Blueappletrees Now, in genreal, I really liked this show. They way they started out by portraying the omegavese and the different characters had me hooked immediately. You could tell that they had put so much thought into the worldbuilding, with their business language and the consistent issue of pheremone gland cancer and Sheng's familiy issues. The actors are also amazing and do a phenomenal job! But with its perfections, this show also has a lot of flaws, which kind of ruined the experience for me. A lot of my dislike lies in the two main couples. I'll start with the second couple, Shen and Gao Tu: This show would've been so much better in my eyes if Shen had more character development. I don't understand how Gao Tu had a crush on him for severeal years, especially when Shen never respected him, and hated omegas. I think it must've been an internal thing for Gao Tu, but still, I feel like it would have been more interesting to see Shen start to question his ideals and thoughts. Instead, I just found him incredibly annoying, since nothing really happened with him, and he didn't really change. Overall I just felt bad for Gao Tu. He deserved so much better than a man who constantly disrespected him, and also raped him. (seriously, the amount of rape in this show is...)Now, for Sheng and Hua Yong. Hua Yong is an incredibly well written character in my opinion. The actor plays him perfectly, he is obsessive, eerie, creepy. But there is just no way that the show tried to get me to root for a rapist and his victim (same as with Shen and Gao Tu). I know that rape is normalized in omegaverse, and BL in general (which I am so mad about) but this felt extreme, even as someone who has read a lot of manwhas and seen a lot of BL's where sexual assault is casually included and romantacized. Hua Yong is constantly overstepping his boundaries, he has no basic respect for Sheng, and he sexually assaults him multiple times. They show Sheng being incredibly traumatized and scared, they show him constantly asking Hua Yong to leave, yet Hua Yong stays. (me personally, I would've called the cops) I was so sure the show would take a drastic horror turn when we saw Hua Yong glueing a bloody picture of Sheng back together, but it didn't. Now, if they HAD gone that way, this show would've been at least 8 stars instead of five for me. No, instead they happily end up together. Sexual assault is NOT romantic, and I am tired of it being constantly portrayed that way.
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