Late last week, TV Thunder released a teaser video with a countdown to an impending announcement. The hashtag #BodySays was flashed at the end of the video. Within hours, the Twitter-dom went into overdrive.
Fans of Thai BL power couple MaxTul jumped into action. Since April, they had been following updates of a BL novel, Manner of Death, teased to be adapted into a TV series. Rumour has it that MaxTul would take on the lead role of the new series, 2 years after they ended sailing their KornKnock ship in Together With Me: The Next Chapter.
Everything Started With Manner Of Death
Manner of Death is a Thai BL novel written by Sammon Scene. The story follows a medical examiner, Dr Bannakit who, despite threats from a mysterious attacker, insisted that a dead woman sent to him for autopsy did not die from suicide.
Determined to uncover the truth for the dead, he started his own investigation. He came across Tan, who was the likeliest suspect. The latter denied being the accusation, and proposed to join in the investigation.
Back in April 2020, it was announced that Manner of Death would be adapted into TV series. After 2 months of teasing, MaxTul fans were confident that their ship would set sail again in an alternate universe of crime and investigation.
Sail Together With MaxTul Ship
MaxTul, on the other hand, were leads of a successful Thai BL TV series franchise: Together With Me (อกหักมารักกับผม), starring as Korn and Knock (or KK as BL fans dearly referred to them as).
Interestingly, Korn and Knock were a side couple in 2016 Thai BG TV series, Bad Romance (ตกหลุมหัวใจยัยปีศาจ). Despite their limited scenes, they outshone the main couple and eventually got their own series, Together With Me (prequel to Bad Romance), in 2017. Thai BL fans were knocked off their feet by MaxTul’s Greek god-like bodies (who would have expected a steamy make out scene in the first 15 minutes of the series?) and Together With Me: The Next Chapter was released in 2018 as a sequel to Bad Romance.
The KornKnock trilogy established MaxTul’s standing in the Thai BL world as one of the power BL couples. They were the first BL actors to lead a Thai BL TV series franchise extending 3 seasons.
BodySays “Look Ma, No Face!”
Following the teaser video, TV Thunder released a series of teaser pictures. These pictures carried the caption, “ If Body Could Say Something “, which matched the theme of #BodySays and Manner of Death – Crime investigation through autopsies.
What really made BL fans pull their fans? The pictures were of body parts parts of the body, everywhere but the face.
So, on top of not knowing whether this would be an official announcement to Manner of Death TV series, fans are still clueless who would take on the leading roles!
With MaxTul’s (unsurprising) history of posing topless (for magazines, for Instagram…), their fans are of course very familiar with their bodies. Many of them knew at a glance that the torso shown in the teasers belonged to MaxTul.
Someone was even serious enough to show a mole-by-mole comparison. Gosh! Can you spot the 2 moles on Tul too?
BodySays Let BL Fans Go On A Rollercoaster Ride
The most intriguing part of this series of teaser got to be what happened after that.
Tul announced on Sunday afternoon he had “something important to announce” later in the day.
That sparked a frenzy among MaxTul fans.
Just when fans were sure Tul is going to announce his participation in Manner of Death (while Max was silent during this period), he broke the news that he is going to pursue a Masters degree in New York.
But Tul followed up with a clarification that he still has a contract with TV Thunder till 2022. With that, he would still continue with his acting career.
So within a span of a few days, BL fans went from excited, to full of anticipation, to frenzy, to shock and disappointment, then back to being hopeful.
Will There Be More Plot Twists For #BodySays?
TV Thunder had been very silent after the teaser. The radio silence could be part of the marketing plan. Or it could be reeling from the news that Tul dropped.
The latter is unlikely, since Tul would not have gone ahead to take pictures for the teasers, if he was sure the filming would clash with his studies.
As usual, the crowdthink of BL fans generated more out of the world theories.
What if… #BodySays is for a TV series that is not associated with Manner of Death?
What if… Someone just happened to have the same moles as Tul?
Parting Words
It’s still too early to say whether #BodySays is linked to Manner of Death, and whether MaxTul is confirmed to play the leading roles of Manner of Death (or #BodySays, if they’re different).
However, the void in BL-verse left by the finale of 2gether The Series does need some stimulation.
And did I mention WeTV just dropped a big announcement in the same weekend? It looked like a big collab, what with BL powerhouses GMMTV, Studio Wabi Sabi and TV Thunder coming into the fold.
It gets more interesting. Fans observed that the official Together With Me Instagram account re-posted the same announcement. Which was why this announcement became intertwined with the development of #BodySays over the week.
2020 looks set to be a big year for BL!
If you are new to MaxTul, or simply could not get over this phenomenal Thai BL couple, here’s the quick link to watch their defining series from the start!