In Love Forever - It was like a dream.

In Love Forever: 1x10.

I think that even if you hadn’t read the book, you would have seen the outcome of this devastating episode coming, felt the inevitability of the ending, but what a way to get there! How much sadder, how much more soul-destroying, that Neen’s decision here is not the result of fighting, of growing apart, of all the obvious ways in which a relationship can fall apart over time. Instead, it’s the realisation that love is not enough in the face of the obstacle that Kingkamol poses. She will not stop, and no matter how much Runch loves Neen, how many times she chooses her, she cannot protect her from her own mother, who has shown herself capable of vicious violence in her attempts to claw back control over her daughter.

After Runch drops off her mother at her house, furious, reminding her that the only thing that used to keep her safe from Neen’s family’s influence was Runch’s protection, which she has now withdrawn, and drives Neen to her parents’ house, they are both left on their own to consider what will happen next. The difference is that Neen falls back into the safe and supportive nest of her parents and brother, while Runch returns to an empty house, with nobody to share her burden with, left to wait for whatever Neen decides, and I think, deep down, already expecting the worst. It’s all in how different Neen’s reaction is this time: where she used to be furious and loud whenever facing Kingkamol’s insults, she is now quiet, hurt in a way where she can’t even look at Runch anymore, who may have done all she could to protect her but still couldn’t prevent any of this. She asks her family not to blame Runch but even her mother finds it hard at this stage not to: they brought up their daughter with love and care, and her marriage to Runch has caused this harm. They entrusted her safety to Runch, but Kingkamol attacked her in a public place. The marks are still visible on her face and arm, the shock of the sudden attack has shaken her to the core, and her father is urging her to divorce because it’s the only way he can think to protect her. Her brother is trying to suppress the footage of the incident but doesn’t know yet that it was Att who has set everything in motion, creating a scandal to tarnish Runch.

The first half of the episode is Neen working through her feelings, her pain and hurt: she talks to her parents and her brother, she tries to explain to her mother what she is going through, but I think ultimately, she has already made up her mind and she is just coming to terms with that decision. She tells her mother that the last weeks with Runch, when they made up, when they decided not to divorce, felt like a dream, like when they were newly married, but she has now realised that it was just a dream, a reprieve from reality that inevitably had to end. Meanwhile Runch sits at home and waits for a phone call or a message, hopes that things can still be fixed but suspects they can’t, trapped in complete loneliness and isolation in that big house, robbed of all agency by the actions of her mother who was “hurting someone and called it love”.

Runch: I can’t eat. I miss you too much. I want you to come home.
Neen: Please give me some time, Runch.
Runch: Okay, I understand. I can wait. No matter how long it’ll take, I’ll wait for you.

Neen is replaying their happy memories in her head – you could imagine, if you wanted to, that the reel in her head would look similar to the post-credit scenes we’ve witnessed throughout the show, all of their happiness with none of the sadness mixed in that always came from outside influences. She tells her father that she wants to hold off on a lawsuit against Kingkamol for now because any outcome would ultimately hurt Runch the most: seeing her mother convicted, being seen as a bad daughter again in the public eye. When she is ready in her head, when she has already made her decision, she says “I don’t want her last memory of us to be me suing her mother”. She says that she thinks that Runch is miserable with her but what I reminded myself of is that Neen never witnessed the conversation Runch had with her mother when she made it clear that they would only see each other in case of illness or death: I don’t think Neen knows how firmly Runch has chosen her, that all the worries that Neen has about Runch feeling like a bad daughter for choosing her don’t take into account that Runch has already made that decision for herself and was willing to stick with it. Even now, Neen underestimates how much Runch loves her, and even now, they are making decisions for each other without talking them through with each other, making assumptions instead of seeking clarity. It’s brave and selfless of Neen to try and protect Runch in that way, but even later, in the most devastating scene of the episode, she tells Runch to go back to being a daughter to her mother and misunderstands that Runch needs to break from that relationship not just to save her marriage, but for herself and her own happiness. I think to an extent that’s unthinkable for Neen, who was raised with so much love and support and care, and it’s very tragic misunderstanding right in the centre of their relationship.

And there’s also the contrast of Neen saying that she believes “it may be rough for a while after we break up but if she can through it, she might be happier than when she’s with me”: because at the same time we see Runch haunting her own house like a ghost, seeing traces of Neen everywhere, mourning her already although their separation for now is temporary, reaching out for her in their shared bed and finding the spot next to her empty and looking at the two toothbrushes with so much longing and hurt and still making two cups of coffee automatically. We’ll never know what was going on in her head before she met Neen, only how she talked about it in snippets, but I think it’s clear that Neen was a lifeline for her, that she had never been as happy as she was in that tiny moment when she shared the news with her mother, before it started dawning on her that her mother’s love was conditional. The idea that she could be more happy without Neen or that it would make her life easier to return to her mother is horrifyingly wrong.

All of this: the misunderstanding, the uneven footing, the fact that we know what Neen doesn’t seem to, that Runch will never get over this, culminates in this heartbreaking scene. Neen comes home and Runch thinks there is hope but Neen knows that there isn’t. Runch is hopeful and happy to have her wife back in their house and Neen is close to tears the entire time because she has made up her mind. She is trying to be kind and gentle: they are not divorcing because they do not love each other anymore. She spent the first half of the show thinking that Runch had asked her for a divorce because she did not love her anymore, so in this conversation, she is making it as clear as she can that she loves Runch. She’s ordered her favourite food. She talks about their relationship with so much fondness and love that Runch doesn’t even realise what is happening until she says the words. It’s almost worse, I think, than if it had happened during a fight, because there is no way of countering the idea that love alone isn’t enough: they’ve tried everything, and it is not enough. 

Neen: I fell in love with you the moment I saw you. I fell in love with your beauty and your smile. My heart beat so fast, I felt like it was going to burst through my chest.
Runch: Me too. Your smile and your cheerful vibe, got me dreaming every night that I’d get to see you every day. And then that dream came true. We got married. And now we’re living together. We get to see each other’s faces every day. I love you, Neen. I love you so much.
Neen: I love you too. I love you the most.
I want a divorce.
Thank you for trying everything. I always knew you didn’t want any of those terrible things to happen. You had nothing to do with them. And I know you’ve been trying to save our marriage.
Runch: Whatever you’re thinking, or feeling right now, can you tell me about it?
Neen: I just don’t want my love to keep hurting you anymore.
Runch: That’s not true. It never did. Your love never hurt me, Neen.
Neen: Runch, it’s time to stop. You need to accept that no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape the shadow of your mother. I’ll give your mother what she wants. You can go back to being her daughter now. Let me do this one last thing for you.
Runch: No matter what I say right now, I can’t change your mind, can I?
Neen: No.
Runch: Okay. I understand now. Thank you for putting up with all of it for me.

Runch is still wiping Neen’s tears throughout this conversation. Her entire world is collapsing around her, all her hopes are dashed, the future she imagined for both of them is wiped away, and her first instinct is still to dry her tears! What can you even say? She can’t argue back or try to save the moment: it’s clear that Neen has made up her mind, that she’s leaving.
From this, Runch spirals. She wakes up and finds Neen in the kitchen making breakfast for her and Neen says “I’ll always be with you, right there in your heart” before dissolving right in front of her eyes, before she wakes up again in the empty bed and realises it was just a dream and that the worst has happened: always those little moments before fully becoming conscious before your thoughts and memories catch up with you. She races through the house, searching, but Neen is not there. It’s a cycle of grief and incomprehension and there is nobody there to support her because Neen was her one person, and now she is gone – she is now a ghost in her heart, haunting her.

And the perfection of the post-coda scene, which have gone from the sweetness of showing their relationship without the burden of Kingkamol to the bitter reminder of what they now have already lost: all those broken promises of forever (“can you be my happiness and mine alone”), of walking hand in hand, of overcoming the scariness together. The way that Neen felt like a different woman through the eyes of someone who loved her but forgot that the same was true of Runch, and what it would mean for her to lose being seen by Neen. 

Random notes:

The music choices in the episode are so good, especially the string music used in the opening.

It is satisfying to see Att finally pay for his crimes when P’Nai fires him personally, but it’s clear from his reaction that his fury won’t stop here, and that it’s now a personal grudge he holds against Neen’s family: and how cruel is it that he tells Runch he wishes for her to never be loved again, to be alone, in an episode where she loses everything, making his curse seemingly come true.

This show! Runch’s life is so miserable it’s almost comical in its despair. The special occasion is divorce! JFC. The ACTING in this episode. 

In Love Forever - I left you.

In Love Forever: 1x09.

Kaekai: If being in a relationship feels like a competition it means that someone isn’t letting go.

This is the first time that we have seen an interaction between Kingkamol, Runch’s mother, and Kaekai, Neen’s mother, and the contrast between them and their perspectives on life in general and their daughters’ relationship reflects what exactly has gone wrong with Kingkamol. Their meeting at the coffee shop, Kingkamol openly aggressive, Kaekai polite but knowing just how to phrase her sentences to subtly undermine her world view, to make it clear what she really thinks about her, shows the difference in how they’ve both raised their daughters. 

Kaekai: I think it’s nice. This way you’ll see different world views.
Kingkamol: Some views aren’t worth seeing.
Kaekai: If you don’t want to see it, then don’t. The world has changed. Even if you try to ignore it, the world won’t stop spinning.

If you divide the episode into two halves, two different stories, the contrast becomes even clearer: here’s Runch and Neen, once again united, as in love as we’ve seen them, showing care and love for each other, with their bond growing outside of the burden that Kingkamol has placed on them, finally free. In that freedom, that renewed relationship, they are now stronger than ever right at the moment when their divorce was meant to occur: Neen is opening her restaurant, but instead of that signifying the moment where they can drop the act, they have come out stronger than they were before, and not only that, but Runch, who has proven herself through her choice, is fully part of Neen’s family. Kaekai has said it before and she says it again explicitly in this episode: she has gained a daughter, she sees Runch as family, just as much as if they were related by blood. Her world has grown, her family has grown, and every time we see Neen’s family (now that the conflict between Neen and Runch has ended), they have seemed happy, loving, warm. Kingkamol is the opposite: the episode explores just how much, and how early, she considered Neen a threat to her relationship with her daughter. Instead of seeing Neen as another daughter, an addition to her family, she sees her as a threat to her existing daughter, and whenever we go home with her – to her empty home, her home devoid of joy and laughter – all that’s left to her is a husband who is getting increasingly more frustrated to the point where even this quiet, ineffectual man begins raising his voice, and threatening to leave her. The difference in their mindsets, in their acceptance and love, has led to opposite lives, and that difference has nothing to do with their social status, with Kaekai’s wealth: her love for Neen and for Runch is nurturing and supportive, and the outcome is togetherness and happiness, a growing family. Kingkamol’s love is conditional, limiting, demanding, and it has led to a life without love, filled with resentment and loneliness. At this stage, Kingkamol is spiralling into what a show more willing to embrace diagnoses would call psychosis, and there are no rational limits to what she is willing to do to destroy Neen, and Att – filled with his own hatred and desire to destroy Runch in whatever way he can – feeds into it with the mastery of a born manipulator, knowing just what to say and what to do to cause destruction.

After having told her mother that they should stop seeing each other except for the direst of emergencies, Runch appears freed from the expectations placed on her, and it’s significant that the outcome does look exactly like what Kingkamol would have feared the most. Neen has probed before what Runch’s dream life would look like if she could truly choose and I think this episode hints again that it would be quite different from what she has lived before: she drops everything to support her wife as she is opening the restaurant, she delivers flowers, she leaves work to show up to the opening. Runch, left to make decisions for herself, is less driven by ambitions for her career than love for her wife, and she is never happier than when she can prioritise their time together over any other obligations. One of the saddest things about Kingkamol’s upbringing and her insistence that she should be closest to Runch is that she doesn’t truly know her at all, because she has never bothered to get to know her daughter beyond the idea she had of her, the picture she formed of her in her mind. They are entangled in the messiest way, but it doesn’t come with any true intimate knowledge of each other – so much so that Runch, years ago, when she first started dating Neen, took her mother by her word when she said that she would love whoever Runch loved, and Runch didn’t even consider that this would exclude women. There’s something deeply naive in how Runch approaches the introduction (and Runch is so giddy, so happy, when she first shares the news, and from how she has spoken about her state of mind before she met Neen we can deduct that her mother would have rarely seen her like this before), like she doesn’t even consider that her mother might reject Neen, might reject her daughter’s queerness, might be homophobic – and the episode makes it clear that Kingkamol, in spite of her later protestations, is homophobic. She might have later changed her mind, or realised that opposing Neen based on gender would make her look back in the eyes of others, since the world has moved on (this maybe being the overly optimistic side of Thai GLs), so she found other excuses, but her initial gut-reaction to seeing her daughter bring home a woman is complete disbelief and denial. It’s clear from how it occurs: Kingkamol being visited by a friend who shows her picture of a grandchild, the kind of hope in her eyes when Runch tells her she has met someone – that she had a very clear picture of the future in her head, where her obsession with her daughter would probably seamlessly translate into an obsession with a grandchild, and Neen’s appearance messes with the picture, complicates it, and so she refuses to even consider that Runch is being genuine and serious about this relationship. This flashback – which is positioned in the middle of the episode like other unhappy ones have been, in contrast to the ones at the end that focus on just the happiness of Runch and Neen’s relationship – also shows how Kingkamol processed it. Years passed between Runch introducing Neen and their eventual wedding, and yet in Kingkamol’s mind, it happened quickly, it felt rushed, it destroyed her idea that this would just be a phase for her daughter that she would grow out of. The flashbacks leaves out what I’m certain would have been several more occasions at which Kingkamol treated Neen rudely, and leaves it to the audience to imagine just why they would have applied for their marriage licences without first telling her, and why Neen’s family bought them a house to move into after their wedding, making it clear that they knew first. As much as Runch insists in the flashback at the end of the episode that she is certain that her mother would come to love Neen as much as she does, deep down she must have realised that this could never happen, and that’s why she’s so late to tell her parents about it.

Everything in this episode works to showcase how much Runch loves and supports and Neen, and everything that happens feeds into Kingkamol’s spiral, because Att sets her up to witness it now that she’s been banished. Nothing bothers her more than seeing Runch being invited into the family pictures at the same restaurant opening that staff have prevented her from entering: here’s Runch, fully part of someone else’s family, embraced with love by Neen’s mother, and here’s Kingkamol, held back by the guards from crashing the party, clearly on the outside of it all, having lost control over her daughter and being kept out of her life forcefully. To Kingkamol, everything feels like a conspiracy now, and Att feeds into it by positioning himself as her only ally: Neen’s family is conspiring to steal her daughter, her husband has withdrawn his support from her and is instead cautioning her to be careful lest she end up all alone even if she gets sick and dies (including himself in that equation, for the first time), the public’s perception has changed since she gave her interview and is now admiring of Runch and Neen’s relationship. There is nothing keeping her in check anymore, nobody to restrain her: the showdown in the restaurant is inevitable, the moment where all of Runch and Neens’ happiness (they talk about how happy they are in that moment, relieved, not under pressure, free – a contrast to last time, when the table next to them was gossiping about them and they had to flee) collides violently with how miserable Kingkamol is. Just before it happens, Runch says “I used to think happiness always came at a price but now I’m starting to believe that as long as we choose each other, that’s all that matters.”
Kingkamol has shown how willing she is to use violence in the past, even if it was just a shove, a pull, or throwing the vase that cut Neen’s leg – she has always been close to crossing the boundary into outright violence, and it all comes out in this incredible scene. Att removes Runch from the picture by reporting to the restaurant staff that her car has been hit, leaving Neen alone and isolated, and Kingkamol shakes and slaps her right away, in front of all the other customers, unrestrained. It’s visceral, brutal, and comes as a complete shock to Neen, being assaulted in a public place with nobody to help her. Runch returns and immediately pushes her mother away from Neen, also disbelieving about what she has seen her do, and then she finally fully shouts at her, speaking her mind fully.

Runch: You did it for yourself, for your own satisfaction, and your own self-importance. This woman is the one I love. She’s my wife. So why do you treat her like your enemy?
Kingkamol: She took my daughter from me.
Runch: No one took me from you. I left you. […] Stop saying those things. I’m a grown up now. I have my own life. But you never accepted that.
Kingkamol: I did my best to raise you right. I sacrificed everything for you.
Runch: Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly right. You’ve sacrificed everything for me. And you’ve been using that fact to control me all my life. I’m supposed to listen to you, stay close to you, and never love anyone more than you. If I don’t, then suddenly I’m an ungrateful child. You know, what you did today just messed up my life. 

Kingkamol slaps her daughter in the middle of the argument, and she realises immediately that she has crossed another line, but it’s not enough to stop her from trying to attack Neen again – and it’s Runch who tells Neen not to resort to violence, not because she is trying to protect her mother, but because Runch’s greatest fear from the start has been that Neen would change because of her mother, that the conflict between Kingkamol and her would turn her into someone she inherently isn’t. The heartbreaking thing is that this is the most definitive act against Kingkamol we’ve seen Runch take, voicing exactly how much her mother’s overbearing, conditional love has wrecked her life, telling her mother that she was the one who decided to leave to live her own life, and yet, Neen is left by herself in the restaurant sobbing, realising that in spite of Runch doing everything she was meant to do, everything she has ever asked of her, she can’t keep Neen safe from being assaulted like this. They’ve insisted again and again that it is enough to hold hands going through this ordeal, that choosing each other is enough, that love is enough, but Kingkamol has just proven to Neen that  devotion and care and love aren’t enough if they still leave her vulnerable and hurt. It adds bitterness to the coda, a foreboding sense of doom: Runch saying she has changed her mind about getting married at 35 because she wants to start her life with Neen earlier, so that they have more time to grow old together. What if love alone isn’t enough? 

Random notes:

I don’t even care if it’s naive but there’s something deeply lovable about Runch just bringing Neen home without bothering to come out first, like instinctively insisting that this is what the world should look like, that this should be entirely normal and possible. She’s not rebellious, but idealistic in this very quiet, gentle way, which seems like such an unlikely outcome from having a mother like Kingkamol.

It’s foreshadowing that Kingkamol’s husband warns her about Neen’s family: that what have kept her safe this whole time is that Runch has protected her, but if she crosses the boundary, one day their power could get her into trouble. She doesn’t hear it, and what she does after is the opposite of listening to his advice.

There is so much delicious acting in this episode, most of all in the showdown scene (Ling, Orm, Kik, all three of them owning that scene), but I also very much enjoyed Runch’s reaction to Att’s insincere attempts to pretend he is sorry for what he is done – she clearly knows he isn’t being genuine, she clearly resents him for everything he has done, she gives him the lift to the city that enables him to send the location of the restaurant to Kingkamol with the utmost reluctance. As naive as she can be, or was in the past, this is the most resentful we’ve seen her. I also want to give props to how Mae Koy conveys being politely disdainful so perfectly, in exactly the way that would enrage Kingkamol the most. 

In Love Forever - I won’t let you face it on your own.

In Love Forever: 1x08.

Neen: I wasn’t dragged into this. I chose this. I chose you. I chose us. 

Maybe to start off Episode Eight, it’s important to go back to how the previous episode ended. Kingkamol was given a platform, by sheer chance and luck, to air her feelings on national television, without anyone providing an alternating point of view or a counterpoint to how she decided to tell her story as the wronged, loving mother who is experiencing the heartbreak of her daughter choosing her wife over her. The show itself seems well-meaning enough – with marriage equality only coming into effect in Thailand in January 2025, it is trying to portray how the legislative change has affected families, with Kingkamol explicitly not appearing because she opposes it – homophobia isn’t the issue here – and she is smart enough at manipulation and framing that she knows how to tell the story to garner sympathy, to play into the societal expectation about how daughters are meant to treat their mothers. She has successfully victimised herself because nobody is there to tell the story about how her own actions have affected the marriage, how impossible she has made it for Runch and Neen to remain happily married with her interference. The beginning of the episode shows the fall-out, and how the public has made up its mind after watching the programme. Att is predictably happy to talk at length about how it has revealed a wrongness in Runch’s character, quoting back lines to his colleagues and trying to sway them to join in on his little witch hunt – but for once, it looks like they think he is going too far in his prosecution, and actually not joining in. Meilin tries to spare Runch from having to overhear what he is saying but she walks into it anyway, and gives him a very effective dressing down, to the extent that she threatens him with a defamation lawsuit if he continues his tirade (many appear to have forgotten that apart from being a wife and daughter, Runch is also a highly capable lawyer, unlike Att).

Att’s irrational hatred of Runch, his whole agenda to destroy her utterly, is given context here, and it speaks to how weak he is as a person that the cause for his hatred is so petty, so ridiculous, that it looks like nothing compared to the complexity of things that are going on with Kingkamol and Runch. A woman he liked dated a woman – that’s it. Sometimes it really is just homophobia, for a man to feel wronged because he couldn’t get the woman he wanted, who then found himself working under another woman who was married to a woman. There is no deeper psychology here except Att feeling he was robbed of something he thought he had a right to, a girlfriend, a promotion, and here he is scheming with more drive and engagement than he has ever pursued his own profession, fully capitalising on what Kingkamol’s interview has done to Runch’s reputation (she never considered how it would affect her daughter at all) when he steals one of her clients from her.

Runch is losing clients and has to reassure herself in a conversation with her boss that the firm still supports her (“I’m just disappointed that rumours have more weight than facts.”), and Neen’s office is facing endless calls from the media about the interview as well, with her reputation at stake in a business that runs on being well-regarded and keeping up appearances. There is a sense that she is trying to keep up a brave face, because she does finally have what she asked for, which is Runch’s full support, Runch choosing her, but what happens when she realises that this isn’t enough to keep her safe from being hurt by Kingkamol, that it doesn’t stop with Runch finally making her decision and standing by her side fully because her mother-in-law will never stop? Even when she is confronted with the fact that she hasn’t just hurt Neen with the interview, but Runch as well, she doesn’t back down from insisting that it was her right to express her own feelings, her pain and sadness, publicly for all to see.

random mixtape - take me to a place where I'd rather go.

 mount kimbie | audition. micachu | turn me weller (watt styler remix). daphni | two maps. sonic youth | on the strip. yellow fang | selfish. yeah yeah yeahs | no no no. kim gordon | square jaw. tricky feat. mitch sanders | because i don't know. ghostpoet | plastic bag brain. mount kimbie | delta. hannah peel & beibei wang | awaken the insects. 

In Love Forever - Please go home.

In Love Forever: 1x07.

 

Seven episodes into In Love Forever, and arguably Runch and Neen’s marriage has never been in a worse spot than it’s in now, even though they haven’t brought up the topic of divorce again. Neen has moved out and set very clear boundaries on the conditions of her return: Kingkamol needs to move out. Runch is not yet in a position to fulfil this demand because it would cross a boundary to throw her mother out of the house when she needs a roof over her head, even if even Runch, at this stage, must be aware to some extent that this whole situation is entirely manufactured, that there is nothing real that is keeping Kingkamol from moving back in with her husband. She knows her father well enough to realise that he hasn’t actually kicked his wife out of the house, but her entire childhood has programmed her to be a filial daughter, and it would go against everything that Kingkamol has put into her head to actively kick her out now. I’ve been thinking a lot about Runch as a character – how frustrating it is to watch her, the dynamic of a character who is struggling to make a firm decision she herself knows she must make. In a way, this frustration drives the entire plot of the show: it all hinges on Runch’s fence-sitting, on how deeply embedded her role as a mediator is, how hard it is for her to make decisions that would be, above all, for her own good, for her own happiness. It might be frustrating, but it’s also deeply realistic. It might have seemed like she already made a decision after realising her mother was setting her up with Meilin, that this was a breaking point that changed her perception of her mother. It was enough for her to voice her deep disappointment in seeing her childhood hero transformed into someone she could no longer idolise because of her actions against Neen. But it’s not quite that easy to unlearn patterns, to find the strength to do something as unthinkable as cutting off her mother for good, and Kingkamol knows her daughter well enough to play her in exactly the way that would work the best. I think going into this separation from Neen, Runch genuinely thought that her mother had changed and made amends. From everything she has seen, Neen is the one who remained resistant against her mother-in-law who had apologised, who had made an effort to live together peacefully. She hasn’t seen the side of Kingkamol that openly admitted to Neen that this is all a front, a campaign against her. She hasn’t yet realised how manipulative her mother is, and the most interesting twist in this episode is that Runch ultimately asks Neen’s help not because she is building a case against her mother in some public forum, but because she knows that she ultimately needs this proof for herself: to see with her own eyes what her mother is capable of so she can solve the conundrum in her head, to help her act, to find the resolve. It’s the bravest Runch has ever been, making that request, because she already knows what she will find and what decision she will have to make at the end of it, she is just working out how to get herself in a head-space where she can finally find her own freedom and happiness.

The opening scenes of the episode perfectly capture how little room Runch has for herself to rest or consider or act. Her mother is smothering in her attention and affection, taking up every minute of her time, trying to assert her control through constant phone calls, asking for constant reaffirmations of her love. At work, she calls again and again, regardless of how busy Runch is. When Runch doesn’t pick up, she calls the assistant, with no awareness or willingness to concede that Runch exists as a person in other spheres where she needs to be able to focus. It’s overbearing, destructive: and then there is no chance for relief, because when Runch returns home, her mother dramatically waits for her on the living room couch, again asking for reassurance and confirmation that she is still a devoted daughter. It’s done under the pretence of enjoying this time that they are spending together, the first time they are this close again after the marriage, but it looks like suffocation. There is nobody else at home to balance it out, Runch is by herself, she is no longer returning to a home that has her wife in it to provide the comfort she actually needs. I think there’s something in comparing this overwhelming display of affection without any actual care for what Runch needs in the moment with how Runch approaches her attempts to make up with Neen, which are also not what Neen needs or has asked for. It should look romantic from the outside, the endless supply of flowers and desserts she has delivered to the office, but Neen has told Runch what she needs and it’s the one thing she can’t give her, and the flowers and gifts no longer work. In fact, it has gotten bad enough, for the first time, that Neen doesn’t even keep up the pretence of their marriage in front of others. Her assistant is well-aware that things aren’t going well because she is the one who ends up with the desserts, and Neen tells Runch to stop in front of strangers in the lobby of her office, which feels like not even her father’s request of remaining publicly amicable until the restaurant opening is restraining her anymore from showing just how unhappy she is (and even that moment gets interrupted by a phone call from Kingkamol which Runch answers, because she has been conditioned to do so instantly, and it costs her when she doesn’t – remember the one time she didn’t, when her mother actually needed her, the kind of lesson that is impossible to unlearn and would pop up every time she sees her mum’s name come up on her phone). Ling plays Runch’s quiet desperation so incredibly well – she’s never loud in her performance of being trapped and desperate, but it’s always obvious in her face what a toll it takes that she can’t get out of this situation unless she does something she can’t bring herself to do yet.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Rachika Nayar feat maria bc - Heaven Come Crashing (on Heaven Come Crashing)

 

Reading List: July.

Non-Fiction: 

 

Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan: Regime Change. Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. 

 

Fiction: 

 

Gabrielle Korn: Long Island Girls.

Paul Tremblay: Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep. 

Sara Hinkley: The Red Sacrament. 

Megan Bontrager: The Sea Hides Its Dead.  

Films: 

 

Phanakngan Mai (Prod Rap Wai Phicharana) (2025, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit).

Marama (2025, Taratoa Stappard). 

Hana Korea (2025, Frederik Sølberg). 

The Ex-idol, Stuck in Life, Decided to Live with a Complete Stranger (2023, Mayu Akiyama). 

 

Shows: 

 

Thanai Pisat, Season One. 

The Dark, Season One.

Stuff the British Stole, Season One, Two. 

Treasure and Dirt, Season One. 

 

Other: 

Digital Abyss @ Immersive Light and Art.

Automation Bias @ FUTUREJUICE.

Actress & Suzanne Ciani present Concrète Waves, Lucrecia Dalt, YHWH Nailgun, Hania Rani presents Chilling Bambino @ Unsound Adelaide.