Latest Posts by enemies-to-friends-to-lovers - Page 14

Sex doesn’t make us whole.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL ASEXUALITY DAY!

THE SAINT THAT WE LOVE

THE SAINT WE NEVER THOUGHT WE NEEDED

pansexual kings

Saint’s Physicality

Let’s talk about Saint Suppapong’s physicality in acting for a moment. Watch Love By Chance back to back with Why R U? It’s kind of a revelation. 

There are some really good actors in BL and he is one of them. 

But when most viewers say “great actor” they’re thinking about facial expressions and how an actor portrays emotions. 

What Saint has (and very few other actors anywhere do) is whole body physicality. The way he moves it totally different between Pete and Tutor. 

When he walks: where he weights his spine, carries his arms and shoulders, and how he tilts his head is different. Tutor has faster more abrupt movements, Pete’s are more precise and careful. 

When he’s standing, also different. 

It’s actually kind of insane. 

Saint inhabits his own body completely differently depending on the character he’s playing. It’s just really rare to see someone do this. It’s like spy-craft. 

I’d love to see him tackle a seme character or a bad guy. I bet he’d be great more aggressive and agro. 

It’d be fun to see how he inhabits space when he is required to take up a lot of it.

I think Plan has some of this ability too. Look at him in his Until We Meet Again bit part (aggressive, older seeming, stiff) versus Love By Chance (floppy, childish, and uncontrolled). 

But with Plan we haven’t yet got to see him execute this as two different main characters where he has to maintain alternate physicality over time. Although it explains why he’s so great at imitating Tin’s posture and walk in LBC2. (One of my very favourite scenes.)

me looking forward to the next episode but then realising its the final one:

OMG!! I just found your blog through a WBL fan sharing your post about WBL on Instagram, and I am SOOOOO happy to see that you noticed and appreciate the tutor and fighter couple from Why R U series too. If possible, please write an analysis about this couple, about any specific aspect you deem as most important or just generally, whatever you are okay with. I love reading your analysis and the insights it gives me, and I just finished binge reading all of your writings on my favorite bl (1)

Hi wow mindblown by this comment Thank you so much for letting me know that my stuff is being shared I really appreciate that and I am so grateful that you took time of your day to come speak to me. I adore Fighter and Tutor, like they’re my favourite couple ever. What happened when why r u was airing was I wasn’t yet analysing BLs at that time otherwise I would have been writing essays and essays about them. Because it’s been so long since I went back to watch them I’m going to let you see some of my drafts on how I would have broken their relationship into pieces and analysed. Because they are incredible and I really always feel sad when people see them as just like a se*ual couple when there’s more to them than that.  So I will let you see the first drafts and my ideas on them through this  ask and I hope that's okay for now. Maybe after my other shows I will like go back and rewatch them and start analysing more about them. If I do I’d probably do a youtube video about them because they’re so good. 

Here’s some of the analysis for them that I wrote: 

The theme for these two is  the struggle with internalised homophobia and self-acceptance. They both had this obstacle in themselves as they fell for each other and tried hard to avoid and run away from what they felt.  It’s been a long journey for them being into each other since the first time they met but not really realising what they felt.  Fighter did but he went into extreme panic mode and tried to run away immediately he felt that. So he tried to stay by Tutor’s side through the teasing and bullying because Tutor made him feel great and happy always but then with pressure from his father and the path he was meant to take to keep on being seen as successful, he thought his feelings for Tutor were useless and wrong. Plus he didn’t know if it was reciprocated so that caused even more fear for him which is why he just stayed with teasing and finally kater in thinking Tutor likes Hwa he chose to pull her away from him by taking her attention but also he chose to keep what they have as enemies/haters that way and avoid being near Tutor. This is why they end up hating each other a lot by the beginning of Why R U which is like 3 years later or something after he chose to stay with Hwa. 

Tutor didn’t understand fully why he got angry, jealous and annoyed, he had an inclination from the first year that Fighter liked men and he was actually hopeful about it because deep down he had feelings of wanting to also flirt with Fighter, wanting to stay with Fighter even when annoyed him and bullied him. He liked Fighter’s softness at times and he liked the way he felt even though he didn’t understand why he was so rifled and affected by Fighter’s presence when no one else has been able to do that to him before. But he became upset when Fighter chose to date Hwahwa because it was his automatic issue with IH that of course Fighter doesn’t like him but he likes girls, so he got jealous and sad and proceeded to also dislike Fighter because he had this effect on him whilst still trying to date his best friend who had feelings for Fighter.

They both have had unknowingly pent up feelings for each other, so once Fighter breaks the barrier by their first kiss, they both go into extreme panic and they both could no longer pretend any more with what they have. Which is why the first episodes they both keep struggling to keep their attraction with each other quiet because its been 3 years since they wanted each other that way. Fighter has so much pent up attraction and needs to give into his feelings that each time they have a chance to break that barrier it’s intense and crazy. Both have been longing, pining secretly for each other since the beginning of the show. What happens next is for Fighter he has to choose to finally accept that he cares a lot, a lot , a lot about Tutor, he finally starts to learn more about this person he loves and he starts to want to protect and keep Tutor happy and by his side. When it comes to finally choosing to let go of Hwa and choose to fight for Tutor and start knowing if he feels the same way. It’s a leap of faith he takes when he breaks up with Hwa. He realises he’s the one stopping his wishes from happening with Tutor because he keeps being in denial about what they are because he’s scared it’s only him that’s gay and has feelings for the other.

It’s only after tutor sister tells him that he’s holding back his feelings does he realise that it’s time to talk about their unstable relationship and Fighter at that moment had also come to terms with his break up with Hwa after making out with tutor revealed the truth, that’s why on the rooftop they do a test that ultimately breaks their walls down and choose to give in to their feelings no matter how scared they are about it being reciprocated. When Tutor looks away and loses the game it’s a symbol to Fighter that he’s also been the same as him from the start. Tutor looks away sadly thinking he’s the one who has the feelings but Fighter just loses it and lets him know its equal which is why I love that scene so much because for so long both of them because of IH has been avoiding thinking the other had the same feelings for them when they both from the start have felt love for a long time. And from then they go on a journey to learn about what this means, if it’s real feelings and not just attraction hence their beach vacation which is essentially them asking if they could love each other and be in a real relationship, and if they can take on their obstacles around them. The beach solidifies for them their feelings so they choose each other for life hence the earring and necklace. But it’s fast paced how they feel because it’s just confirmation, now Tutor starts to realise that Fighter is actually different than he thought he was and he falls so fast, he now realises how much he loves Fighter and how much Fighter made him want to fight for his happiness and life. Tutor has not had hope for happiness and ease in his life, because he’s always had to fight to survive on his own. So when Fighter shows up like a prince charming and constantly is connected to saving him time and time again, it’s exactly him realising there’s someone who does represent that hope that he’d be fine. Hence why the final obstacle is Tutor regressing and starting to think because of IH and society that he and Fighter are just a pipe dream.

They go back to face the world only for Fighters father to bring back all the fear, internalised homophobia and obstacles they had. Fighter panics and thinks he was right; the reason why he never told Tutor his feelings was because he was afraid the other would break his heart (was not gay, did not have feelings for him, would make fun of him etc) so when Tutor breaks up with him he loses his mind after trying hard to let go. When he sees that actually Tutor is taunting him and is still flirting with a guy, not him, he proceeds drunk and upset to try and get back moments from the beach scene/ past make out scenes to keep that spark alive but realises Tutor is not okay this time and he’s the one forcing it. He also acted out because with them the truth comes out each time they’re physical with other romantically. It’s a kiss that caused them to finally tell each other how they felt. That’s always been the way they break their walls down.

It’s what causes him to break down and finally reveal the truth he’s loved Tutor since he met him, he’s just been afraid of all that’s happening even if it’s happening he still wants to be with Tutor. Tutor however breaks his heart even more so he backs off. Tutor on the other hand is broken and mentally exhausted back to depression, back to having to fake being strong and deal with the futility of hope and joy in his life as he’s always been used to. He gets seen by Fighter and doesn’t have it on him to fight him away, so decides to stay in an idealistic fantasy, tells him to hold him and breaks his walls down again. Tutor is always having to fake being strong because it’s how he survives so whenever Fighter enters his world his vulnerability scares him, that’s why his sister gives him the image of a cactus. He’s tough and sharp or pretends to be with his demeanour but actually he’s just a boy who wants to be happy and be safe and survive. So when Fighter shows up at his weakest moments, as he struggles to deal with his mental exhaustion and heart break, he gives in  because again Fighter represents to him that hope. He starts to waver and want to stay in that lie for a long time with Fighter. Hence when he wakes up and Fighter is gone he thinks its all over and he finally breaks down completely.

Only when Fighter goes he breaks down in anguish truly thinking he lost him. Fighter finally comes out to his dad and fights his views, And we end up back at the beach, a place which represented authenticity and truth for them, it’s their truest realest self, but it also was their escapism. So Fighter coming there and letting Tutor know there’s no more obstacles in their way makes them both finally equally start a stable relationship with no more fear or care about anything. These twos relationship is full of tension and they both feel the chemistry, like magnets their bodies are drawn together, every scene they’re in, it’s their love language physical touch not bl fan service. They just naturally want to be in contact with each other and also their pent up feelings leads to them constantly wanting to sleep together because of hormones and well because they enjoy their se*ual life, nothing bad about that it’s realistic for couples to be that horny, that needy and that touchy.

It’s people who don’t get the context of internalised homophobia and what being in the closet is like for people with this anxiety and self hate caused by how they think society views them and treats them if out, those are the people who think there was no plot. Every dialogue these two had, their flashbacks and their acting (eyes, facial gestures, touches) showed why Fighter liked teasing Tor, why he dated Hwa but never paid her attention, why we had the beach scenes, why the break up escalated, why Tutor gave in when ill, why the non/dubious consent scene happened, why they get back together and why they told each other I love you forever immediately after they got together. Every single part adds up. It really is insane to me how people don’t see their real story to this day or see them as such a great storyline for BL. I would never get it.

Song Shi On + Big Mood™

#we stan an intellectual (x)

I TOLD SUNSET ABOUT YOU (2020)

You Make Me Dancer 一 icons + headers

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You Make Me Dance 

I wasn’t going to do this anymore, but at least these short series out of Korea don’t lend themselves to epic posts. 

Look. It’s just. I HAVE THOUGHTS. 

Korea is being very strategic in their execution of topes and I think it’s a marker of their intent to dominate BL. Or at the very least an interesting side effect of their late entry into the market. They are picking up and playing with tropes in a very intentional way. It’s markedly different from the hap hazard check-list style (with occasional parody) that we get from Thailand, or the cartoon jocularity murder-gay of Japan (capricious god of BL), or the tongue-in-check meets earnestness of Taiwan. 

You Make Me Dance is doing BL tropes so very pretty. But simultaneously, kinda dirty too. 

You Make Me Dance Episode 1-2 

YMMD is a love story between Hong Seok (loan shark) and Shi On (student dancer). It’s also about the love of art and the passion that drives creators and those who experience and respond to their passion. Like all love stories, the drive is connection, but it’s on two levels when art is involved. There is not just a romantic connection to explore, but the intimacy of creativity and how it is received and absorbed. I’m not sure how deeply YMMD will go into is, but I’m excited to see them try. 

Fated Mates

Unexpectedly, YMMD launched with a take fated mates by talking about the red thread pinky-finger mythos. Shi On looks around on his bus and sees a stranger with his pinky finger up. They have a moment. 

But the real twist comes later when loan shark Hong Seok is sent to threaten Shi On and ends up wrapping a red scarf around Shi On’s feet. So many parallels:

that RED scarf around feet of a dancer, binding and limiting, like the red thread around the finger  

but also the care represented by a warm scarf around cold feet

the loan shark threat contrasted to the servile nature of tending to someone else’s feet

and then Hong Seok hoists Shi On over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes but also a dancer’s lift 

Then later we get Shi On hopping around, which was so cute and funny but is an allegory for the crippling nature of both fate and love. 

I think I both bounced and clapped. 

Pinky Swear

Honestly, if you have a physical trope like this one that’s all about body language, make a dancer do it. Very smart. This is such a childish innocent move and to have this sweet college kid give it out to a sinister loan shark when his life is on the line was kind of gut wrenching to watch. 

Also note the servile level, emphasizing the differential power dynamic? So clever. Contrasted to earlier when Shi On finished dancing and is standing before him, above him, filled with the power of having touched him with his dance. 

It also harkens back to the original pinky meeting on the bus and the red thread connection. 

So this pinky swear was both executed and subverted, and you know I love that. 

Rooftop 

They ended ep 2 with a rooftop assignation combined with crash into me. They are moving this one along quickly, which they have to with so few episodes.  

According to the series description we are heading towards forced proximity (cohabitation) which is a shorthand for forcing intimacy when you don’t have a lot of time to develop the story. 

Korea seems well aware that their curtailed time frame for these BLs means they need to crib in certain tropes to get any kind of character development (Color Rush used fated mates, To My Star and Wish You used forced proximity). 

I’m really looking forward to next week to see where YMMD goes with this. Since they have elegantly danced with all the tropes they picked up so far, forced proximity should be a waltz for them. 

Yes I am going to use dance metaphors and terminology with these recaps. Gotta put that dance minor to good use somehow. Right? 

Normalize this kind of conversation

"It's the same as you like dogs and I like cats. It's your preference"

- Tul

1000 stars ep. 5 + favorite shots

You Make Me Dance Episodes 1 & 2

To me, dancing is a longing I have my heart.

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sarawat x tine + tumblr text posts

Still2gether Ep3 + text posts

Ep5 Ep4 Ep2 Ep1 Pt6 Pt7 Pt8 Pt9 Pt10 P11 P12

[ID: six gifs of to my star. 1: a cup gets dropped and ji woo checks on seo joon to make sure he's okay. 2: ji woo shields seo joon from seeing a defaced poster of himself. 3: seo joon notices a new rug with a moon in the apartment. 4: seo joon cuts himself while cooking and ji woo sucks the blood from his finger. 5: ji woo grabs eggs and then puts them back since seo joon dislikes eggs. 6: seo joon notices a new space poster in the apartment. END ID]

@queercreators event 02: romance — to my star

 ↳ ji woo expressing love nonverbally

Yoojun Giving Us More 🏳️‍🌈 Representation ↳ Lipstick (2019)

watch here

We’ll be living together for a while, and I think it’d be best if you had some manners.

I just express my feelings a lot. Is that a crime? Is it? Fine. That’s what I find attractive about you.

Things I loved about To My Star in no particular order:

1. That birthday dance party of literally three people. It's something a small group of friends would actually do, it's hilarious, and it's adorable.

2. While this was a short drama, the relationship didn't really feel rushed. We got to see the characters talking, hanging out, and having pretty healthy communication to be honest. With the exception of wyel, none of the Korean bls had a very natural progression to me.

3. Seo Jun

4. No but actually, I love Seo Jun. He seems selfish and carefree at first, but we pretty quickly learn that he cares a lot, is open about his feelings but also apologetic when he's in the wrong, and he's still kind to the people who have wronged him but also not a pushover. Also he's just such an adorable weirdo. And who could possibly not fall in love with that smile, not Ji Woo sir.

5. Pil Hyun being a stressed little man who has accidentally found himself in another bl drama.

6. The fact that Seo Jun communicates. He is open, he doesn't let things go unsaid, and isn't an idiot when Ji Woo does things he thinks are protecting Ji Woo. He literally tells Ji Woo that nothing he's saying makes sense when he's trying to do the "I hate you to protect you speech".

7. Both my boys are little weirdos. Seo Jun comes in with his zit thing and you're like, okay that's a thing, and then Ju Woo comes in and clips that boys nails.

8. Okay yeah, the kisses in the last couple episodes were good. They moved their mouths man, it was a pretty low bar, but they leaped over it.

9. That sequence where they're talking about how Ji Woo only owns one outfit while eating toast and then still talking about it while playing basketball. I loved it

10. Seo Jun's style. That's it, I like it. He reminds me of the bisexual sweater tiktok guy, but better dressed.

falling in love is a rarity in this world. 

Can you talk more about “I don’t want to fall for a man” because I am curious about your thoughts!

OOooh YES I CAN!

So I am an out and proud bi woman, and I grew up in a household where my parents (even my terrible one) told me it was okay to be gay. 

BUT I also grew up in a conservative town full of anti-gay rhetoric and lots of conservative ideas, so no matter how much my mum told me “it’s okay if you like girls” everything outside the walls of my house told me that that wasn’t true. 

I didn’t hate gay people, I wasn’t outwardly homophobic, in fact I outwardly was very supportive of the lgbt+ community, but the internal homophobia was VERY real. I convinced myself that everyone looked at girls like that, that even if you’re not gay, everyone knows that girls are just attractive, that’s just a fact. In my defence, it is, but I digress. 

There’s an annoying trope that comes up in so many Thai BLs like “I’m not gay I just like [INSERT NAME HERE]” because as everybody knows, you’re 100% straight if you are in love with, live with, marry and grow old with another man. These are indisputable facts. 

Almost none of them ever say they are bi or demi or pan, it’s pretty much always “not gay just you” or “oh I’m gay now, weird that” despite expressing interest in only women before that, and firstly that’s a massive amount of biphobia so jot that down. Secondly, it’s an incredibly heterosexual way to portray lgbt+ stories, and it’s honestly just boring to see at this point, like I had such high hopes for Tonhon Chonlattee and then it played itself out in the straightest way possible and I was just sort of baffled? by the time it finished. 

But Zhou Shu Yi doesn’t say “I’m not gay” he says “I don’t want to fall for a man”. When he tells Gao Shi De he has feelings for him, he doesn’t say “I’m not gay I just like you” he says “Because it’s you. I have no choice.” and those are VERY VERY different things. 

“I don’t want to fall for a man” is the kind of phrase that I think almost everyone in the lgbt+ community has thought some variation of. It’s something I thought a lot growing up - “I don’t want to like girls” “I don’t want to be a lesbian” “I don’t want to have a crush on [insert name here]”. I imagine - although I can’t confirm this - that it is NOT a phrase that straight people would be so intimately familiar with. For straight people who never question their sexuality, the statement would be “I’m not gay” not “I don’t want to be gay”. 

Why would you worry about wanting something if you know you don’t?

It’s a fear response to knowing you have those feelings but not wanting to address it: “I don’t want to feel that way because if I admit that I do, then it’s admitting that I’m different and that my life is going to change.”

And when Gao Shi De says “I thought you didn’t like boys” Shu Yi doesn’t say “I don’t, I just like you” he says “Because it’s you.” It’s not a dismissal of queer feelings or people, it’s an admittance that Gao Shi De is the thing that makes him stop wanting to suppress the thought of falling for a man, that he’s already fallen so there’s no point trying to run away from it anymore. 

Honestly it’s some of the best bisexual/demisexual representation I’ve ever seen? On this tiny Taiwanese BL with nowhere a big enough fanbase that deserves WAY more? and I just… It made me feel SO seen, it acknowledged a part of queer culture that I don’t often see on TV, even in BLs and I think that’s beautiful.

KIT | GEN Y EPISODE 12

Goodbye COLOR RUSH : Favorite shots of some of the places Yoo Han taught Yeon Woo about colors