Flypsyde

Interesting. I totally and completely disagree with you. I think Tong is a fine actor and I spent part of this last ep thinking how amazingly he was succeeding at playing a character more than ten years younger than him. I watch him and don''t see "emoting," another word to me for "trying too hard," I see a character "being..." Those were real tears running down his face in that first scene; he wasn't faking it, he was being it. I found the sobbing very realistic in a way that people really cry when they are unguarded or totally devastated..."ugly crying." Tong wasn't trying to appear to be crying while maintaining his overall actor-ish cool, he had surrendered his ego to the situation in which his CHARACTER found himself. And in that place, Paper doesn't give a shit how he looks or sounds while he's inconsolable.

This show is absurdly cliched in almost every respect, but the acting and chemistry between and among couples and characters has totally pulled me in despite of that. I am sitting here watching and predicting each step in the plots, but I'm putting aside my annoyance with the lazy and non-creative writing and plotting to appreciate and enjoy the really impressive, totally committed performances of the actors. I've been in tears several times during each episode beginning with the second.

The acting is subtle, patient, nuanced and all the more heart-rending and happy-making for it. The over-the-top Fujoshis are a distraction, but I'll forgive even that in regard to this show. I don't mind a good, fun group of Fujoshis but these three are being directed at such a high level of parody that their scenes feel piped in from some other series. The three bullies are pretty bad too, but I'm enthusiastically on-board with every other character and relationship.

BRAVO

Seriously? You can fully enjoy a show when you already know how it's going to end? I was wrecked by the ridiculously cruel MODC ending too, and the absurd and sadistic ending to Gray Rainbow nearly put me in the hospital, lol, but I'm not about to let the fuckers who perpetrated those atrocities ruin my full enjoyment of all future BLs. :)

Peng's acting this episode, especially in the father/son scene, was off-the-charts excellent. Academy-award-winning excellent. He's always been good, but this crucial scene was incredibly moving, mostly because of Peng. Bravo!

I feel the same about TengTeng's realistic portrayal of a drunk person. I think it's an awful idea for XS to move back in with his parents. he is 30 years old, his father has a LONG way to go inbecoming comfortable with homosexuality, and what if he and the younger brother want to get together? Or what if he wants to date other guys or have them over? How's that going to go? He needs to maintain a healthy distance from his parents and that means NOT living with them on a daily/nightly basis. That's crazy.

That is true, but demisexuality is extremely rare, except as a current fad in the culture.

lol. I love this argument and both of you! :D

GAY FOR YOU is a prominent BL trope and always has been. I'm gay and it used to bother me but I finally got tired of bitching about it and accepted that it's a common feature of BL and if I want to keep watching such shows I should get over myself and just deal with it. Who wants everyshow to be super gay-woke? Boring. I prefer stories in which a gay relationship forces one of the characters to accept a homo, bi, or demi-sexuality they have been suppressing, and there are a lot of such shows out there if you look for them, but that isn't your or my call. stop watching BLs if you're going to bitch about this every time it happens.

You are correct. That is a phrase used by those who are losing an argument and are desperate for a put-down that makes them sound intellectual. Somehow it only makes them sound stupid and pompous.

ha ha ha "...your ilk..." another phrase that is a dead giveaway that someone has lost an argument. lol

So stop watching BLs. The genre and those who make it are not obligated to tell their fictional stories according to your requirements. There are plenty of gay-themed shows around where people are already out as gay or come out as gay when a powerful attraction to someone of their own sex comes along. I suggest you seek out and watch those shows.

Who cares what you buy? This used to bother me too but it''s so common in BL that I've just accepted it as a common feature of the genre. You don't like it, stop watching BLs.

XS moving back home is a horrible idea. He's 30. He needs his own space to be who he is without two parents looking over his shoulder. I hope he gets together with the younger bro.

Xingsi moving home with his parents, at the age of 30, when he has a nice, workable and independent living situation with his two best friends already, is a TERRIBLE idea. Even IF the little brother never moves back in OR goes out of the picture altogether, will Xingsi feel free to live as an adult, gay man, dating, having someone over for dinner, etc.? Hell no! I get that in Asia, multi-generational households are not unusual, but in this case it is an absolutely bad decision made in the midst of a vulnerable, emotional moment. I hope Xingsi comes to his senses and stays put where he is with his buddies.

As a writing team, why would they "get rid of" the little brother? He provides a great deal of the drama in this show, which is what makes it interesting. And Xingsi moving back home at the age of 30, to live with a father who still harbors strong feelings of homophobia, and where he would be uncomfortable every time he wanted to date someone or have them to dinner or just mention the activities of his own gay life, is a TERRIBLE idea.

It would help a lot in replying to you if your sentence structure made consistent sense.
Again, glad to irritate you. It means I'm touching a nerve of insecurity about your own thinking.
So...since you can "see through" me, how about sharing what it is you see, oh wise and magical one? And just so I know, what ARE my "obvious agendas?" You like to throw out vague-ish implications without bothering to be specific.
"All you have is draw comparisons because to Sam's acting..." What does that incoherent statement even mean? What are you talking about? Are you over in WBL world or what?
"I see you" also, and I know yours are the agendas of a classic SJW prude, censor-friendly, sex-negative Church Lady who loves watching and reacting with faux outrage to fictional material they claim to abhor but actually get off on.
Laugh all you wish...the laugh is on you.

I'd forgotten from the first time around how good this series is. I watched so many BLs when I first discovered them that only now as I go back and start watching a second time am I starting to differentiate them well, one from another. lol

Zhengxi is so freaking cute, sweet and smart. Just finished ep 2. I'm not looking forward to the down sides of what I seem to remember lies ahead. :(

If Jeff/Mike did the vocals for this, he did a beautiful job, especially that last number. wow.

I just finished watching He, She, It. Thanks for the recommendation, I really enjoyed it. I think I watched part of the first segment at some point in the last year but I must have given up on it for some reason, as I know I hadn't seen any part of the other two segments. Wow, quite powerful. There were a few false notes, but overall, great acting and they actually gave me a few jumps during the It segment. The young man who played Peem was especially good but Mike was also quite good except for when he confronted the horrid and evil Meen in the school hallway; I felt like he chewed the scenery a little bit there. But that's the fault of the director.

I hated Meen of course, as I do all people who go out of their way to be, appropriately in this case to his name, MEAN when they don't have to be. Meen could have stayed out of it completely and told no one. He could have told Mike and/or Peem what he knew and left it in their hands as to how to proceed. He could even have told them they had a week to make things right or he would tell the girlfriend himself, though I don't think off-hand that that is the way I would handle it. It would depend on how close I was to the GF myself. If the two guys decided to keep seeing each other while Mike kept deceiving the girl, I wouldn't be OK with that. Who knows? Maybe she'd agree to an ongoing three-way. :P

It seemed apparent to me that it was Peem and Mike who were truly in love, not Mike and the GF, which made it all quite heartbreaking even before the video and the drowning, because I knew Mike would be the type to go ahead and marry the GF even though he loved Peem. And I fell in love with Peem on first sight and wanted to protect him and take care of him. I was actually impressed with the character of the GF, as she did NOT go out of her way to be cruel or throw a fit or make a scene; she just do what she needed to do to take care of it.

All that said of course, it was Mike who more or less murdered Peem by walking away as he watched him struggle to stay afloat in the pool. I get that he wasn't entirely sure, or maybe sure at all, that Peem didn't fake the FIRST drowning. Maybe he walked away thinking "oh please, Peem is just acting like that so I'll dive in and "save" him and he'll try to make up with me after I do." But once Peem actually died and he knew it was his fault, Mike didn't seem like a person who could function well with that knowledge and keep on living. I'd see him as a potential suicide...and maybe his character is headed that direction.

That last scene, with Mike singing in the empty auditorium, well,empty except for Peem who sat weeping as Mike sang that beautiful song so movingly, was very well done. It seemed he was singing directly to Peem and knew he was there, and yet maybe not. I loved how he stood up after the song, walked a bit, hesitated, then left the stage, leaving Peem alone in the seats, in the dark, alone. :( Sob.

I hope Peem keeps going back to torture Meen from time to time, as he is an asshole who deserves it. However, it seems to be the case from the group's earlier chat that once dead, spirits return either because they haven't let go of something or they are holding a grudge. I hope Peem is able to let go of Mike and his grudge against Meen, and sail on into Paradise. :)

I thought this was quite good.