#paof

i mean of course i and you and everybody teared up when we watched it but i just did NOT expect the frigging director who had shot the scene (and who had probably seen the edits and the cuts multiple times) to do that.

throughout that part i wasn't looking at anybody else on that screen not even patpran cos here was the guy who brought them together on the screen who was behind the scenes who made this all possible viewing his show from the point of view of a passive audience member and feeling moved for his own characters and perhaps seeing his own queer self there too (idk if he has spoken about why he teared up or we know more about this from somewhere else) but with no other context this legit made me (as a queer person who writes queer stories) tear up and i had to pause and take a second to appreciate just how much this show is doing for queer people even outside the show.

it's all just a lot for my tiny fragile heart. i love bad buddy so much yall its made such a special place in my mind i could cry.

ahhh look at his eyes all welling up with tears arghhh I CANNOT

Image credit: Ohm’s twitter

When we bring up BBS, everyone talks about OhmNanon as they should and I’m wholeheartedly a part of that agenda. But I just wanted to take a few minutes and give some credit to the guy standing behind the scenes, making the tough decisions. Director P’Aof, whose shoulders carried the weight of a demanding audience, far reaching expectations, and a television genre that is widely riddled with glaring issues.

BBS being filmed during the height of a pandemic makes it that much more impressive the product P’Aof and co. delivered. We know they had to make a lot of concessions with locations and reduced working hours as well as availability of actors. Imagine showing up to work each day with the uncertainty of half your crew being compromised by a spreading virus. That is mentally draining just to think about let alone live through. Not only this, but the amount of marketing and promotion for the series was probably halved (and this is being generous) because of limited exposure to live events and media outlets. 

But inspite of all these challenges, the success of BBS is undeniable. And much of that is due to P’Aof’s committment to knowing what he wanted to accomplish and the unwavering belief in the story he wanted to tell. And that is the story of two people who aren’t supposed to fall in love but do so anyway. In the face of adversity, their love is unfailing and enduring and this was conveyed so well on screen that there is zero doubt it had P’Aof’s signature all over it.

Reading through the cast and crews personal thank you notes, they are all effusive when it comes to thanking their director. Aof had so much pressure on his shoulders but he proceeded to stick the landing with such conviction that there’s no doubt this is the ending he had in mind before the ink even made it onto paper. (Insert joke of P’Aof knowing he wanted the last line of the series to be: “Pran, it’s not a porno!” and he spent the entire series getting us there). So take your standing ovation, Mr. Noppharnach, it is much deserved.

Fine, I get that breaking up is the most realistic path but I’m so fucking disappointed dude. Like, P’Aof crafted this whole journey for them where we all knew the eventual destination was: and they lived happily ever after.

Guys, we know this will have a happy ending. You don’t pull all this emotional shit to not have a massive payoff in the finale. I really believe that and I’m confident that this has always been about the journey.  Also deep down I think P’Aof is a big SAP like the rest of us. He loves love. 

But where I’m mostly disappointed is that he took the detour of breaking them up in order to get us to that HEA you know? Like, he could have hit a fucking home run with this by keeping them together and still getting their HEA but chose not to? That’s where I’m disappointed. Because if any show, any director, were to bypass the cursed EP11 and found a way to give us the happy ending anyway, this was THE SHOW to do it. Bad Buddy already laid the groundwork to pull it off. But instead...