BadPenny

Suibian, we've talked about you stealing my sarcasm juice and running off with it.

That's not a specialized Car that Nuea was looking into last episode. He's secretly constructing a plot in the automotive engineering department.

There you are! I thought you went missing. You've been slacking off as my spirit animal and here I find you running amuck on the Cutie Pie page!

Don't make me put shoes on you.

Yeah, most of these episodes leave me needing to do a quick neuro check to make sure I haven't had a stroke. You get used to it.

And at this point Kuea's hardcore badboy routine is the exception, not the rule.

I loved Teddy Bear. Adored it.

This show though, this show is a WASTE of time and resources. But by all means, leap in.

OMG! jsdfjasdfjklasjklsdfjkl;sdf!!!

I was SHOOK! SHOOKETH, even!

Hey Cutie Pie! Pay attention! This is how you take flawed characters and write them as they explore those flaws and grow. Take notes.

How did that just happen to me?! Tofu! Nat! Fuck! I wanna grab In and Job and make sure they're okay after acting that emotional roller-coaster! I wouldn't be okay! I'm not okay and all I did was watch it!

The evolution of Nat's character as Tofu helps him heal his past pain and fix the relationship rift with his mother that his abusive upbringing created...Just, Holy Hell! And ALL WHILE UNFOLDING A MURDER PLOT, with political implications of course. Because this is Miracle of Teddy Bear. We don't lift no baby plot weights. Ha!

The unfolding of interlinked truths was stunning. That was the most amazing ride like ever. That show had it all, and for the most part kept it all in perfect balance. And remained the most topical "gay" story in BL history while doing it. I swear it! I have loved a lot of BL over the years but this story was absolutely next level!

However, I hated the bear ending. I would almost rather Tofu had died human and then, like, his spirit visited Nat one last time before moving on, or something. I do not like the "return to bear" ending. This bitch is #TofuDeservesBetter. For LIFE.

But this drama will never leave my heart. And from now on I hope to see In and Job in other things together because I am a fan of them SO much now. And Tee did just as marvelous as I knew he would. He and First were adorable together. Everyone acted the hell out of their roles. This BL made me FEEL THINGS!

I can't believe that wild ride is over and now I wanna do it all over again. But I don't think I have the strength. Honestly. My heart is too weak after watching Tofu die! I can't right now.

But later? Hells yeah!

I want to say what genre this BL is in but I can't. It's Fantasy, it's Soft-core in places, It's high drama in others. It competes with Manner of Death for the thrill, at moments. And its settings were all diverse and lovely in their own way. What an incredibly rich, deeply touching, cleverly woven story. I will never be the same. It changed me. I feel changed! (pokes self) Yup! Changed.

How do I come back from this? How do I go watch other dramas when I have tasted this feast? And the ending was so weird. If it were a lesser drama I'd have been mad. I wanna say it works though. Because Tofu ends up like kind of a sentient totem or gargoyle type living protection of sorts--For Nat's heart. Regardless, The overall adventure was so complete a win that I'll take the weird voyeur bear ending and say "Thank you. More sirs, please." to the creators.

I loved this drama additionally because you never know who the "top" and "bottom" are. Maybe in the book. But not in the drama. And I love that topically, this was not ever a thing. They just loved each other. And that was all that mattered.

I am sad though. I realize that for Tofu, loving Nat was all that mattered. And it had no labels. Also, I AM glad that Tharn woke up from his coma. But I feel Tofu was still robbed. I'll always wish for an alternative ending where Tofu survives the poison, Tharn wakes and returns to his art and activism, and Tofu gets to be with Nat.

However, I love this show and as utterly wrecked as I am right now, I have no regrets.

"Or a mix could work, too. I just want it to balance out in my heart 💜"

I hear you. But I doubt, as badly as the creators handled tone, that we'll see much in the way of comeuppance over this. I hope for you that I'm wrong.

Thanks Suibian! On another page indeed! After all, I can hardly post on MDL without my spirit animal, can I?

We'll meet up in other places. I am going to start watching Star In My Mind here in a few minutes.

And If Kinn actually faces some serious consequences, like loss of trust among some of the bodyguards, Porsche's complete rejection of him to the point of requesting to be Tankun's guard permanently, censure from his family, or even just extreme guilt, lemme know.

I agree that they could have let Porsche sober up and it would have been no less erotic.

But I won't argue that they should have. I AM, however, solidly arguing that if they were going to make it a rape, then they should have handled it like a rape instead of like a romantic, steamy "first time" scene.

Hmmmm... Have you tried "TheFirstMichael" as a username? ROFL.

First, Mike, you're going to have to update your username. There's another "Michael" here with a number after their name and I can't be treating you all like John 117. I am not fucking Cortana.

Now onto biz. I have to agree that whomever green-lit this script needs their credentials yanked and a ruler smacked across the back of their fingers. This show is neither cute, nor relaxing, nor sexy. I am hanging in there by my fingernails hoping to just get to the end. And you reached where I was last week. Tearing it apart lost it's appeal because the show is just so much shit that it's too hard to watch for the payoff of just reviewing it.

But we're in this together. Hang in there.

Thank you! And I am taking a few days break from KinnPorche before I write that final review because I want to do it justice, seeing as it will only span 4 episodes.

I hope the show is rewarding to everyone who continues to watch.

This is long. So absolutely feel free to TL;DR this bitch.

I will open by saying that I am walking away from KinnPorsche henceforth. And leaving a lesser star rating and a formal review based on my conclusions. This means there's no real reason to keep up with the comments section here, which was already a zoo.

Some of you will be relieved I'm not here every week to do reaction and review posts, even from the standpoint of someone who loved the show. Some will miss my reviews on KP. Fear not, you'll see me elsewhere. I am, in fact, about to go jump into Star In My Mind.

Why am I walking away from KinnPorsche as much as I was absolutely loving it? Well, I can be very fair in my stance on many things I feel affect the quality of a show. But also uncompromising, and I am ironclad consistent. One of the things I feel affects the overall quality of more mature dramas is the way rape is treated. From the beginning I was honest that I am not against rape in a story, but I am very critical of how rape is often represented with a romantic or erotic context instead of being represented in a drama as a horrific theft of agency that leaves a lifelong impact on the person who survives it. And I was clear that I would be watching KinnPorsche and judging its quality on, among other things, how it handled rape in the course of the story.

And they blew it right out of the gate. The soft, slow, romantic rendition of the theme song, the lighting, the camera angles, and the scene direction all screamed that the sex between Kinn and Porsche was meant to be seen as romantic and intentionally erotic. The classical crescendo at the moment of tight closeup of their chests and faces built the idea of intimacy. And it oh so wasn't good. It was rape and absolutely nothing less, and yet the way the creators handled it clearly communicated that we were meant to see this as beautiful.

Fuck. That.

I will be honest. Originally I skipped it. I do not watch sexual assault scenes without screeners to let me know how graphic the events are portrayed before I jump in. So a friend watched this episode for me. And based upon their description of episode 4, I was willing to hang in there and watch as much of the episode as I could. From that point the plan was to rely on my screener's assessment of the very worst of the attack. But I didn't get that far. I ended up tapping out of the rough stuff the moment Vegas' goons tackled Porsche in the bathroom and threw a bag over his head.

My friend screening it dutifully filled me in on what came after, offering what details she felt I needed to know. It was explained to me in vague terms that Vegas' attack was the epitome of creepy and that it was all very dark in tone, as it should have been. Then she explained that Kinn raped Porsche. And my screener was unsure about the caliber of tone and context. But they thought it was handled "okay" overall.

And I said to myself "Hmm. Maybe Be On Cloud didn't screw this up, after all. The creators seem to have adequately handled the sexual assault. I can continue to watch KinnPorsche." But a friend I view BL dramas with went on to give me more context. I was suddenly at an impasse, so I got a little braver and asked her to elaborate. By the time it was done I got a reasonably detailed breakdown that painted a very different picture.

I understood at that point that I was done with this show. The creators of KinnPorsche had failed at the one thing I had set forth as mandatory. The proper context and tone in the portrayal of any rape. I picked my friend's memories for every detail that might shed more light on the scene, in order for me to be really sure. Because up until now I loved this drama. But I will not tolerate a drama that mishandles rape themes. And hoooooo boy, did they!

Having decided to drop KinnPorsche, all I had left was to prepare for the final actual review. But I couldn't review it without due diligence, at which point I was faced with a rough job--actually sitting down and watching Kinn rape Porsche, to be sure I agreed that the scene was contextualized to make it seem erotic and romantic, instead of as an act of terrible betrayal. I just felt it wasn't fair to write a review based upon another person's account of a scene to me. Even as reliable a person as my watch buddy.

So I buckled in and went back to the moment in the bathroom where Porsche was kidnapped by Vegas's goons, and I watched everything I had initially skipped. I agreed with the tone of Vegas's attack. They got the pitch right there. As had been told to me, it was very creepy. But then came Kinn and it was not a good watch. It was every bit as badly handled as she told me, and more.

Now, I don't care what anyone thinks of this conclusion. Some viewers will categorize what happened between Kinn and Porsche as anything other than rape--just because some people feel it isn't rape if the involved parties share an attraction to each other. There will even be some people who feel what happened is both romantic and erotic, as the directors and editors obviously intended. But let's be real. It was very, very much just a heinous moment of attack by Kinn, who took terrible advantage of someone who should have been able to trust him.

The truth is, the only salient data that qualifies the sex in that scene as consensual or not is whether they were both in right state of unaltered consciousness, in order to give consent. And one of them wasn't. Porsche so very, very wasn't. To the tune of giggling at shit he may or may not have been actually seeing in the window, right before he got quite literally screwed over. Which means it was rape. Period. End of sentence. Unconditionally.

That Kinn has feelings for the person he raped is neither here nor there. It's not sweet. It's not sexy. It's not romantic. That Porsche has feelings for the person who raped him, also has no bearing. That Kinn hesitated means nothing. That Porsche was inciting him, also means nothing. No consent was able to be given because Porsche was drugged out of his fucking mind. So it was clearly non-consensual and the show's director and writers mishandled it, egregiously.

But tone and context aside, it was rough on another level. Someone under Kinn's power, who works for him and basically lives and dies by his word gets drugged and assaulted in the course of carrying out the duty of protecting Kinn. And rather than taking Porsche to the medical professionals within the compound or at very least tucking him in bed with Pete to babysit him in order to make sure Porsche doesn't choke to death on his own vomit in his sleep, Kinn instead takes Porsche to a bathroom and ends up fucking him because Porsche teased his dick and egged him on while out of his mind on a pharmaceutical cocktail initially administered to let someone else rape him. Bravo Kinn. What Vegas started, you completed. Hashtag #TheRealFamilyBusiness

The production company scuttled the whole thing by putting mood lighting and a swelling, romantic rendition of the theme music behind what should have been framed as a terrible breach of trust at very least. Instead the rape was choreographed to create, sustain and maximize eroticism? Fuck this drama.

This was an enormous disappointment, but not a huge surprise. I will miss Apo and Milo and Tong very much. I hope dearly in the future that they are all in something else together because they have amazing chemistry and a great deal of charm.

Peace Out

[Salutes] Yessir! Capt. Fresh, reporting for duty!

The OP wasn't being rude. You were. And Welcome to the Jungle, baby. There is zero threshold for what constitutes respectful commentary on MDL. if there was, your post failed that bar far more completely than any post I've read since...well...my own last review.

Funny how you had the single least respectful post I've read in a while and are worried about other people's posts.

To quote Suibian, "I think you don't understand irony very well".

Ben! You go girl! Three snaps!

Wow. You're quite a ripe fish.

Here, how about this. Let's turn your argument around a bit and have fun with it.

You sound like a hater, complaining about opinions like you have no life. Seriously, shut up. If you have so much to say about other people's opinions on the show, then build a fan site so you actually have grounds to object to anyone giving negative feedback on Cutie Pie.

Or how about you follow your own advice. Just don't watch. Some people are just too delicate for a comments section where diverse opinions are all welcome.

Two episodes left and I can't wait for this mess to fizzle out so I can be done with it.

Yes. I told my watch crew the way he's portrayed and the way he dresses sells this "child" persona, and then to see how youthful he looked with Yi having sex. Newp. I was thoroughly creeped out. I backed out of that scene SO hard.