Potato the cutie

I mean, it does have some cute moments but they're pretty much overshadowed by the problematic aspects of the plot, but yeah, as I said, I'm still continuing on this journey for the future of this genre in the chinese entertainment industry, even if the plot is driving me up the wall lol
Thank you for taking the time to comment btw, I really appreciate it 💗

Oh absolutely, tbh I've lost hope in eternal faith ever being released, it's basically another immortality situation atp, but yeah, the sentiment is widely spread in the community for sure.
Thank you for your comments, really appreciate you taking the time to engage with me in this little discussion🤍

Oh I completely agree with the more manageable to read than see part.
I can read toxic/immoral on paper because it wouldn't elicit the same intense feelings visually depicted scenes would in me, the latter somehow makes it feel all too real sometimes and that could pose an issue for me and for many other viewers I'm sure, so while waiting for more to come out, I'll enjoy what I can find right now, and who knows, maybe we'll get another mdzs remake or some more of mxtx' works adapted, or maybe we'll see some original work being aired, the possibilities are endless really, as long as someone is willing to start this journey, I'm sure many more will try to follow, hopefully we won't be 82 by then 😂

Exactly, the first thai bl was in no way a masterpiece, matter of fact, take any bl older than 2018 and broadcast it now and see the rage people will go into, yes it wasn't a perfect start but it was a start, at the very least people were seeing themselves on screen for the first time, and while the stereotypes are still heavily present in newer bls in general, any older viewer could immediately tell you how far this genre has come, and while I don't think we'll ever be able to fully get rid of these stereotypes (have we been able to get rid of them in any other genre really?) I'm sure they will get much better as time goes by so here's to a better future for the community in the industry 🤍

Thank you for your lovely replies btw, and I hope you find something more to your taste soon, have a good day/evening 💗

I totally agree, this isn't about the series anymore, this is about a group of minority's rights being taken from them, unable to fully express themselves or find representation in their own culture/country/media while constantly being told they're wrong for being who they are, and as I said, this is just the beginning (again, hopefully) so yeah, my morals are absolutely not happy but this isn't about them lol.
Thank you for the lovely reply, really appreciate it, also, I remember you from the cult days on kinnporsche lol so really glad to see you here 💗

I haven't checked out any of the author's work, but I've noticed the concerns raised regarding her uh ... preferences let's say plot wise, so I'm side eyeing everything I'm seeing while actively looking for things to enjoy in this series, and if it's making you uncomfortable then by all means don't continue watching/reading, no one should compromise their comfort for the sake of a piece of supposed entertainment and I stand by this sentiment, hopefully we'll get more series in the future with actual good plots tho, keeping my fingers crossed lol 🤍

Oh no please by all means if it makes you uncomfortable drop it immediately, my comment was mostly for myself really lol, cuz if I'm being honest it has reached that point for me and I'm genuinely trying to keep watching despite the plot, I definitely wouldn't ask someone to keep watching if they're unable to, and tbh if it wasn't for the fact that I am determined to see this series to the bitter end, I would've dropped it instantly cuz quite frankly, the plot is on thin ice, but hey, it's a costume drama! So I have one thing to shift my focus onto 😂

Before I throw my two cents into the pile, let me preface this by saying that if you've come upon any of my comments or reviews before, you'd know that I absolutely do not condone this sort of relationships. Usually when a drama contains any form of SA/abuse/toxicity, I would start contemplating dropping it, with that being said, I will continue watching this series despite the triggering content. This series is the only exception because of one reason and one reason only, and that is because it's the first uncensored chinese bl we've had in years. This might seem like the shallowest excuse you'll ever encounter but hear me out, we all need to start somewhere, and a starving man will down anything you throw his way, and I'm sure I'm not the only person here in desperate need of that element the chinese dramas/movies have added to the genre, because while korean and thai media have their moments, you can't deny that the magic of xianxia/wuxia dramas is sorely missed in the mix of content we've been consuming in the past couple of years, so the total rating this drama will receive from me is going to be a 8.5 and it will not change no matter what atrocities the plot will throw at me later on.
Now you might be wondering, does the plot deserve this rating? Absolutely not. Does the acting deserve this rating? Honestly debatable. Does the music deserve it then? Probably not, the only reason why I'm rating it so highly is because of what I had stated above, so until we get more uncensored chinese lgbtq+ content (holding onto the hope that we will get more after this) my rating of this drama will remain high, should more content come out later on, my rating of it will change to fit my actual opinion on it.
And with that I rest my case, I apologize in advance for the lengthy comment but I needed to vent a little for the sake of my self proclaimed objectiveness (heavy emphasis on the self proclaimed because obviously it's still going to be subjective 🙃)
thank you to whoever stuck around to read my pointless comment, you're a lovely person and I hope you have a good day/evening 💗

I can see your point of view, and the thing with hospital dramas is spot on, I'm a med student too and the stuff I've seen in these dramas is enough to send a professional into cardiac arrest, but while I agree with you on that front, there's quite a difference between these two genres, because while you'd rarely find actors who are also health professionals or associated with that field, good actors who can also dance aren't a rarity especially in the korean entertainment industry, if this was the west then I'd definitely agree because most celebrities over there have somewhat clearly defined roles like singer, dancer or actor, but in Korea, you can at worst find 5 out of 10 people who possess at least two of these talents given their training process, so it wouldn't be too hard finding a good actor who's also a good dancer. For medically themed dramas, certain information can't be found or understood from a bit of research, however, the same couldn't be said about ballet/dancing since it's a part of the entertainment industry. I'd also like to point out that ballet dancers (not sure about other forms of dancing) are also required to have some talent in acting to sell the performance since most classical ballets are based on a story, so to not be able to embody the character is to not be good enough to perform that role, take for example the role of Odette in the Swan Lake ballet, many professional ballerinas have danced as Odette at some point, but only a selective few were remembered for it and the reason for that is what I had stated before, those who were remembered for it embodied Odette while they were studying her role, like Natalia Osipova in the 2015 performance of Swan Lake for example (she's one of my personal favourite ballerinas). I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here but I hope you were able to see it form my perspective, aside from that, I 100% agree with you on what you said, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic btw, and I apologize if my reply seems quite long lol 🤍

Lol it was a bit of a challenge rummaging through my non existent brain cells trying to remember who he reminded me of.
As I said, I wanna say I was disappointed, but I don't think I was, because while I was excited about the whole established relationship, the amnesia part immediately rubbed me the wrong way so I lowered the bar a little. Considering the fact that this is a Japanese production, I did expect them to blur the lines a bit with what's logical and what isn't and considering my history with mangas and animes this plot is one of the most manga plot-y plots I've ever seen if I'm being perfectly honest lol. This series suffered from one of the more prominent issues with current Asian bls (with the exception of Thai and Taiwanese bls) and that is very limited running time, so with that in mind, writers struggle to string together a coherent script, I'm pretty sure anyone can come up with an idea for a plot, but building upon that idea takes talent and resources, if one of these two components is missing or is limited, the other will have to take the blow, usually plots start out vague, then they expand and eventually get condensed and more defined to fit the budget and assigned running time, and sometimes in plots that are somewhat "large" information and world building wise authors exclude certain plot points or brush over them to make room for much more major points and aspects, and here is where a writer's ability to accommodate is tested, each writer evaluates the importance of certain plot points differently and that's what makes or breaks how well a plot is executed, we also have to keep in mind that entertainment is a very subjective term so while certain plots might not be to our taste some will probably like it much more, regardless of morality and ambiguity.
Sorry I'm probably ranting at this point, I couldn't help but overwrite on this reply lol, thank you for commenting on my review tho, really appreciate it 🤍

I recognized him after some more staring lol, I'm not very familiar with the boyz and he kinda looked like him from a certain angle, still a very pretty guy tho and that fancam is just...chef's kiss.
I agree with you on Uea, and I feel like if you replace James with a less attractive guy you would definitely be asking yourself why is King attracted to him considering the emotional baggage his character is carrying, unless he has feelings for that person, there's no way one really good hook up would have him coming back for more fully knowing what this person is like, that's not how humans are lol.
And yeah there's no actual way of getting over it, it all comes down to how each person processes trauma and how they deal with it, even then you can't fully get over it, you'll always have these moments where it seems like you're back to square one, a good support system is necessary in these situations, therapy is always a good start too, it might not be a miracle cure but it definitely helps, and I do encourage you to try therapy even if you don't think you need it, everyone requires therapy every once in a while, even therapists themselves, it honestly should be mandatory at this point with all the things going on in the world. Honestly I should be the one thanking you for taking the time to read and reply to my comment, really appreciate it.

Honestly speaking, this is quite an ok portrayal of a sexually/physically/mentally abused person and that's coming from personal experience (except for the part where they are able to actually have sex, yeah no in reality he'd probably be afraid of even being close to anyone who shows such interest in him in any way shape or form), taking into consideration the fact that similar cultures usually blame the victims of sexual abuse for being the ones to have "initiated" the act, him not being able to escape his mother's tight hold on him or trying to make her see but ultimately failing is pretty normal, considering the fact that this is set in an Asian country, where loving and respecting your parents unconditionally (in spite of them being undeserving of such love) is considered a no brainer and trying to fight back against any sort of harm/abuse is considered shameful and disrespectful regardless of whether he's in the right or not, I wouldn't be surprised if he's still in contact with his mother and trying to look for the good in her simply because she's his mother. People don't understand that the shadow of your abuser is so long and all consuming and even more painful to live with if it's coming from your mother who's supposed to be your safe place, you can't heal from it by moving away only, this requires intense therapy to even be able to function well and taking into account the nature of these series, he probably won't receive any and will most likely be saved by the power of love or whatever nonsense they usually go with, although the scene in episode 2 where they go to get tested gave me some hope that maybe they'll sneak in the importance of seaking professional help for people going through similar shit, not counting too much on it though, ofc this is my personal take on such topics regardless of what I feel as far as the plot is concerned, but I can understand where Uea's character is coming from for the most part. Also, unrelated but, is that Seong hwa in your profile?

Thank you 🤍 and as I said, I knew there was gonna be abuse in it, not this graphically depicted tho. I thought they would kind of hint at it like they usually do or at least make it less scarring, I guess I shot myself in the foot here for not looking into the original plot more but oh well, at least now I know what to expect.

You're very welcome and yeah, yikes is right.

Family abuse, pedophilic actions, harassment, SA with the possibility of rape, dub con, homophobia, ptsd, workplace abuse, some power imbalance and coercion and that's just from the top of my head, don't forget this is only the first 3 episodes so I'm not too sure what to expect after having all of this dumped down on us from the get go.

That was...... intense and that's putting it very very mildly. As someone who has been through similar shit, this was very hard to watch I actually had to pause and fast forward a couple of times. When they said trauma/SA I expected it to be alluded to or mentioned, not explicitly shown. If i thought TharnType was triggering then this is just extreme, it almost reminds me of that Japanese movie in terms of severally explicit rape-y plots, I knew what I was getting myself into back when I watched that one, not this time tho. I'm glad I'm in a slightly better mental space because if I was shown this a few years back I would've probably had a full blown panic attack. If anyone has gone or is going through something similar, please please be careful while watching this series and specifically this episode, if you decide to go through with it either way, I sincerely wish you the best and I hope you'll be mindful of your mental well-being, if you don't think you're able to handle this or if you don't think you're in the right space of mind drop it immediately, don't compromise your mental health for a little piece of supposed entertainment that you could easily live without having to go through. I'm sorry to anyone if this comment sounds defensive or a bit on the extreme side but I couldn't help writing it, they should have displayed a trigger warning or at least included the more triggering scenes in the uncut version only, the company is largely at fault here and no one can change my mind, sue me

No problem, and yeah I can see how it could get mixed up, we've all been there trust me 😂

There is another series coming out called OnlyFriends, that one is a GMMTV production set to come out this year, this one is a domundi project that was kinda pushed back a couple of times before it aired, you're not entirely wrong tho, both series have a very .... risqué/dark premise and the names are easy to mix up so you're not that far off.

Something is definitely wrong with this series..... and I'm not entirely sure what it is.
The chemistry and quality of acting is ever fluctuating, the scene jumping and editing is yet again an issue, the directing/screenwriting seems to be an arising problem now, I also saw someone point something out and I couldn't help but agree, but why does domundi like to conform its actors to stereotypical heteronormative-y roles? like assigning pretty/feminine looking men to bottoming (e.g. Saint, Nunew, Nat, James, Yim) and masculine looking men to topping (e.g. Zee, Net, Max, Tutor), having the bottom be in some sort of predicament AKA the damsel in distress , having the top be the knight in shining armour.... Etc etc, it just seems to be the reoccurring theme and now I'm genuinely curious to why is that, they apparently love sticking to stereotypes/overused tropes, they did however, show something new which is the getting tested for STDs so I'll give them that, you definitely don't see that very often not even with heterosexual depicting couples in series, at least from what I've seen.
Honestly at this point I'm gonna continue watching for a couple more episodes just to see where this script is going and to personally witness the "sizzling" chemistry between the two.