i told sunset about you !!

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ok so i guess it’s pretty common knowledge at this point that i’ve been obsessed with i told sunset about you and i’ve tried to get a lot of my friends to watch it too (… with varying degrees of success). i guess this post is an attempt to get it out of my system? html credits to girlrock ofc

spoiler-free thoughts

emily’s dreamwidth round-up was actually the reason why i watched itsay in the first place. i’m not actually that familiar with bls in general; i’ve watched where your eyes linger before, which is this korean bodyguard/chaebol bl that’s um… well it’s not that good but i still ate it up! so i guess what i’m saying is that i can’t vouch for itsay as “the best bl ever” the way all of the youtube comments keep saying LOL… but i do think it’s worth watching regardless of whether you typically watch bls or not T___T it’s just like this really good queer coming of age story and idkk i experienced so many emotions while watching.

like first of all the premise is perfect? who else loves estranged_childhood_friends to rivals to lovers… the shared history of it all <3 and ofc because it’s set during the time where seniors in hs are preparing for the college entrance exams there is some rumination on choosing your dream/following your path in life along with the romance. idk i just think the show was so good at showing what things feel like at that time? it was intense and raw and emotional but it fit with the character’s ages. like they did a great job of portraying insecurities and the way everything feels like the end of the world at that age LOL.

itsay felt kind of similar to skam s3/druck s3 (i.e. queer coming of age storyline, internalized homophobia, general fuckups committed by the main character…) but i thought itsay was better for sure. like first of all the side characters in itsay don’t get hatecrimed & each person is treated with grace and the way things resolve (eventually) is really nice. and itsay is also just a lot more beautiful? like i never read too deeply into druck so idk if there was a lot of symbolism going on buttt itsay had a lot of recurring motifs and intricate details that were sort of nice to pick up on? and also itsay’s setting (phuket) was sooo beautiful and the cinematography was just gorgeous *__*

lastly i'm just going to embed the trailer below for those who haven't watched it yet!! please watch this show it's really good T___T

Watch on YouTube

okay so from now on everything else here has spoilers for itsay, so just be warned <3

more commentary

okay obligatory rant on the characters. i feel like oh was the most easily “likable” (… probably because he wasn’t an extreme mess) but IDK I REALLY LIKED TEH. sometimes an intense bisexual disaster character can literally be so personal <3 like he messed up a lot and didn’t really know what he wanted and i can see why some viewers didn’t like his character but idk his confusion was just so relatable n__n also i’m kind of obsessed with how intense he was (… the coconut thing?) like he’s sort of iconic for this. idk i think it was just comforting to watch him make a mess of his life and then climb his way back out of it because it reminded me that everyone is redeemable or whatever TT

and now for oh-aew. UMMM HE WAS LITERALLY B^BIE TO ME. i actually got so sad during a lot of scenes with his character because it’s like… he was secure in his identity and what he wanted but teh sort of made him more insecure? also the whole thing with him being constantly underestimated by teh and not knowing what his dream was/feeling directionless was so relatable. he was also sooo nice to teh tbh… like when he was like “it’s ok if there’s no answer” or whatever!? how did he put up with teh’s bullshit for so long. anyways the bra scene and the scenes where he’s like “are you embarrassed of me”/“are you proud of me” to bas/his parents respectively were so important to me.

and the side characters were also so good!! i feel like this is one of the first times watching a drama where i really liked the chemistry that the “second leads” had with the main leads… LIKE IS ANYONE ELSE A TARN FAN? tarn and teh were so cute in the beginning >__< i just thought the second leads were such good foils (?) like tarn being super driven and passionate about her dream whereas oh-aew is insecure about how much passion he has and bas being like objectively “perfect” for oh-aew (the way bas isn’t ashamed to hold hands with oh-aew in public and has faith in oh-aew to accomplish his dreams) vs teh being teh. i also thought teh’s older brother hoon was perfect <3 when your perfect older sibling who you’ll never match up to puts pressure on you to act a certain way… yeah. yeah

some other things that stood out to me:

• the colors—oh-aew constantly in red, teh constantly in blue, the purple hibiscus flower/red flower that teh gave oh-aew


• COCONUTS. do i even have to say it


• the contrast between teh living in the city, his mom managing a restaurant where he’s basically constantly subjected to the judgment of other people vs oh-aew living in this isolated resort away from everyone else where he’s sort of safe (?) to form his own identity

other random things

so after finishing watching itsay i was like “wow what the heck do i do with my life now” and of course i checked ao3 for fics… (lol) anyways i have two recs.

• mouth trouble by mimilamp // oh my god this fic is INSANE. like the author does such a good job of capturing teh's intensity and how insane he is about oh-aew and it seems like a lot but also at the same time it's soo true to like... the way teenagers are. this is the perfect epilogue to itsay s1 in my opinion <3
• it's just the way you do it (when you move so swiftly) by yurikazen // umm no comment. but i liked this

i haven’t looked for too many fmvs or anything but this one drove me INSANE. like it matches their relationship so well and idk. i felt so many emotions.

Watch on YouTube

itsay: the documentary

also i’m one of those people who’s like… when i finish/like a certain piece of media i’ll go on reddit and try and find other people’s discussions of it just to experience second-hand feelings/understand what i just watched a little better? and one of the commenters mentioned that there was an itsay documentary series SO I ENDED UP WATCHING ALL OF THAT TOO? i don’t really know how much i’d recommend it but as someone who was having terrible itsay brainrot it definitely helped <3 also i guess this sort of “behind the scenes” look at filming a tv series is probably content that’s commonly done but it’s the first time that i’ve watched anything like it? so i came away from it having a much greater appreciation for the show and all the effort that the actors/director put into making itsay… like wow.

some takeaways:

• the origin story of the drama itself is so funny to me. like ppkrit (who plays oh-aew) and bilkin (who plays teh) were side characters in some other drama together and got intense shipper fans so the company was like “ok why don’t we make a show with the two of them”… and it was initially going to be set in the other drama’s universe but bilkin’s character had DIED so they were just like “let’s make this coming of age story instead.” and then they based the characters off of the actor's actual personalities and stuff because of course they did.


• i remember watching the underwater kiss scene and being like “this seems unrealistic” but the behind the scenes truly showed how difficult it was to film… the way the leads had to learn diving in order to film the scene?! like seriously so much effort was put into everything n___n


• PPKRIT IS SO FREAKING CUTE. not to woobify this man too hard but he’s so relatable and adorable <3 like he was afraid of fishes/coral reefs and also has bad eyesight so filming the underwater kiss scene was an extreme struggle for him and he cried once they were done…also apparently the bra scene was originally supposed to just be him wearing lipstick but then he showed up on set and they were like “actually you have to wear this red frilly bra” like this man went through so much to film this drama.


• ok i’m not as unhinged about bilkin but i also respect him <3 he’s kind of iconic for being to ugly-cry so often and i just think he’s really talented… like ppkrit is sort of terrible at singing but bilkin is pretty good and also had to learn chinese opera and IDK. he’s cool too <3


• the actor who plays bas is just this baby 03-liner? he’s sooo adorable to me. like he was just this normie cheerleader at their (nadao’s) acting academy with no professional experience and he got casted on the basis of his chemistry with ppkrit… idk it was so obvious that ppkrit was fond of him and they’re just adorable. ok i’m done


• also well there are a lot of moments in itsay that are like [] wow the tension between the characters is built up so well and the way intimacy is conveyed almost made me shy? so it was funny to see the director/actors react the same way after filming a scene and watching it over (“wow that made me shy” etc etc).


• it’s cool how some of the strongest moments in the drama were improvised too (!?!) like i don’t know anything about acting really but i have so much more respect for the work that actors have to do now…