I donāt know. Mydramalist has the grammatically correct Friends Forever but everywhere else has the singular, so... if youāre trying to find it to watch "Friend Foreverā seems to work better as a search term.Ā
And there are what? Maybe a handful of us here watching it?
Iām gonna waffle on about it anyway.Ā
7 episodes in and itās charming.Ā
So Friends Forever is basically Love SickĀ + LBC (AePete & TumTar represent) with a dash of Make it Right thrown in.Ā
We basically have two main couples: Tan & Oil and Sea & Tin.Ā
Shall we break them down by trope?Ā
Sure why not, how else am I going to distract myself right now?Ā
Playing on the step-brothers who fall in love trope (90s Yaoi has a lot to answer for) this is at least not TumTar levelĀ taboo. Oil is the son of a next door neighbor who ends up living with PāTan and his mother. Then Oil goes abroad. Oil returns years later to find his beloved PāTan now sad and isolated after his mom died.Ā
Oil is beautiful and sweet, and the classic uke that everyone wants. They even allow him to be a little femme, which is rare in a BL (insert polite queer clapping here). Oil returns to high school and resumes living with PāTan partly in order to save PāTan from his own misery. PāTan is the older cool kid, and struggling with his non-brotherly affections for Oil, and... well, we all know this story. Right?Ā
The actors have perfectly decent chemistry, although I am kinda over the innocent prettiest perfect babe that everyone wants.Ā
So instead, can we PLEASE talk about:
Iām sorry to all the LBC2 supes out there, but this is now my Tin:Ā
I will accept no substitutes where pure metals are concerned. Yes, we do indeed have another creamy faced rich kid Tin but so much sweeter than the original.Ā
Okay, I admit it. I have a terrible weakness for other-side-of-the-track romances. Ae & Pete are my favorite BL pair partly because of the class/wealth differences between them. And because they flip the power dynamic, so the rich kid is the uke and the poor kid is the seme.Ā
Sea & Tin are doing the same thing. Itās GREAT.Ā
Sea is really poor and wins a music scholarship to a prestigious high school. Tin is really rich and also falls hard and fast and totally for Sea.Ā
The pining is King-level strong with this Tin.Ā
There is some sort of contrived rich kid divide with Tin caught in the middle as the Maria to SeaāsĀ āwhen youāre a Jet, your a Jet all the way...ā Yeah you know what I mean.Ā Sea and the music kids are the poor dorks, and against them are the rich bullies. Sweetling Tin is torn by his loyalties. TORN I TELL YOU.Ā
Oh noes, will school cliques tear them apart?Ā
The teen angst of it all!Ā
Thereās also maybe some femme fatal or homme fatal shenanigans coming down the pipeline, or possibly thatās just white noise. None of this matters because...
We got a few nice executions of tropes already too, including feed me & sleep on my shoulder.Ā
I donāt know Friend Foreverās source material, so I donāt know if it is going to end happily. Season ones of high school set BL do not have good track records in this regard, so there is that to consider before you get attached.Ā
The captioning is epically bad, even for Thai BL. I mean, like REALLY awful. This is a not a starter level Thai BL. If you donāt know at least enough Thai to correct miss-gendered pronouns and some basic nouns as you listen/read, some scenes may make very little sense.Ā
Will SOMEONE please teach Thailand ESLs that English also has a singular gender neutral third person pronoun? Itās they/them and it works fine.Ā
Will You Like Friend Forever?
If you enjoyedĀ Love By ChanceĀ specifically for AePete or are generally a fan of high school set BL likeĀ Love Sick,Ā Make it Right, or My Dear Loserās b-plot then this is for you.Ā
