intense loneliness that can make a person self-sabotage, or leave them unmoored despite having a solid support system. Nam Yoon-su delivered a layered, poignant performance as Go Young, showing all his human parts—the likable and difficult sides alike—and portraying his growth over time along with the relationships that came and went. Speaking of, the elliptical structure of the novel posed an interesting adaptation challenge, and the series took a creative approach by employing a different director for each of the four “chapters” of Go Young’s story, which paid off with subtle but appreciable differences in each of the two-episode arcs.

4. Knock Knock Boys! (9.0)

There was something magical in this original script, which gave the four housemates room to establish real platonic intimacy, talk frankly about sex and love, and otherwise become real bros, and the romantic relationships developed out of all that healthy organic communication, which was quietly kinda radical for BL. Outside of the feelings stuff, the show also packed in slapstick, hijinks, sex ed, family drama, and most importantly, the Awkward Sex Scene Of My Dreams. Latte was rightfully a fandom-favorite character of the year, but the show succeeded on the back of a real team effort, and I know I’ll go back to this show as a comfort watch in the future. Amazing how four dudes sharing a chaotic home-cooked breakfast (see also: personal weakness; visual motif) after a night of hard drinking can alter your brain chemistry!

3. Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (9.0)

After struggling to fully connect with some of Hwang Da-seul’s previous work, I can say that she did something special with LFCT. The way the script dealt with the titular curse — which encompasses cycles of abuse, childhood trauma, and debilitating societal pressure — was sometimes feather-light and required deep attention paid to the small visual details, but it never pulled its punches when it came to Big Feelings, nor did the un-cursening progress along a linear path, which felt frustratingly realistic. Do-hoe and Ju-yeong were but mere babes at the start of the series, navigating through late adolescence while hiding deep scars and shouldering heavy burdens. After things went terribly wrong, that rupture affected each of them differently in the 12 years afterward. Watching them try to reconcile while picking at old wounds was painful, but it was so easy to root for them, both separately and together, both in their teens and as adults—and even more than falling back in love, I wanted them to heal, to experience that moment of catharsis when the curse was finally lifted.

2. My Stand-In (9.0)

This show was actual catnip for me. It wasn’t on my radar at all, but I followed the buzz from fandom and was rewarded with an utterly thrilling second-chance narrative featuring two of the most compelling characters of the year. The concept of a stand-in (stuntman, lover, body) pulled triple duty to delicious effect, the post-transmogrification part was handled especially well through the use of mirrors and other reflective surfaces, and there was also a welcome streak of absurdity to balance out the pathos of Joe’s story. My Stand-In was just excellent on all fronts, from Poom and Up fully embodying their complex characters, to the elegance of the adaptation, a sustained sense of high drama, and sweeping romance. I knew the show had me by the throat when I found myself deliriously anticipating the moment when Ming and Joe would finally fuck in missionary.

1. 4 Minutes (Sultrier Version) (9.5)

From a technical standpoint, no other show I watched this year came close to the cinematic qualities of 4 Minutes—the use of visual motifs, framing, and editing were all exquisite, and the acting was also superb across the board, with Fuaiz giving a breakout performance in the role of horny vengeful twink Tonkla. But I was also deeply impressed with how the themes played out, as characters grappled with the repercussions of guilt and redemption, vengeance and acceptance, life and death. To me this was a story about how flawed the human heart is and how rare the chance for salvation is. It wasn’t quite perfect—the speculative aspects didn’t resolve all that neatly (perhaps they are saving it for the tentative sequel?), and I think the pacing could have benefitted from one more episode to let the story breathe a bit—but I loved that it was a serious, mature show that asked metaphysical questions and managed to strike an ending note that was both bittersweet and intensely hopeful.

Originals vs. Adaptations

I started tracking original scripts vs. adaptations this year, and actively used it as a tiebreaker to determine my top 10 rankings, because to me there’s value in rewarding creativity when it comes to pure screenwriting. Obviously there were some standout adaptations this year—there are many thoughtful posts on Tumblr about the choices My Stand-In made to transform the source material (a Chinese danmei) for a Thai audience, for example. And Love in the Big City took a well-known, internationally beloved novel and brought in four different directors to helm each of the story’s four sections, which enriched the viewing experience. But when it came to QL as a genre, I found myself genuinely captivated by the diversity of the original scripts, to the point where they counted for 7 of my top 10 series of the year; put another way, 7 of the 9 originals that I watched this year were extremely high-quality shows.

I mean, look at the scope of material! Deeply unhinged high school sports/crime BL (The Rebound); queer ensemble mystery-horror mashup that was sad as fuck (Dead Friend Forever); ghostbusters found family bromance (Peaceful Property); we found love in a hopeless place.mp3 with heists and crying (Jack & Joker); a romantic dramedy with four housemates—I know it sounds so mundane next to everything else but I promise they are all hot messes (Knock Knock Boys); nostalgic angst-fest that wants to know if the couple that trauma-bonds together can trauma-break together (Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo); and time slip speculative thriller sponsored exclusively by Durex and cat food (4 Minutes).

Spectacular, give me 14 (more) of ’em right now.

Some scattered thoughts:

Part of my struggle with adaptations is the fact that Thai-language Y-novels aren’t more readily available in official English translations outside of the more popular creators, so it’s hard to use them as a reference point. Every time I’m watching a QL adaptation, there’s always the questioning voice in my mind wanting to know if there were any substantial changes made, how different the end product was from the source material, etc. Sometimes a Thai speaker will pop into a Reddit thread to share their thoughts, and I’m endlessly grateful to Tumblr users like @clairedaring who provide comparisons and commentary for adapted series like My Stand-In and Spare Me Your Mercy, but access to that information across the vast swath of Thai BL is patchy at best if you don’t know the language.

While it’s important to evaluate work independently if it spans across mediums (or even adaptations by different countries)—and I do it out of necessity for most Thai shows, as explained in the previous point—there’s also a natural compulsion to want to make those comparisons. If a show starts to go off the rails a bit, and I know it was adapted from a novel, then I get curious about whether the problem is rooted in the source material itself or stems from the adaptation process. I’m inclined to start my criticisms at the screenwriter and director level, since they are responsible for the final script and on-screen product, but without knowing how the original work unfolds, it’s hard to determine what the ideal fix might be. You can’t just say screw the source material, after all.

I think Sammon is a great case study on the challenges of taking a completed work and trying to retrofit it for a different medium (i.e. adaptation) versus working freely within certain parameters from the beginning (i.e. original script). Until collaborating with BOC this year on the original scripts for Dead Friend Forever and 4 Minutes, we’ve only seen her own work made into shows, with varying degrees of success. Even as recently as this week, we saw that tension play out in the fandom reception to Spare Me Your Mercy, which was adapted by a separate writing team; the challenge of trimming down two volumes of plot into 8 episodes while maintaining the thematic richness of the story resulted in certain sacrifices being made by the screenwriter. On the other hand, with 4 Minutes, you didn’t have to wonder if there were parts of the story that were left behind in the adaptation process, because presumably the show more or less reflected the exact story she intended to tell. (Obviously things get cut in the editing process, but Sammon isn’t sitting there having to discard entire years’ worth of plot because of time or budget constraints, unlike what happened with SMYM.) Thus you can evaluate any flaws in the storytelling directly.

I’m going to make a separate post looking ahead to 2025 but I will say that if I do find myself needing to prioritize my time, originality may become a bigger deciding factor. GMMTV actually has a decent slate of non-adaptations coming up, and I’m also looking forward to whatever WeTV and Viu have in the pipeline as original series, since they had a pretty good track record for me this year. (Not to spoil anything before we even turn the calendar, but Caged Again is well on its way to making that top 10, so count that as another WeTV win.)

[morticiafattymshasabeard]

No Fooling: Dark Force Fest Saturday, April 1st, 2023 Review

(Hi, few days later Morticia here! I'm transferring the original Blogger post to Tumblr, and am fleshing out more of the content with links and anything new I've learned in the days following the event.)

I know I have other posts I really should have written and posted long before this one, but it is what it is. I'm just a girl with a cellphone and a passion to talk about this festival Right NOW.

Why am I only writing about Saturday? Because it was the only day I could go.  I had an Amazing time and wouldn't trade a single second of it for anything.  

Dark Force Fest is a 3-Day Alternative Music and Lifestyle Festival in New Jersey. Formerly a convention known as "Dark Side of the Con", Dark Force Fest has an amazingly Passionate and Prolific Organizer, Jet, and is presented through his company, former Social Media site now Gothic Retail store, VampireFreaks. VampireFreaks is a topic for another post and maybe a full video deep dive.  There's so much to cover, there was so much to do! I chose to check out the Swap Meet, the Live Bat Exhibit, The Super Smash Bros Tournament (I lost), and the Goth Dad Q&A. While  I could have walked into any number of bands, I specifically saw Carnivore A.D.'s Tribute to Type O Negative. For all my fan-girling about Vision Video with my friends, I couldn't stay for their show.  A quick note: While there was the banner on the outside of the Sheraton, there wasn't anything telling you where registration was. The few people milling around outside were talking in groups that seemed to be attendees. There was one Security guard inside of the Main hotel entrance to tell us to "go out and around". Signs, Please! Let's start this wordy tour of DFF2023 with the first thing we encounter after registration: the Vendors. Gathering the creative, dark minded Artisans that build our community via Clothes, Jewelry, Housewares, Cosmetics, and Consumables, Dark Force Fest gives a physical location to many vendors that would otherwise not have as targeted an audience at their local Farmer's Markets on Sunday mornings. It also gives prospective buyers, and online followers, the opportunity to meet the artists, and make the decisions they need in order to ensure they make a great purchase they'll brag about for years to come. There is nothing more satisfying than saying "This was handmade by_____ !" and knowing you're helping directly keep our community thriving. In some cases, you're literally saving lives.  A few of the Artists that I interacted with mentioned how they traveled a few Hours to vend at the festival, but felt it was worth it to be more immersed in their culture. A few lucky vendors would share the concert rooms with the shows, getting themselves some pretty comfortable seats to a plethora of bands. One such vendor was the effervescent Shirley, The Tragic Doll. She creates deeply personal works of art about living with Scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that she describes as feeling trapped in her own skin. Incorporating Skeletal imagery and the color Red, representing Blood, to symbolize the effects of her condition, Shirley hand makes every piece of her Horror Art with passion, and anatomically correct hearts, because her motto is "Live My Heart Out".  Thanks to the map and a few kind Vendors, I was able to find the Swap Meet in the Skyland room. This was my first Swap Meet and I was surprised to find a few items in my size, or near enough I can modify them in future content. Everyone there was so helpful and wonderful, suggesting items they think would fit me or suit my style, and I'm so thrilled to say they were absolutely correct! (Thank you Rainbow Fairy; you took my hat in return for your snake skull dress.) The kindness and sense of community in that one room was so awesome, it really made me love being a part of this culture. Swap Meets are a great way to clear some unused clothes/boots/accessories from your closet and pick up something you might love forever. The Swap Meet at Dark Force Fest was Free with registration. While looking for the Batcave and taking some photos of the overall hallways, I passed Dusty Gannon of Vision Video without noticing. So, behold this glorious shot of Goth Dad being a Goth Rock Daddy.

The Star Wars cosplay group, the 501st stormtroopers, were raising money for charity.  There was an interesting skeletal capital(ism) M mouse sculpture by Jasin Cadic in the main lobby of the hotel. "The Batcave" was an ongoing  Live Bats Exhibit w/ Joseph D’Angeli (NJ Batman). Joseph D’Angeli’s “Bat-Cave” is the only facility specializing in bat conservation in the NY/NJ area. These cuties were pretty shy, but so was I.

 Feeling a little worn out, we wandered out to the food trucks and picked up poutine to snack on while determining if we had the energy for a band. I believe it was the hotel that provided extensive options for more food inside of the event, in front of the Main Ballroom. I'm really glad there was free Water stations and clean Restrooms tucked around the venue. There was a water station in the Batcave, and a private bathroom in the Gaming rooms that I knowingly used, there was most likely more. 

Deciding we needed to rest from the sensory overload, we found the Super Smash Bros Tournament, and we're incredibly thankful for this respite. There were a handful of other people so we all took turns warming up. As I had planned around seeing Carnivore A.D. and Goth Dad, I did leave immediately after I lost my bracket.

Carnivore A.D. is the closest to Type O Negative live as you can possibly get in 2023. No joke, they're Peter Steele's former Carnivore bandmates! I wanted to see this show because 1. I like TON. 2. My bestie loves TON and I miss her a lot. 3. They pair well with The 69 Eyes. I definitely fucked up by headbanging,  but it's irresistible! 

We had a little time left and found Goth Dad's Q&A still going back in the Skyland room. People had some great questions, and it was powerful to hear him speak on the horrors of active combat. Dusty Gannon, the internet's "Goth Dad", has made a huge impact on how Goths and Goth Culture is seen and accepted online through Tiktok and Instagram. The Goth Dad persona is a Gentle, Kind, and Accepting person that you want to have call you sport and pat you on the head. Embracing the gender breaking styles of Post Punk influences, Dusty creates intense and stunning eye makeup looks and can be caught performing in torn tights, skirts, Fishnets and Lace tops, alongside his bandmate, Emily, as Vision Video.

We had to leave to make a dinner reservation with some friends from the area. My paper wristband didn't hold up, it frayed from being too tight and handwashing, and popped right off in the car while on our way to dinner. I didn't want to push my luck trying to get in later with a broken band.

Needless to say, I'm super excited for the next Dark Force Fest, and will be doing a whole lot more planning and managing to get to enjoy even more of it to share with you all. 

Somethings I wish I had checked out (limiting to Saturday Only events: this list would get too long for the whole weekend):

-Custom fit Fangs -The Costume Contest hosted by Electronic Saviors: Industrial Music to Cure Cancer -Write a Song with Bella Morte -Nightmare Before Christmas Shadowcast -V is for Villains -Leathers - Vision Video  -Actors

Thanks for Reading all this!  Reach out to me on my socials: Linktree

Jet, if you read this, DM me on Instagram, please. I'd love to talk.