Raindrops and Rambles

LL | Fandom Old || She/Her + queer | A catch-all blog of things that matter to me: social justice, fandom bits, writing thoughts and other pieces of me. Header by @durrandon

[doublel27]

Peaceful Property Lego Edition: Ep 1-6 (aka Peach’s story)

Find the collection with the main characters with #peaceful property lego edition.

[firstkanaphans]

A translation of P’Yokee’s tweet about The Eclipse. He’s asking everyone to give his new show, Unlucky Bae, a chance as well. This will be his first show without P’Golf.

[firstkanaphans]

According to P’Aof, Magic Lover will have its blessing ceremony “soon” and Ohm’s new partner will be announced that day.

[pointlesscandies]

Love Destiny has one of the best first episodes of all time purely because they set up with a scene of these two sweet little boys promising to take good care of each other and be best friends for eternity and then it cuts to 10 years later and one of them murders an innocent woman and then the other uses a magic spell to kill him.

Absolutely iconic way to start this out I am locked in on this insane relationship dynamic

[maybe-boys-do-love]

My School President's Soft-Power History

I've got a version of this that was getting up to 15 pages with just way too many details and links. Gonna try and just spew it out real quick here for y'all.

@telomeke tipped me off to looking at MSP through a political lens with their post about the Our Skyy MSP ep here. Basically, with some helpful discussions from @doublel27, I realized MSP shows a ton of shit about Thailand's soft-power model .

1.Let's kick it off with the gastrodiplomacy. In MSP Twi (Mark Pakin), a government representative, makes Por (Ford Allan), the band's main chef take over a food stall at the school. Instead of actual traditional food or the korean bbq Por loves to cook, they end up crafting a new dish altogether, sort of like what Thailand did with pad thai. Now you gotta know that Thailand is actually credited with inventing gastrodiplomacy in the early 2000s, and it was hella successful. You know that good Thai place near your house? Yeah, funded by the Thai government so that you like them more. Just off the top of my head, Mix, Pavel, and P'Dome (another writer/director who's depicted restaurant work) all have family members who took the government up on this policy and live or lived abroad working their restaurant.

2.Another fun instance is the analogy to studying abroad we get when Tinn negotiates with his parents to stay with a friend, for a week to study, leaving out that it's actually Gun he's going to study with at an apartment belonging to Twi's brother--who is, in fact, studying abroad! Studying abroad as a strategy to for royalty and politicians to gain language and cultural knowledge to build some advantages towards dealing with European powers goes way back to King Mongkut (aka Rama IV) in the 1850s. In the 1960s it laid out a National Economic and Social Development Plan that supported students heading over to the US for higher ed., but it's really kicked off in this century (pdf on the topic) being made much more accessible to a broader swath of the Thai population. The idea, as Tinn's dad explains, is that studying abroad is meant to make things better at home (Tinn's dad, of course, had a different idea about what 'better at home' entailed than what educational policy is hoping to encourage). Thais can build positive relationships with people outside their country and understand foreign cultures, technologies, and languages better to both implement them at home. But, one of the anxieties is that studying abroad might invite foreign influence...like, idk, maybe, gay rights?

3.We also get a nice beach trip thrown in, an essential considering Thailand's tourism industry that depends on its beautiful beaches (Gun: "The beach there is gorgeous. If I get to lay down and listen to the sound of waves with my lover..."). Thailand's tourism initiatives have been an even bigger win than the gastrodiplomacy. Thailand really launched this project in 1987 with the global Visit Thailand Year 1987, increasing its international tourism arrivals by 24%. Since then, Thailand has made itself a hub for international tourism, with constant growth of the market and dramatic yearly increases beginning in 2009. It's been such a boon for the country. It's no wonder Tinn's mom, the surrogate for the leadership of Thailand, doesn't even worry about Tinn going to the beach, despite her previous anxieties about him spending time away from the house. This kind of tourism is a great thing. And she even makes it seem like she's ready to hear about Tinn's boy crush! Thailand has been more than happy to have the pink dollars of the international lgbt population, becoming the first Asian country to launch a government-backed campaign for lgbt+ tourism in 2013, with its 'Go Thai, Be Free' campaign. But, just as soon as the door seemed open for Tinn to come out with her openness to Thai's outside friends, his mom assumes everyone is straight in her own home. There was long a since of irony about Thailand's courting of the pink international dollar while leaving much of its own lgbt+ population unprotected without equal rights.

4.Okay, what about music? Like what korea did with kpop. No chance of gay there! When Sound joins the music club he presses the group toward perfection. He tries to craft their image with costumes and incessant practice, berating them for their casualness, their religious worship (of chinzhilla), their community-oriented food traditions, time-splitting with studies and such, and, finally, kicking Gun out of the group. He's giving the kpop and jpop models of idol culture. The Thai entertainment industry has not historically been about that life, and when confronted with the option as they sought out a t-wave of their own music, they rejected it. At a recent anniversary concert, 4EVE's director?/boss?/idk what his actual title is? talked about a conversation he had early on with one of the girls where she asked if she was allowed to date, deciding that they shouldn't have to play by those conservative rules just because it's been a successful norm elsewhere. You see the parallel to Chinzhilla's no-dating rule, I hope.

5.But what about gay dating? Boys Love is kind of the whole crux in MSP. And, to the shock of pretty much everyone in the world, Thailand's biggest tool for soft power outside of its tourism has become boys kissing each other on computer screens. BL's economic power within the country and beyond has been one of the most effective leveraging tools for arguments about lgbt rights. And we see the boys leveraging that, too, with their music video productions. This also leads to being able to cross some friend lines, just like the initial BL wave in the mid-2010s helped bring about a 98% positive response to a civil partnership bill that passed in 2018. In both cases, they're not quite official, but it's something. If they can just win heat wave then gay dating's gonna happen! But they lose Hot Wave and, right after, homophobia (which we didn't even realize existed here!!!) comes crashing in to burst this big BL bubble. Because there's an allegory going on here about gay marriage rights, which at the time of MSP's air date, had only a couple years before been a bill that stalled and went dead in parliament. And enduring that loss can be felt again and again in MSP, but no more emphatically than the Hot Wave loss. Luckily, it's also about persisting despite the losses--and punching homophobes. (And persist Thai lgbt adovocates did!)

And within all these depictions of developing soft-power, one thing I find interesting is where the power and initiative actually lie. Because it's often the bureaucrats like Twi or the impulses of the non-government students that end up pushing creative projects forward. Leaders like Tinn are often tied up by regulations, and Tinn's mother, the head, is bound by outside pressures (parents and donors) and more likely to construct limiting regulations than productive initiatives. To make room for the projects, actors don't win when they debate or attempt to overcome power, either. They depend on the negotiation strategies of those who are secretly on their side as they attempt to subtly persuade other leadership. There's a lot of political astuteness to learn from this series.

[annoyingcloudearthquake]

Mid-Year Book Tag 2026

Thank you for the tag @guardian-angle22!! I had to scrounge my memory for some of these lol (it’s been a busy year)

Best book you’ve read so far in 2026?

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

I definitely did not expect to like this series but I was pleasantly surprised as the series progressed! Somehow it’s the perfect mix of crude humor, found family, and attempting to destroy the government system (“pleasantly surprised” as if I’m not actually obsessed with this series now)

Best sequel (or series follow-up) you've read?

Earth has been transformed into the set of the galaxy’s most watched game show: Dungeon Crawler World, a nightmarish, multilevel, video game–like dungeon filled with traps, monsters, and mind-bending puzzles. Carl and Donut have survived so far, but this fourth level is unlike anything they could imagine. The Iron Tangle: an impossibly complicated subway system tied together into a knot of trains of all kinds, from classic steam engines to sleek modern cars. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations aren’t always what they seem, and the exit is perpetually just a few stops away. The top ten list is populated, and Carl and Donut have made it. But that popularity comes with a price. They each now have a bounty on their head. They must work with other crawlers to solve the puzzle of the floor, but how can they do that when they don’t know who to trust? The secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s more Carl. But for this I would put quite literally every book 1-8, it’s just 3 is my favorite

New 2026 release you haven’t read yet but want to?

Generally how I discover books is just wandering through the library or half price lmao and I end up picking books that have been out for years. Not much anticipation!

Most anticipated release for the second half of 2026?

See above answer as it’s extremely similar 😂 most books I’ve read are either finished or the sequel won’t come out for another 2 years

Biggest disappointment?

Winter 1945. WWII. Four refugees. Four stories. Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies, war. As thousands desperately flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom. But not all promises can be kept . . .

I desperately wanted to like this as I heard great things but I just could not get into it. They immediately introduce you to the 4 characters and each chapter it’s a different pov which is already a bit confusing but then each chapter is quite literally like a page long. So I couldn’t keep track of everything

Biggest surprise?

The Mage King of Avonbend is meant to be untouchable. With his throne balanced on the precipice of the human and fairy world, Dante is the sworn protector of the Talamherra he knows from the Talamherra he doesn't. But he cannot help feeling that the formidable Fairy Queen who lurks beyond the ruins and rivers of Avonbend's borderlands is not truly the threat that human legends describe her to be. When he finds himself in need of a favor, he dares to ask for her generosity, in hopes of saving his own people from a mysterious blight. The Fairy Queen questions why the Mage King would not turn to his own allies in such a time of uncertainty, but she is never one to stay in the dark for long, and is eager to lure this ambitious king into the shadows of her dominion. When a rivalry blooms from her refusal to aid him, enflamed by his desperation for victory against her, the Fairy Queen offers up a different path: one that leads to a truth that Dante is not yet prepared to unveil. The webs of secrets, oaths, and intrigue that await Dante in Fairyland are all at the mysterious queen's fingertips... and now, to his bewilderment, so is he. Dante knows one ruler will have to yield to another eventually, but perhaps it will not be the enemy they expect... and the fates that await them are more intertwined than he ever dared to imagine.

I am not generally a person who reads romance books especially Romantasy so I did not have high expectations for this but i actually ended up loving it! The author also makes gorgeous art of her characters on her instagram (which is how I found the book) you can tell she has much love for this story

New favorite author (debut or new to you)?

Monica Hesse is an American journalist and author. She is the gender columnist for The Washington Post and a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Dude this authors books are genuinely heartbreaking. The few I’ve read are all set in WWII (unsure about the rest) and they all had bittersweet endings but the story along the way? I was left in shambles each time lol

Book that made you cry?

Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp say the war is over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal, her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else―her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja―they went left.   Zofia's last words to her brother were a promise: Abek to Zofia, A to Z. When I find you again, we will fill our alphabet. Now her journey to fulfill that vow takes her through Poland and Germany, into a displaced persons camp where everyone she meets is trying to piece together a future from a painful past: Miriam, desperately searching for the twin she was separated from after they survived medical experimentation. Breine, a former heiress, who now longs only for a simple wedding with her new fiancé. And Josef, who guards his past behind a wall of secrets, and is beautiful and strange and magnetic all at once. But the deeper Zofia digs, the more impossible her search seems. How can she find one boy in a sea of the missing?

I was thinking about this book even months after I read it, it’s a truly devastating story. The main character has some memory issues and the story slowly reveals the truth of what really happened and you can read back and see where the puzzle pieces were planted. Absolutely gorgeous story

Book that made you happy?

I’m realizing all I’ve read are angsty books lmao

Favorite book to movie/TV adaptation that you saw this year?

Movie description: Through unlikely bonds formed during night shifts at a local aquarium, Tova, an elderly widow, learns of a life-changing discovery that may bring her joy and wonder once again.

I bawled at this movie. Like genuinely sobbed which I never do. Only movie ever that has made me cry lol. It’s such a beautiful movie and the characters have so much life to them. I’m hoping to get my hands on the book soon (didn’t even know it existed 😅)

Most beautiful book you’ve bought (or received/borrowed) so far this year? & What books do you want to read by the end of the year?

“The Keeper of the Lost Cities” is the only one I haven’t read/I want to read by the end of the year. The rest are all books that I read and absolutely adored. (Yes “They Went Left” gets another mention. It destroyed me.) The Sacrifice Book was surprisingly good! I liked the humor in it and the whole premise was interesting.

No pressure tagging (and if you’re not a reader I’m sorry 😭 I have zero idea who to tag)

@the-126-family @actuallylemon @shes-an-oddbird @bonheur-cafe @ladytessa74 @firstprince-history-huh @angelusfangs @thisbuildinghasfeelings @heartstringsduet @tailoredshirt @paperstorm @afiendishthingynisba @chicgeekgirl89 @liminalmemories21 @everlastingday @lightningboltreader @literateowl @lonestardust @carlos-in-glasses @sassy-coweyes @doublel27 @salty-autistic-writer @tellmegoodbye @pimento-playing-hopscotch @henrygrass @neversleepuntilfive @my-beloved-lakes @carlos-tk @bangpop91 @jklovesfandoms @ironheartwriter @opossumjazzlyn @neverthesamebird @stardustedlovers @ladyknight1512 @decafdino

[lazzarella]

“Come on. Let's play in the water.”

A DOG AND A PLANE ; EPISODE 7

[maybe-boys-do-love]

This sounds like a book made for you!

Ghostly DesiresQueer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema by Arnika Fuhrmann 2016

https://www.dukeupress.edu/ghostly-desires

Thank you!!! It really does! Found it and got it ready to read :)

[maybe-boys-do-love]

For those who are looking for a brief run down for a morning commute instead of a whole book, Arnika Fuhrmann did a lovely interview about the book for the New Books Network podcast.

[embersinthefirelight]

Mix Up the GMMTV Pairings Game

*Rules: Fantasize about mixing up the actors in different combinations than we are used to seeing and add little plotlines if you wish*

I wasn't tagged but I saw @befuddledcinnamonroll's post and wanted to play.

I decided to collab with @honeycoveredliquorish for this one since we already have a plethora of ghost ships we had in mind for the girls.

NamtanLove

A cute college romance.

MilkView

Set in Europe, an established couple gets stuck in a time loop where Milk has to save View's life while they fall in love all over again.

FilmAcare

An "other side of the tracks" romance where they end up on a murder spree.

MimKapook

A journalist and a cop clash over values until the cop decides to join the journalist in uncovering the truth.

EarnPloy

High school horror/thriller. Ploy comes to the school to uncover a secret and Earn gets roped into the horror.

GolfJamie

An age-gap office romance.

This was so much fun! Now I'm craving all these stories.

I'll tag (no pressure): @mewsthumbring @williamrikers @my-rose-tinted-glasses @gmmtheev @jiratchapongs @pointlesscandies @miss0atae @doublel27 and anyone else who wants to play.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

An argument could even be made that, because Thai TV is so straight-jacketed in its ability to provide the sort of overt political discursive material requisite for the provision of a functional liberal public sphere, popular programming has in many ways come to assume an even more significant role in practices of TV-mediated public meaning-making and civic exchange. In her fascinating anthropological research on mass media and Thai national identity, Annette Hamilton contends that popular Thai audiences frequently use fictional media as a central source of coded political critique and counter-discourse. Given the highly controlled information environment of Thai broadcasting and its often paternalistic elitism where the ‘views of important and educated people are the only ones that count’ (Hamilton 2002a: 298), Hamilton suggests ‘ordinary’ Thai audiences engage in a form of dual cultural interpretation, outwardly receiving the ‘official’ discourse of Thai media but then reprocessing a counter-discourse of their own. ‘Precisely because everyone knows the news is not what is really happening,’ she writes, watching TV ‘becomes a major act of cultural interpretation’ whereby audiences ‘re-interpret or deconstruct’ official discourse using ‘hidden narratives… as explanatory frameworks’ (Hamilton 2002a: 292). These hidden narratives stem from a range of sources and assume multiple forms, from gossip and folklore to popular mysticism, but Hamilton singles out fictional narrative media as a particularly fertile site for this practice of popular reinterpretation. Television and film texts enable ‘the creation of a para-discourse’ where narratives are ‘interpreted as being “about” something else – for example, a wealthy eldest son in a current Chinese drama who is having marital problems could be coded for a subject of conversation about the Crown Prince’. In this way, she writes, ‘television and film narratives...take their place within a vast signifying chain’ of Thai public discursivity, ‘meaning much more than they would seem to do at a literal level’ and constituting a common cultural repertoire and ‘a shared consciousness’ among popular Thai audiences (Hamilton 2002b: 165)."

Brett Farmer, "Battling Angels and Golden Orange Blossoms: Thai Television and/as the Popular Public Sphere," in Television Histories in Asia: Issues and Contexts, ed. Jinna Tay and Graeme Turner, 2015

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Ticket to Heaven Review

For such a heavy topic, during much of its runtime Ticket to Heaven was almost impossibly light in its tone, relishing the ephemeral in the face of eternity. Tanrak rolled his foot along the bumpy axles of a wooden foot massager in the last episode of Ticket to Heaven. The shot lingered briefly on the tactile moment. Ticket to Heaven was suffuse with this sort of visual filler: abrupt cuts to textures, instruments, religious imagery, and memories. Episodes contained whole music videos within them. I'd understand if one assumed Aof was too busy to write a whole script. Perhaps this did play a part. Perhaps GMMTV wanted to sell G4 concert tickets. Perhaps the sequences replaced some of the Church-censored bits. The debate's not about whether quality art is possible under a market economy or censorial institutions; some of the most celebrated works of art emerged in exactly those conditions. Instead of pondering conspiracy, we benefit from treating works as intentional. All work has pressures and limitations, after all. What is achieved within the work we have been given? Aof Noppharnach and his team structured the whole of Ticket to Heaven more like a music video than a traditional drama. It was impressionistic, mystic, and nonlinear, in other words, cinematic poetry.

I first caught it on the fated trip of Tanrak to the bathroom stall. Time bent, or maybe broke. Some reactors expressed confusion. Is he walking through the sanctuary, they asked, as flashes of the statuettes and surreal central painting flickered? I assumed we'd become immersed into Tanrak's subjective experience of Catholic guilt as desire pulled him. The show didn't explain itself.

I was even more perplexed by the movie night finger-touch that interspersed those images--had I missed this moment?--only to see it occur an episode or so later. Could've been an editing mistake with the rush of Thai tv's rushed production schedules. With the chamomile daisies, though, time slipped again. This was not a linear ordeal. Were we remembering the future, or were events happening out of order? The effect felt like consciousness, hope and fear blending past, present, and future within the mind.

It reminded me of one of my favorite directors. Terrence Malick's similarly religious work, "Tree of Life," Roger Ebert wrote, was a form of prayer.

Not prayer “to” anyone or anything, but prayer “about” everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence.

The director creates this prayerful effect through improvisational, philosophical scripting, spontaneous filming approaches, and liberal editing to form an associative mosaic of images in his films. In fact, I'm surprised I never realized the swarm of similarities that a side-by-side comparison of Aof and Malick's work would bring up, from the opening Bible verses, to the meandering cinematography of their DPs Rath Roongrueantantisook and Emmanuel Lubezki, respectively (a signature of both directors), to the disembodied lyrical monologues (also a signature of both directors). And then there are the theological questions that lie at the heart of both Malick and Aof, asked as much through the visuals as the writing.

For Malick, Christian affirmation even in doubt is a given for his existential wondering, but for Aof religion plays a much more ambiguous role, coming to its ultimate crux in Ticket to Heaven. He never denounces Christianity or the Church outright, but he offers the material for viewers to do with it as they may. Critique without criticism. For example, Barth's mother suffers her abusive husband, afraid to go against God. Her belief is the defining factor if taken at only the dialogue level. Yet, earlier in the episode a shirt with 1977 appears on another character, the year the Catholic Church officially stopped excommunicating those who divorced. It still forbids divorce or remarriage of divorcees. Her belief is shaped by the institution she's a part of.

In the same vein, the reconciliation of Tanrak, Barth, and the Church is holy-lit through stained glass and hopeful but infused with hard facts about the Church's continued official views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Confessionals are dirty bathroom stalls and flu-ridden prisons. Pools are purgatorial. Paradise is a sex motel. Even at the end, our couple stands at the bottom of the stairs far below the all-seeing eye among the bat-winged demons. Are we sanctifying the lost sheep through these analogies or deprecating the Church?

A lot of queer theology leans heavily on the expansiveness (and vagueness) of God and the Holy Spirit, struggling to incorporate a reasonable Christology. In Ticket to Heaven, though, Christ's incarnation plays a visually central role, pairing Barth with God's beloved son, who, too, was famously unafraid to debate orthodoxy. He's not just God made flesh but holy Love for humanity made corporeal (carnal being a relevant synonym).

That's why the predominance of the senses in Ticket to Heaven's runtime feels so integral to its argument, why the music videos feel part and parcel rather than filler or financial. Droplets of water freckling bathing faces and hands reaching through waterfalls to intertwine, buttery roti slipping from fingers to lips to tongue, the stench of sweaty pits after a long day or a soccer game, fingers ringing out chords on the piano as voices harmonize, and the way he looks as he watches you reading. The experience of the senses or inaccessibility of them has preoccupied Aof's work--touch in He's Coming to Me, sound in Moonlight Chicken, and sight in Last Twilight. They're often linked, among other things, to the limitations of accessing one's self and the world due to homophobia. Here, it's all-encompassing. All anyone has of God, if there is one, is of the world: what we can perceive in the world and then discern from that with the wisdom of our heart and minds. And if we don't have God, that's still all we have, no better or worse.

Poetics (musical, literary, and cinematic) have been to me the most legitimate alternative to religion, a realm to dwell among signs and wonders without answers. The poetic approach here loosened the knot of my own religious hang-ups more than any damning condemnation of the Church could have. I feel somewhat embarrassed by people applying reason and plot-contrivances to their reception of Ticket to Heaven and refusing to educate themselves about its rich figuration. There's so much I don't know. Keats wrote (and gay actor Ben Whishaw in Jane Campion's "Bright Star" recited beautifully),

“A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept the mystery.”

Poetry insists you tend closely to all the forms on this earth here with you, the rhythms of language and time more fluid than we're eager to admit, and the leanings of the heart that ease one to do so without making demands. Ticket To Heaven is such a poem, an almost avant-garde work in the BL genre, dense and sensual in its short runtime, confounding the more vacuous approaches to viewership but rewarding those who can bear being a little lost in devotion.

[koryuoftheriverflow]

At first I was a little perplexed as to why there weren't images of Mary in the last episode.

The virgin had been very prominent before, as a symbol of unconditional love and someone to turn to in times of doubt and sorrow.

But of course there weren't. Because we had real women who served those purposes: auntie Lek, Barth's mom and also Tanrak's, who was named, aptly, Mary.

The divine made flesh.

[firstkanaphans]

Aof’s husband shared this on IG and now I’m crying again

[pendragonstarz]

stop now my eyes hurt from crying oh barth my beloved i cannot do this someone hug him rightnow pls

[shortpplfedup]

There is a very Catholic thing happening between Tanrak and Father Arnon in their end scenes together. The Catholic conceptions of sin and forgiveness of sin are different from Protestant traditions. In Catholicism, if you confess your sins and pray acts of contrition, you receive absolution. You are forgiven. It is ritual. You say what you did, say you're sorry, and you're square with God.

Father Arnon absolves Tanrak of the sin he confesses (betrayal of the people who did so much for him, in his own words) in the eyes of the Church. But absolution, and his admonition to lay down that particular burden doesn't refer to his 'living in sin' with Barth (as they would be considered as they cannot marry within the Church). Tanrak will not confess that, he does not consider it a sin or something he needs to be absolved of. Father Arnon may have fondness for his boys, but he is still a priest and the Church still has its rules, so there is and will always be a tension there.

As much as Father Arnon, Father Phak and Father Kongdech may love Barth and Tanrak personally, their roles in the Church will always be a barrier to full acceptance and embrace. There's a reason that despite maintaining their faith, they have not been back to Magdalene until now. That's the bittersweetness in the ending that is now an Aof signature.

[tanrak]

Humans can live without faith. Humans can live without hope. But humans cannot live without love.

[firstkanaphans]

Jimmy done fucked up, man