Stefania

I like your one-eyed Win story so much! It is hilarious. The boys' telling stories of the curse to each other would have been great and would have made the curse more believable. :)

Regarding Not Me, I think that the twins' connection fit the storyline well, and I personally did not need any further explanations. However, I was surprised by Khai's reaction when White told him about it. Khai did not question it! I mean, if someone told me that they and their twin have a supernatural connection, I would have been surprised and asked how this is possible. Khak just accepted it like it's something he hears every day.

I think that the seme and the uke are not clear in this series, at least for now, and I am kind of glad for this. I am so done with the “alpha male” and “damsel in distress” types of couples. [Yeah, 2gether, I am looking at you, but not only at you. A lot of other series come to mind.] It is much more fun to watch two characters that are actually a match for each other, especially when the trope is enemies to lovers. Akk is taller and physically stronger, but tiny Ayan has enough confidence and flirtatiousness to disarm him with his words and actions.

On a side note, I will be so happy if Ayan turns out to be the uke. It will be great to finally have a series in which the uke is badass in his own right. Not Me kind of came closer to this than most previous BL series, but I also need a bad-boy, lone-wolf uke in the stereotypical school or college setting for once! :)

Thank you! :)

I agree with you about the curse. I might be mistaken, but there seems to have been a sudden, unexplained change of several characters' attitudes toward it. Was not Khan the only one who believed in the curse? At first, everyone was scoffing at his theory. One of the protesters pointed out precisely what you did: that a science student would not believe in such things. Why are Akk and Wat suddenly talking about reversing the curse in episode three then? I suspect that the screenwriters are not handling the curse subplot as well as they try to make us believe they are. I am more interested in whatever Ayan is planning. He is more intriguing than the curse.

I actually liked the seatbelt scene. I think that Ayan exaggerated it on purpose, and not only to get back at Akk for pretending to hit him accidentally. I feel like Ayan is flirting so aggressively not for the sake of flirting, but to test the waters with Akk, who features in his revenge plan as can be seen in the sticky-note scene.
However, it might be just me. I do not remember watching another series with a seatbelt scene. I also get frustrated when I see a cliché ploy that I have seen many other times, so I understand your annoyance.

Heavy sleepers can sleep through loud noises and someone's shaking them. Why cannot Akk sleep through Ayan's cushioning his head with his hand? It is not like his forehead hit the desk.

I agree with you about the difference between cliché and archetype. However, how a character is portrayed is also a matter of perspective. In this series's case, we are looking through the eyes of the students, mostly Ayan and Akk, and sometimes Teacher Sani. If we were looking through the eyes of an omniscient narrator, Chadok would have to be a three-dimensional character like you say. However, it is absolutely acceptable for the students and Teacher Sani to see him as one-dimensional. He might have a good reason to be a strict disciplinarian, but those who do not know what his deal is naturally see him as just a mean teacher or a strict superior. Akk sees him only as a threatening, demanding authority figure in front of which he must appear as a proper Prefect Club president. Ayan sees him only as one of the evil people responsible for his uncle's death. In the current situation, they cannot see him as anything else but a looming cartoon-like evil.

You know, I also keep thinking about Namo. His actions and overall vibe are suspiciously weird, as you pointed out.

The bathroom-fight scene mystifies me too. The first thing that I found weird is that Namo chose to remain hidden. He seems to be on friendly terms with Khan and his friends. Why did he not help Khan, who was outnumbered?
At first, I also suspected that he was planning to rat Khan out and take his place as a prefect, but then I thought: if Namo wanted to rat Khan out to Teacher Chadok, why reveal to Thua that he was the one who saw Khan fight the eleventh graders? It would be obvious then that he is the rat.
Maybe he wants to rat Khan out and then frame Thua for it? This is a possibility too, although it also does not make perfect sense. Even if Khan is removed from the Prefect Club, Namo knows that there is no guarantee that the prefects will ask precisely him out of all students to join them.
It is, of course, also possible that he might want to snitch on Khan out of pure spite that Khan and the others did not want to make him a prefect, but if so, why has he not done so yet? Several days have passed since Khan's fight. What is he waiting for?

Another scene that raises questions is in episode three. When the prefects try to forcefully remove the protesters who are lying in the middle of the hallway, Namo exclaims "Be careful." Is he worried about the protesters or is he pretending?

In episode three, we also learn that someone is posting videos of the protest online, undermining the school's reputation. When Teacher Chadok and Teacher Nani are in the principal's office, she shows them a video of the protest from episode one, the one during which the protesters were almost run over by a truck. I wondered who could have filmed it. My first thought was that it was Ayan. However, he could not have filmed a video from that angle. He was standing further to the right, while this video's angle suggests that it was filmed by someone in the crowd of students. It could have been anyone, but my primary suspects are Namo and Thua. Maybe Namo is the one attacking the school online? I feel like it is more likely to be him than Thua because, as we learn from his conversation with Ayan, Thua believes that it is better to just bear with the school rules until graduation.

Your theory about the secret duties also makes a lot of sense, though. He wants to be a prefect, but he cannot become one. He might have asked to be Chadok's unofficial spy.

There are so many possibilities.

This actually happened to my boyfriend once, hahahah. We were in an empty classroom together with a friend. My boyfriend was really tired and was leaning on the wall behind him. The friend and I were talking when I saw with my peripheral vision how my boyfriend’s head tipped forward dangerously. I cushioned his forehead with my palm, thinking that I will wake him up. He must have been really tired, though, because he continued sleeping. I do not know how common this is, but it happens. :)

I think that Ayan exaggerated the seatbelt scene on purpose to get back at Akk for pretending to hit him accidentally. I also feel like Ayan is not flirting so aggressively, as you called it, only for the sake of flirting. He is testing the waters with Akk, who features in his revenge plan as can be seen in the sticky-note scene.

Teacher Chadok is indeed the cliché evil teacher, but clichés are clichés for a reason! I had problems with my high school administration that, while not related to school uniforms, were similar to what the boys in this series are going through. Believe me, I had to deal with breathing, walking clichés, my class teacher especially.
She was literally the female version of Chadok! If she was a TV character, everyone would be accusing the screenwriters of using well-worn clichés: she was a sullen, homophobic, aggressive matron, who tried to cower us into submission with yelling, threats, and manipulatio and believed that we did not have a right to opinions that differed from hers.
I am happy for all of you who think that teachers like this are just fictional clichés, though. This must mean that you have never had such a teacher. Great for you. :)

Thank you so much 💝 @sunnybunnies @anandhi

Thank you! Stay safe

Thank you! :)

Their witty dialogue gives me life. It is effortlessly hilarious

I think that this slow pacing suits the enemies-to-lovers trope that the main couple represents. It is widely known and much discussed by both movie and book reviewers that the main reason why the enemies-to-lovers trope fails so often is the unnaturally fast transition from enemies to lovers. The essential phases between these two – rivals between whom sparks fly, hesitant allies, frenemies etc. – are skipped, which creates confusion and frustrates the viewers/ readers to no end. This is why I am actually grateful for the slow pacing – it makes AyanAkk's dynamic believable.

Another reason for the large amount of angst between them is that each of them has a serious issue of his own to deal with that stops him from getting closer to the other.
Akk is in the closet. I think that he mistrusts and is angry with Ayan not because he cares about the school's image that much, but because he is afraid that his own attraction to Ayan will ruin his reputation of the proper Prefect Club president that he believes is his duty to be.
Ayan wants revenge. He wants to see the school that killed his uncle crash and burn together with everyone who makes, enforces, and follows its oppressive rules. However, he realizes that one of the people he is supposed to hate, the president of the Prefect Club, is more difficult to despise than he thought. This is why Ayan seems to be torn between his plan to use Akk to achieve his revenge and his blossoming attraction to him.

Episode three is just as brilliant as the previous two!
I was happy to see Ayan and Thua get closer. The AkkKhan jealousy scene was satisfyingly funny, especially because of Wat's straightforwardness. If Khan has indeed rebuffed Thua in the past, as some of us suspect, well, his getting a taste of his own medicine adds flavor to this scene and the one in the library. :)

The screenwriters deserve praise for making time to flesh out the supporting characters, such as Wat and Teacher Sani, whose motivations and struggles are no less interesting to watch than the main characters'. Teacher Sani's resolve to follow her superiors' orders seems to be cracking. It will be fun if she switches sides and joins Ayan and the rebel gang.

As the episode confirmed that Ayan is out for revenge, he becomes even more intriguing. The complexity of his character gives him so much magnetism. I appreciate the flashback scenes in which he is shown talking with his uncle. They allow me to see the stark contrast between who Ayan used to be – a gentle, inquistive boy – and who the loss of his beloved uncle turned him into – a calculating, angry rebell whose pent-up emotions are carefully concealed behind a flirty, nonchalant facade.
His rampage of revenge worries me as much as it intrigues me. Revenge is personal, so it can quickly get out of hand. I suspect that he might commit bad mistakes in the future episodes or his whole plan might backfire. Ayan reminds me of Word of Honor's Wen Kexing, another good person whose hyperfixation on avenging the deaths of his loved ones drove him to do many terrible deeds. As a Russian proverb goes, when Anger and Revenge get married, their daughter is called Cruelty. I hope that like Zhou Zishu did with Wen Kexing, Akk will help Ayan see a goal beyond revenge while Ayan helps him break free from the oppressive system and embrace his sexuality.

I adore the production team's attention to detail. The school's emblem features the Sun. Ayan's pendant features the Moon, if I am not mistaken. A solar eclipse happens when the Moon moves between Earth and the Sun, obscuring the former's view of the latter. Does this mean that the rebel will eventually overshadow the school in the eyes of the students?

It goes without saying that the chemistry between Khao and First is sizzling hot and their acting is great. Khao is irresistible in this series. First perfectly conveys the frustration, excitement, anxiousness, and denial that a closeted queer person will experience when they have to confront a strong attraction to someone of the same gender. Kudos to them.

This series is nothing short of outstanding so far. I cannot wait for next Friday.

Hahahah, now that you pointed this out, I see how cringy the "I want it now" sounds. :) Khao and First's acting was so good that I did not notice.

Yes, the "You punch me once. I kiss you once" also came seemingly out of nowhere, and it did remind me of Sarawat's line in 2gether. I think I have an explanation for Ayan's line, though. He strikes me as an observant person who adapts to different situations with relative ease. When Akk and he talked for the first time in the bathroom after the chasing scene, Ayan saw that Akk is confident when the other person resists aggressively, but when someone opposes him peacefully or starts joking or flirting, like Ayan does, he loses his confidence and does not know what to do. I think that this is why Ayan flirted so obviously from the beginning.

Furthermore, I noticed that Ayan starts flirting or bashing the school rules mostly when he needs to distract Akk. Ayan means his flirting to be obvious and cringy because he sees that this is what disarms Akk. For instance, in the "You punch me once. I kiss you once." scene, I think that Ayan was actively trying to distract Akk from making him wear the school uniform – or rather from the black hoodie that he was wearing. There seems to be a connection between Ayan's hoodie, notebook, and pendant. If I am not mistaken, they all feature the solar eclipse. I think that they are connected to the mystery and that Ayan knows more that he lets on, so he distracts Akk from asking questions.

This is, of course, just my theory. I am not arguing with you. Stay safe!

I think that you are onto something. I also feel like Thua and Kan have history together. Thua's asking Kan if he hates him that much would make no sense otherwise. Why would Kan hate him if they had not interacted before?

So this is what you guys meant, that the mystery element might remain undeveloped. I get it now. I did not understand at first what underboard meant when they said that the show is trying to appear smarter than it is. :)
Well, knowing G-MM, the possibility that they will not do the mystery element justice is indeed high. However, I remain hopeful because it is only the second episode. They handled the mystery element in He’s Coming To Me well several years ago. Maybe they will not disappoint this time either.
Pincolino, why do you think that the dialogues are cringy? This is in no way a loaded question. I am just curious.

Wat might have also felt grateful that Ayan stood up for him in history class and wanted to return the favor

This series is outstanding in every aspect so far. The acting, the chemistry, the storyline, the OST – everything is brilliant. I am looking forward to episode 3.

It is brilliant so far. Happy watching!