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

Bad Buddy Ep. 9: Tiny PatPran Kisses

This is ✨ PEAK ✨ romance and no one can tell me otherwise.

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? 

the fact that ohm changes his twitter icon to whatever legendary bad buddy scene made fans lose their minds this week is so funny i love this man

PAT and PRAN in BAD BUDDY (2021)

best boyfriends 

Bad Buddy (2021) 

not so quick pitch 

Light on Me (2021 - Korea) 

Rating: 10/10

Foundational Romance Trope: friends to love triangle

There were some who thought this BL slow, and I get that, but really it’s just subtle and quiet. With Light on Me, Korea gave us an honest to goodness high school set BL with some classic old school yaoi tropes almost like they were doing a bit of a, 

“now that we’ve hit our stride, let’s perfect the vanilla sheet cake BL style.” 

It was great, of course, but very refined and elegant which some found off putting. It made me think of something like this… 

It’s what Korea does, repackage and perfect vanilla cake into this pretty glowing confection of precision joy. I’m cool with that. By all means, please include BL in the Hallyu take over. This is the K-pop of BL En-Hyphen style, manufactured super-powered cute but… restrained. 

But that doesn’t make it any less gut wrenching to watch. In fact, it makes every subtle tentative movement of care that ShinWoo attempts that much more telling. It makes every fear of exposure that prevents DaOn from taking action that much more traumatic. It makes every moment of TaeKyung’s brutal honestly and blunt communication that much more powerful. 

It’s like that intense moment of focus on the hand flex in an Austen adaptation - we are awaiting every crack in the sugar sculpture with bated breath. 

The filming in this show was precision engineered. The frame was kept uncluttered, characters appeared exactly in the center, there was little visual noise, and the lighting was full on, even in night shots. To me this reflected the character of TaeKyung - honest and almost stilted in his mannerisms. I feel like the director filmed this series as if the show itself were TaeKyung: careful and clear and specific. 

This may come off as one-note or simplistic to a casual viewer but it’s actually quite difficult to film something so precisely and still make it interesting to watch. It forced the viewer to focus almost entirely on the actor’s faces, their nuanced emotion, and their interpersonal relationships to the exclusion of all else. Lucky for us those actors served the lens beautifully. 

There is literally NOTHING distracting about this directing style. It’s like the camera was a neutral white room, a well-lit gallery in which the narrative hung suspended for us all to stand and stare at in hushed silence.

A love triangle has never before looked so perfect or been executed so perfectly, and it never will again. All BL love triangles that come after Light On Me (and we will get them now) are going to be unfavorably compared to this show. 

When I posted about Korea’s history with BL, I talked about how strategic and clever they are with tropes. Light on Me is a master class in how to use tropes to manipulate audience sympathy so they can’t decide which pair they prefer. Korean BL never just throws in a trope without purpose - they calculate its impact on story structure. Basically, LoM used this technique to infect fans with Second Lead Syndrome. It’s SO GOOD.  

So yes, Light on Me was cleverly engineered, but it was also SPECIAL, and here’s why:

This show gave us a small cast of beautifully acted complex and sympathetic characters and dwelled on their different motivations, communication styles, and narrative roles. It gently explored not what it means to love, or even be in love, but what it means to act on love, and what that says about integrity and emotional courage. In doing so, it managed to treat its characters with integrity too. And not just the three main characters but the mentor, the faen fatal, and the best friend support characters too. 

This show felt very fair. Fair to its characters. Fair to its story. And fair to us, the watchers. 

For me this BL was classy, a real winner, not the least of which because they NAILED the landing, including the final kiss. Korea is DOMINATING 2021. Like seriously. What’s going on here?  

Full analysis of the love triangle trope under the context of the second half fo this BL here. 

Bravo, Korea.

(source)

Close Friends the series (another Thai hope for new stories in BL) ideas

What is up with these mini series Y destiny, Close Friends where they have a short storyline for certain known pairings and leave me devastated that they didn’t make it into a full 12 episode or more series? Why are we stuck with the engineering, university repetitive motives when we’ve had outlines and ideas right in front of us for how to make new groundbreaking Thai stories in this genre??? Unique, Romantic, Fun and great potential to explore new dynamics and characters. Please Close friends choose a series to make into one full series. Anyway here’s how I’d do them starting from my most favorite and desperate want for a full tv series plot, to the ones I can’t be fussed about. 

1.   KimCop

Are you kidding me? We could have had a celebrity/fanboy trope this whole time from Thailand? Why haven’t we gotten yet this idea?  Man this needs to be a series, this needs to  be fleshed out and give me a full storyline. Like have a spoiled/ arrogant celebrity who wants to go undercover away from his label (feeling bored/frustrated with the environment he’s in and sneaking away when he finally gets out) and meets his number one fan boy who works as cafe barista (cafe shop au damn it)  who he knows because he’s been having secret conversations with him through a VR app that he monitors for research on how to create more. Let him pretend he doesn’t know said fanboy but find a way to spend more time with him, let said fan boy not be okay with his attitude and arrogance on the surface but be confused about the other version of himself he speaks to in VR, let us have this. It would be so good, between secret identities, contract living/cafe shop au tropes, we could have something that can be great, with longing, misunderstandings, having the fan boy pretend he’s not affected by the celebrity (due to annoyance by his spoiled persona) when we and the celebrity both know he’s different when he’s speaking to his VR version. Just so much to play with, with this.  We need this storyline as a narrative like this is closest to the kinda risks Korea BLS do with their plotlines for BLs and with Thai we know the episodes would be allowed to be longer and properly played out. Plus KimCop are fantastic; they’re made for this, they need the directing, the stellar budget and production but I want this now. Damn you Close friends for laying this  in front of me!!! 

2. Mii2

Please can I get a coming of age series for this perfection? A coming of age that ends happily and show cases these two’s journey to being together through their pen pal relationship. Can we get self discovery, exploration, acceptance and more. Can we get finding your purpose, your struggles in highschool to fit in, to have friends, to be socially accepted. Can we get that with these two who clearly live opposite lives and find solace in each other. I want my BL answer me 1997/1984 Kdrama!! Like you can have it all! Give it to me 😭 let me learn about Thai history during these times. Let me watch this soft friends to lovers premise  Please? I’m begging? From the aesthetic, the time period, the wholesome characters and the potential with this plot, we can have a great unique Thai Bl series that’s still about highschool but show cases a different era. With inside jokes about that time period, with references, and opportunities for nostalgia for certain Thai folks, it’s a win win to me and it’d be BL! 

3. JaaFirst

You heard it here I want them because of their chemistry. I couldn’t help feeling so teased and upset that this wasn’t a supernatural thing about a cat who turns human or something (we’ve had mangas based on this, lol even Mew Mew power has a play on this with the main het couple at a time, common) like I would have wanted this synopsis with these two a magical race of people who are able to turn into animals, one of them who loses his memory/ has to find something that will help his race in a certain time frame  and finds himself having to stay stuck with Ja’s character who he falls for because he watches and learns about him as a cat. Maybe he stays in his cat form to discover why he was found in Ja’s place with no memory, trying to discover about himself, But there’s times where his human form can roam around depending on certain world building rules. Meanwhile Ja is a cute cat owner who’s  unaware. But something is bothering him, it’s making him spiral, he is intrigued by a boy he keeps bumping into at odds times around his area but he can’t find the boy anywhere, and each time they meet he’s a bit standoffish and refusing to let Ja get to know him or help him, he can’t find the boy unless he appears at a certain time and place. And he spends time pining trying to find and get this person not knowing he’s living right next to him moping about his circumstance about not being able to stay human all the time, Like a play on Little mermaid or kdramas like My girlfriend is a gumiho you know these dramas with supernatural beings who have to stay in a contract situation with someone with a time limit (a month/100 days normally) to stay together and get to his goal.  Like weird animal supernatural trope but it could work 😭 One it’d be supernatural so unique to this genre, it’d explore a requited but they don’t know trope with a lot of barriers and misunderstandings :( Like damn it why can’t we be having all this Thailand.

4. MaxNat  😭

A Karate Kid reboot but with BL 😭 Yes you heard me, between watching Nat fall for the sport and prove to whoever he needs to that he can be a champion due to the help of his headstrong tutor who takes him in, like we’ve got another plot, we’ve got another theme to explore, a new world of learning about the world of Karate competitions, and training to be a champion. Character dynamics that can be fleshed out to have another sports based BL series but this time Thai like yess 😭 let’s stew and stay longer in this I don’t want to do this energy with Nat’s character probably being forced to do the sport because he has no choice, to impress someone, to get revenge on  a rival who hurt him but slowly realizing that karate is his talent and what he loves to do authentically. A fish out of water experience, as he falls for his strict gruff, cold, and robotic tutor who he learns more about as time goes about why Karate is his all😭 Like yes please…. Haters to lovers, going in with wrong intentions, learning about self worth and finding your purpose/self. Like a chosen one narrative let me have this!!! 

See what I mean when I say all these mini series just leave me sad, that Thai BL genre isn’t risky enough to do new things, all you have to do is branch out a bit, try and create stories without the need to get Bl adaptations all the time from novels with the same themes and tropes. Let’s get new themes we see in other countries, let’s have these actors be put to use more and given stories that aren’t just the same old same old. I dunno, watching Y destiny and Close friends, have made me sigh because if people actually put thought and effort into how to improve this genre, and make it more than just a money thing, we could have great stories for Thai BL that actually will shock us, and make us refall in love with the genre. Dunno if what I’m saying makes sense, I just want new stories from Thai BL (don’t get me wrong IPYTM and GMMTV are trying) but I sometimes get frustrated at this explosion of quantity of BL that never has quality, it’s either repetitive or just awful in terms of storytelling. Why? Please Thailand branch out a little, these two series have shown you new plots, and ideas you can play with and create something more interesting and better than the typical lazy plots. Let’s expand Thai BL more. That’s all. Do you guys have your own ideas on these storylines and how to make them into longer series. I didn’t mention the other two because I wasn’t as connected to their plot (Love TalayYoon though) but I really enjoyed Close friends, and I’m sad it’s over now. 

simp CONFIRMED

MY SCHOOL PRESIDENT | EP. 3 [2022-2023]