BadPenny

I came out of this drama bawling my eyes out and wishing I could track In and Job down to make sure they were okay. Acting in this drama would have wrecked me for good.

I AM queer and I was raised in a military household. So I connected very closely with Nat's story. But I also had consummate love for Tofu, for his part in helping lead Nat past his anger. It was all so good. Hurtful as it was at times.

I loved Gen because he proved that rule I have always believed in that loving someone doesn't mean approving of their choices. In fact, sometimes it means you have the responsibility to call them out on their shit.

He loved them both. It's pretty simple. He even talks to Tharn about it. That Tofu will always be in his heart too. Even as he knew Tharn was always going to be in his heart, even when he was with Tofu.

Sometimes the love we feel doesn't go away when we get a new partner, our hearts just make room for more.

Shit! I didn't know this was a thing! Dammit!

Ditto. Miss them like a limb that's been cut away.

I don't think people are upset because they wanted the fluffy ending. I think they wanted Tofu alive as a human. And that didn't have to be fluffy at all.

Was this end bad? Not in every way. But it wasn't what some people wanted, and that's fair.

Anytime someone devolves their comments to "I'm concerned for you" or any one of a hundred iterations of that, they are basically swinging wild because they have nothing legitimate to counter your ideas with.

Miracle of Teddy Bear is a motherfucking MASTERPIECE. Facts.

I struggled a lot in the first 2, maybe 3 episodes. Then I fell into the rhythm. But I get you. Those are big chunks to watch and there were three of them released each week. Stay strong. You're almost there.

This is good advice. It does help. Seeing Job and In being happy and hanging together is really rewarding and it puts one helluva bandaid on the ouchie parts.

They probably did want to do a more upbeat ending. However, they were under contract to end it in accordance with the books ending. So they didn't get much choice in that.

In general, though, I don't look to BL's to show happy gay endings because BL's don't actually reflect gay lives. There is a lot of media in Thailand that is made by gay creators for gay audiences and that stuff is very powerful indeed.

I think for Tofu, so long as Nut was happy and safe, that was all that mattered. His sense of self was grounded in his hope for Nat to be happy. That's what made Tofu so special.

Love is one of those things we like to break into categories but Tofu's character reminds us that the type of love we feel is less important than that we feel it. He reminds us that we aren't defined by who loves us, or how. But by the love we experience for others. Not our desire for others. Desire is selfish by definition. And Tofu is defined by his love, not his desire.

So while I was sad at the end and really didn't like that Tofu went back to being a bear, I was okay eventually because I had a good sit down and think. And I was somehow taken back to when I was a child, in Catholic classes on the weekend. (I'm an atheist now, but that's beside the point) In those classes, my priest lamented once that English was such a limited language, that Greek, the first non Hebrew language the scriptures were translated into, was a much better language because it had all different kinds of specific words for love. Eros, Philia, Ludus, Agape, Pragma, Storge, etc... So that we could label each kind of love and know the exact context.

I got into trouble with him often, but this time I really confused him for a bit. Because I fussed at him and told him it was silly to label all kinds of love as different. That it was all just love. And he explained in what I remember to be a very condescending tone that not all love was alike and when I was grown I would understand.

Well, I'm grown. And I still argue the same. Love is love. When you strip away the different types of desire from any kind of love you feel for someone, all that remains is the love. Tofu loves Nat and that love doesn't require any context. It just is. So for him to stand guard over Nat's life was as fulfilling a way to love as remaining human at Nat's side.

It took me a hot minute to remember another reason I used to piss off my priest. I had what he deemed were apocryphal dreams that displayed my arrogant nature. I used to dream that Mary and Joseph were fleeing with baby Jesus and they knew they were going to be overtaken so they stopped and approached. I wasn't human in this dream, I was a desert rose. And in this dream Mary pulled the sand from around my roots and put the swaddled baby there. And said to me, "May your roots cradle him". And then she arranged my blossoms and branches and she said "may your flowers hide him and may your thorns protect him." And I recall feeling great love. A love that resolved itself into the joy of duty.

I haven't thought of this dream since I was in my teens. The dream was probably rattled loose from the rafters of my memories by the Little Prince metaphors in the drama, and the rose in the Saint-Exupéry novela. But sitting here in the week after the end of the Teddy Bear drama I was simply trying to wrap my head around Tofu's role. I was trying to understand the peace he found in it. And I suddenly remembered the dream. In that moment I realized he's the rose bush. He's there to guard Nat, protect him, shelter his heart, as he said. And most of all, love Nat.

I don't think Nat saying he'll be happy on Tofu's behalf was about Tofu, it was about Nat's perception of Tofu's absence.

Now, all this deep shit is just my ruminations on it. I'm not trying to tell you how to feel. But maybe down the road you'll find a way to connect with the story's end on a personal level too. It wasn't easy to arrive there. The first few days after the finale I was a mess of many different emotions. But I got there, in the end. I get anyone who is mad or hurt about the end, but I did eventually find a way to accept it.

I agree on her lack of merit in the beginning. Phri was annoying, and awful. But what I liked was that she got a character arc where she redeemed herself, making up for her earlier bad behaviors toward Nat. And she didn't blame Tofu for stealing Nat, she came to terms with the fact that Nat was gay. Finally.

As for the comment to her uncle, it wasn't racist, it was colorist. Colorism is different than racism in that it's prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone but typically among people of the SAME race. Such as lighter skinned African Americans using slurs on African Americans who are much darker.

And I think Phri's colorism towards her uncle was the drama making commentary on how obnoxious and pointless colorism is. And petty. Her comment didn't show her in a good light. In fact it was at a point when she was acting really awful and it became one more symptom of her bad attitude.

So they weren't normalizing colorism, rather it was a sign of Phri's inability to process her own disappointment so she was taking it out on her uncle. I don't think there's anything wrong with showing colorism or other really bad personality traits in a drama so long as those traits are being shown in negative light. There was also more than one point in the drama where the BL industry's favor of pale skinned actors was remarked upon as well. Obviously the creators of The Miracle of Teddy Bear were making commentary on institutionalized colorism in Thailand generally and the BL industry in specific, at more than one point throughout the drama.

You're welcome.

This girl needs to be fired and then whomever is actually paying her bills needs to get her an occupational therapist. She's a phenomenal wreck.

I currently work in comics and digital illustration and I am telling you if this assistant had done half this nonsense in my office, I would have chased them out myself with a broom.

Oh yeah, faceplanting on my table now*

I should have known that's what it was.

Teddy Bear is in my top 5 BL's ever. And I didn't know the rating dropped. The ending was a surprise to me until the scene in episode 15 with Tofu in Tharn's hospital room. Then I knew. And I watched it anyway. The show wrecked me but not in a bad way. I am just so in love with Tofu there is no way that wasn't going to hurt. But that's a sign of how amazing a show it was. Not how bad. I am hard to move like that. It's difficult to invest me to that degree.

So no, the system of ratings on MDL is not a reflection of the show's merits. So I barely notice them. I still couldn't tell you what TMoTB's rating is. In my heart it's a 10/10.

I know I'm gonna smack myself in the head and go "Fucking of course" when you tell me. But I can't figure out which drama is TMOTB.

Ditto. Fuck Lian and Yi.

I have long suspected that may be it. I can't actually rationalize why else they could ignore or even not see all the glaring plot problems. Unless they just aren't into CP for the plot to begin with.

Meh, people would just lie about their age upon sign up.

And mental ages doesn't reflect well in years. Tofu is a spirit, it turns out, that isn't a bears consciousness at all but an actual supernatural sort of thing. So he's his own special circumstance and while I didn't want him to return to being a bear, the most important thing about Tofu was that he had a right to choose.

Fuck anyone who isn't mature enough to see the value in his journey. Honestly. I simply don't care what they think.

yeah, I was yelling about that. Colorism sucks.