#seng wichai | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waitmyturtles · 9 days

Text

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]

2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)

War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.

1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.

War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.

Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.

[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]

But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)

And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and

SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI

(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)

were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.

We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.

The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.

As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.

On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.

The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)

Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.

BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.

The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).

But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)

At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.

As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.

[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.

AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.

Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)

41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)

51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

#war of y #war of y the series #billyseng #billy patchanon #seng wichai #cheewin thanamin #den panuwat #first piyangkul #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #turtles catches up with thai BLs #war of y meta

41 notes · View notes

waitmyturtles · 3 months

Text

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Secret Crush On You (SCOY) Edition

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

I offer a very hearty THANK YOU to my dear friends @lurkingshan and @bengiyo for reviewing this draft before publication!

Well! A VERY belated happy new year from the OGMMTVC shores! I have allowed myself a lengthy onboarding back to the pattern of watching older Thai BLs due to many life circumstances around the 2023 holidays.

But I do still stay on my grind: while I was slowly watching and re-watching SCOY over the last month, I've added two current shows to the list, which I'll explain about later, and I've also taken up reading an incredibly important book to this project, Dr. Thomas Baudinette's ethnographic study, Boys Love Media in Thailand, which is giving me tremendous insight and history into the development of the Thai BL genre from direct reporting in Asia. In other words, the OGMMTVC project is still cooking along -- I'll plan to post about the book when my current watchlist is at a pause, while current shows on the list are airing.

All that being said, I'm here today to report on my watch of 2022's Secret Crush on You. Here's a little outline to keep me organized:

1) A quick reminder of how SCOY got on the OGMMTVC list, 2) A thematic hit list of why SCOY belongs on the list, and why it's so important for the history of Thai BL, and 3) A few personal takes on the show.

SCOY got on the OGMMTVC list way back in May 2023, in the comments of my glowing review of the second season of Make It Right, suggested by @absolutebl Sensei themself. SCOY is directed by Cheewin Thanamin, who had co-directed MIR and MIR2 along with New Siwaj. (He is also, famously AND infamously, the director of the recent shows Playboyy and Middleman's Love, as well as many other shows, including YYY, Why R U, and more.)

At the time of my watch of MIR2, I reveled in the fabulous endings of TeeFuse and FrameBook, the holistically loving and embracing relationships of those two couples, who were fearlessly and openly queer and committed to each other; and I compared those endings to that of another fabulous Cheewin show, 2023's Bed Friend, which also ended glowingly, after a hell of a traumatic journey, for the dear mains, KingUea.

SCOY, from a growth perspective, fits between the high school world of MIR and the working adult world of Bed Friend, showcasing Toh, the stalker-shy university junior outcast; Nuea, the popular, athletic, and gorgeous university senior, and their respective groups of friends, who, to a tee, end up with each other. In the comments of my MIR2 review, @absolutebl wrote,

"...there is a case to be made that Cheewin is having a conversation with us[,] the culmination of which is actually SCOY. It feels like everything in his career was leading to that show[.]"

I believe this is absolutely right. While the public commentary on SCOY was that the first few episodes would be hard to digest -- for me, it took until episode *9* to feel comfortable enough to ride the SCOY train -- the amount of internal and external-to-BL themes that SCOY carries within it marks it as an incredibly important show for the annals of Thai BL history.

I also want to note that, after SCOY, Cheewin's War of Y also airs in 2022, as a macro commentary on the BL industry. Without having seen War of Y yet -- I think it makes sense, and is quite fitting, that there may be similar themes between these two shows as to what SCOY was addressing by way of personal and industry-related psychologies.

I'll get into those themes in a second, but as so many of you know as well: this was also the first production for Saint Suppapong's agency, Idol Factory, featuring (for 2022) a slate of incredible new QL actors and actresses who have already made a fast and deep impact on the genre (...fast and deep impact huh huh ANYWAY).

Putting ourselves into Saint's shoes -- a man well familiar with the pitfalls of the BL industry, vis à vis his associations with his previous PerthSaint and ZeeSaint ships -- I can make a safe assumption that he approached the production of SCOY with the intent to make a groundbreaking show, and to approach the fan service side of the BL industry with as much consciousness for his actors as possible. While I'm not watching Idol Factory's latest show, The Sign, I am noting that The Sign's two stars, Billy Patchanon (of SCOY) and Babe Tanatat are very good at their fan service offerings. (Heng in this video, omg.) But all that being said, the unfortunate incident last year of the untimely revelation of Seng Wichai's and Freen Sarocha's relationship indicates that Idol Factory is also not immune to the controversies and pitfalls of the BL and shipping industries.

What I particularly loved about SCOY -- and why I agree with @absolutebl and many BL fandom veterans that it belongs on the OGMMTVC list -- is that this show unabashedly insisted that all people are people, all humans are equitably humans, and all humans deserve the same emotional and social respect as anyone else. It punched social expectations of the "winners" and "losers" down to the ground to offer nuanced narratives of most of its characters.

We see Toh (Seng Wichai) and his group of friends repeatedly put down and bullied. We see Toh and Jao kicked to the ground for their looks and presentations. We see popular Nuea (Billy) and Sky (Heng Asavarid) suffering from jealousy, insecurity, unrequited love and desire. We see Nuea and Sky objectified. We see Daisy question themself for their femme identity, and we see Daisy's group of friends become so moved and emotional about this change as to both uplift Daisy's preferences and to support them in whatever changes they want to make.

We also see -- for only the second time on the OGMMTVC list, and surely in the biggest BL up til 2022 -- a prominent femme side character in Daisy, one who is very much pursued by a cis male suitor in Touch. (The first time we see such a prominent femme character on the OGMMTVC syllabus is, again, in Cheewin's Make It Right 2, in the character of Yok, who was very out and very gay throughout that season.)

I'm going to examine this more in just a bit, but I also want to note, in a fabulous conversation I had with @bengiyo about SCOY, that this show also somewhat upends social expectations of who exactly gets bullied in a "typical" school setting. We do very much see Toh and his friend group get attacked. We see that friend group come together in support of each other. But we also see them very much accepted, as they are, by the older, more popular friend group.

There are many more examples of these themes, but in any case:

These were nuanced, layered, and sophisticated depictions of humanity, all for a show within the BL genre that had started its journey, way back in 2014, in demanding clear seme/uke dynamics and male/female characteristic assumptions between main couples. SCOY clearly took great pains to examine and upend these assumptions. In particular, the hot tub conversation in episode 9 had me going wild; a conversation that has become legendary as it was the first time (and not the last!) that a character of Billy Patchanon's stated that he was verse:

By the time we get to 2022, I love what this conversation signifies for Thai BL. From SOTUS's Kongpob saying that he'll make Arthit his wife; to Pat clarifying to BOTH Pran AND Phupha, "I'm not your wife" -- and, now in SCOY, to Nuea being like, "oh, roles? Yeah, whateves, I'm down," is such a refreshing spin to the conversation about the demands that the genre, AND society, place on hulking cis-presenting men like Nuea/Billy.

Of course, the biggest upending to any assumptions that viewers (including myself) may have had about the dynamics between the two main couples of NueaToh and SkyJao was in seeing how deeply insecure both Nuea and Sky were of the stability of their relationships with their boyfriends in Toh and Jao. Nuea and Sky both recognized that it was literally society itself -- and the very deep internal impacts that society could have on the psyches of the nerdy Toh and Jao -- that could threaten the sanctity of Nuea's and Sky's relationships.

Nuea and Sky weren't relying or assuming on their good looks or popularity ranks to win Toh and Jao over. Nuea and Sky were very much in love with these two men, and both wanted to have holistically complete and committed relationships with their boyfriends. And Nuea and Sky WORKED for these relationships, and feared the worst, often, if an internal obstacle (like Jao's insecurity) or external obstacle (like the girls in pursuit of Nuea) got in their way.

@bengiyo, in reference to my conversation with him earlier, mentioned a social shade to all of this that I found fascinating. He noted that this show did NOT interrogate the "weirdness" of Toh and his friend group. I'm actually going to criticize that just a touch in a bit, because I would have liked more background context into Toh, myself. However, Ben makes an important point about this, because he noted to me that majority society WOULD interrogate the origins of Toh's "weirdness" -- and would NOT interrogate the popularity, good looks, and success of Nuea and his group, because majority society would well assume that Nuea and his group are... "normal."

I find these instinctual inclinations to be FASCINATING to ponder, and I really think SCOY did a wonderful job in allowing us as viewers an "in" to a loving alternate reality that those who are considered "weird" in this world deserve a fair and equitable shot at love and acceptance from all corners. Ben noted for me that MUCH more often in majority society, that being queer makes someone vastly unpopular. (Ben also noted for me that what SCOY posits for Nuea and Sky by way of their queer presentations against their popular standings would likely have led to them being ostracized in real life.)

I want to note that this loving alternate reality for the unpopular is almost exactly similar to another fictional environment created by Cheewin in Make It Right -- which prompted an early and memorable conversation between Ben and me early in this project. (Thank you so much to @bengiyo for giving me time and space to read and comment on this SCOY piece.)

I want to posit -- again, without having seen War of Y -- that all of this is fascinating territory for Idol Factory, in its first show, to tread by way of humanizing IF's gloriously good-looking talent in Billy, Heng, and others. I'll know more by way of comparison when I actually watch War of Y -- but I think SCOY does a FABULOUS job in slowly leading viewers to contemplate our assumptions about how "easy" it might be to be a good-looking and/or athletic person in society. Insecurity and instability are common characteristics among all of us. SCOY very decidedly skewers any assumptions that viewers, and society, may have about the "transcendent" nature of the show's fictional "celebrities" to bring all of its characters down to a more common and equitable human level.

By a long shot, these themes are the ones that I loved absolutely the most about SCOY. I have a few personal takes on the show that I'll share in just a moment, but one more shout of celebration that I'd like to offer to SCOY is the following:

Of all the excellent acting in this show -- from Billy, to Heng, to the utterly DELIGHTFUL Looknam Orntara as Som, to the fabulous Surprise Pittikorn as a conflicted and insecure Jao -- let me offer all the flowers to

Seng Wichai, who had me CRINGING, OMG, *CRINGING*, throughout most of SCOY.

I hope this man won AWARDS for this role. All of my feelings towards the character of Toh aside -- Seng Wichai absolutely BODIED this role. I was SQUIRMING during the first three quarters of this series. God, he NAILED every last characteristic that would make a person like Toh so interpretively painful and pitiful. That Seng left Idol Factory last year, before his relationship with Freen was exposed, is, I think, a huge loss for IF. I know War of Y is chaotic, but I actually can't wait to watch it simply to see another side of Seng's acting.

For Seng's Toh to be pursued so intensely by Nuea -- and for Toh to be so Toh throughout that pursuit -- I truly can't think of a past BL actor from the past OGMMTVC dramas that could have done a better and more nuanced job than Seng Wichai to just remain so COMMITTED to Toh's modus operandi of stalking and collecting, especially so DEEP into the 14-episode run.

I will admire Seng's performance endlessly. My very own personal take on SCOY -- which I do not want to detract from its importance in the BL genre annals -- was that I think some of Cheewin's typical chaotic flourishes did not quite comport with the complicated emotionality that SCOY otherwise served.

At the end of the series, we meet Toh's parents in rural Suphanburi -- but we don't get a sense throughout the series of why Toh decides to pursue Nuea only from afar, in stalker-like actions, for so very long. Again, this stalker behavior is only presented as an MO -- and as @bengiyo noted to me, that was likely on purpose, as a means of showing that Toh's friend group would be accepting of each other NO MATTER their unique characteristics.

We also have to wait a VERY long time in the series for Toh to be held accountable for his stalking actions, as he even continues to collect items well into his relationship with Nuea. The flip side of this is an empathic one -- he's collecting the items out of an assumption, on his end, that his relationship with Nuea WILL end. However, it's made clear that Toh had no intention to ever tell Nuea of this side of Toh's behavior.

There were other moments in the show that tonally confused me, particularly in episode 5, the first time that the group goes to the beach, where Toh is in the hotel room with Nuea for the first time, and is both overtly confident that he might get it on with Nuea, but also seems reluctant to actually pursue it once Nuea starts offering hints. I worked this out with @lurkingshan (thank you, friend!) that Toh was demonstrating a brave face and fantasy to start, but was surprised when Nuea actually reciprocated the consideration. This happened a couple of times throughout the show, and Shan's assessment makes absolute sense -- I think I could have used some language clarity around those scenes myself, particularly when Toh was talking postgame with his friends after those moments, that he was surprised by Nuea's acceptance. But, @lurkingshan -- your assessment of the pattern holds, and I understand it.

Once I finished the series, I read @absolutebl's 2022 review of SCOY, and ABL -- I totally understand your perspective. I get the pull between adoration and cringe for this show. A stalker premise is HEAVY. It didn't help, in that heaviness, to have no past context to Toh's behavior, coupled with Seng's incredible cringy performance.

If another director without as many chaotic tendencies could have directed this show -- I think we would have gotten a more complete and contextual emotionality to the show that would have helped Toh's and Nuea's relationship be portrayed as fully full-circle.

I think this is enough of a quibble that'll keep me from easily rewatching SCOY. But, towards the end of the series (@twig-tea, YOU WERE RIGHT!) -- especially from episode 9 onwards -- I felt that I finally and truly understood where this show was going, and what it was about, and I felt endeared to it.

I think many in the fandom will agree that SkyJao was actually the couple that interpreted, much more clearly, the impact of social pressures and insecurities on a relationship, and for that, I will forever shout

SKYJAO! SKYJAO! SKYJAO!

as one of my absolute favorite side pairings of all time.

SCOY was a hard watch for me because of the interruptions of the holidays, of life, and because I've gotten a little less patient with Cheewin's chaos (...I dropped Playboyy, omg, I have to admit), despite my utter admiration for his work on Make It Right and Bed Friend.

But the difficulties I had in watching it should not take away from honoring this show as a hell of an important one. It makes me admire Saint Suppapong to no end for spending his own damn money towards the pursuit of better BLs. And the acting in SCOY was truly FANTASTIC. Despite my own personal reservations, I cannot recommend SCOY highly enough -- because watching it, and enjoying it, is truly a perfect demarcation to understand how far Thai BLs had gotten to its airing moment in 2022.

[OKAY! As I mentioned above, this project has gotten even richer with the addition of my current reading of Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand -- I look forward to offering my thoughts on that book after my watch project is over.

I have added a few shows to the watchlist! The recently-aired Last Twilight makes it on as a show that centered disability vis à vis BL for the first time, and Cherry Magic Thailand makes it on as Thailand's first major adaptation of a Japanese manga and dorama. I've also added 23.5, GMMTV's first GL, to the list, although the premiere date continues to be up in the air for that show.

AS WELL! An actual Japanese BL makes it on the list, ha ha! I'm obsessed with this because I'm learning from Baudinette about the Japanese roots of Thai BL. I am in LOVE with Ossan's Love Returns, and it happily features a cameo by none other than Loong Jim and Wen, who hilariously (AND SMARTLY, go get yer money, guys) franchised Moonlight Chicken to Japan. Earth Pirapat and Mix Sahaphap make the most adorable cameo, and they will be inhabiting Haruta's and Maki's roles when the Thai version of Ossan's Love starts filming later this year.

FINALLY! My own personally long-awaited KinnPorsche (OOOO-WEEEEE!) rewatch is up next, but I'm taking a beat to catch up on Cooking Crush. I can't wait for my late-night liveblogs on KP, though -- they're coming soon!

Here's the status of the list -- as always, Tumblr's web editor is NOT nice to this list, so please mosey over to this link for your very latest updates on the project!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (watching)

...interrupting the OGMMTVC list here to watch War of Y (2022) in chronology and to decide if it gets listed...

37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine the Start of “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 44) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 45) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 46) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 47) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 48) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 49) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 50) 23.5 (2024)]

51 notes · View notes