Enemies-to-friends-to-lovers - Comfort Crowd

This moment is so important. When they finally discuss their pain aloud, forgive one another, and put the blame where it rightfully belongs; on their parents. While reassuring each other that in spite of everything that's happened and the pressure from the people around them, they definitely don't hate each other. & it breaks my heart how desperately they both (but especially Pran) needed to hear that but the relief on their faces when they do makes it all worth it. This is the moment they finally begin to break free from the influence of their families. NOW they can start moving forward together.

RESTART AFTER COME BACK HOME (2020) ✕ LOVE TRACTOR (2023)

The fact that they’re openly discussing the spectrum of sexuality like this instead of completely ignoring the subject really shows that, once again, P’Aof is so intensional with his portrayal of LGBTQIA+ characters. This is why Bad Buddy really is more than just a BL, it’s a story of people falling in love and discovering who they are. Together.

So…Young Royals.

The point of this post is solely to get you to start watching Netflix’s new Swedish teen drama Young Royals.

To give a short summary it’s a love story between 2 boys and one happens to be a prince with the backdrop being that of an elite boarding school.

So it’s about a young prince called Wilhelm. He gets into a fight at a party one night and the next day the entire countries heard the story. The Queen and Kings solution is to send him to the fancy boarding school his older brother went to. He doesn’t want to go, as he’ll be leaving all his friends and any semblance of a “normal” life. When he gets there he meets his extremely intense and elitist cousin August and Felice a girl he knew at elementary school. He also meets Simon who he immediately feels a connection with, possibly a romantic connection.

One of the best things about it is the cast of characters so here they are:

Wilhelm

Wilhelm’s our lead. He’s the second in line for the throne after his older brother. He doesn’t want any part of royal life and after an altercation that went viral he’s forced to go to a boarding school for rich elites (his worst nightmare). He meets Simon and romantic feelings come to fruition which he struggles to deal with.

Simon

Simon is way more than just Wilhelm’s love interest. He’s a local, isn’t a boarder and he’s nowhere near as wealthy as his classmates which has left him as an outcast, he’s resigned to not make a single friend at this school. He’s openly gay and dreams to move away from his home town. When he meets Wilhelm he expects him to be like the other rich kids but he’s sweet and they get along. He’s such a talented and adorable sweetheart and you will want to love and protect him with your entire being.

August

August is Wilhelms second cousin, he’s extremely entitled and classist. He constantly puts down those he sees as lower than himself. He’s the row team captain, a prefect and most popular guy in school. He’s also always had an unrequited crush on Felice. And he tries to insert himself in Wilhelms life more than necessary. The actor is brilliant, the character…hard to like.

Felice

Felice is the richest girl in school. She knows about August’s feelings but says he isn’t royal enough for her. She knew Wilhelm when they were young and she’s started obsessing over him. The more we learn about her the more layers are revealed, she’s not as perfect as she wants to be perceived. It took a while for me to understand her but once I did I enjoyed watching her grow.

Sara

Sara is Simons sister. She’s also an outcast and spends all her time at the stables as she feels she understands horses better than people. Although she says she’s fine being alone when the chance to become closer with Felice arrives she starts to like her. She’s a really interesting character and her relationship with Simon can be adorable, he loves and cares for her so much.

After seeing the trailer I was so excited for this show but it’s 1000 times better than I was expecting and just such a beautiful, wonderful young queer love story! A lot of people have compared the love story to the book Red, White and Royal Blue or Skam and whilst fundamentally similar they are very different at their heart. The chemistry between the lead’s is just crazy good, their first kiss in particular was just beautiful. The soundtrack is this awesome scandi electronic music that just fits the story perfectly. And the direction is way more complex and interesting than most teen shows I’ve seen. Also crazily they’ve actually cast real teens, most of the cast is 18 and they all have acne and blemishes…it’s so realistic and refreshing - I haven’t seen something like that since Skam!

So basically I’m in love with this show, even more in love with it than Wilhelm and Simon are with each other (and that’s a lot) *sobs* THEYRE JUST SO BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT! LOOOK!!!

the very first time.

THE ECLIPSE [2022] | EP. 11

“let’s go into the water”

High Quality BL Deep Dive 

Top 10 Highest Production Values in Thai BL 

I TOLD THE SUNSET ABUT YOU - say what you like about ITSAY (and I have) the production values are unreal for Thailand. It’s on par with Japanese cinema BL like Restart After Come Back Home or His (Japan knows what tf it’s doing, okay? You don’t come from a tradition that gave us Kurosawa and fail at broad scope cinematography). ITSAY uses soft lenses, diffuse lighting, and a nostalgic atmosphere, paying close attention to framing, and forgetting neither background nor close-focus expressive detail. It’s a remarkable piece of cinematography. I caught no mistakes in makeup, wardrobe, body positioning, reflection, or boom mic placement - so they clearly had continuity eyeballs during filming and on final product (which most Thai BLs don’t spring for). So yeah, the filming, directing, and acting is insane but what’s really sand out in ITSAY from a film perspective is their smooth as butter invisibly perfect editing. Post production on this series must have been a BEAST. 

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN - UWMA relies almost entirely on a killer story and pitch perfect acting to carry it. This puts production values squarely into workhorse mode. In other words: filming, cinematography, directing, editing, and everything else are designed to invisibly service the story. They are there to serve, not to distract or even enhance. It’s very different from ITSAY, UWMA does not draw on high cinema at all, it’s using small screen TV techniques - like a great suspense show, say 24 or The Wire. The editing is sharp and choppy as a result. UWMA is meant to move you with narrative first, acting second, and visuals third - like a play. 

OXYGEN the series - I crowed about it at the time but what Oxygen does, more than anything else, is be very very stylish. It has an atmospheric staged yet subtle filming style that makes it feel like a perfume advertisement or music video (in the best possible way). It’s precise and focused with soft lens, making everything just so pretty. it’s not particularly fantastic cinematography, but all its other production values are spot on (except wardrobe, what WERE they thinking?) and the editing is seamless. It reminds me a lot of the kind of filming style and techniques we get from Korea. For Western watchers we can think of this as utilizing the techniques of fashion-forward TV shows like Sex in the City. 

GREAT MEN ACADEMY - not strictly BL but I don’t wanna argue about that. It’s on this list because it’s got such high quality production values. Unfortunately for us, it’s hard to find an HD version of this series to truly appreciate how good those are. Sure some of the special effects are naff, but the filming, sound, and directing is spot on for what it is - a YA boarding- school coming of age narrative. It actually uses a lot of Japanese live action yaoi techniques. It has that early superhero movie use of a strong storyboard, pushing it into advanced focus on framing and staging. There is a lot in common (filming wise) between GMA and yaoi adaptations like Seven Days and Takumi-kun (or, more recently, Color Rush). I happen to really enjoy this style of BL because it reminds me so strongly of manga but there are some who find it stilted. 

SOTUS - lots of people have issues with SOTUS but you can’t knock its production values. GMMTV threw money at this baby in a way that they wouldn’t do again until 1000 Stars (and 1k* would spend their budget differently). What GMMTV built its brand on was sit com style dramas and gameshows. They took the lens and techniques of those products and applied them to SOTUS. What does that mean? There is a lot of bold direct lighting, very close focus, and central framing. Nothing is subtle, everything about SOTUS is very crisp, in your face, and forthright. All other aspects: cinematography, sound, wardrobe, and makeup are designed to be there, but not noticeable in either a positive or negative way. GMMTV is not trying to win awards, just produced a branded reliable product. It’s more tailored than it is edited - like high quality athleisure wear. SOTUS showcases GMMTV’s BL technique and GMMTV has stuck to the formula it gave them ever since. 

HE’S COMNG TO ME - GMMTV takes its patented SOTUS style but puts story front and center (they would do this again with 3 Will Be Free). It’s probably my favorite thing GMMTV does, but it only happens when they luck into a really good script. 

DARK BLUE KISS - is an established pair in an LTR both as characters and actors given a very relationship-heavy talky script, surrounded by support cast and crew who are all clearly comfortable with each other and their jobs, churning out another installment in GMMTV SOTUS-born formula for success. And it is successful, but no one is surprised by this. This should be the bar for GMMTV. 

THEORY OF LOVE - is basically the culmination of what SOTUS started. GMMTV took their most functional BL pairing, their best support actors, a good director, and a great post production team and gave them a solid little script with a happy ending that pushed emotional buttons in a precision formula. ToL is the natural result of everything GMMTV does best in BL (Water Boyy is the version of this were a bad script and poor directing failed the formula). 

2GETHER - what started with SOTUS got twisted in a new brighter more sugary direction with 2g. Everything SOTUS did well, 2g does too, only far more funny and saccharine. GMMTV lucked out with a pair of very charismatic leads who could carry the weight of a truly ridiculous script. Then they put a solid (if not ace) team on post production. Sure there are some continuity mistakes and we all caught a boom mic here and a crew reflection there (and they cut costs on wardrobe and makeup), but that signature candy-coated sitcom style of TV filming is tailor made for this series. 2g is pretty because they are pretty and absolutely no effort is put into doing anything more than serve up that prettiness in as palatable a way as possible - like any good romcom. If you’re okay eating all the delicious fluffy pink layer cake you can, then cake is what 2g will happily give you… over and over again. 

1000 STARS - is the best produced BL that GMMTV has ever given us and I think it’s owed entirely to the unprecedented autonomy they granted the director, the $$$ they threw at it, and the location shooting. Artistically it’s not as good as ITSAY but it’s the closest GMMTV has ever come to that level of cinema. All production values are extremely high, and perhaps the lens and post production are more in service to the narrative and less designed to dwell on cinematography, but that works beautifully for this particular story. In the end, 1k* is a stunning, simplified, grown up combination of ITSAY and UWMA. 

A recent conversation here in the DMs made me realize that some BL watchers are actually interested in the filming side of the equation. So that’s why I composed this list of Thai BLs that are on par with BL produced in countries that specialize in high production values (like Japan and Korea). 

Thailand has been the highest producer (by volume) of BL since 2017, but their quality control tends to be all over the place. It ranges widely. There are seriously flawed pulps with decent acting and story (like So Much in Love) but terrible directing, lighting, sound, cinematography, hair, makeup, wardrobe, and filming technique. Then there are shows with very high quality but that are hugely flawed in one particular arena (Lovely Writer’s sound department). While others fail on every possible level (Cupid Coach). That said most Thai BL fails on at least makeup and wardrobe, and a lot of it suffers from sound issues and with editing problems (which always ties to pacing).  

More? 

Here’s a few others out of Thailand that have good production values for Thai BL, but aren’t Top 10. 

Ingredients the series - it’s a  long form advertisement and its filmed like one. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad style, just that it has a very specific point of view. From a filming technique approach its worth looking at just to see if you can identify how and why it does what it does. Ingredients should make you feel a little bit like Korea’s home-set stuff like To My Star which uses a lot of the same techniques. 

2 Moons 2 - not the highest production value out there but nothing to complain about with some manga style staging and framing techniques and no fatal flaws in production. 

3 Will Be Free - GMMTV does suspense, production-wise it’s not an unqualified work of brilliance, but it’s interesting to see GMMTV take their style and apply it to a different genre, and I love the story. Is it ultimately successful? You decide. 

Manner of Death - hard to judge since i never saw a clean version and the story is a mess, but it feels like romantic suspense. The filming style and production values were totally unobtrusive and entirely served the plot, which is exactly what they should do for a cozy mystery. This one owes it’s technique to British cozies, it’s using a lot of the style one might expect from something like Midsomer Murders. But Thailand isn’t used to this kind of show, so it did struggle in places with post production. 

Fish Upon the Sky - fits into the same category as a bunch of others like My Engineer, Tonhon Chonlatee, and My Gear and Your Gown in which production values are okay but only really because they aren’t noticeably egregious. They’re fine. It’s fine. it’s a perfectly serviceable show. 

Note that much as I adore Love By Chance it’s not on this list? Neither is TharnType, A Chance at Love, TharnType 2, or Why R U? 

I honestly think these all have the same post production team/company (or a variation on that team) and it’s not good. Sorry. It just isn’t. These shows are riddled with continuity errors (like a hand placed one way in one shot, but another way in the next shot even though time has not lapsed), lighting and sound issues, and wardrobe malfunctions. 

The cinematography and staging can be fine, but where they really suffer seems to be on the editing floor (or lack of editing) which has the most profound impact on pacing. Frankly, this may not be entirely the editor’s fault as these shows often feel like they’ve been rushed to production and have no solid storyboard guiding them or their editor. 

I should end on a positive, shouldn’t I? 

I think, over all, Thailand is getting better at post production at the very least (with the possible exception of sound). They still churn out loads of dross, but GMMTV is tight these days, and there are one or two solid smaller companies doing good work and even pushing for improved cinematography (which no one expects in a romcom, let alone a BL). 

I’m optimistic. 

The most Romeo and Juliet accurate part of Bad Buddy is all of their friends are just itching for a fight, have zero self control and will probably get someone killed at the rate they're going without Pat or Pran having to do anything except suffer from their actions.