#gmm 2019

[jula483]

somehow this became a hair post

(x)

[rinkyrinkyrinky]

Seeing old posts about dom!link but episode names not mentioned in the posts hurts me i need to know what episodes they were dude😭😭😭

[doublel27]

GMM by the numbers: is GMM in danger of getting less gay and more bro-y?

You decide based on a six year trend. (Based off of continued vibes discourse in the Peaceful Property tag)

2019: 2 BL, 15 het romances, 1 bromance

2020: 4 BL (if you count The Shipper and Ohm does), 11 het romances (1 with queer themes), 3 Bromance (TayNew’s first bromance is in this year) 1 thriller

2021: 4 BL, 10 series with main het romance (1 with gay storyline), 1 bromance

2022: 7 BL (if you count both Star and Sky installments as separate), 12 series with a main het romance (3 with queer themes), 1 action comedy

2023: 9 BL (if you count Our Skyy 2), 6 het romances, 2 bromances

2024: 9 BL, 2 GL, 5 Het romances, 2 Bromances (2 bl, 1 gl, 2 het still filming)

2025: 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ we’ll find out soon!

(All data pulled from My Drama List GMM25 - outside studios whose content airs on GMM25)

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV, and When Queer Media Goes Mainstream: The Lakorn Corner, Part 2 -- The Incredible Miracle That Is The Miracle Of Teddy Bear, and How Its Performance Speaks to the BL We Watch Today

[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'm continuing a three-part sub-series on queer primetime lakorns in Thailand, this time highlighting 2022's magnificent The Miracle of Teddy Bear.]

TW: child abuse and a few major spoilers. I absolutely urge you to watch this show, and I really don't want to spoil anything, but please know that this show is one of my new favorite Thai queer dramas, so if that means anything to you, maybe watch it first before getting to this piece!

Hello again! Welcome to part two of the OGMMTVC's sub-series, The Lakorn Corner, where I'm examining important moments in television when Thai queer media and themes, concentrated mostly in the niche Series Y/Thai BL genre, crossed over into mainstream spaces -- namely the lakorn, or primetime drama, space.

Last week, I wrote about 2019's The Fallen Leaf, Thailand's first-ever queer primetime lakorn, which focused on the life story of a transgender woman. I posited in that piece that The Fallen Leaf made a number of significant breakthroughs for broadcast primetime Thai television, especially in centering very specific ideas and themes of LGBTQ+ equality that reached a much bigger audience than the shows of the smaller Series Y genre had ever had previously. Important to note is that The Fallen Leaf aired on the One31 channel (which belongs to GMM, an entertainment conglomerate that also owns GMMTV).

Since the airing of The Fallen Leaf, One31 has subsequently aired two more very important (and VERY huge) queer primetime dramas, 2022's Khun Chai/To Sir With Love, and 2024's Spare Me Your Mercy. The wonderful @clairedaring posited in the tags of my post on The Fallen Leaf that the immense popularity of TFL on One31 allowed One31 to widely broaden its scope of experimentation beyond the traditional heterosexual romances that usually dominate the lakorn genre.

This is important for me to note because, a few years later, Thailand's biggest broadcast channel, Channel 3, decided to broadcast a queer lakorn of its own: The Miracle of Teddy Bear. I want to posit right away that one theory I have about Miracle being able to occupy arguably the biggest primetime airing spot on Thailand's broadcast television was due to both the massive success of The Fallen Leaf in the same time slot on a different channel, as well as the explosive and exponential growth of the smaller Series Y/Thai BL genre between 2019 and 2022, which likely led Channel 3 executives to believe that its own broad and mainstream audience was ready for queer content in primetime. I'll get more into this in a moment.

(The Miracle of Teddy Bear is actually -- HA -- the third queer lakorn to have aired in a primetime slot, as the flopped comedy Rak Diao aired earlier in the year of 2022 on One31. However, Rak Diao did not make a large cultural impression on queer media in Thailand as did The Fallen Leaf, Miracle, or Khun Chai, so I'm leaving it off of this list.)

As opposed to The Fallen Leaf (which centers a single transgender female character), I've seen The Miracle of Teddy Bear categorized as either a BL and/or a lakorn. This discussion on Reddit regarding "lakorn BLs" describes the confluence of "new" queer storylines within the long-existent soap opera/Thai lakorn structure, especially with the subsequent airing of Khun Chai (To Sir With Love) later in the 2022 autumn season.

It's important for me to note here Miracle wasn't a typical lakorn OR a typical BL. It was not a soap opera, it was not a historical drama, and it was not a typical romance. It was very much an exploratory and penetrating drama, but it happens to be labeled as either BL and/or lakorn due to its airing time and its themes.

I emphasize these mundane points because I want to highlight, as I said in my review of The Fallen Leaf, that

as opposed to The Fallen Leaf, which centered one queer main character,

The Miracle of Teddy Bear was the first queer drama to air in a primetime slot on a major Thai broadcast channel *that centered same-sex relationships*.

Considering that Miracle focuses a huge part of its dialogue on love and acceptance, rather than a lifespan-focused psuedo-bildungsroman format like The Fallen Leaf, we MUST therefore juxtapose Miracle against the airing of GMMTV Series Y dramas, which air on GMM25 in Thailand, a channel akin (to us in the States) to, say, the WB or MTV, meaning -- a channel that is not as popular and culturally widespread or significant as the broadcast-level ABC/CBS/NBC channels of the States.

AS WELL, Channel 3 was already showing BLs by the time of Miracle's airing, particularly Secret Crush On You, earlier in 2022 and produced by Idol Factory. But Idol Factory's BLs on Channel 3 air in later timeslots, often at 10 pm or 10:30 pm -- certainly not targeted to a much wider primetime audience.

In other words: in every hotel room I stayed in during my trip to Thailand last year, I had Channel 3, but I never had GMM25. International fans that watch GMMTV dramas on YouTube must understand that while *we* have easy access to most GMMTV dramas, thus making GMMTV dramas plentiful fodder for online fandom -- that GMMTV dramas WITHIN Thailand face tremendous competition from het and queer shows airing on more culturally prominent channels, if they're not web-exclusive shows.

As I noted in my review of The Fallen Leaf, I pondered the reasons why One31 executives approved that show's script. One31 is known for being a bolder channel than the more staid Channel 3. But I also wonder -- it may have helped the One31 executives to approve The Fallen Leaf precisely because its transgender main character was NOT centered in a romance (in fact, she was centered in a notorious love tangle involving her uncle-in-law, her father, and her aunt) (I know, I know).

When I think about this, to jump three years later into 2022 and to see that Channel 3 approved of The Miracle of Teddy Bear's script -- I do think, circuitously, that the airing and popularity of BLs previous to The Miracle of Teddy Bear certainly helped Channel 3 to consider airing holistically queer content, partially centered within a same-sex relationship, in a primetime slot. The amazing @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup of @the-conversation-pod, along with the utterly inimitable and dearest @happypotato48, posited recently that the creators of Miracle may have gotten AWAY with getting this show to air, because the premise of the show -- an inanimate teddy bear is alived to become a human -- itself was so absurd as to perhaps be interpreted as comedy.

According to this EXCELLENT reporting and analysis post by @flowerbeasblog, Miracle's ratings were unimpressive, maybe even dismal, as compared against mainstream het dramas airing in the same timeslot. (Here's another Reddit post about Miracle's low ratings as well.) In conversation with @happypotato48, he shared with me one social media post by a Thai fan that read, "i saw the rating and feel so hopeless about this country."

In the podcast linked above, @happypotato48 further clarifies,

For people who didn’t know this show aired on the time slot called ละครหลังข่าว, or after news lakorn, on the most popular channel in Thailand, channel 3, and the rating was not good. It was bad, like really really bad, a lot of the BL girlies didn’t show up for it and the lakorn aunties just think it was too weird and was not ready for any gay leads lakorn. And it’s pissing me the fuck off because this show depicted the queer truth unapologetically and because of that reason that’s why there haven’t been a BL show [on Channel 3] in that time slot since.  

For us international QL fans, however, we should note, again through @flowerbeasblog's excellent work, that Miracle happened to outperform the much-more-niche, Series Y GMMTV dramas by multiple points.

In other words: as compared to GMMTV QLs, Miracle bested them easily. But Miracle vastly *underperformed* when put up against other primetime dramas on bigger channels.

(I will have more to say on QL vs. lakorn ratings in part three of this sub-series, when I review Khun Chai.)

Moving on to the actual show itself, @happypotato48 also shared with me that Miracle had a vocal base of passionate fans who were excited about real exploratory LGBTQ+ content airing in such an accessible time slot and channel for a wider Thai audience.

My amazing writing friends @bengiyo (here) and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea (here) have written fabulous essays about this INCREDIBLE show, both of which dive well into important plot points and the surrounding history of the show's airing.

I was so blown away by this incredible 2022 queer drama, so impressed by the show's ability, as @bengiyo wrote, to leave not a single thread of a storyline behind for the sake of rushing towards a conclusion. Each episode did not contain a minute of wasted time. Each minute of this show was rich in its themes and plots, describing the incredibly difficult lives of queer children growing into adults, and managing the trauma cards they were dealt with by the imperfect, often biased, and sometimes evil adults that raised these children.

I can take a couple guesses myself, as an Asian child of Asian parents, as to why Miracle didn't perform well during its airing. For a much wider Thai audience than the typical girlies that watch BLs -- an audience that certainly included parents and grandparents -- Miracle was a HELL of an exercise of accountability towards underperforming adults who are involved in the raising of queer children.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear took a goddamn SCALPEL to the biases, the trauma, and even the violence that adults commit unto children and other adults, in the name of demanding that children conform to their demands and to societal expectations. If parents were watching this live -- parents who could have either been raising, or had raised, queer children -- and raised them in the context of bias and conformity, than I can only imagine that this show made them squirm in shame. But besides this point about shame, Miracle, as I mentioned before, was also not a typical primetime romance drama. It was heavy, emotional, penetrating material, and a primetime audience may not have been primed to deal with such heavy content at that airing time.

I urge you to read @bengiyo's and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea's in-depth essays on Miracle's plot, but I'll run quickly through it now to get to some important points that I want to highlight.

Our main protagonist, Nut, lives with his mentally impacted mother, Na. She hallucinates regularly, speaking to a man that she calls her husband. One day, Tofu, a teddy bear that Nut owns, comes to life. While Na accepts Tofu immediately, Nut is extremely concerned by the sudden appearance of a strange man in his house (who wouldn't be). The connection between human Tofu and Nut's suddenly-missing teddy bear is not made, and Tofu is eventually accepted by Nut to live in his house and take care of Na.

Over the course of the series, it is revealed that the man that Na hallucinates (Saen) is not actually her husband -- but is the twin brother of her deceased actual husband (Sibmeun), a husband that was devastatingly homophobic and abusive to both Na and Nut while he was alive. Na and Saen had previously been in love, but due to a confluence of events, Na ended up marrying Saen's twin brother, Sib.

This single decision, in all of its intergenerational traumatic glory, is the kingpin to a cascade of horrifying trauma for Nut as he grows up.

Nut knows he is gay throughout his life and is punished brutally by his father, time and time again, for it. Na is blamed and punished separately by Sib for her fault of not "correcting" Nut of his sexuality. Nut is brutally separated by his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, by Sib, who originally learns of Nut's relationship through a homophobic teacher who narcs on Nut and Tatarn after seeing them together.

Tatarn himself is an injured protagonist in a separate storyline, as this generation of children become adults, of how his effort to fight the government against taking over his family's land leads him to a series-length coma. With Tatarn in a suspended state, Tofu is able to come to life through Tatarn's life force, and Nut and Tofu eventually fall in love. I want to emphasize that there's SO MUCH MORE to this series that you must catch up with in Ben's and Shan's/Twig's essays, or, ideally, in stopping everything and watching this show.

The utter BRILLIANCE of this series emanates first with Tofu -- a grown man borne out of a teddy bear, who knows nothing about how the human world functions, thus establishing Tofu as a brilliant and objective narrator commenting on the fallacies of human behavior that he observes around him, Nut, and Na.

Tofu is able to ask the most simple questions about why people act the way they do. He poses these questions like a child.

Where does homophobia come from? Why does it exist?

Nut himself asks, in the BRILLIANT episode nine of this series -- why do people have to disturb our love?

And with Tofu's existence, Nut is able to begin exploring his repressed and traumatic memories, to finally be able to tell the story of his brutal childhood to an objective listener.

He says to Tofu, in episode 10 (I paraphrase here),

"[my parents] ruined it for me. They ruined my self-esteem. They never explained [their homophobia] to me."

Nut goes on to tell Tofu that his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, was the first person in his life that didn't make him feel like an intruder.

This theme (there were so, so many themes in this show, from traumatic patriarchy, to embedded and generational misogyny, omg so much) of internalized homophobia and intergenerational trauma reminded me of an Instagram post I once saw from an older gay man, who wrote about missing his young adulthood due to the trauma of his upbringing. He wrote that it wasn't until his 40s that he could actually LIVE as a gay man, because he spent his 20s and 30s in fear of prejudice, and processing the trauma that he had grown up with. He wrote that his is the case for most queer people -- that one's 40s are the equivalent of a heterosexual's 20s.

We catch Nut fully processing this, after a lifetime of internal and external struggles, with Tofu, to the point of Nut seeking therapy at the end of the series.

There are many more storylines dealing with homophobia (including that evil fucker Jan, FUCK YOU JAN), as well as unfettered support for queer children, as we see through Gen and his lovely family. We see parents changing their views on same-sex relationships, through Song and his father, Anik.

I want to note something for the sake of the OGMMTC syllabus and the history of Thai BL, as this show aired starting in March of 2022. What remarkable show had ended just two months prior?

That's right, GMMTV's inimitable Bad Buddy. (BBS GIRLIES CAN'T LEAVE 'EM ALONE.) As I made comparisons between GMMTV and Channel 3 earlier, I also want to compare what Bad Buddy represents vis à vis homophobia versus how Miracle dealt with it.

We all know that Bad Buddy exists in GMMTV's common No Homophobia Bubble. We all know that Bad Buddy leverages other themes, including intergenerational trauma, school infighting and bullying, and personal and family rivalries, to represent conflicts that commonly arise in situations of homophobia. We all know that the resolutions that Pat and Pran come to at the end of the show are oftentimes compromises that queer couples must make to survive in love and the world.

I believe that one of the reasons why The Miracle of Teddy Bear underperformed in ratings at the time of its airing is because, unlike Bad Buddy, Miracle surgically dissected just about every emanation of homophobia that one could possibly imagine. (TW: child abuse, spoiler) At one point during a flashback to Nut's childhood, we see Na saving Nut's life by slapping him in front of his homophobic father, as a means of distracting the father from potentially killing his gay son.

As I keep repeating, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is not a BL. In the context of the show's conversation about homophobia, the series ACTUALLY COMMENTS ON SERIES Y, brilliantly so, as Nut himself is a Series Y screenwriter, and Miracle demonstrates that Thai BLs are actually GOOD for reaching audiences that may otherwise question same-sex relations.

And Miracle is also not a romance. Except for the re-animated teddy bear, Miracle strikes about as realistic a vision of the difficulties of love and acceptance as I've seen in a fictional drama.

And I drank every minute of it up. It was incredibly refreshing to me to watch a truly queer piece of art just absolutely dissect almost every experience of the trauma of a queer child growing up in a difficult environment, and processing those difficulties in his adult life.

There are a few other pieces on the OGMMTVC syllabus that touch upon this brutal angst. From The Love of Siam, to Gay OK Bangkok, to Dew, to The Eclipse, there is a world of Thai queer cinema and shows, some of which include BLs, that don't shy away from wrangling with the oft-present brutality of growing up and living queer.

As I think about how Miracle performed in primetime broadcast ratings in 2022, I'm thinking about what some of us in critical circles have been discussing regarding the last year and a half of GMMTV shows -- GMMTV being the biggest producer of Thai BLs at the moment. GMMTV shows, since Bad Buddy, have not been as critically incisive into worlds of bias, and shows like We Are or My Love Mix-Up Thailand have actually generated criticism for being too out of touch from the oft-difficult realities of being queer.

I think it's extremely important for us, as a small fandom in the huge world of Asian dramas, to think about what we want to see out of the shows we prefer. I had no prior expectation before I tuned into The Miracle of Teddy Bear, not at all expecting such a thorough and rich commentary into the realities of being a queer Thai man.

I feel that The Miracle of Teddy Bear has given me such a broader insight into the kind of parenting that many young queer Thais likely experienced in their childhood. It's given me a larger holistic view of the issues I need to be aware of when I interact with any of my queer friends. And I think this holistic education into a queer experience should, frankly, be on the list of anyone who considers themselves a fan of queer media, so as to be better educated about the realities of bias that our friends and family may face.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is so brilliant, that we as a fandom need to work on giving it the broader reputation it deserves. It deserves an important spot on the OGMMTVC syllabus as a must-watch, critical exploration of society vis à vis sexuality. For me, it's in my top three with He's Coming To Me and Bad Buddy as my favorite Thai queer dramas, if I'm broadening my criteria out of BLs, and also lands up in non-BL-land for me with the movies The Love of Siam and Dew.

If any of us out there think that we understand the culture of Thai queerness, or even of the trauma that being queer could cause to a child -- check yourself (as I did), watch The Miracle of Teddy Bear, and prepare for a rich and artful education into issues and themes that you may not have even thought of.

[Aaaahhh, I have been waiting for MONTHS to pen this tribute to Miracle, and I'm glad it's out of my system! It's long, but it's absolutely a must-watch.

Speaking of must-watches! My next post in this series is not a part of The Lakorn Corner sub-series, we'll take a quick break from that. I have been waiting, also, for MONTHS to revere over Triage (TRIIIIAAAAGGGEEEE!), the best medical BL ever, ever, ever. I'm just gonna gush in my piece, I hope that's okay with y'all.

I'm watching 2022's Khun Chai at the moment, and I'll review that after Triage, and then I'll take a look at the start of the GL era in Series Y territory with GAP and some preceding shows. My School President is on the horizon!

Here's the latest OGMMTVC playlist for yer pleasure!

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) Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (2015) (Thailand’s first serialized GL) (to be reviewed with GAP the Series) 5) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 6) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 7) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 8) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 9) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 10) Together With Me (2017) (review here)

11) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 12) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 13) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 14) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 15) The Fallen Leaf (2019) (not a BL; adjacent to the project as Thailand’s first lakorn featuring a queer/transgender main character) (review here) 16) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 17) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 18) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 19) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 20) 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 at GMMTV) (review here)

21) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 22) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 23) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 24) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 25) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 26) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 27) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 28) 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) 29) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 30) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)

31) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 32) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 34) 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) 35) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 36) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 37) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) 38) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  39) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 40) Triage (2022) (review coming)

41) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 42) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 43) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships (review here) 44) Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love (2022) (watching) 45) Love of Secret (2022) (a GL that preceded GAP) (I will not be watching this, but it's on the list to precede GAP) 46) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL with a branded pair and ship) (review coming) 47) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023), Coupled with a Speed-Watch of My Love Mix-Up Thailand (2024) to Comment on GMMTV Trying to Make Magic Happen Twice  48) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 49) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 50) La Pluie (2023) (review coming)

51) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 52) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 53) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 54) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 55) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 56) Ossan’s Love Returns (Japan, 2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 57) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here) (I am not finished with this show; I will finish it when I get to it on this list) 58) Spare Me Your Mercy (2024) (thoughts here) (added as the finale of Sammon's medical trilogy in Manner of Death and Triage, and as a major lakorn starring two of Thailand's biggest actors in Tor Thanapob and Jaylerr)]

[twig-tea]

Some background on Dear Dakanda for the TOL rewatch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[arminthada]

Hi Claire,

Could you explain what was Nadao Dancing please? I know it was some kind of joke but how did it start? When? How many people were involved? It seems to be a really fun story and I would love to know more about it 😊

Thank you!

Hiiiiiii

Gurl I LOVEEEEEEEEE NADAO DANCING. THEY'RE FOREVER THE BEST NADAO BOYS IN MY HEART.

So like basically since Billkin, PP and Sky were in My Ambulance together, that summer in 2019, Nadao Music shook T-POP world with the hit that is รักติดไซเรน (Love Siren) by Pearwah and Ice Paris (fun fact: I was randomly at Emsquartier when they filmed this MV and My Ambulance hadn't even come out yet and I knew it was gonna be a huge song, glad to be validated). And since then P'Yong had a shift and started allowing more and more Nadao actors to delve into singing and releasing music (this OST and 9x9 Project had great effects on P'Yong and is definitely an interesting subject for another post).

They often have contents together since they would do promo contents for My Ambulance so people basically loved this trio and they naturally formed into a tight knitted friend squad.

I believe the term was first coined during a Weverse live around late 2019 where Sky jokingly talks about Nadao Dancing being a three-person company in which he's the President, Billkin is Vice President and PP is Secretary (the joke here was that they're known as the bad/amateur dancers at Nadao, but they dance confidently so actual good dancers like JJ or Ice wouldn't qualify to join).

This term got popularised/more known to the general public through a post of Billkin of the three of them dancing to Zico's Any Song Challenge in February 2020. This was when EVERYONE got in on the Nadao Dancing joke and Nadao Bangkok acknowledges this by having this trio do a lot of dance covers/challenges, lives together, and even official reactions of Nadao Music releases.

The joke was so popular that on a talkshow where Tor Thanapob, P'Yong (CEO of Nadao Bangkok/Tada Entertainment), Ice Paris was present, Sky got asked about Nadao Dancing 🤣 You can watch the Interview with Engsub here - courtesy of our resident Nadao Bangkok wikipedia @sinlapinthai

And yeah that's basically it. Their inside joke was so popular that it remains a thing even until today and Nadao Bangkok fans (ME) forever reminisces this beloved trio from My Ambulance (dying on the hill that this is boss kuno's romcom masterpiece).

I think Nadao Bangkok was a breath of fresh air in the industry at the time because their works/artists feel authentic and even the marketing for their works at time feels down-to-earth and organic, not completely polished but a good amount of relatability, even if they were technically a subsidiary of GDH whose parent company is media giant GMM Grammy Conglomerate.

Thank you for your ask, it really made me take a trip down memory lane and I found a pretty funny/cute post from Nadao Bangkok about Great Men Academy that I'll post separately to this ask.

[artfinderartist]

I been wanting to do this and I’m sure there is a similar poll earlier but out of my curiosity

Personally I discover them late 2014-early 2015!

(Which was 10 years ago 💀😭)

Also if you want to say what was your first eps you watched as your introduction!

For example mine is this!

[poptrendswithjenna]

Wanting to figure out a timeline of when Shayne and Courtney started dating (purely based on vibes)

(Note: just looking at public information not trying to pry-purely curious)

My feeling: it happened spring/summer 2019.

Shayne and his girlfriend broke up summer 2017 and Courtney and her ex in spring 2018, so they had an entire year of probably slowly realizing it before they made this big step. Which makes sense as you don’t want to rush into it and they had to heal.

I could see the flirty vibes when they cohosted GMM in May 2019.

This photo really made me push it back earlier (I thought it was later 2019 for a while)

Season 3 of Stranger things happened July 2019 and this seems to be a double date from that time

They did that series “why we are bad at dating” in Spring 2019 and honestly I think that was the catalyst.

They both realized they had chemistry and compatibility.

As for who asked who out, I think they both have always secretly liked the other. Courtney I feel like fell first, you can see early videos of her looking at him with heart eyes. I think Shayne restrained himself as she was so young and I believe he was in a long term relationship but as they both grew older and both became single it just was one of those “duh” moments that they are truly the best for each other.

If this theory is correct, it means that they were together during the shipped vs real couple, during the graduation, during the Australia trip and all of Covid.

Just wanted to share, we may never know unless they tell us and I’m not going to try to go any further again just based on vibes and videos available to the public.

[asherlockstudy]

Hello! I am new to this fandom and I love your analysis of rhett and link so much! There is one thing I want to ask, what moment or when do you feel for the first time that there is something more between the two of them? Like, what are the catalysts of your amazing analysis about them? Is there a specific moment? I am sorry if this is too private but I would really like to know the beginning of why people sensing there is something more about them, and I think you will be the perfect person to be asked about this! Thank you and sorry if my words doesn't make sense, English isn't my first language.

I believe I started watching around middle 2016 and I developed this perception within a few months... I started like "oh at times they act like something more is there" and then when I watched their October 2016 interview by Saba Hamedy it's when I said "no there's definitely something seriously more there". I've said this before, but the moment that did it for me was when Rhett joked about a dog that was there, who had heterochromia with one brown and one blue eye, that they had supposedly adopted him and that his one eye looked at Link and the other eye looked at himself and Link muttered "yeah... only blue eyes look at Rhett" but he was audible and there was a little awkwardness in the air after he said this, Rhett was uncomfortable but also positively affected by what Link said and he responded "that's not true.............. he's not our dog" and Link continued "You are right, it is not true but the non-true part is that it is not a dog or a robot dog, it's a wolf". So in his typical fashion, even back then Link retorted by emphasizing that "yes we lied but the lying part was NOT when I said only blue eyes look at Rhett".

As for when I realised whatever I realised and started building the One Story theory, I think ever since I read TLCOBC and watched the deconstruction videos and saw they bought the Creative House (so since 2019-2020) I started having half-baked ideas of them going serious or trying to open up gradually but the idea that most of the scripted story is just the one story occured to me in the spring of 2023, when I decided to watch Hazel for the first time (I hadn't watched it before) after I had just watched "We Dug a Medium-Sized a Hole". Watching these two for the first time back-to-back really made it all click in my head. Since then, my idea is reinforced with almost every scripted content they make, although of course I can't say the same for their hot (Link) and cold (Rhett) behaviour in GMM and EBs.

[spicyvampire]

Hi, since GMM has many Thai BL series, just wondering, do you have favorites from them? If you do, do you have 10 you like most so far?

I do not have the best relationship with GeeMeeMee but over the years they have provided some tasty bls here and there, I'll try to give you a little top 10

1.Not Me (2021)

To me that's like the best GeeMeeMee show ever made, great activism story, all the storylines are compelling, it gets accidentally funny with the twins stuff and the fact that Yok the resident arsonist is tryna fuck that cop so bad, but with Yok's help Dan finished realizing that he was part of a system that was beyond fixing and it was better to get himself free of it than staying, honestly has one of the best storyline and character development ever written in a bl

2. 3 Will Be Free (2019)

A gay mafia son, a stripper and a gogo bar manager walk into a bar, shenanigans ensue. To this day, the only GeeMeeMee show to have given me an endgame throuple and frankly one of the only cannon throuples we have in bl

3. Moonlight Chicken (2023)

By god Wen fucked that old man in the chicken shop, but in all seriousness this bl probably has the best breakup storyline I've ever seen in any media ever, it's a truly masterpiece; also we saw the story of a deaf character who uses sign language and that's not something you see often in bl tbh, wish we had more Gaipa and Alan but you take what u can get

4. Cherry Magic Thailand (2023)

Honestly this one took me by surprise, I'm not a fan of remakes but they did a really good job adapting those japanese characters to a Thailand setting while keeping some of the japanese background there, and go a bit further and deeper than the original did with some of the characters

5. Wandee Goodday (2024)

This one was my obsession for the last few weeks, unfortunately I think the show lost some momentum around the middle of it, and it needed more balance on some stuff, like one of Dee's big trauma wasn't even resolved even if they showed it affecting him pretty severely at least twice, while we spend like almost the whole 2nd half of the show on Yak's, overall very silly and enjoyable and also nice asexuality representation which is not something you see often in bl

6. The Eclipse (2022)

I'm not really a high school boy bl type of person and I usually avoid them but they got me with this one, I think Akk's storyline ressemble Dan's a lot in the sense that he had to realize he was part of a system that is bad and is using him to maintain a bad status quo and then had to free himself from it even if that's all he's ever known, Ayan is of course of a great help with his flirtiness, shenanigans and overall fuck the rules attitude

7. Bad Buddy (2021)

Thai bl's Romeo and Juliet, what I loved the most about this one was the attention put on the dynamics of Pran and Pat and their respective families, and how even if they didn't succeed in changing their fighting parents minds, they stayed together and continued to love each other because at the end of the day, the love was between them and it had nothing to do with their parents

8. He's coming to me (2019)

I love me a ghost story like any other guy, so this was right up my lane, I gotta admit it's been like 4 years since I've seen this so I don't remember the storyline clearly, but it left a good impression on me, so much that years later I still think of it as good

9. Only Friends (2023)

Top 10 messiest friend group ever created, this could have been higher on the list if they didn't do Boston dirty in the very last goddamn episode of the show

10. Dark Blue Kiss (2019)

I honest to god remember nothing about the mains but this show has the best coffee shop au in the ql universe and it's from 2019, SunMork chemistry is just firing all over the place, definitely my favorite Gawin ost too

[winterxgardener]

do you know how long it’s been since shourtney have been on a youtube channel that’s not smosh? i remember they did gmm and then also thankmas but i wasn’t sure if anyone knew how long its been since they’ve done something outside of smosh

Way back in 2018 and 2019, they had collaborations with other YouTube channels.

Here are some that are saved on my playlists.

Kids Bop Quiz

Smosh Takes Over G4! | Attack of the Show

Smosh vs. Mythical: The Final Meme Battle ft. Shayne and Courtney

Smosh Faces Off in 'Ellen's Internet Debate Club

React 1

React 2

Smosh is moving in

Out yonder

If I come across more, I'll add them to this trend. Take note, some don't have sweet moments. However, if you're looking for love-bombing Shourtney videos, you can check smoshpostiing's blog. They list down all the favorite Shourtney videos.

[twansgendew]

rhett and link still post a video every single day, I'm pretty sure they're doing a national tour later this year??? they could not be less retired

My truth is that the only youtubers I ever watch anymore are captain sparkles for mine craft and yovo68 who posts videos of trucks driving under a bridge that is too short and getting their tops shaved off like a can opener . And I disabled the trending/recommendations page so I only ever see those two channels videos 👍 4 some reason i thought gmm wasnt a thing anymore starting like 2018/2019 but I must have imagined it

[3rddimension]

I just gotta say, Shayne and Courtney guest hosting an episode of GMM back in 2019 is without a doubt a shourtney overdose😂

I don't wanna read too much into it, early relationship or not. Nonetheless thank you Rhett and Link for letting these two goofballs take a crack at it!

Honestly should put this one on my top 10 but I honestly forgot about it back then. lmfao It's pretty much pure and uncut Shourtney in video format.

[link-sans-specs]

hiya! how long have you been in the fandom? i would ask you directly via dms but i am too shy to do that so here i am! i love your blog, definitely agree that link sans specs is s-tier as it emhasizes his baby blues soooo much more <3

Hello Anon! 👋

Thank you for your sweet message! But whew, you made me have to do a little research, lol. I've been a GMM fan since around the end of Season 6 (2014) and particularly a Link fan not long after that. Yes, this is a sideblog, which was created at the end of 2019. My main blog (which I will share via DMs, but not here) was first active in 2017, though I was a lurker loooong before that.

[My tumblr account well pre-dates my GMM fandom, lol. I think I was originally here for Harry Potter and/or Doctor Who.]

Anyhoo! Back to the Ocean Blues!! 🩵🩵🩵

S-tier is right, Anon! 😍

[arminthada]

2019 Interview Excerpt with Director Songyos Sugmakanan/CEO of artist management/production company Nadao Bangkok, now relaunced as Tada Entertainment

Notable points from the interview

P'Yong got asked by Jina Osothsilp, CEO of GDH 559 (then GTH) to lead the artist management company that were signing actors who had starred in GTH/GDH films.

P'Yong initially refused but eventually gave in to help Khun Jina under the condition that they have a production house so he can continue fulfilling his filmmaking desires.

After directing Coffee Prince Thai remake for True4U, P'Yong got asked by Paiboon Damrongchaitham, Founder of GMM Grammy (the giant media conglomerate that houses GDH 559, One 31, GMM 25, GMMTV...) to make a series for One31.

It's hard for artists who are signed to GTH/GDH/Nadao to get in-house works because when they make films, directors are constantly finding (new) actors who are suitable to the given roles in strict casting procedures, hence there are less works guaranteed for actors who are signed with them.

P'Yong started training his actors (rigorously) so that they were capable to get cast and play in the roles that were written by GTH/GDH/Nadao creatives.

P'Yong is determined in his vision to bring contemporary portrayal of teens to Thai TV at the time, even if it meant touching upon controversial themes like sex, teen pregnancy, drugs, school violence, LGBTQ+... (personally speaking, I feel like you can also see this mindset of filmmaking in his junior colleagues like Boss Kuno, Pat Boonnitipat)

P'Yong drew from the experiences of his young cast members as well as based his characters on real teenagers he inteviewed and got to know to understand their ways of thinking.

[SPOILER ALERT] Mhog's father dying in season 2 as a result of cancer, leading Mhog to quit smoking storyline is the result of the feedback from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation who reached out and showed appreciation Hormones The Series for their depiction of safe sex with protection but also said that the smoking scenes of Pai in S1 had intervently inspired a group of young male audience to start smoking.

P'Yong constantly tracks online engagement with his works and he's found that he has a love for keeping viewers on the edge of their seat -> hence the suspense and murdery mysteries/plot twists in his future works I Hate You, I Love You (2016) and In Family We Trust (2018).

Althought In Family We Trust is the best ratings among all Nadao projects, it's still considered low for One31. P'Yong admits that he gets it because his style of series making requires full concentration, Netflix-style of binging attention so it might not help if it's filled with commercial breaks in between.

At the end of this interview is short clips of the promotional marketing planning meeting for Great Men Academy and Great Men Academy Press Conference.

[Full interview with English subtitles]

and if you've ever caught Tor Thanapob, gushing about any director in any his interviews, it's always the one and only P'Yong

[saltypeanutnerd]

Machines de traitement de la pierre, Prévisions de la Taille du Marché Mondial, Classement et Part de Marché des 17 Premières Entreprises

Selon le nouveau rapport d'étude de marché “Rapport sur le marché mondial de Machines de traitement de la pierre 2024-2030”, publié par QYResearch, la taille du marché mondial de Machines de traitement de la pierre devrait atteindre 2258 millions de dollars d'ici 2030, à un TCAC de 5,1% au cours de la période de prévision.

Figure 1. Taille du marché mondial de Machines de traitement de la pierre (en millions de dollars américains), 2019-2030

Figure 2. Classement et part de marché des 17 premiers acteurs mondiaux de Machines de traitement de la pierre (Le classement est basé sur le chiffre d'affaires de 2023, continuellement mis à jour)

Selon QYResearch, les principaux fabricants mondiaux de Machines de traitement de la pierre comprennent Breton, Keda Group, BMR SpA, Gmm, Pedrini, Biesse Group, Park Industry, DONATONI MACCHINE, SIMEC, SCM Group, etc. En 2023, les dix premiers acteurs mondiaux détenaient une part d'environ 54,0% en termes de chiffre d'affaires.

À propos de QYResearch

QYResearch a été fondée en 2007 en Californie aux États-Unis. C'est une société de conseil et d'étude de marché de premier plan à l'échelle mondiale. Avec plus de 17 ans d'expérience et une équipe de recherche professionnelle dans différentes villes du monde, QYResearch se concentre sur le conseil en gestion, les services de base de données et de séminaires, le conseil en IPO, la recherche de la chaîne industrielle et la recherche personnalisée. Nous société a pour objectif d’aider nos clients à réussir en leur fournissant un modèle de revenus non linéaire. Nous sommes mondialement reconnus pour notre vaste portefeuille de services, notre bonne citoyenneté d'entreprise et notre fort engagement envers la durabilité. Jusqu'à présent, nous avons coopéré avec plus de 60 000 clients sur les cinq continents. Coopérons et bâtissons ensemble un avenir prometteur et meilleur.

QYResearch est une société de conseil de grande envergure de renommée mondiale. Elle couvre divers segments de marché de la chaîne industrielle de haute technologie, notamment la chaîne industrielle des semi-conducteurs (équipements et pièces de semi-conducteurs, matériaux semi-conducteurs, circuits intégrés, fonderie, emballage et test, dispositifs discrets, capteurs, dispositifs optoélectroniques), la chaîne industrielle photovoltaïque (équipements, cellules, modules, supports de matériaux auxiliaires, onduleurs, terminaux de centrales électriques), la chaîne industrielle des véhicules électriques à énergie nouvelle (batteries et matériaux, pièces automobiles, batteries, moteurs, commande électronique, semi-conducteurs automobiles, etc.), la chaîne industrielle des communications (équipements de système de communication, équipements terminaux, composants électroniques, frontaux RF, modules optiques, 4G/5G/6G, large bande, IoT, économie numérique, IA), la chaîne industrielle des matériaux avancés (matériaux métalliques, polymères, céramiques, nano matériaux, etc.), la chaîne industrielle de fabrication de machines (machines-outils CNC, machines de construction, machines électriques, automatisation 3C, robots industriels, lasers, contrôle industriel, drones), l'alimentation, les boissons et les produits pharmaceutiques, l'équipement médical, l'agriculture, etc.