BradBluddy16

Nong Nooong is a shrimp mounting an otter. Just saying…

With three Head 2 Head episodes left, please excuse me for wanting to self-indulgently revisit my pre-show predictions to see if I have any of J’s future vision powers.

From early October:
“Five things I’m looking forward to with Head 2 Head:”

1. “Keen getting a hold of a Boy Sompob OST and crushing it.”
- Sort of. I guess Boy Sompob works exclusively with Wabi Sabi. The Pure Kanin OSTs are all good but don’t quite touch the emotional depths for Keen to truly unleash his inner Adele.

2. “New Siwaj returning to a supernatural love story that doesn’t include vampires”
-Agree. P’New has reconnected with that red thread tension that made UWMA so compelling.

3. “Sea being unshackled and given a more playful character to sink his paws into (meow meow meow)”
-Agree. Still I couldn’t foresee that Sea had developed into such a full-range acting tiger (roar, roar, roar).

4. “With New Siwaj being a master of the tasteful, but not demure, NC scene, SeaKeen will finally get to 2nd base”
-Pending. We might get it at the start of Ep 11, before all penultimate-episode-hell breaks loose.

5. “Keen, that awkwardly endearing, gyrating teenager from his Project Alpha debut, will rightfully become the new Crown Prince of BL (at least until Fourth gets his bangs back, and Ticket to Heaven changes the universe as we know it)”
-Pending. No question that Keen is coming into his own; between Head 2 Head, CLO’VER, MuteLuv, and Only Boo and it’s OSTs, Fourth’s grip on the crown may be loosening. And is Ticket to Heaven really real or just a illusory vision we all shared?

There seems to be no end to Keen’s talents: acting equally well with comedy and drama, hilarious improv, singing, center position idol, dancing, playing guitar and piano, and now lip gymnastics(!?!) He’s come such a long way from the endearing awkwardness of his Kon Mun Ruk Project Alpha debut.

Here are some of the possible explanations that help me sleep at night:)
J - He was allowed to return from the future in the hopes of saving Jinn, but he is bound by a celestial non-disclosure agreement about sharing details of his visions/memories (not a spoiler; I have not read the book)
The Father - ThamePo and Only Boo both showed us the unfair, even barbaric pressures put on idols to stay uncoupled. Imagine the landscape twenty years ago and adding a child to the mix. Also, who was the shadowy figure with the dad; with that level of success, was the mob involved? Or worse, the army?
Van - this is the easiest, as we have already been handed all the facts.
Van’s parents died tragically when he was 14 or 15. Reattaching to another human being will, understandably, not be easy. Van keeps everything light, always redirecting any serious conversations as a coping mechanism. If he ever goes deep he will encounter some unimaginable levels of grief.
No, Farm does not need to smack him, dump his ass, or worse. He needs to be constant, and not fall for any of Van’s avoidance strategies, until Van can break down his own walls, and walk through his fears of attachment/abandonment.

True. It’s BL. It has to start with the ship and their chemistry. But the story and the direction has to be there, as well; otherwise we would all just be watching fan service content. I guess P’New has his detractors because he is similar to a pulp fiction writer; he produces a tremendous amount of content, and doesn’t seem to sweat the details. We all love an auteur; but BL, like romance fiction, needs its pulp producers to keep the genre’s blood flowing. And P’New, love him or hate him, is very good at what he does.

Shout out to New Siwaj. Not sure what’s behind all the fandom fuss, but, aside from a vampire series that had him stray too far out of his collegiate comfort zone, dude has been on a roll of late. We Are had its moments; Fourever You made it half way there; Perfect 10 Liners was two-thirds perfect; and Head 2 Head finds him fully back in his sweet spot, that supernatural/romantic fusion that made Until We Meet Again so compelling.

Cheers to Team Van. I’m looking forward to him bringing Farm out of himself, coaxing out the family drama, and what “bad love” Farm has been a witness to. Sometimes, all you need is a messy extrovert.

Why we all turning on the show? Is it that we don’t like reliving our Boston and Nick trauma through Van and Farm? Although Nick’s kiss-off in OF ep 12 was so satisfying, I don’t believe we want the same outcome here. We like Van; we know Van’s backstory; we know he doesn’t want to hurt Farm - that is why he friend zoned him for sooooo long. But we also know it may take divine intervention (or the love of a good man - this is BL, after all) for Van to change his ways.

Tracks. The irl boyfriends and the method actors :)
I feel that kissing is similar to onscreen nudity; you shouldn’t have to do it if you are uncomfortable, and it should definitely not be expected. New Siwaj may get a bad wrap but I suspect he uses his angles to respect his actor’s comfort levels.

Good thing you didn’t mention “My Love Mix Up”; the GemFot mommies will come for you…

How Farm can show such maturity and not be thrown by Van’s self sabotaging is beyond me. We may well see where his breaking point is soon.

Shout out to Keen’s free-form drunk dancing; a call back to his “Only Boo” food truck moment.
The kid is such a comedic star. And if there were ever any doubts he has real dance chops, the CLO’VER “Next To You” routine is not for the feint of heart.

Rom-Coms (and we have, maybe unwittingly, been lead to believe this is a rom-com so far) do follow a certain formula, and are still hard to do well. The BL landscape is littered with examples where the producers had the formula, but still couldn’t get the ingredients right. Why shouldn’t Rom-coms, when done well, be as highly rated as the more innovative shows?

SeaKeen did promise us something dark last year, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to see this series morphing into a tense K-drama. Damn you New Siwaj for lulling us to sleep with your Perfect-10-Lined smokescreen. Put on your seatbelts everyone; we may be in for a bumpy ride.

The deep kissing elephant in the room? 💋

I know we were all hoping for OhmNanon-level kissing; with all the Bad Buddy allusions we were almost set-up for a rooftop moment. But if Bad Buddy taught us anything, it is that that level of passion between the CPs does not necessarily lead to a sustainable working relationship. I say, if the chemistry is there let the BL boys have their fish kisses, if it allows our favourite ships to have some longevity. Besides, we know an NC scene is coming and SeaKeen killed it in their bed scene-stopped-short in Only Boo.

It is surprising a BL Rom-com can pull out so many Bad Buddy references and not have it take away from any of its power. But, then again, why not? For a generation of us, Bad Buddy changed our entire emotional circuitry. It’s like referencing sacred texts.

Agree that 12% was the bomb, but dude has been on an upward trajectory ever since Wabi Sabi dissolved their management arm; Perfect Ten Liners, eps 9 through 24, and Fourever You’s JohanNorth segments were peak campus romance. And, if we could all scrub our minds and watch UWMA for the first time, we’d see the red thread tied to Head 2 Head’s intoxicating mix of romantic longing and supernatural tension starts there.

Because it was released during the period of high anticipation between MSP and My Love Mix Up, when GemFot madness was at its peak, Only Boo! appeared with little fanfare, and even less investor’s money. Compared to MSP’s brilliant first two episodes, Only Boo!’s start seemed a little frivolous, even crack, and for those not immediately smitten by Keen’s effortless charisma and Sea’s dulcet tones, the temptation to abort was compelling. But for those who stayed, the realization soon dawned that something special was happening, the series was going deeper, and the chemistry between the two young leads was electric. In the end, Only Boo! blows the sponsor-bloated My Love Mix Up out of the water, and arguably, with less filler, has more rewatch value than MSP. Please don’t sleep on Only Boo!

I had such high expectations for this series. My favourite ship + my sometimes favourite director (Perfect 10 Liners, UWMA) + my favourite trope + my favourite BL singer (“Louder” refuses to ever leave my Top 10). Somehow it has managed to exceed those expectations and then some. That Ep 3 ending…c’mon!