#last twilight meta

[visualtaehyun]

ถ้ามีรุ้งด้วยก็คงจะดี /thaa mee rung duuay gaaw khohng ja dee/

รุ้ง /rung/ is a rainbow, the entire spectrum of light, all of the colors. Rung is the name of Mork's sister. So what he says here, could also be read as:

"If Rung was here too, that would be nice."

You know how rainbows are formed? Light refracts in airborne water droplets. And you know what is made of such water droplets and can thus create a rainbow? หมอก /maawk/ - mist, fog, Mork.

It's not just Day who realized that he can still experience the world in all its beauty. I think Mork also realized that what matters is in your heart. Because he'll always carry Rung with him, wherever he goes.

Rung is all around them.

[heretherebedork]

I made a choice, Day.

(In which Mhok is choosing his love for Day and his want for Day's independence and freedom over his job as Day's caretaker because he will never be able to be free to love Day the way he deserves if he is working for his mother, if he is caught up in the family dynamics. He must be able to love Day as himself, on his own, without that holding him trapped in painful patterns.)

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Hands Touching Hands

I figured people would expect some sort of analysis out of me when it came to The Hands Scene in Episode 4 of Last Twilight. So without further ado, here it is. (you can thank @ginnymoonbeam for this one)

:)

:D

Menace!

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all gifs from @wanderlust-in-my-soul

[waitmyturtles]

Last Twilight, episode 12: final reflections

Wow. It took me all of this past weekend to process this finale, notwithstanding the usual life craziness that has dogged me lately.

Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I'm confused by what I watched. I'd say that, overall -- I actually quite liked this series, and I especially, absolutely ADORED JimmySea, Namtan, and Mark, and their acting. JimmySea kicked major ass, and I really hope they get another big and complicated show to chew on.

I also want to say that between episodes 11 and 12, I felt that I saw uncharacteristic editing clunkiness from Aof Noppharnach and his team that left a lot of necessary emotional and ethical processing on the cutting room floor. I think that's what's ultimately making me feel uneasy about the process of watching this, but -- funnily enough, I'm not nearly as "angry" about the ending as I was with other bad shows that fell apart in their last quarter recently. It was obvious that MhokDay were going to get together.

But I needed to walk a few more steps with them on their journey to that end.

Before I got my eyes on the finale, a few reactions on social media, from Tumblr to Twitter gave me the case of the jibbles. Namely: that the story of Last Twilight would have worked better if Day had stayed blind through the end.

I wasn't really understanding how that construction could work without walking through some sort of ethical minefield.

Now that I've seen the finale -- especially that infamous 4/4 segment -- I understand better what those arguments were saying.

Yet, I'm still dogged by a kind of ethical confusion here. And maybe that was one of the points of this finale, another one of Aof Noppharnach's perhaps now-famous-or-infamous emotionally inconclusive endings.

To me, there are two ethical potholes that this show stumbled on:

1) The ethics WITHIN the fictional piece itself for a character to not depict the process of considering the various fates he might face vis à vis a potentially reversible impairment, and

2) The ethics of a REAL audience ultimately wanting a different outcome for a fictional character to NOT have an impairment reversed.

TL;DR — I don’t think Last Twilight spent enough time having Day consider the permanence or impermanence of the various fates he faced, including permanent blindness. I don’t think the characters, and as such, the audience, spent enough time understanding that a corneal transplant was always going to be Day’s endgame.

Last Twilight was marketed as a show focused on disability, on a man going blind in a society that prioritizes the able-bodied, and how he would adjust to his disability, and of course (this being GMMTV), his falling in love. As fans, we were prepared to receive a whole show about a character with a disability, not as a side pairing, à la Heart and Li Ming in Moonlight Chicken.

It so happened that Day's visual impairment was corneal deterioration -- a condition that could lead to permanent blindness, and thus qualify him for a corneal transplant.

What I'm struggling with is the crux of the ethical dilemma that this show was ALWAYS going to have to deal with: that a corneal impairment of the kind that Day experienced, in the prime of his life, could very well be reversed with surgery, a surgery that has tremendous success rates.

As such -- as we got that clarification in drips throughout the series -- this show was actually not ONLY going to be about the newfound adjustment of a recently-impaired man to an ableist society. It was ALWAYS going to have this door of ANOTHER major change, the reversal of the impairment, just slightly cracked open. I'm not sure that I, as a viewer, was fully prepared for this, even as Night and Mae Mhon spoke about "eye donations" as givens in the middle of the series. I believe the show needed to be much louder, earlier, about the "hope" that Day could "go back" to "living a normal life," instead of framing the high majority of the show around his adjustments to his impairment.

As we went through Day's adjustment to life outside of his room, I believe we needed to hear, FROM DAY HIMSELF, that a corneal transplant was a conclusion that HE believed in, that HE wanted. A failure of this series was that we unfortunately only heard that from his family members, leaving us to only ASSUME that the conclusion of the reversal of his impairment was ALSO Day's intention.

For a story that was very much about an individual's developing agency and self-advocacy: I believe I needed to hear from Day himself that he was good and ready for the final surgery. I only assume that was the case, as I saw his own body and mind in the hospital. But I believe, for dramatic success, that I could have used a basic, "I'm ready," from him, to make segment 4/4 more complete and contextual, against the story of adjustment and resilience we had so far seen before then.

And what a story of adjustment and resilience we had gotten, as Day had established a full career for himself, without Mhok next to him, during one of the time jumps of episode 12.

For my sake, as I process what I watched this weekend, I want to come to grips with what I thought were the major themes of this show, and see if I can come to some sort of sensible conclusion about what happened here.

This show was focused on:

1) the romance between Day and Mhok, 2) Mhok's caretaking and companionship being the lever to help Day out of his room and back into the world from which he had retreated after the onset of his visual impairment, 3) Day slowly learning how to function again in a society that prioritizes the able-bodied vis à vis his visual impairment, 4) Day learning how to self-advocate for himself in the face of those who condescend to him and/or keep him trapped in compassion bias postures,

and more that I'm sure I'm missing, but those are the themes that resonated the most with me.

I think the general feeling on Tumblr is that, save for the romance, that themes 3 and 4 were contradicted out of existence in the face of the sudden flip to the surgery of segment 4/4.

I think not hearing from Day himself that he was ready and willing for the surgery was a lost moment. I don't believe Day was ever acting as if he would choose anything else OTHER than surgery throughout the series. BUT, AT THE SAME TIME: what we had watched prior to 4/4 was his story of adjustment.

My biggest ethical concern here, vis à vis the audience reactions that I've read, is that NO ONE -- in fiction or in real life -- owes me a story of heroism. If there is an individual who has been impaired since birth, or is dealing with a degenerative condition later in their life, and has the opportunity to address or reverse the condition, who am I to say that that individual SHOULD NOT address their condition?

For me, this is huge. I believe this is a huge ethical dilemma that Last Twilight ultimately does not face. I wish this series had been much more centered, earlier on, about the utter REALITY that Day could have his condition reversed by surgery, in words he'd say himself, rather than assumptions made for him, on behalf of his family, who.... I presume were established to be some sort of legal conservators for him, as Mhon continued to be the one to receive eye donation text messages.

(I concede that I don't know if this is a more common set-up for disabled individuals in Thailand, as I would assume in the States, that Day himself would have been the one to receive that message directly.)

For this show to have seemed emotionally and artistically complete: I needed to hear from Day himself that surgery was an endgame that he was banking his hopes on. I also needed to understand, much more statistically clearly vis à vis the show, of the absolute risks that Day faced towards having permanent blindness for the rest of his life. Because the show ALSO needed to focus on the establishment of the romance between Mhok and Day, we missed out on the show taking time to explain to us, the viewers, of the absolute risks that Day faced in any of these scenarios -- and thus, we would have had MUCH more context into the nuances of the resilience that Day needed to establish for himself as he re-adjusted to society, with his numerous fates lying before him.

I'm going to borrow the words of @hallowpen in their final review here, to say that this show at the end needed much more "breathing room." I think @hallowpen is so right in saying it like this, because these two factors that I just laid out, geez -- the first 7/8ths of the series being about Day's social adjustment against the utter suddenness of the successful surgery and his sudden jump back to what's been translated as his "normal life" -- just clash so tonally. (I do wonder if we're getting as nuanced a translation on "normal" as we could be.)

I think this is about the most confused final review of a show that I've written. There is an ethical heaviness to all of this that's weighing on me, that I think I still need time to comb through.

I also feel that I simply do not know enough, by way of my lack of cultural competency into how Thai society approaches issues of public and private health, if Day’s unseen choice to get the surgery would have been a given among majority Thai audiences, AND that majority Thai audiences would not have asked for the kind of internal debates that I think the show could have used.

I feel thrilled that Day can see Poomjai/Mee, after making that wish in episode 11.

But I think, if this show was about a journey for someone to learn how to successfully advocate for his own agency -- that, at the very end, I needed to see that agency exercised, by him, to get to the part of the reversal of the impairment that I assumed he wanted.

Again: Day doesn't owe me his story of heroism. If fiction doesn't want to give me that, from a character with a recent impairment, I don't have the right to ask for it.

But the missing bits of artistry to get me, the viewer, to only an assumption, has led me to surprising ethical places, that will leave me wondering about what happened in this series for a long time.

[bengiyo]

Last Twilight Ep 12 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last week, we learned that Day’s surgery was unsuccessful. We time skipped over his mom figuring out things to see that Mhok is having anxieties about Day and conflating them with Rung. Mhok has become overprotective even as Day has begun using his cane and exercising more independence. Mhok lied about a job opportunity in Hawaii and upset Day. Day reacted in the most extreme and broke up with Mhok.

So…we’re just skipping over the aftermath of that fight? They really just broke up and now it’s years later and Day is graduating? That whole journey ended on one lie? Be serious.

Did they really try to fake me out like Mhok might be the groom for Porjai? Be serious now.

Man, they really want this escalator scene to give It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, but I just don’t think you can earn that in a time skip this abrupt.

Suddenly Aof cameo.

Mixed feelings about Mhok assisting Day like this. At least he revealed himself at the end? It’s giving Revenge of the Nerds (1984) or The Goonies (1985).

Day has had Mhok blocked for three years???

Are we really just gonna start flirting after three years like this? Come on, now. What has changed??

All the meddling is cute, but I’m still at the three years no contact.

Unbelievable. Mhok says he did a bunch of emotional work and then thanked Day for breaking up with him, only for Day to say, ‘I’m glad we can discuss this as adults,’ without saying anything else. “This is real damn ridiculous. This is belemptious.”

Mom, why aren’t saying any of this to Day???

I do appreciate that Day and Night worked out their issues, but everything with the supporting cast feels like it’s all happening between scenes. Like why is the dad here? Are he and the mom going to reconcile? Do we care about this in any way specific to these characters?

Aof seems to like when one of his leads is holding back really hard for some reason, but Day is just not a good execution of that at all. I am not on his side the way I was with Phupha, Jim, or Pran.

If Mhok gives up the work and life he’s built for himself for three years to be with Day, I’m going to be just as annoyed as I was at the end of Enchante with Akk having to work his way to Paris to be with Theo.

So…Day has done no emotional work on his issues with Mhok in three years? I don’t even think Mhok’s issue was about even pitying Day. What the fuck is this?

That car is about to get towed!

I just know Namtam had a good time running around in an airport wearing a wedding dress.

We’re doing this whole reunion scene, so has Mhok just…processed his grief about Rung? We’re just gonna get back together now? Mhok is still talking about his mistake? We’re just gonna take over the aftermath of Night and Porjai’s wedding?

Eye donation? Oh…..this is about to take a turn.

I don’t like timing this to right after the unearned romantic reconciliation. This is a bad look. I had seen some posts earlier, and this is as bad as described.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with Day getting his vision back, but putting it in the finale like this and rushing over the other conflicts makes it feel like a reward. It also has them quickly advancing past any other developments in Day’s life as he potentially reapproaches things he had before.

I’m feeling conflicted about them returning to the mountaintop, because there was so much acceptance in that first scene. I don’t know that there’s good mirroring here of any sort for this.

Final Verdict: 5, This Was a Huge Miss. I’m not sorry for this low rating on an Aof show. I cannot in good faith give this a 6 as decent but boring. The imbalanced writing between the romantic leads left me extremely dissatisfied for most of the back half show, and quickly showing your blind character adapting and even thriving in his circumstances just to have him monologue about being normal again at the end was so not the moment. @lurkingshan has already covered what this show messed up as a good starting point, and I want to state plainly that I will no longer be grading Thai BL on the curve of what the show is trying to be. It’s been ten years of Thai BL, and decades of BL and yaoi before it. These shows will be graded for what they are.

Jojo and Aof had big misses in the last year. Tee dropped the ball multiple times. Golf had a weird outing. New Siwaj failed me completely. We cannot worship these creators. They are just trying to make cool stories and help sell the juice. Sometimes they make really cool pieces that we love forever. Sometimes they flop. Aof tried something here and it didn’t reach the heights we expected of him. Directors are not gods. It’s fine for them to flop. There’s enough BL airing that a few shows being letdowns doesn’t leave us with nothing else to watch for weeks.

Still, I will say that I liked the chemistry between Jimmy and Sea, and I thought Mark and Namtam made a decent pair. When this show was good, I liked the moments.

[thatgirl4815]

My take on the MorkDay dynamic in Ep1 is that Day liked Mork right away, even when he acted all huffy at him. It's not because he felt any sort of special connection to him, but because everyone is basically groveling at his feet for this caretaking job. The guy who started bawling is a perfect example; it's performative. They don't see Day as a whole person. But while immediately challenging the guy you are seeking employment from is not the wisest decision, it's immediate proof that Mork is not intimidated or swayed by Day's condition. Day acts like he only wants to accept Mork as his caretaker because he won't last long in the position, but he's drawn to Mork because Mork doesn't baby him.

Additionally, this scene^ is so touching and proves exactly what Aof has said about Sea being someone who can convey a lot with his eyes, even when playing a blind character. Day can't literally see Mork, but in this moment he's gotten a glimpse of who he really is. And the most compelling part of it for me isn't even The Little Prince bit (though that's definitely a poignant part of the narrative). It's here, just after Mork says he should come and get his library card himself:

It's such a look of contentment from someone being asked to go fetch something for themselves. Mork is challenging Day yet again in a way nobody else does. What to others might look like arrogance or disrespect is actually something so meaningful for Day, who seems to have prided himself so much on his own capability. Being able to see and move freely was once taken for granted, but I think we will see everyone slowly coming to terms with the fact not just verbally but internally that Day is not lesser-than because of his condition.

[syrena-del-mar]

Blind Spots of Motherhood: Last Twilight, Episode 10

We're coming off of the emotional rollercoaster of last week's episode and seeing the consequences of Day and Mhok's getaway. And the consequences are big, which not even Night can assuage.

I love scouring the tags as I watch Last Twilight, and I've been seeing many call Day's mom evil or a narcissist. In my opinion, she does not fit the bill (if you're looking for one that is, go watch Twins, now that's a narcissist). There's a tendency of wanting to villainize mothers, and BLs do a great job of giving us mothers that do fill that role, but I sincerely don't think that's the story P'Aof is trying to tell us here. Rather than evil, I think her arc is more about being a flawed mother that does more harm than good through overparenting, her perceiving Day to be more vulnerable than he really is, and sidelining of Night.

Stages of Adjustment to Vision Loss

Just like the seven stages of grief, similarly there's a theory about the seven phases of adjusting to vision loss. The Stages of Adjustment applies not only to the one suffering the vision loss, but even their friends and family.

Phase 1: Trauma, where personal attitudes and generalization form one's personal view of a person who is blind takes over.

Phase 2: Shock and Denial. Self-explanatory.

Phase 3: Mourning and Withdrawal, it's where the loss of regular activities and routines occur.

Phase 4: Succumbing and Depression occurs when an individual is unable to come to terms with the sudden low vision/blindness and they stop caring for themselves. Feelings of inadequacy becomes prevalent.

Phase 5: Reassessment and Reaffirmation occurs when individuals regain and maintain control of their life. Loved ones play a significant role in assisting them to reach this independence at this stage.

Phase 6: Coping and Mobilization happens when individuals develop coping techniques to live with the vision loss and acknowledge their abilities and accept when the need assistance.

Phase 7: Self-Acceptance and Self-Esteem occurs when the individual realizes that they have value and their loss of vision is just one of the many attributes.

When the Last Twilight first started, we met Day as he was dealing with Phase 3 and 4. With the help of Mhok, we've seen Day grow in his independence, but also come to terms that his vision loss may be forever. He no longer was thinking and hoping for that transplant surgery, he wasn't even counting on it anymore. Instead, with the help of Mhok (and Night), Day was able to reach Phase 6 and was transitioning into Phase 7.

But just as Day was moving on with his, his mother wasn't. She's still struggling with his disability and has gotten stuck in Phase 3 and 4, just as Day had been. She's so blinded by Day's disability, that she's drowning in the fears of what could happen to Day rather than seeing the strides of improvement that he has made.

Overprotective Parenting fails in Harm Reduction: Day

"Expecting him to be independent at one time and overprotecting him at another will only result in a frustrated youngster. It is important to judge and treat the blind child fairly; not indulging him, yet not setting goals and expectations so high that he is discouraged." -The Blind Child: Becoming an Independent Adult

Day's mother is frustrating, to say the least. She is so incredibly misguided in how she treats both of her sons, it's no surprise that Day locks himself away into the cavern of his bedroom.

She only sees Day for his disability. Acknowledging and accepting that Day is blind is important, and that does signify life adjustments, but that doesn't mean making Day's blindness the only thing about him. She forgets that Day was a full-functioning adult that had his own lifestyle before he lost his sight. She's only come to known Day for his blindness. She's the one that puts his blindness at the forefront.

She wants him to get out of his bedroom, to stop locking people out, but once he has some sense of independence, apart from his family, now she's afraid? Her son, vision loss or no vision loss, is an adult, but instead of giving him such dignity, she regresses and infantilizes him. She pushes him back into that suffocatingly big bedroom. She takes away his phone, his internet, every tool that connects him to the outside world. She takes away what little independence he had started to build up again.

Any good parent would be worried about their child who has undergone a traumatic event, but over-protecting does more harm than good. In her anxieties, she ends up resorting to using unintentionally abusive tactics. Yes, Day would be physically fine, but in her overprotectiveness, she fails to realize that it could lead to dependency inducement, learned helplessness, and bouts of depression. Day's mother fails to realize that taking away any autonomy that Day has only started rebuilding, would only result in Day's emotional state worsening.

Blindness doesn't have to mean debilitating, but locking your son up in his room without any way to interact with the world around him that he is trying to relearn? That's more crippling than any vision loss could ever be.

Readjusting as the Glass Child: Night

"The most egregious form of rejection that anyone can ever experience is parental rejection" -Is Rejection, Parental Abandonment or Neglect a Trigger for Higher Perceived Guilt in Adolescents

Oh man, the pain I felt for Night this whole episode was next level. The idea of a glass child is not one's delicateness but rather as a sibling of a individual with disabilities, the sibling becomes invisible to the parents, only seen when the parents need them. If it wasn't obvious before, it's clear that this was the role that their mother was forcing Night into.

There's nothing that hurts worse than the sharp words of a mother directed to her child. His mother explicitly blaming Night for Day's disability was a new low-blow. Night had already been beating himself up for the accident, his father (who doesn't even live with them) knew that, but seemingly their mother was oblivious. The only one that Night could rely on was an outsider, a father that they hadn't been in contact with for years. Their mother created that environment by not paying attention to her other son, who was also in that accident.

Nothing fuels sibling rivalry like preferential treatment from parents. Even worse when one has to be the caretaker of the other when they already have a fractured relationship. Instead of easing the tension between the two brothers, their mother is too busy worrying solely for Day without accounting for Night. Caretaker burnout is already incredibly exhausting when you're caring for a loved one, but Night has personal guilt and Day's resentment to deal with as well. Not once does their mother ask him how he's doing, if Night is alright.

Night is the forgotten child, the child that's expected to take care of his brother no matter what, no matter how independent Day has become. She has parentified Night without any consideration of how he was doing or what was going on in his life. This was probably already a running theme as they grew up, assuming from their positioning in the family portrait. In doing so, she unknowingly worsens the strife with the brothers, making Day believe that Night had only been "behaving well" in order to win some preferential treatment from her.

Even on Christmas, their mother only cares for Day, feeding him first and putting food on his spoon, body fully turned against Night. In that scene, visually Night seems like he's intruding and he feels it as well! It's why he excuses himself, saying that he's going to meet up with some friends. Even after being forgiven by Day, his mother doesn't make any effort to include Night other than just having him at the table. It's as if he wasn't part of their nuclear family, just a convenient body that is there to help out as Day adjusts to his new life. If it hadn't been for Day, Night would have left that table that night and would have believed that nobody cared for him. I'm hoping this makes her confront and reassess how she's treated Night, now and in the past.

It's ironic, even though Day is blind and held a lot of contempt for his brother, he was still saw Night and all his struggles. Meanwhile, their mother was seeing right through him, blaming him for what happened to Day. Driving a dagger, that Night had already stabbed himself with, even deeper.

Final Thoughts

I'm not quite ready to jump on the 'Mother Gothel' train for Day and Night's mom. I think she is juggling being a career woman and being a mother at the same time, while failing to adjust to Day's blindness and making mistakes in her parenting as a result.

I also don't think it's out of maliciousness or self-importance, either. When I see their mother, it's as if she's trying to save a sinking boat that is already pierced by numerous holes. There's no going back to their lives before Day's blindness. She needs to adjust her priorities, because disregarding Night and locking up Day is not the answer.

This episode was frustrating, not because I found her to be outright abusive, but because of her worries she ends up hurting her sons even more. No parent is perfect, and they can hurt you while thinking they're acting in your best interest, but they have to be willing to love and let their kids learn on their own.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Last Twilight Episode 12;

Like most people, I did not like the ending of Last Twilight. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and find time to write on the episode, but in the meantime, I've been reading what others have had to say about the show, and I have a few thoughts.

As @waitmyturtles talked about here, discussing whether or not Day should have gotten his vision back presents an ethical dilemma. I've seen a few posts of people who dislike the fandom's outrage against Day getting his vision back, talking about how his getting his vision back does not undo all that he learned and did while he was disabled. Setting aside the fact that Day did not grow through the series, (which @chalkrevelations wrote about here) a big problem for me is feeling like the narrative did a complete 180 post-episode 10. A massive portion of the show was spent with Day learning to accept his blindness and learning to work with it, and although we knew that the surgery was on the table from episode one, it ended up feeling like it came out of nowhere in the final episode. One of the main reasons for this, I think, is because the show barely brought up the surgery in the first 3/4ths of the show (I can think of like 2 instances where it was mentioned) and then it's dropped onto us by Mhon and Night crashing Day and Mhok's date, after which everything became about the surgery. Up till the third quarter of the show, I had enjoyed that the story had such a tight storyline, with such clear intentions. But then the show veered into a very different direction post episode 10, which made the show feel completely different to what it was.

As @waitmyturtles says in her post, it could have been so much better if Day was able to actively choose the surgery, and that we, as an audience, got to see him actually consider the various paths that lay before him. For the surgery to have made sense, narratively speaking, the story would have to be slightly different. You don't just spend 10 episodes of a show working towards a theme and then end the show with the exact opposite of the theme. The final two episodes felt like they were of a completely different show (now, doesn't that sound familiar).

While we're talking about feeling betrayed by the narrative, I want to talk about Mee, and Last Twilight the book. They managed to fuck up Mee's story, and I am aghast. The significance of Mee's story, especially the ending, was completely thrown out by the episode, in particular the montage, which had me fuming. What happened to Day understanding what the author meant to convey by Mee's ending while Mhok didn't, because he felt a sense of kinship with the author's daughter, who Mee was based upon? Mee's story had reliably predicted Day's almost to the end, so what happened? They tried to subvert the ending of the novel, with Day 'reflecting' on Mee's story in the background of the montage. But all that it did was completely go against everything that the show and the novel had stood for.

Life amidst that dilemma caused me to forget what it was like to live a normal life, or how happy I could be.

Sincerely, what the fuck? A huge part of Last Twilight was Day finding, creating a new normal with Mhok. Day learning that his blindness didn't make him abnormal. But this completely erases that. It's saying that living as a blind person, Day wasn't living a normal life, nor was he truly happy.

When Mhok finished reading the story to Day, Day understood. He understood why the author chose to end the story that way, because he understood that being blind for the rest of his life wasn't a curse. He understood Mee, understood her joy, understood that she hadn't disappeared, understood that the ending of the book wasn't tragic.

What Day says here, is that he was heartbroken about Mee's fate because he related to her and felt like they shared the same fate, but he realizes that his story doesn't need to be the same as Mee's.

Isn't Day feeling pity for Mee here? Isn't he doing exactly what he broke up with Mhok for, viewing Mee as some tragic figure, when 6 years ago he had understood that Mee was not someone he needed to feel sorry for? I've posted about how important it was that Mee's story's ending was written with Mee rejoicing, rather than being written as a tragedy. It was so important that Day understood the author's intentions, rather than viewing it as a tragic story. So then, what changed? I don't know, this may be a bit of a stretch, but these lines just seem so wrong, and hypocritical coming from Day.

The intended purpose of this message seems to have been hope for a new, better life. But, if Day's blindness was the worst chapter of his life, what was the point of him learning to accept his blindness, to live with it, and what was the point of showing it to us?

Before the final episode aired, I had said that I hoped that we'd get a nod to Mee's story in the end, to add onto the impact and relevance of Mee's story in Day's. What we got instead, was a preachy reflection that went against everything that the first 10 episodes of the show had stood for, accompanied by a useless montage that completely upended the significance of the stories of both the show and the novel.

In the few minutes this montage lasted, it managed to successfully tear down everything that the first 10 episodes had shown us, everything that Mee's story had told us. Borrowing this one from @lurkingshan's tags in this post, how can a creator misunderstand their own narrative so badly?

I hesitate to use the term ableist to describe the last episode. But what I'm getting from this montage is that Day believes that he was neither normal nor happy while he was blind, and believes that it was the worst chapter of his life. Mee's story, one that is based on a little girl who was going blind, is shown as tragic, in contrast to Day's 'happy and normal' life. And that message seems pretty ableist to me. Which also makes me wonder, how much did Day really 'learn' from his time as a blind person? Because from what I'm getting from this montage, it wasn't a whole lot.

[infinitelyprecious]

"About last night"

It's a 3 minute conversation and there is SO MUCH happening. There are so many details in body language, facial expressions and tone. Amazing amazing job done by Jimmy and Sea omg. I'm singing their highest praises. I wanted to write something about it, and this turned into a written portrayal plus some added thoughts. To relive the scene, but in a slightly different way.

Mhok enters the car and Day's eyes nervously flicker. A parallel to the first scene of this episode. The tension can be cut with a knife, but this time they're going to talk.

In unison they open up the topic and Day takes it away: "I've thought about it." As he's talking we see the tension in Mhok's chest, his eyes wide open, fixated on Day. A second later he releases his breath and shoulders and smiles. All soft he goes: "I've thought about it too."

Day shuts his eyes and squints his face. Knowing what he wants to say but finding it difficult to. Ofcourse, because what are the implications of this?

Mhok is his caregiver and though Day doesn't return Mhok's feelings, he doesn't want to lose him. He likes Mhok, trusts him like he does no other person and all of that is on the line now.

How is Mhok going to react to the rejection, can they move forward and still be the same they always were or does he need to start looking for a new caregiver? That's a lot of insecurities right there.

And he blurts it out: "I'm sorry Phi, but you are not my type." The tension still in his face after he said it. A deep breath out, a swallow, his eyes blinking rapidly. How is Mhok going to react?

And Mhok, Mhok needs a moment to process. This hurts. He bites his lip, his brows furrowed. But his face softens as he nods and accepts the rejection: "I figured."

The tension is still palpable as Mhok looks at Day and says: "I just wanted you to know how I feel about you." Day's eyes go back and forth, processing what Mhok said. And then the question follows. "Did you think we could be the same if I knew it?"

Again, Mhok needs a moment. What is the best thing to say here? This must mean that Day is uncomfortable and doesn't want him around anymore, right? Just like everyone else, right?

And he makes a decision: "Okay, I'll quit."

Not asking Day what he wants, but assuming he's not wanted around anymore. Like so many times before.

"Don't worry about it Day." An attempt to make Day feel comfortable, assuring him it's okay.

But this isn't what Day wanted. And Day is quick to let Mhok now. Firmly he says: "Hey. Though I don't have feelings for you, I still want to have you here..." and his voice trails off "...na." Once again choosing Mhok, keeping him by his side.

Mhok blinks, his face full of confusion as he looks at Day and smiles with disbelief and hope: "What do you mean?"

"I mean as my caretaker", Day stutters, quick to not let Mhok assume anything else. Mhok now turns his body toward Day, listening and watching intently. And Day continues: "If you can just act the same, I won't have a problem with that." His voice trails off again: "I guess."

More processing for Mhok. His eyes move back and forth, a finger pressed against his upper lip. "So... if I can do that, I'll get to continue taking care of you." Now using his finger to accentuate his words. "Right?"

"Right, but...", Day puts down a boundary, "if you cross the line and hit on me, you're fired." Instant smile on Mhok's face. And he laughs, relieved. "I get it now, sir."

"I'm serious." Day says. Needing to make sure Mhork really understands. "Yeah, I know", Mhok replies, still with a smile on his face. The relief visible in his entire body.

After this Mhok buckles Day up and there's some more details to be seen, but the part that really got me was the whole convo previous to it, so I'm going to leave it at this.

Mhok is happy and back to his teasing self. He continues to tease Day and find the exact boundaries throughout the rest of the episode and I love that. There certainly have been signs of Day's attraction to Mhok and I think Mhok realized there still was a chance but was also careful not to push too far.

I love them, I adore them. I adore this show in it's entirety.

[visualtaehyun]

The brothers, Day's anger, and Night & Mork

Disclaimer: not a native Thai speaker, still learning 🙏

This is in part inspired (brainrot-induced? brainrot-fuelled?) by @chalkrevelations's post about the brothers and Day's behavior (go read it first if you're reading this!!) and in part just my usual language rambles observations.

Let's establish a few facts first (all pronouns presented as A/B are to be understood as I/you)

Night is older than Day - by enough that he's older even than Mork! (Mork and Porjai both call Night พี่ /phi/ while referring to Day as น้อง /nong/)

The brothers use กู/มึง /guu, mueng/ with each other, despite their age gap. These are informal pronouns that are actually pretty rude outside of using them with people you're close to because they're overly familiar -> for reference, Day, Gee and August all use these with each other, and Mork and Porjai use them with each other

Between ep. 1 and 2, Night and Mork go from the polite formal ผม/คุณ /pom, khun/ in both directions to Night using กู/มึง /guu, mueng/ and Mork using ผม/พี่ /pom, phi/ - they're friendly with each other! -> for reference, that's the exact same as you hear P'Aof and JimmySea using in the bts- P'Aof uses กู/มึง /guu, mueng/ while Jimmy and Sea use ผม/พี่ /pom, phi/ with him

Same as I've said that Mork and Day's way of speaking is getting sweeter, Day and Night are. uh. kind of the opposite. But also, they barely talk directly to each other anyway.

So let's look at that fight in the car in ep. 8

Night tries to engage Day and an awkwardly-caught-in-the-middle Mork takes up the speaking instead. When Day opts to use Mork as a middleman (just one of many instances of both brothers not speaking directly with each other), Night keeps on trying to engage him to no success. And then he just kinda- 🥴

ส่วนห้องน้ำคนพิการอยู่ทางขวา /suan haawng naam khohn phi gaan yuu thaang khwaa/ -> คนพิการ /khohn phi gaan/ = disabled/handicapped person (don't let the /phi/ in the romanization fool you, it has nothing to do with the pronoun พี่ /phi/)

I wonder since when they've been this distant because Night here isn't looking at Day like he's a person, he's almost looking at Day only through the lens of 'person I need to take care of' - because of the responsibility their mom has put upon him and because he's the older brother - anyone who's the eldest child among siblings and feels seen please raise your hand 🙋‍♀️

Night means well, he cares about his brother - but he's also ignorant and a bit of a klutz with his words. It's being singled out as disabled and the implication of needing special treatment in everything that tick Day off enough to speak directly to Night and start getting rude:

The word here is เหี้ย /hiia/ and it won't be the last time or the only curse word he uses.

Night is saying all the wrong things of course, while Mork is sitting in the back having to witness it all (and maybe being reminded of fights he's had with his own sister).

มึงรู้ปะ ตอนนี้กูเห็นเหี้ยไร /mueng ruu bpa, dtaawn nee guu hen hiia rai/ = You know what the fuck I see right now? กูไม่เห็นเหี้ยไรสักอย่างไง /guu mai hen hiia rai sak yaang ngai/ = I don't see a fucking thing! แล้วทุกอย่างแม่งก็หนักขึ้นเรื่อย ๆ /laaeo tuk yaang maaeng gaaw nak khuen reuuay reuuay/ = And it's all damn getting worse.

แล้วเพราะกูรู้ว่าแม่งแค่ฝันเนี่ยะ /laaeo phraw guu ruu waa maaeng khaae fan nia/ = And because I know it's just a damn dream, แม่งยิ่งเหี้ย /maaeng ying hiia/ = that's even more fucking shit.

Oof. Calm down, kiddo, this is your brother ;;

Day speaks with bitterness and resentment and viciousness. I don't think this started when Day started losing his sight but long before that, the way Day talks to and about his brother:

The only one who's looking out for Night is Mork

We actually get a lot of reaction shots of Mork silently watching and trying to parse the family dynamics, reaction shots of Night looking melancholic because of or happy for his brother, and sometimes it even looks like Night and Mork make sympathetic eye contact via reaction shots:

Night defends Mork several times in front of their mother and later tells Mork that they're grateful to him for making Day happier! And Mork does the same, he mentions Night to Day positively. Day doesn't realize it, for some reason, but Mork and Night talk to each other. And they see how Day interacts with the other one.

So it didn't surprise me at all to find out that Mork had gone behind Day's back yet again, after the brothers had that huge fight in the car. Of course Night knows where they are and that Day is safe. Of course Night knows. Night is constantly making sure that Day is okay without actually showing his involvement - he is just as invisible as Day and Mork were in parts of the story.

[heretherebedork]

Mhok putting on the pink shirt specifically to make himself as visible to Day as possible and that being what Day did finally see and that Mhok comes back with visible bruises and Day has no idea that he's injured because Mhok kept that from him and then the background check and Mhok seeing the judgement in Day's mother's eyes and facing it with his truth and not letting her be the one to tell Day and then Day saying he didn't care and being so, so clear that it didn't matter to him and standing up to his mother because he wants to keep Mhok because Mhok brings him freedom and then the preview for next week where it's very obvious that other people know Day is gay and are already teasing him about Mhok being handsome and sneaking peeks at him and the way that all comes together in that fear of judgement and that worry of being totally seen and how people see you as well and just all of it, every last bit, from being invisible to being too seen.

[key2world]

Last Twilight Friendships

So much has already been said about Gee and Porjai being the boy's safezones. They're also the only two characters who organically bring out MhokDay's cheeky sassiness. I mean, Gee and Day are always girlbossing together and P'Mhok heads the single queen community with Porjai. We also get a lot of colour-swaps with both these pairs because they so similar– in all the ways that matter– like in this one scene, where we can see the criss-cross match of the colours of their shirts and their cups.

But something I especially loved with ep.7 is that we finally see P'Mhok joking around with Gee and Day being an annoying little nong with Porjai, which means that the girls have officially become familiar and comfortable to both of the boys which is... all that's right and good in this world right now really.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

ngl i am waiting for you to write about physical touch and HANDS in last twilight *insert manifestation circle.gif here*

Not gonna lie, as much as I have been enjoying Last Twilight, I haven't felt all that inspired to write about it, but it has been making me feel all warm and fuzzy now that people are reaching out and asking for my thoughts. Turns out people actually seem to enjoy my horrendously long posts!

Alright, I will talk about physical touch and hands in Last Twilight, but before I get too far in to it, I just want to say, I love the use of physical touch in shows, but I will dare to claim the use of physical touch seems particularly important, and especially complicated in Last Twilight, compared to most of the other shows I've written about. Why?

Because Day is blind, and Mhok is his caretaker, and if you are remotely aware of disability, the autonomy of disabled people, the privacy of disabled people, the survival of disabled people are often disrupted by abled bodied people. I saw a post somewhere, sorry I can't find it, where someone mentioned the rates of abuse of disabled people by their caretakers and how that might weigh in to Day's reaction to touching a shirtless Mhok in Episode 2.

So.

With Day's blindness, grief, and intentional isolation, as well as his family's anxiety, how much control has Day really had over his own life in the last year? As @bengiyo said in Episode 1, "Day's brashness in the interview when he asks Mhok if he's hot sounds like a gay man knowing that he is about to be touched a lot by a stranger" [not a direct quote, apologies].

Episode 1

gif from @dragonsareawesome123

The first physical touch we get between Day and Mhok is when Mhok touches Day's chin, making a comment that essentially boils down to Day having a punchable face. You can see how shocked Day is to feel Mhok's thumb on him. But the motion is quick, light, and slightly flirty (though maybe I'm reading a bit in to that last one since I know this is a BL). While Day seems taken aback, he doesn't seem uncomfortable with the touch at all, moreso, to me at least, he seems surprised that Mhok *isn't* shying away from touching Day after Day so loudly and blatantly declared his queerness and hit on Mhok.

photo from @thescrumptiousstuffs

The second physical touch we get is when Day leaves his car and winds up on the street with traffic whizzing past. Mhok pulls Day off the street when Day gets overwhelmed and Day goes crashing in to Mhok. I don't remember them staying pressed together for too long, but there is a moment where Mhok is embracing Day. Mhok's hands go to Day's hips while Day's hand rests on Mhok's chest near his collarbone. From my view, this is a decently intimate position for relative strangers, but they don't feel uncomfortable in it. Which is a great hint that Mhok and Day are going to become more to each other. Mhok does something here that I do think is important, which is to tell Day who is he, so Day knows he isn't being manhandled by a *complete* stranger. And though I suspect the biggest reason why Day ends up being driven home by Mhok is because Day wants to be away from Night, it cannot be denied that Day already has some modicum of trust in this random, crass man that burst in for an interview just the other day. Because, as we know, Mhok was really the only person who interacted with Day without falling victim to pity, inspiration porn, or infantilization.

The third physical touch I consider important is when Day's mother stops him from standing up. I've been reading @waitmyturtles PhD level thesis on Bad Buddy so filial piety and saving face is pretty present on my mind. I think it is important to acknowledge that Day does have some autonomy, but where he exercises it is very clear. He can leverage his blindness and his bad experiences with past caretakers to get what he wants out of his mother, and he can double, triple, quadruple the caretaker salary without consulting his mother. But when it comes to physical movement, he listens to his mother, but not to Night. Night tells him to stay in the car, and Day almost immediately leaves the car and goes in to the Society. Day gets out in the middle of traffic after a fight with Night, even after Night begs him to stay in the car. But that moment of challenge from Mhok where he tells Day to come get his ID himself, and Day starts to stand, everything stops dead in its tracks at the first light touch of his mother's hand on Day's chest. So, despite the moments of anger and rebellion we see from Day, he still listens to his mother.

gif from @dragonsareawesome123

And then Day moves to get his ID, and here is where I will mention a moment where there was not any touch. Which, probably could be an essay in and of itself, but I don't have the capacity at the moment, on this airplane, to comb through all the scenes and look for it. But here, this one feels important, because Day takes the ID from Mhok, but Mhok does not let go right away. Their fingers are so close, and in a lot of movies, the handing over of an item would usually involve some sort of moment where fingertips brush and a shockwave of electricity ripples through the future couple. But we don't get that here. The moment of connection, the moment that Day really knows he can trust Mhok, the moment Day decides he is going to hire Mhok has nothing to do with touch, and everything to do with sound. He hears Mhok read Chapter 21 of The Little Prince, a book that is desperately important to Day, and that is that. And I do think it is important that these little touches that we've had, and where we break from the romance tradition for touch are important. Because, I think it is totally fine for feelings to grow between Mhok and Day rather quickly, but I do not think it would have been wise to show Mhok having some sort of actual crush on Day from the beginning. If Mhok had some sort of romantic or sexually attractive feelings for Day before he started working there, that would, in my opinion, read as predatory in some sense. Especially looking ahead to Episode 2, when Mhok is shirtless in Day's room.

Because, the thing about physical touch in television is that a lot of different elements go in to selling it as romantic chemistry. One of the most important components is timing and close up. As a side note, I think timing is a huge factor in to why I did not enjoy Perth and Chimon together in Dangerous Romance (before I dropped it) because the camera just never lingered long enough on their faces or on their touches for me to believe they had feelings for each other. But, by Episode 3 of Last Twilight I can see the care and the chemistry between Mhok and Day. I can see the comfortability that Mhok and Day have from almost the very beginning of knowing each other, but I don't take much of their physical interactions to be sexually charged or romantic in Episode 1. Why would they be? These two don't know each other. By generally avoiding zooming in on just Day and Mhok's hands when they touch, by having Mhok grabbing Day's chin with his thumb quickly and lightly you aren't building to tension. Aof is merely demonstrating that physical touch between Day and Mhok is welcomed and Day is not going to be uncomfortable with having Mhok take care of him.

So we head in to Episode 2 with the understanding that there is some fundamental aspect of Mhok that Day is drawn to, and that Mhok and Day are going to get along.

Episode 2

Now, as much as I have loved the rapidly developing relationship between Mhok and Day, I do kind of wish we had had a full episode's worth of two angry, grieving people coming head to head. But, regardless, Aof handles the transition between casual touch and Something More with expert precision. Unsurprising, considering his oeuvre.

gif by @mooninaugust

So we get absolutely my favorite touch moment to date in Episode 2 with the absolutely terrible secret handshake between two blind people. I love how Mhok is witness to this moment of excitement and friendship between Day and Aon, and that we are too. Because it shows us where Mhok currently stands in Day's hierarchy of relationships. Mhok at the beginning of Episode 2 is still an acquaintance, some dude they hired because he cursed the family out and read The Little Prince during his interview process. The cut scene between Mhok saying Day might not want to see him, and Aon and Day hugging and doing their stupid loser handshake (I love them) shows Mhok and the audience that Day does have joy within him, and that Day is starting to build friendship and connection within his new (read: blind) community. We won't know until a little later in the episode how much Day has been cutting himself off from his old life, but for the time being Mhok knows his place in Day's life.

And Aon picks up on the fact that there is *something* even if it is not necessarily romantic there between Mhok and Day, again not by seeing anything physical between them because a) Mhok and Day did not touch in front of Aon and b) Aon would not have been able to see it anyway. But instead calls out the fact that Day has never talked about a single one of his caregivers before. We know now (and definitely should know already) that Mhok is different from other people Day has engaged with since he started going blind. We just haven't had time for their relationship to mature.

photo from @thatgirl4815

If I recall correctly, the first physical touch between Mhok and Day we get in Episode 2 is when Day accidentally touches Mhok's titty while searching for the eye drops. You can see Day recoil in shock a bit and he questions Mhok almost immediately as to why his shirt is off. Mhok is incredibly matter-of-fact in explaining that Day said he didn't like the smell of cigarettes, so he took his shirt off so as not to stink up Day's room (we can ignore the fact that he would still smell like cigs, but we ignore it For The Vine) and Day relaxes and makes some sort of annoyed comment. Again here, there is no romantic attraction in this rather intimate touch. I mean, this is Mhok's what? Second or third day? Mhok and Day barely know each other, Mhok is constantly fucking up the Whole Routine because he isn't communicating with Day about what Day's needs are, and here he is in his employer's room having his pec fondled. This is supposed to read as funny, and ultimately I think it does, but it doesn't read as romantic, and it definitely should not. What has Mhok done up to this point that would cause Day to have Genuine Romantic Feelings for him? Nothing.

photo from @moonchildridden

Again, the first hint that feelings may be approaching comes outside of the touch, with Mhok seeing how excited Day is to use those few precious seconds of better vision to watch his goldfish. And even moreso, it's not just the action that I think start the train rolling, but the conversation that Mhok has with Day where he asks if the goldfish is lonely. Mhok is able to con Day in to leaving his room by leveraging the health and safety of one of the few things Mhok has seen Day care about and connect with in the short time they've known each other. Day gets outside for the first time in god knows how long, to find that the jasmine is in bloom and to have a lovely conversation with Mhok about it. Mhok asks about Day's vision, how he sees, what he can see, and he tries to adapt to Day's necessary distance requirements. Day of course, has his head turned away and thus does not see Mhok coming in to Day's eyesight range, and bumps his nose against the top of Mhok's finger.

This little, accidental movement is one of my favorites of the episode, mostly because it opens up the conversation where Day asks what Mhok is doing and Mhok asks if Day wants to see his face. And this scene establishes exactly what I mean about timing as it relates to building sexual tension. Day ponders for a moment, the camera lingers on his face, the audience begins to feel like Day is caught off-guard, like maybe he does have some sort of crush on Mhok and he does want to see his face. Only for Day to break that tension right before it gets awkwardly long and tell Mhok he does not. This is closer to the shit that friends would pull. And thus we see that in a very quick period of time Mhok is becoming more important in Day's life as a waypoint. He is listening to Mhok, he has a slight bit of banter going with Mhok when they watch a movie, and even after Day fires Mhok (for the physical touches I will talk about next) Mhok's influence on Day's general day to day (haha) existence is clear in the fact that Day is sitting on the couch and trying to pick a movie entirely independently of anyone.

Things are starting to go smoothly, when Day's friends show up asking when he got back from America. Day panics at the unexpected arrival of friends who seem not to know about his condition, spills his popcorn, and falls to the floor, where he is desperately scrambling to get back on his feet and Get The Fuck Out. Mhok tries to help him up, but he's pretty quickly brushed off. This is the first time we see Day reject a touch from Mhok. Knowing what I know now about where we end up in Episode 3, I am realizing how important this entire scene (from Day tripping to Mhok getting fired) is for establishing a comparison point for change. Because the unwanted touch continues when Mhok breaks in to Day's room, also in a panic when Day is bathing.

gif by @btwinlines

We get such a juicy moment of Mhok and Day's trauma clashing with each other in a way that is unintentionally terrible all around. Day does not know about Mhok's backstory, Day does not know that by putting in his headphones and intentionally ignoring Mhok he is accidentally triggering Mhok regarding the death of his sister. Mhok knows that Day is upset, but only hears the room fall quiet, he does not know that Day is in the bathtub (read: naked) when he comes barging in. Again, to reference the post whoever it was made that talked about the rates of abuse/assault of disabled people by caregivers, this is a horrifically vunerable position that Day finds himself in. Mhok is far enough away from Day's range of vision for Day to see him immediately duck behind a wall to give Day privacy while he wraps himself in a towel. And before Day can really process what is happening, with both his emotions and Mhok's running high, Mhok is grabbing at Day's wrists to check them for cuts. A beautiful (and terrible) detail.

Personally, I do not think anyone's reaction to that situation is wrong, but it does give Day a second round of extremely uncomfortable and unwelcome touching from Mhok, when he's already escalated, and trying to process the fact that Mhok just barged in to his room while Day was naked and got a little peek. Here Day demonstrates that he does have autonomy, and that Mhok respects that autonomy with Day firing Mhok after two particularly awful physical interactions, and with Mhok not even saying a word in protest and just accepting his termination and leaving the house.

photo from @thescrumptiousstuffs

Now. Mhok isn't completely going out fighting, and Mhok I think has really started to realize that he cares for Day (even if he doesn't necessarily have feelings at this point) because of how badly he was triggered by Day falling silent. Mhok is a thoughtful person and respects Day's boundaries by sending Porjai to the house instead of going himself. Much to Day's chagrin, because the second the doorbell rings, you can see this hopeful look that maybe Mhok is going to walk through that door. Porjai hands Day the present Mhok bought him, and Mhok does hold the slippers close, but he relies heavily on his hands to feel the slippers to figure out what they are and what they look like. He knows immediately that Mhok has been paying attention and trying to get to know Day immediately because the slippers solve the problem Day has had with hitting his feet on furniture corners, and the slippers look like goldfish, one of the few things Day has seemed to care about since knowing Mhok.

Beyond the fact that I think Day already felt bad about what happened the other day and regrets firing Mhok, this really does demonstrate to Day that people still care about him, want to get to know him, and understand that adaptation is a constant in Day's new reality. But Mhok takes it further, by committing to the motherfucking bit to understand Day better.

Aside: I fucking *love* Aof for how often his stories focus on the overlooked or disenfranchised people, and I think that while it is going to be a feat for Last Twilight to become my favorite Aof piece considering how important Moonlight Chicken is to me, the backstories of Mhok and Day and the way they inform character decisions is perhaps my favorite of all of the shows I've seen of Aof's. I *love* the conversation that Mhok and Aon have where Aon says Day is scared of being looked at and judged by people, and how Mhok is like "why?" because he has spent the last year a visible criminal, trying to get a job, and being constantly rejected for exactly the reason he thinks. Mhok has spent so much time and energy over the last year trying to reintegrate himself in to society, while Day has spent so much time and energy over the last year trying to remove himself from society as completely as he can. Even if I am not sure that he believes it wholly, I do think Mhok understands that he isn't an inherently bad person because he was locked up, but that he is a victim of circumstance, and yet even reformed from his truancy past, Mhok found it impossible to get a job because people stopped caring about him as a person the second they saw his ankle monitor. Thus, Mhok knows exactly what it is like to be written off, to be abandoned, to be forgotten and I think it is for precisely those reasons that Mhok decides to spend the time and effort to understand the world that Day is living in.

The ankle monitor has served as an embarrassment for Mhok in such a way that I truly do not think Mhok is concerned about seeming like a complete and utter fool. And even so, he starts to understand the fear that Day is living with existing as a blind person in public, because Mhok is extremely used to seeing what people think of him without them having to say anything, and now he has no idea.

gif by @btwinlines

Which I think is a good segue in to the next physical touch we get, which is Day feeling Mhok's face in the marketplace after he asks Porjai to take him there. Again, the distance of the camera, the timing of the movement does not come off as romantic, at least to me. But it does come off as comfortable. I think Day is fucking with Mhok a little bit when he touches his face, and we don't actually acknowledge or get any conversation around the way Day has just demonstrated what it feels like to be touched without warning.

And YET AGAIN Aof has their bond strength not through touch, but through conversation. Because they aren't falling for each other yet, they are still learning about one another. And so they have a conversation where Mhok apologies and Mhok explains what he was trying to do and Mhok identifies what it is that makes Day so afraid of being in public. And we end Episode 2 with Mhok being re-hired as Day's caregiver. But wait!

Remember the last touch we get in Episode 1 is not a touch at all, it's Day taking his ID back from Mhok. Well, the last touch we get in Episode 2 is not a touch at all, it's Day throwing his hands to the sky on the back of Mhok's motorcycle and letting the wind hit his face. It's Day sitting on the complete opposite side of a glass tank, and using his moment of improved vision to catch a glimpse of Mhok. They aren't touching, yet we end the episode with the understanding that Day and Mhok have strengthened their relationship and are on the fast road to friendship. Personally, I feel like it is extremely responsible of Aof to not treat touching a blind person or having a blind person touch you as inherently romantic, and to have the more stomach swoopy moments come from actions and observations entirely devoid of touch. But, I'm not blind so I don't know how much something like that might actually matter to blind people who are engaging with this story.

Episode 3

IT IS TIME FOR FEELINGS!

There are so many physical touches in this episode. The first we get is Mhok unwrapping a bandage on Day's foot, with Day looking extremely at peace with the action. The second we get is Mhok kind of poking at Day and then jokingly moving to pick Day up when he refuses to start cleaning his room. Day doesn't seem like a person generally fond of man-handling, but you can tell very easily that Mhok is just fucking with Day because Day fucked with Mhok. We are witnessing friendship! Which persists throughout the entire episode. 

photo by @athousandbyeol

I like too that Mhok using the blindfold to better understand Day is not a one and done situation. Again there are a few friendly touch moments that do not at all read as romantic.Mhok steals Day’s sunglasses and is perfectly at peace with Day feeling up his face to try to see if the sunglasses Mhok is wearing are his; and when Mhok's hand envelopes Day's when they are trying to guess the shirts in Day's closet by feel alone. Day does not tense up, he doesn't suck in a breath, he doesn't really let that touch linger. He shakes it off quickly and is like "that's my hand". And again, as an aside (I hope this does not come across inappropriately but) I kinda like that Mhok is almost gamifying Day's blindness. What I mean by that is that Day and Mhok are engaging in friendly competition to see who can accurately guess the article of clothing. It seems like a great way to bring some joy and levity to helping Day get better at understanding his surroundings without the use of his vision.

I am an absolute sucker for couples in shows that have an established friendship beforehand. I don't mean friends to lovers necessarily, but too often in BLs I have noticed that romantic interests are only ever that and we don't get a lot of moments of stupidity, tomfoolery, and fun. So you better believe I was living my best life in the next physical touch scene when Day and Mhok are fighting with the dinosaur costumes on. And this is where the physical touches start to change, because we start without physical touch and end with it, where we have up until this point been ending every moment of connection and relationship progression ending without touch. 

gif by @raypakorn

For the dinosaur fight, we get the non-romantic, entirely platonic assistive touch of Mhok helping (poorly) to guide Day to the driveway (this fucker was so ready to wrestle he forgot to tell Day to mind the stairs at first lmfao). The actual point of connection starts with Mhok intentionally trying to dive out of the way of Day’s touch. And once again Mhok Day’s blindness to elevate a game between them, by clapping and then diving out of the way to try to avoid Day’s movements. But that avoidance of physical interaction very quickly devolves in to a wrestling embrace, laughing, having fun, and then settling on the ground to chat until Day hears his mother’s car and they run back inside to hide the evidence of childish glee. 

Day’s mother returns to find a very different Day from who she left, he’s out of his room, he’s eating in the dining room, he’s seeming much more confident in his ability to navigate around the house. And of course, she has to go and ruin the moment by pushing too quickly on a nerve about going back to school. Day wants to withdraw from school and he needs to go in person. 

Now. 

We have seen Day taking massive strides in his own healing process in the last few episodes because he is starting to ask for help when he needs it, and Mhok is getting better at caretaking because he is started to ask if Day wants help for certain tasks or if Day is going to do them himself, thus allowing Day to set his limitations. Knowing that Day is going in to school, he asks Mhok to help him fix up his hair, and we get the first of many more crush-level physical touches in the show. 

gif by @jimmysea

I’m not Thai, so forgive me if this is wrong, but I am pretty sure that in Thai culture the head is considered sacred and having people touch your head carries a significance that I do not think Western audiences really understand (speaking as a Western viewer). If this is indeed true, then the scene where Mhok is fixing Day’s hair gets even more intense, even when there is a clear change in Mhok’s view of Day from friendly to starting to see something more. Mhok even makes a comment about how Day is a stunner (or something) when his hair is done, and when Mhok asks Day if he likes it and Day returns the question, there is a pause that is not at all dissimilar to the pause Day had after Mhok asked him if Day wanted to know what Mhok looked like. 

But where the tension from Episode 2 when Mhok asks the question is broken in a way that makes it seem more like Day is just teasing, I don’t think Mhok’s deflection of “it’s alright” really returns the same level of dismissal. Because Mhok is starting to realize something about the way he is feeling for Day. 

We get the inside of the Thai subway for the first time in maybe ever? As Mhok and Day make their way to Day’s college. And thus the not-a-date-kind-of-a-date adventure begins. Day is clinging on to Mhok’s arm as they navigate on to the subway car, at which point Mhok breaks off from Day to try to ask for a seat for Day. But Day grabs him and pulls him back, choosing instead of hold on to Mhok’s arm. Like I have been saying, Aof has been doing a really great job at differentiating the types of touches, and up until this point, the more intimate touches between Mhok and Day, such as when Day feels Mhok’s titty in his bedroom or Mhok’s face at the market, don’t read as romantic, because Day is taking in information to supplement his vision. Similarly, the moments where Day is holding on to Mhok for assistance in environmental navigation, such as when Mhok helps guide Day to his professor’s office or helps him down the stairs the physical touch is matter-of-fact on both ends. 

photo by @athousandbyeol

But here, in the subway, we get the first instance of physical touch from an environmental navigation standpoint that reads more like a man who is developing a crush rather than Day just being guided…

…but that comes from Day, not from Mhok. Which I appreciate massively from the standpoint of ensuring that Mhok as the caretaker does not appear to be taking advantage of Day. In the subway, Day could have sat down, he didn’t need to stay standing, he didn’t need to continue holding on to  Mhok. But he chooses to do that. He chooses to keep his arm linked tightly with Mhok’s, he chooses to get a little flirty with Mhok when he says as long as Mhok stays close to him, that’s all Day needs. And we get the close up of Mhok and Day’s hands when Mhok moves to tap Day’s hand gently, and the shot lingers. Because things are starting to change.

I said in a previous reblog last week when Episode 3 came out that Aof does this really interesting thing in his direction and cinematography when characters share intimate moments, in that he breaks from his standard visual format. The lighting often changes, the camera isn’t held as steady, the moments are zoomed in much closer than we are used to. We get it with Heart and Li Ming playing that spider game with their fingers the night that Li Ming sleeps over and we get it in the subway when Day stumbles slightly and swallows hard, embarrassed and avoiding eye contact while Mhok looks at Day kind of fondly. 

gif by @taeminie

So we see the spark in the subway and then watch that spark begin to catch when they end up in the dressing room together. Day and Mhok both establish that they have never been in a dressing room with another person to cut the tension and nerves a bit. Afterall, this is the first time that we’ve seen where Mhok is getting up close and personal with Day’s partially nude body, when they are both calm, collected, and not amidst a panic attack about a potential medical emergency. No one is feeling violated, no one is feeling scared, no one is having their privacy forcibly removed from them. But that makes them all that more aware of how they are feeling, physically, when they are touching and being touched. 

And we get a secondary Aof Camerawork Moment where the style of shot changes and we get that gorgeous zoom in on Mhok’s hands and Day’s chest when Mhok helps Day back in to his shirt. And isn’t it wonderful that the most sensual and intimate moment that we have seen from Mhok and Day so far is putting Day’s clothes back on? 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Check out @btwinlines’ post about this scene.

Day and Mhok continue their day, find the Last Twilight book, and are hanging about the market where Mhok leaves Day standing against a pole while he runs to grab a drink. As a result, we get a bombardment of physical touch, the most overwhelming to date because Day is getting just absolutely shunted around, bumping elbows and shoulders with the people at the market with no idea of where he is or where he is going. And this is where we really get an understanding of how terrible physical touch can be when you don’t have any bearing of your surroundings and can’t see where people are coming from or anticipate contact. 

We got a scene in Episode 1 where we see how dangerous being blind has the potential to be, but Day isn’t being touched by anybody at that point until he is pulled off the street by Mhok. But this time while Day does have a moment where he is in more physical danger because he stumbles on to the street, he is relatively much more safe getting lost in the marketplace than when he ran out on to the street in Episode 1, cause the few cars that are present are moving slow and know to be looking out for pedestrians. Day is grabbed and directed by random strangers who are trying to help him and kind of just…drag him along until he is out of the street when he is visibly panicking and then just…left on the side of the road with an offhanded statement from strangers that he is “safe now” and they just…leave him alone and continue on their way. Even there, with a helpful touch, there is no safety or comfortability in Day’s posture, he is not calmed by hearing that he is safe. Which serves as a really great comparison point for how comfortable Day has pretty much always been with Mhok (minus the one moment of severe dysregulation after being surprised by his friends and then by Mhok when Day was buck ass naked). 

Especially when compared to the relief that just rushes through Day’s body when he and Mhok are reunited and they embrace. 

AND LIKE OKAY, CAN I GO ON A BRIEF TANGENT TO TALK ABOUT THE PINK SHIRT? 

gif by @tomystars

You know how in a lot of romances you get that moment where you get the like, love at first sight thing? Time slows down, one half of the romantic pair picks the other half of the romantic pair out of the crowd? WE GET THAT HERE, WITH THE BLIND CHARACTER BEING THE ONE WHO PICKS THE FUTURE LOVE INTEREST OUT OF THE CROWD. 

The pink shirt is brilliant, and I love how it both acts as an anchor point for Day who is able to calm down upon seeing it, and not panic or freak out when being grabbed and embraced by Mhok after having a decently traumatic experience with physical touch just minutes before while also reaffirming that Mhok is learning and internalizing the adaptations he needs to incorporate in to his own life to make Day’s daily life easier and more accessible. Mhok understands how Day’s vision functions, he remembers that Day has said he could see that shirt from Mars it’s so bright, and he provides an in for Day to maintain his autonomy by making it possible for Day to potentially see Mhok before Mhok sees Day. 

ANYWAY

@athousandbyeol

The embrace they share when Day and Mhok are reunited is not charged, is not romantic, at least not to me. But what it does show is how much care Day and Mhok have for each other, how quickly their friendship is developing, and the safe spaces these two will find in the other. Day calms so quickly the second he and Mhok are touching, as soon as he has an anchor. And he won’t let go of Mhok either. 

Aof and co have been playing well with dichotomies, here, a situation that pulls Day and Mhok physically apart ends up bringing them emotionally closer together. It is clear that Day does not blame Mhok for what happened, even if Mhok was gone much longer than anticipated, and that is affirmed by Day defending Mhok to his mother when she questions Mhok’s caretaking skills and holds his criminal record over his head. 

And, let’s not forget, this is just writing about the physical touch, this post does not discuss whether or not the lack of touch is important. I wrote a decent chunk of this in the airport without wifi, so I could only talk about physical touch from memory, I didn't rewatch anything like I normally do, so apologies if I missed stuff.

[waitmyturtles]

Last Twilight: Episode 6 reflections

Welp! Once again! Aof Noppharnach! Thanks, buddy! Fist bump. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE AFTER THAT.

I'm gonna live, because we get ANOTHER flirty episode 7 next week, woop woop. But let me review what we've all been screaming about today.

Anti-August rhetoric is abounding, yes. I would argue that the narrative themes that the character of August presented during this episode were set up in episodes well before this disaster that August created happened.

This episode demonstrated Aof's mastery of dissecting interpersonal engagement and relationships, as well as offering an examination of chosen vs. unchosen familial bonds. The examination in particular of the nature of nuclear (unchosen) family bonds -- especially in the face of the impact of a traumatic event like Day's sudden blindness -- is subtle and exquisite so far. I'll get more into this in a moment.

The show's been laying all of this down for us since the start, paralleling the impact of the unchosen bonds Day has with the world he has left around him, with the chosen bonds he's made with Mhok, and vice versa. That is all happening alongside Mhok's continued internal emotional journey of change and stablization, which again, I'll touch on in a moment.

In episode 5, we heard Day describe his sports partnership with August as akin to an "arranged marriage."

Day showed us in the last episode that he did the majority of the lifting of the partnership he had with August. Day HAD to be the emotional stabilizer of the partnership in order to win championships. Akin to the Asian practice of arranged marriages -- it certainly takes two to tango. But if the CULTURAL expectation--

(THE HUGE AND ENORMOUS AND ASSUMED CULTURAL EXPECTATION IN ASIA, mind you, which we are reading between the lines here) --

of the OUTCOME of an arranged marriage is to 1) have children, and 2) not get divorced -- well, if someone isn't pulling their weight, the partner has to clock some overtime shifts.

Day did overtime, and boop, fell in love with his badminton partner. I don't blame him. All that work to get to know August's ins and outs? And the way August looks, mmhmm? Yeah, I get it. August may have been a butt, but Day doing that all that work to accidentally find himself on the attraction path wouldn't be surprising to me.

We get to episode 6. We see that Day is being failed by his unchosen family. We still don't know what the deal is with Night, despite Mhok's inquiries. (I apologize to @respectthepetty for not finding their theory post that Night was behind the wheel of the car accident that first affected Day's eyes -- shout-out, Senpai.) We see Day's mom sort of failing him prior to his birthday. We see that Day was sort of expecting his mom to fail him anyway.

I wanted to capture Day's mom's emotional reaction here because... we know past stuff is percolating. Day's mom's career comes first and has come first. The wins come first, as they should have been for Day when he could still see and could still play badminton.

Day was prepared to be disappointed. That hug at the end of this scene with his mother was a sigh of relief for Day that his mom came through, but we don't know the extent to which his mother hasn't come through in the past, except by way of having kept Day inside for a year after the onset of his blindness.

And then Day was failed, again, by unchosen family.

August says, "I'm willing to do whatever makes him happy," but, just like nuclear/unchosen family -- you have to KNOW the people around you to KNOW what ACTUALLY makes them happy. Nuclear/unchosen family can't just clock in and clock out of family work. It takes more zhuzh than that.

For example: changing diapers might be a role a parent performs. It'll make a baby happy to feel clean and dry. But are the babies happy to actually wear a diaper? No. They don't know from diapers. The babies will be happy with loving, caring, and attentive parents showing them attention. From there, emotional growth will flourish.

Love, here, is not exactly about roles and tasks, as August is defining happiness above. Love is about something different -- it's about paying attention, at all times, to the people you love, and responding accordingly.

Unchosen family can very well fail you, because at the end of the day, they're still "family" by blood and sometimes bond. That's why it's important for so many of us to have CHOSEN family that shows up for us.

REMEMBER: BETWEEN DAY AND MHOK? DAY CHOSE MHOK. THAT'S A CHOSEN RELATIONSHIP FOR DAY, FINALLY, FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE.

And Mhok comes into Day's house, starts to take care of Day like a partner, starts to get to know Day's ins and outs, and boop -- Mhok has found himself falling for Day. Quite the different paradigm from August, who did and does shit.

And in episode 6? Here comes Mhok, barreling in from the start of the episode, re-shifting the paradigms in Day's life that were created by the unchosen people that preceded Day in close proximity. I love how the VERY first scene of this episode started with Mhok announcing himself to Day in Day's room -- very unlike the way that August had silently slunk away from the bar in the previous episode.

And all the ways that Mhok is right behind Day as August engages through the episode, checking in, vibing. And respect to Mhok for taking some time away from the birthday party at the end, too. Did it break my heart to hear Day calling for Mhok before August's final arrival? For sure. But Mhok needed some space to process --

-- and then he came back, watched what was happening, and you know what struck me? We again saw a moment where Mhok has changed, as I mentioned last week.

Mhok could have pummeled August! Imagine if that shit went down at the start of the series. Lil' August wouldn't have any damn teeth left. Remember that Mhok pummeled that m'fer that Porjai was with, TWICE.

Mhok didn't kick August's ass this time around. Mhok held himself, he asked August questions. Day also knew what Mhok was capable of, but Mhok held himself. FUCK. Exquisite!

And then.... we got the rooftop, we got the rooftop.

This is a great series. THESE ARE GREAT EPISODES.

Couple other quick notes:

1) JIMMY AND SEA! JIMMY! THOSE LOOKS ON THE ROOFTOP! YOOOOOOOO.

2) I just want to acknowledge all the sensualness of this episode by way of scent and touch, and trust the family on posting about it.

That being said:

I've been known to be intrigued by scented things emanating from Aof's shows in the past. He had posted on IG a few weeks ago about a perfume company he likes, I went to check it out, and bloop, I got myself a sampler for the holidays.

I clocked the cologne that Day gifted Mhok.

As far as I can tell, this specific bottle called Tiwa doesn't exist -- although I love that the fake brand is "UNTOLD STORIES," written at the top. Tee-hee.

Coincidentally, a scent called "Tiwa" was created by a company called Parfum Prissana, out of Thailand (they look great, I want to smell them one day).

A website reviewing Prissana's Tiwa notes the description of the scent that came from Prissana itself:

Atmosphere of the day time in a countryside of Thailand. The smell of local cooking herbs and spices and there is fruits orchards and precious woods near by. Tiwa means day time in Thai.

Well, well, well.

[bengiyo]

Last Twilight: The Gay Angst of Low Expectations

Others are going to say much better things about the romantic stuff going on in Last Twilight this week, but I want to focus on how Day seems himself relative to August. The biggest thing that stood out to me this episode is that Day sees himself in a way that reads unworthy of August.

When we saw their flashback to their time as teammates, August is annoyed with Day a lot, and Day is always apologizing for any of their failures. He then spends an entire night exhausting himself to practice more. August recognizes Day's determination and begins to treat him seriously. They begin to win. When they stumble into each other, August is understandably hurt that Day didn't tell him directly what was going on. I enjoyed the Bond Between Men that they had formed as teammates and how earnestly August insisted that he wouldn't partner with anyone else but Day. It was also clear to me by all the hand holding that August feels something for Day.

However, when August doesn't show up for their dinner, Day was willing to wait more than seven hours for August to show up. He said that August is always like this, and blames himself for thinking August would actually want to see him. He describes their partnership as an arranged marriage to win championships, one where he struggles to befriend August and regularly works to appease August's temper for them to win championships. He admits he actually did like August, but regrets not saying anything when he could still see his face.

Then, August walks up and sees Mhok about to confess something to Day, noticing the flower and running his eyes over Mhok repeatedly. He hears Day's comment about liking August, shakes his head no, and walks away.

What stands out for me here is that August knew Day would be waiting for him. What he wasn't counting on what Mhok being there and clearly being some sort of rival. It was clear to me in the locker room scene that August also feels something for Day as well. I am going to be thinking about the fact that these two were unable to tell each other how they felt all this time. I'm thinking about how August probably felt hurt that Day didn't believe in him enough to tell him directly. I think about how Day always prioritized August over himself, and didn't feel like he could stand up to August.

It brings me back to the dynamic between Andi and Jonah in Andi Mack, my favorite Disney original tv show. For the other millennials out there who watched Disney Channel growing up, Andi Mack is a show by Terri Minsky (creator of Lizzie Maguire) with similar themes as her original show. Andi, who is like Lizzie, has a thing for Jonah Beck, who is like Ethan Craft. She has been hanging around him all season and joined the Frisbee club for him. In episode 9, Andi and the girls at school stage a protest about the school's dress code for picture day by wearing prison outfits. Jonah doesn't know what's going on and insists that Andi wear the team shirt for the picture. Andi, frustrated, demands Jonah tell her what her protest is about and then she'll wear the shirt. Jonah doesn't know, and Andi is hurt by this, but steels herself for the girl issues they're trying to solve.

Later, we get this apology scene.

Please watch this in full. This is one of my favorite romantic/platonic breakups in history. I love that Andi recognizes the power she gave Jonah over her. Jonah never asked for this power, but Andi still let him use it. This scene is important because she firmly takes that power back.

What I want more than anything from Day and August is for Day to take the power he gave August back from him. August may have a huge personality and a temper, but they can't be good to each other if Day is always going to be afraid of him.

So, while I am frustrated with August for standing Day up for hours without explanation, I am going to glare at him for knowing Day would still be there waiting. I want to see them unpack this expectation that Day will always WAIT for August. If August likes Day and also knows this, it's something the both of them need to face.

I'm all about the gay angst of knowing you like him but not being sure if he likes you. I'm here for the gay angst of being unsure about changing the relationship in your Warrior's Bond forged in the fires of competition. I'm all for the gay angst of thinking you'd lost him and wanting to take the chance that presented itself again. However, I don't want Day to always put himself second behind August, especially because August, like Jonah, never asked Day to do that for him.

[dimplesandfierceeyes]

Thinking about Last Twilight again and the connection between Day and action.

Here is a man who is a professional athlete, whose entire life was dedicated to movement. He would have had to exercise every day, cardio, weights, resistance training, the lot. On top of that, he would also have been training his specific badminton skills for several hours a day. His meals would have planned for maximum energy and vitality. It's almost impossible to overestimate just how much Day's every waking (and also non-waking, healthy sleep schedules are essential for good energy after all) moment was dedicated to high-level activity.

And then The Incident happens.

In an instant, his vision becomes so massively impaired that he is now almost functionally blind. Not only does that rob him of a huge amount of independence, it also steals his movement. Not because he can't move but because the people around him (and perhaps even a little bit himself) become worried about him moving. Action becomes something to be feared.

I think it's not for nothing that when we as an audience and Mork first see Day post-incident, his is sat in a wheelchair and because of that we know he is unable to walk.

(Now, that's not to say wheelchairs suggest a curtailment of freedom because, for their users, wheelchairs are freedom. Without them, they truly would be stuck. However, they do signal to the audience that the user's walking ability is impaired somehow. Additionally, it's worth mentioning that @my-rose-tinted-glasses already pointed out that Day-in-the-wheelchair is likely an homage to the French film The Intouchables. I also like to think that there's perhaps there's a small nod here to Day's determination to be independent. He can't walk but he can still move and, damn it, he's still gonna go to those interviews.)

So, Day, at the moment he meets Mork, is at his least mobile. His career in movement has been shattered and now he can't even feed himself without injury. It is this that has likely forced him to accept that he could do with some day-to-day assistance.

Throughout the episode we then see the little ways that Day tries to take back his mobility but is stopped by his family and his own disability, culminating in the climatic road scene where he is saved by Mork.

But we also see little moments where he succeeds in his independence. He makes it from the car to the lift, he identifies the button he needs to press, he finds the library and is able to locate someone to guide him to the CDs (of audiobooks/music?). All the while, Mork is watching him, assessing him, seeing what he can do and what he can't, not running in before he has a chance to try. And that then ends with Mork calling Day up, asking him to cross the room on his own to get his library card.

So we start with a stationary Day, who is still determined to have independence but is hindered by his situation, and we end with a Day taking the first steps on the journey of seizing back his freedom to act.