-Aprillen-

Welcome to the club!

It's the only country in East Asia to legalise same sex marriage, but hardly the only one in the world

I hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us!

Welcome to the "Six Days of Withdrawal" club 😂

It *is* Chinese. It's filmed in China with Chinese actors and a Chinese crew. Maybe they partnered with an overseas company or something, but for all intents and purposes, this is a Chinese drama.

For anyone who is not on Facebook, the clip is also on YT with subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibPsbGglKL4

Wasn't that about the leaked BTS scene?

She also wore trainers when visiting Chi Cheng's mother, though

We don't mind you telling us though ;)

Good summary! I would like to add that CC also brings the threat to JXS after WSW told him they should break up (which he did out of guilt). He absolutely does not want to break up with WSW. And he brings it to JXS because JXS is WSW's "shifu" and he *knows* that JXS has been scheming with WSW and coaching him on the gay stuff, so he is best poised to influence WSW in the right direction (from CC's POV). But he also knows they're friends, so he uses his bad reputation as a tool to threaten JXS, because otherwise, why would JXS betray WSW? And it worked once before, when he threatened JXS into revealing where WSW's home was.

Yes, Chi Cheng is not a *nice* person. He moves in very dodgy circles and maintaining power in such circles is not done by being nice and sweet to people. He's not quite a gangster, but also not quite above board. He's used to getting what he wants by intimidating people.

I know that was most likely autocorrect but I LOLed at the image of you watching over your shoes

It happened, but it wasn't glossed over. Porsche felt betrayed and he absolutely blamed Kinn for it. It wasn't until the wilderness episode that Kinn managed to redeem himself by taking a bullet for Porsche, after having become closer to him (and having apologised) over the course of their having to stick together in the middle of nowhere. I liked the way they handled that in the drama, because SA and r---are not always clearcut and uncomplicated. Most cases happen with someone you already know, and dealing with that can be very difficult. In this case, Porsche did feel attracted to Kinn, but he was taken advantage of when he was in no state to either give or withhold consent. Would someone IRL be able to forgive that and even get together with the perpetrator? Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out. SA as a romance initiator is an unfortunate trope in older (and some darker) BL and I wish it weren't, but as far as KP goes, it wasn't glossed over at all.

Yeah, I meant the recent Thai stuff, like J100 said. Obviously there will always be exceptions, especially for a country with such prolific BL output as Thailand (which is why I said "generally') but these days they aren't typical for the mainstream of Thai BL.
KinnPorsche is more recent, but aside from the f-ed up VegasPete storyline, the dub-con stuff wasn't glossed over, it was in fact addressed, and it took a lot for Kinn to redeem himself.

You're absolutely right, Chi Cheng is definitely a red flag. But if you want something pure and sweet with all green flags, don't watch (let alone read) anything by Chai Jidan. Believe me when I say that this version is toned down a lot from the source material (even Chai Jidan herself has asked people to not read the novel but watch this instead). I'm not trying to make excuses for abusive and toxic behaviour IRL and normally I don't tolerate it in fiction either, but I knew what Chai Jidan's work is like when I started watching. I went into this eyes open and fully prepared. With this kind of thing, you have to look at it as a kind of dark fantasy thing that is separate from reality, and if that's not possible for you, I recommend to stay away from things like this. And really, we have two protagonists here with shitty behaviour. WSW is no angel either, he's a self-defined straight man who pretends to be gay and pretends to seduce Chi Cheng just to get revenge on his equally shitty ex-gf. Everyone is a red flag in their own way. If they're not domineering a-holes, they're petty little schemers. So yeah, you do have good points, and I understand where you're coming from. I guess I'm just looking at this the same way I look at vampire romance. It's ridiculous and inadvisable but somehow it can also be a fun ride if you don't think too hard about it.

"Start making"? You clearly haven't seen (or read) a lot of BL from China? Especially not the ones written by Chai Jidan back in the day. They tend to be unhinged with some pretty dark themes. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. This story was written a decade ago and believe me, it has been toned down and revised in this new adaptation.

The origins of BL have nothing to do with the LGBTQ community. It's a genre written by women for women, and that legacy is still very much apparent in a lot of BL from Japan and China. But I can recommend "Secrets Happened on the Litchi Island" and "The Sparkle in Your Eye" if you want sweet, newly written/produced Chinese BL without any toxicity between the MCs. Or just stick with the Thai stuff, which is generally more in tune with the LGBTQ community.

But he's been sleeping next to WSW many times by now without forcing himself on him (not to mention Yue Yue who practically threw herself at him but was soundly ignored). Sure, his hands roamed a few times but whenever WSW protested, he immediately stopped. When he got jealous/angry because he saw that WSW was talking about sex with JXS, he did manhandle him, but it turned into a kissing session, and WSW was obviously into it, so he continued kissing him, but he didn't go any further. That's not a guarantee that he'd be like that with *everyone*, because WSW is obviously a very special case for him. But there's still a difference between being domineering or having a high sex drive and being a r--ist, and in the beginning he didn't really care about WSW's feelings, he just wanted to screw him, and he still didn't. I choose to believe that Chi Cheng is a man who carefully fosters a dangerous reputation, but is in fact not as callous and merciless on the inside as he appears on the outside. He also doesn't lack people who'd gladly jump into his bed, so he has no reason to force anyone who is unwilling, just because he *could*.

I agree with the first point, no future spoilers please, but we can't really force people to spoilertag EVERYTHING, especially if the episodes aired days or weeks ago. I'm actually a huge spoilerphobe so I just stay away from the comment section for shows I haven't watched yet.

Exactly. CC's first priority is WSW and he wouldn't do anything to turn WSW against him (which he would absolutely do if he actually assaulted JXS). It's just a threat because intimidation is the only way CC knows how to deal with things, lol. He's just using his bad reputation as a tool to scare JXS into scheming for *him* instead of for WSW.

I think he was just using fingers to help WSW get used to it 🤔
After all, Guo Chengyu just said that every guy CC had been with had walked away with a big smile on his face, so he's obviously a skilled lover who knows what he's doing. I think we can chalk this up to WSW and his gay panic ;)

The subtitles on Gaga have improved significantly for this week's episodes. I have both Gaga and Viki and I usually watch on Gaga first because they're a day ahead of Viki, and then rewatch it on Viki with better subs (but lower video quality). But this week I didn't have to go to Viki because the subs on Gaga were really good.