@kimkhimhant / kimkhimhant.tumblr.com
Chay gives a poor imitation of his usual smile and pulls away, and he’s left alone on the pull-out sofa in Chay’s living room and all that’s left are his hands and the stains he can’t wash off and the pain in his chest where there was supposed to be love. There was supposed to be love.
canon era baby~~
"it's not a big deal" i say through tears at the fact that the "kim khimhant theerapanyakun loves porchay pichaya kittisawat" tag on ao3 has 150 fics while the "porchay pichaya kittisawat loves kim khimhant theerapanyakun" tag has less than 30.
"it's not a big deal" i say through tears at the fact that the "kim khimhant theerapanyakun is so whipped" tag has over 300 fics but the "porchay pichaya kittisawat is so whipped" tag has less than 50.
"it's not a big deal" i say through tears at the fact that the "everyone loves porchay pichaya kittisawat" tag has over 100 fics but "everyone loves kim khimhant theerapanyakun" doesn't even exist
i was thinking about chay's sad-in-the-club look, which includes a heavy/(imo)kim-coded chain:
...and so i did something so goddamned normal: i examined all jewelry kim & chay wear in the whole show to see if i could extract any meaning. (one of my favorite things about QL is the subtext they sneak into wardrobe details.) this was really for my own analysis but, tumblr, i like to share. my entire educational career people have cheated off MY TESTS, OK?
kim often wears a single, Heavy curb/cuban/herring chain, but sometimes he stacks (wears TWO):
so i'm like... did kim give chay that chain? it's the same length.
also, like, having loved men who wear chains b4. these are moments where the chain is visible, but sometimes, if it's not, they're still wearing it and it's just tucked under their shirt - against the skin.
bookclub - do the chains themselves represent bond/connection?
(also... as a guitar player, i do want to point out. kim also almost always has a chain on his LEFT wrist. the left hand is the one that forms the chords on the neck of the guitar. you strum with your dominant hand, so, uh, idk, that's something.)
he also has a safety pin one (EMO.):
but, chat, what fucks me up about that is that chay has a CARABINER. which kind of matches/mirrors kim's? the icon is a similar shape/it's a similar chain length. carabiners are for Holding Weight (keys - if you're gay, rock climbing, etc) whereas safety pins are for STABBING layers together. mechanically, functionally, they are similar, but how they actually achieve the connection is fundamentally different in operation. the bar scene is the only time they are wearing their respective safety pin and carabiner congruently - which is... SOMETHING.
extra emo tho, the barbed wire:
(sidenote - kim's "bitch, if you cry then i will fucking cry too" face gets me every time. he is so LIKE THAT all the time.)
kim has this one more complicated chain for his pivotal moments, and it's closer to the throat?:
chay also has what i will refer to as a Dog Tag (i can't tell what the engraving is) which he wears for most of their "fake relationship"/in confessions:
there wasn't really a smoking gun here. i actually think i want to examine Chay's jewelry as it relates to Porsche's, as well as Kim's in relation to his brothers'. i kind of had kimchay tunnel vision but i think... Kinn doesn't wear chains at all? if that's true, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? WHAT DOES THE CHAIN REPRESENT?
also, some times kim is - confirmed - not wearing chains: when he and chay spend the night together (WHICH MEANS HE TOOK IT OFF SOMETIME AFTER THEY TALKED AT THE STUDIO???) when he pulls chay from the warehouse, and when he confronts him at the club, when he shows up at school/in uniform.
taking a chain off/tucking it to fight kind of makes sense - though he doesn't tuck it for the bar scene? so like kim behaving "unchained" literally is SOMETHING!!!!!!!! aint it?
chay asks kim "did you ever love me?" on the front stoop of kim's apartment building and kim thinks "what difference has love ever made?"
kim is so fascinating because of how quickly he switches course between hot and cold. when Chay shows up at his studio, in the time between seeing him and Chay's confession, Kim fully looks like he's about to dismiss chay and send him away. and then chay confesses and kim kisses his cheek and looks delighted when chay hugs him. when they're lying on chay's couch, kim seems to be flipflopping by the second: he looks blissed out, and then regretful, and then scared, and content, and then remorseful. he smiles at the food he's served, and then the moment chay's back is turned, kim is preparing to flee. when chay confronts him outside his apartment after learning his identity, after kim fought to protect him, kim is so dismissive, at first, and then his expression shifts to something that is pure grief, and then he's brushing it off and pushing chay's hand away and saying a "sorry" that doesn't sound sincere at all even though it clearly is, based on that grief that we literally just saw.
as the audience, its so hard to know what kim is thinking through all of this. he seems to controlled and careful, but i think the rapid back and forth of his behavior and expressions is proof that he's not. someone who knows what he wants and how to get it would not be so unstable in his behavior. kim is battling himself and his feelings and his upbringing and he's a mess. everything about kim's character is a constant fight for control over everything and everyone, and i think its because in reality he feels like he has no control over anything, not even himself.
sorry kim <33
writing about kim being fucked and dominated won't fix the world but it will still make it a little better. do your part <3
Maybe kim is looking at his hand because despite his feelings, he managed to wake up next to someone and not hurt them .
Not only did he *not* hurt them, he comforted them through vulnerability, and he made them smile. He made them feel loved.
And even though kim knows it has to end, that it will end, for one shining sunlit moment, Kim used his hands for good.
Kim was loving, and his hands were loving, and even when it ends, maybe that fact doesn't have to change.
this one is kinda niche... tigtw Kim hello
(is it weird to make text post memes for my own fic?)
JEFF SATUR as KIM THEERAPANYAKUL KINNPORSCHE THE SERIES (2022)
when Chay asked Kim if he loved him, I wonder if Kim has ever said those words aloud to anyone before, or even ever heard the words spoken to him before. the Theerapanyakuns do not seem the type to speak freely about love. even khun, as loud as he is, does not speak straightforwardly about the important or serious things. maybe when they were kids, things were different and they were all a little less afraid of caring. maybe when Kim was a child who didn't know much about the world yet, he said those words to his mother, maybe she was the only person he's said it too before, like this (he's probably said I love you to fans, but that's different, you know?) so imagine never saying these words before, or maybe only having said them to a person you lost violently, and being terrified of feeling this & imagine being told "I love you" by a beautiful boy who doesn't even know you & who doesn't know all the awful things you've done, & imagine being asked to say those words back, when you don't even know if you're capable of loving, or if you can love something without losing it
it has been too long since i last forced kim angst upon you all
He’d wielded the immorality of what was being done to him like a gun to earn the compliance of the men fucking him, but he’d never let himself think about what that truly meant. That video proof of what was done to him could ruin a man’s life, like it did for the entertainment company CEO – he’d known that even then, and used that very fact for the family’s benefit – but what did that mean for him? What did that make him? He used to think it made him a weapon.
putting a polaroid of you on my unhinged conspiracy board and linking you with a red string to a post it note that just says "gay"
Directors cut: if I can't hold you like a lover. No specific questions i can think of, but all the commentary?!?!
ooh okay !! thank you for the ask!!
so like, if i can't hold you as a lover started as just an exploration of autistic kim – a little bit of projection, as usual. But i'd just done a rewatch and found kim's body language and general presentation in different situations really interesting. like, he acts like a completely different person at the open house as wik vs in the studio with chay vs with korn or the people he's investigating, and he seems much more sure of himself & the dialogue he's exchanging with people when he's in Wik mode and Khimhant mode, compared to when he's alone with Chay. (i made a post last year about autistic kimchay – chay doesn't understand social cues intuitively, and he doesn't try to mask. kim doesn't understand them intuitively, and he resorts to following scripts based on who he's dealing with & then flounders a little when he can't find a script to follow, which happens repeatedly with chay when he does Chay things).
but anyway. the pining while fucking trope is delightful, and i think it works really well for kimchay. It especially works well for them when they're both struggling to really communicate effectively with each other. kimchay fandom in general focuses a lot on kim learning to communicate, but i wanted a story where they're both fucking up with communication a little, and they both have to see each other for who they really are and meet each other there in order to fix things.
chay is bold and assertive in this fic, but he thinks he's being more straightforward than he is, so he assumes kim understands what he wants and is like. intentionally disregarding that. but between kim's autism and his very deeply rooted trauma and self-worth issues, kim is misreading pretty much everything chay does and assuming the absolute worst.
they both spend the whole fic thinking that they love the other more, and waiting for the other to make a move and say what they want, or in kim's case, simply just accepting that maybe all chay wants from him is sex and being willing to settle for that because at least he'll have chay in some way, but they don't realize that until it finally comes to a head and they really take the time to understand each other and talk things through.
this is already really long, but a few final notes:
thank you for the ask <3 i hope this was at least a somewhat comprehensive answer, but if anyone has any specific things they'd like clarification on, lmk!
canon, fanon, interpretation ramblings, not neg or petty just. under a cut because it has been a source of discourse
Kim looking at Chay in episode 9 (pt. 6/12)
