Alex Mcca

@dermariska By the way, I have yet to meet any BL fangirls here who are curious or want to know more about real life LGBT experience or struggle from a few gay posters here. So, even if a drama is used for activism, it may not have any effect. What we've got here are often the fangirls who scream over cutesy, childish romances or SJW (social justice warriors) who get very worked up if there is "no consent letter signed" before sex, haha!

@dearmariska What Did You Eat Yesterday is not a drama I would recommend generally because many commented it was like a cooking show, and there was not a single kiss or intimate scenes between the couple. I enjoyed it quite a lot however as it touches some of the slice of life details you would not see in regular BL. The cooking part could be boring if you're not into cooking, but it is still more rewarding than those silly slapstick comedies in many Thai BL, especially with the regular use of weird sound effects; it is almost infantile.

I brought up this drama because there is a scene where the slightly effeminate partner was finally brought home to have dinner with the parents, after 10 years in relationship. He tried to act straight and formal in greeting and exchanging pleasantries with the parents but completely lost it when he tasted mom's delicious food. His unintentional campiness and mom's slightly disgusted expression was burst out loud funny.

The partner is a very straight acting, handsome middle age man, and the parents probably have never seen a nelly queen in their life, living in a small town like mine, Malacca. Most young gays from such small town will move to the capital city for better lifestyle and choice of friends/partners which are generally be the same in Holland, US, Thailand, Japan and so on. These people living away from their family and relatives could therefore be more open with their sexuality in the city.

While many find it a trope or cliches to have the homophobia/coming out of closet sidestory in a BL drama, totally ignoring it is misleading and a result of lazy writing. You can just have short conversations or few scenes to cover the topic like in Semantic Error and Cherry Magic recently, it is pure fantasy if everyone suddenly accept it without prior case of gay history.

Being conversant in Mandarin and having visited China multiple times, I can assure you homosexuality has been decriminalized since 1997. I have met local gay men and visited gay clubs in the big cities. It is no more homophobic than Indonesia and Malaysia where the Muslim netizens could easily be triggered with the news of gay lifestyle and scenes thriving in their country.

Just last year, a loud mouth American lesbian's viral post about Bali's openness to LGBT lifestyle resulted in the local authority being pressured to deport her with a few other westerners making the same mistake. So, it is not true younger generation in Asia do not face the same struggle than their older compatriots. Netizens' complaints after seeing an obviously gay hotel ad also lead to my favorite gay villa in Bali being closed down together with all the other gay hotels / villas.

In Malaysia, the first ever online gay drama with Muslim actors was banned and taken down after 2 episodes when they haven't even shown any sexually suggestive scenes. I managed to read a few out of the thousands negative comments, it ain't pretty. A transgender had to ran off to Thailand and sought asylum in Australia when a Muslim preacher reported her for cross-dressing in a mosque. I'm lucky I do not have to subscribed to that religion.

While the US has had a major breakthrough in the last 5 years in civil rights for LGBT, the community should still face discrimination in small town and red states. With the streets getting dangerous for everyone in major US cities, I don't think young LGBT persons dare to flaunt their sexuality in pubic, without getting attacked with knife or killed by gun.

You are right, there is a small issue with the rating chart. I just had a look at the rating options, it seems "Completed" is blocked out but "Not Interested" is not and could be represented in the graph as completed which is misleading. The number is low though, not enough to deflate the overall rating by a lot.

Iqiyi is not the only place to watch this series, I can tell you I don't have to watch from there.

MDL may have lower rating for most of the dramas be it straight or BL because there are more serious drama lovers here who would write long essays, post long comments and elaborate reviews once wrapped up, compared to Viki.com where BL drams tend to enjoy generally higher rating than regular dramas.

@Emara R In episode 1, the father has already indicated Kinn has some special qualities and probably a hidden motive, to hire him. We get that, but episode 2 was just not well written with the change of mood to silly comedy, some overacting and several illogical actions / outcomes.

Most of us will continue to watch as we like the hot leads (aren't many of us shallow?) and if things make more sense later on, the rating will be revised and some of us will post a review after finale.

@danieruau See what I mean? The fangirl thinks 9.9 is the more reasonable rating current episodes should get. Many of them become screaming teenagers or young adults at the sight of these handsome guys doing cutesy BL things.
I watch more BL and lgbt dramas than straight ones because of my orientation. But if an episode or series is bad, I cannot switch off the brain and laugh at the silly jokes unless unintentionally.

Fans have moaned the rating drop and blamed it to homophobia since then. They didn't have any gripes when it was rated 9+ after episode 1 but condemned those who rated it poorly after episode 2.

There is hardly any homophobia against the series because straight people don't come here in droves to down vote a series that is niches to the BL market. Poor ratings are given by BL fans and lgbt persons who think Episode 2 was not good. The rating could change if the later episodes improved to at least episode 1.

@dearmariska I agree with your last paragraph about Thai BL industry going for the more popular gay fantasy route these days. In fact, by having 2 or 3 gay couples in a drama, they can be assured everybody gets their favorite pairings and not drop the series if they don't like the main couple.

However, I don't agree that homophobia is the struggle that mostly faced by older generations. In most Asian and Eastern European countries, homosexuality is still largely a taboo including developed countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore where I have lived for years, not to mention countries with strong religious population (all Muslim majority countries, including my country Malaysia ), Indonesia, Italy, Bosnia, Poland, all of which I have visited multiple times , met and talked to local gay men and visited their local gay scenes, if there was one, like in Italy and Indonesia.

Even internally, most LGBT persons will go through a phase or repeated circles of self doubt of going through a life of such orientation. Like the Japanese drama (What Did You Eat Yesterday?), I would not bring my partner or boyfriend home for dinner even my conservative family stopped asking me about marriage and relationships. Anyway, I was never close to my family so there is no need to share my sexual life since I haven't lived with them since 18.

It is more often LGBT in Asia only come out of closet to certain group of people (close friends or colleagues) they feel comfortable with. It is still safer for us to not openly flaunt our sexuality than my out of closet experience in London where I was almost attacked, despised on the street with my dates holding hands. Our gay clubs which are more hidden were never the target for terrorism and we don't have to worry about getting attacked when we leave the spots., unlike the "G.A.Y club' (very obvious name) I used to go in London.

It's quite simple, some of these fangirls didn't think he is gay as pink suede and his entrance is like Miss Universe arriving with her crown. They are so in love with the drama, some have declared it a masterpiece at episode 2.

If he is supposed to be straight at this point, many of gay men like me don't buy it. It's not flamboyant but a nelly queen behavior.

No, second episode is a mess! If you read some of the negative comments here, a few of the more mature viewers didn't witch off the brain just because of handsome casts. The comedy is of such poor taste that we cannot simply ignore especially the tone change is so obvious from episode one.

The rating may improve if later episodes can go back to the quality of the first episode. Don't say that we cannot downgrade the series just because of episode 2 because it is the same for those people who vote it 10/10 after 1 or 2 episode.

@J100 I think the Thai BL wave is just 2-3 years old when they started to churn out more than 1 series each month. These last 2 months, there are more than 10 series released, so obviously the industry is attracting more and more money into production and viewerships as well.

As you are mostly not as fascinated with their BL as most people here, you are thus not tempted to visit, but from the way many fans here rave about all these BL drams and the actors, I am pretty sure they will want to visit as soon as they can. If the country is not that far away for the US fans, many of them will fly there in a heart beat.

I was a frequent overseas holiday maker (at least once a month) before covid but Thailand isn't my cup of tea (visited only once or twice to all its major tourist cities) due to the lack of historic architecture and thriving traditional culture unlike Bali, China and Europe which I visit alternately.

I think dramas/movies can be very effective in promoting some of a country's cultures. In my country, Malaysia, many people are trying out korean food and learn the language as kdrama is taking a strong hold of even our muslim majority population.

@PaperWizard Now you are over analyzing to defend inconsistency in Porsche's behaviors. In Episode 1, the way he handled the lady customers, making quick bucks to settle loans and even how he negotiated a deal before and after saving Kinn is not childish at all.

A few of us (mostly mature gay men and women) just find his antics in episodes 2 just silly and not even funny. If this is a straight drama series, a lot of people would have dropped or condemned the drama. We could give BL a wide berth due to its niches market but not to the extend of accepting too much nonsense.

@Tacenda You sound like one of those teenybopper girls who cannot stand people criticising your idol! Some of the gay men here have panned the silly antics of Porsche because we are not like some women who have not seen or dated gorgeous Asian men before! They can adore everything these guys do in the drama like how they could be BTS army is beyond some of our comprehension.

@jpny01 Why I always find your comments funny? You dig out so many questions, you will make fans here rack their brain too much! Not that many of them read and respond to unfavourable view

I haven't started it yet but I will now to see if I agree with you.

@dearmariska Even though you are not a gay man (clicked your profile, :-P) but you know what we are arguing here. I have not seen anyone else using katoey so far, I guess you know such character is very popular in Thailand as comic relief.

In fact, even the gay clubs I have visited there always feature the katoey show where the fat lady boy (like the madam in the bar in episode 1) would speak in the campiest possible tone and molest the hunk on stage as jokes. The locals really enjoyed such antics but I didn't, not only because I don't understand Thai but the acts were so cringy.

@badboyparis If you are French, bonjour! You missed out the main part of argument that LykeItRuff and I thought Tong should not wear and behave like a sissy on parade when he is still supposed to be straight up to episode 2.

Simona and many think he was just being flamboyant up to this point (episode 2). He will be revealed as gay later on according to people who have read the novel but it is not point of argument here.

I have seen many French movies being a Francophile (but still cannot speak the language) and I believe subtilité is lacking in the comedy in episode 2.

@simona I checked out your profile and find it interesting you quoted Queer As Folk and Latter Day as some of your favorites, which I love as well. They are realistic from my years in London (just like the gay scene in Philly) and have powerful messages.

The comedy in episode 2 is however tacky and so out of tune with the mood of the first episode. Simply laughing to the silly acts and illogical plots (fish dying because of a pee and how the young guy got pushed and hit his head in the pond) just leave bad taste in the mouth.

@Simona He is not just acting flamboyant, the clothing and mannerism screams "sissy on parade" which is acceptable if he is openly gay or a katoey as Thais love this type of character as comedy relief.

I have guessed you were not like the screaming teenagers here talking about Pete and Vegas like they have never seen young, fairly good looking Asian men in their life. The main leads are attractive and sexy but many people are going over board with the looks of the whole young casts. They were probably not paying much attention to details or logic when going gaga over the actors.

Apparently, this type of slapstick comedy works well with Thai and many young or teenage international viewers here. If you remember the madam in the bar, "she" is the typical katoey (lady boy) that will appear in Thai variety shows and gay clubs there entertaining the crowd in the campiest possible tone, flirting and touching the hunk guests to make people laugh. It's not subtle comedy for mature audience.

Only older gay men like me and 2 other guys I know here, do not enjoy the silly comedy in episode 2. The change of tone from episode 1 is so tactless. A lot of people will argue "forget being realistic", just enjoy the ride. Not everyone can switch off our brain and laugh to what would be an insult to our intelligence.