HaiLuoYin

I'm sooooooooo glad I stuck with this show. I can't remember the last time I saw a Thai BL with such a low view count on yt. But geoblocking it was the company's decision 🤷‍♀️.

Anyway, I've been waiting so long for the truth about Koon to come out and it finally did. Knowing what was coming, I never had much sympathy for him. Watching everything that played out in episode 9, made me have even less. Vit, Taw and Koon are all truly awful people and so was the sister-in-law. I'm kinda impressed that the show leaned into how awful many of the characters actually are, instead making one of them be completely innocent like we usually see in BL and most other genres.

I've been saying this for weeks, but all I want for the ending is Danjai and Qatar to get away from all the others and be safe. Also, Danjai needs a very skilled therapist and a school. The fact that no one, including Danjai made a big deal about Koon's attempted murder, makes me think this isn't the first time he's done something like this. Everything Taw and Vit have done to Koon is despicable, but Danjai is not safe with Koon!!! And probably never will be.

Kinda wish more people were watching this. Yeah it's a shitshow, but it's VERY unique.

Yet another week of Cherry Magic being the best Thai BL airing and I can't stop smiling. It's so rare to have a series with 3 couples and all of them are super interesting and great together.

Jinta really stole the episode for me though. Watching his evolution from episode 1 to 7 has been a joy! But Pai and Rock were great too. Pai is so many fujoshis in the best way possible and Rock is such a good guy, I love them together.

And Achi learning the importance of honest communication in a relationship was everything. So many series have communication between the couples as the number 1 issue and I love that this show isn't doing that because it gets irritating.

The episode would have been perfect if the last minute hadn't happened. Companies REALLY shouldn't be able to dictate that personal lives of adults!

I agree with everything you said.

That would be amazing!

I couldn't have been more disappointed in the last 2 episodes. I know Thai BL will almost always have a big break up in the second to last episode and a "happy ending". This show did a great job breaking conventions for most of the runtime. Unfortunately, it threw in all the tired tropes at the end.

IMO there is nothing wrong with Day regaining his sight. I never expected/needed that to happen for there to be a "happy ending", but I'm not against it happening. The way it happened is my issue.

I can't imagine that it's common to get an eye transplant, but getting two in the span of a few years, felt unbelievable. But I could ignore that, if they hadn't spent the entire series preparing Day, everyone around him and the audience for his life as a blind man. We saw other blind people living their lives and being fine. But all of a sudden he gets the transplant, it doesn't work and then the relationship that was the heart of the series is over. Umm ok I guess. But then he magically gets another surgery and now his relationship picks up pretty much where it left off, yay happy ending! Umm what? I'm sure it worked for a lot of people, but one surgery would have been enough for me. Having 2 eye surgeries felt overly contrived and killed the climactic moment when his sight did finally return.

But my larger issue was with Day's personality. From the beginning, we knew he was kind of an asshole. The show gave him a pass because he was newly blind. But throughout the show, he was the only character that didn't evolve/grow. Everyone spent soooo much time apologizing to him for every little thing, but he never had real self reflection. His dad, Night, his friends, and Mhok were all tossed aside by him whenever they didn't behave exactly like he wanted and somehow that was always ok. The car accident was not 100% Night's fault. Day as the driver was responsible for DRIVING, yes Night shouldn't have gotten drunk and behaved like that, but Day took his eyes off the road and is at least partially at fault.

Mhok's crime was loving Day and wanting to protect and take care of Day. That was Mhok's role from the beginning, so for that to suddenly be such a bad thing that it causes Day to break up with him without an explanation is BS. Blind or not, most people in love want to take care of/protect their lover. I never saw one moment where Mhok pitied Day, but Day always pitied himself. While completely ignoring the fact that he broke Mhok's heart more than once. But in the end Mhok is apologizing and spends almost the whole last episode begging Day to take him back.

Mhok who just started cooking and doesn't want to go to Hawaii to stay with a blind Day is terrible 3 years ago. But once Mhok is an established chef, him coming back to Thailand and staying there to be with a not blind Day is perfectly fine in present day? Something about that feels really wrong. Why was Day's blindness suddenly a problem for their relationship when he was blind when they got together?

I won't even go into how over done the "I'm randomly going aboard for a long time" thing is! Why do shows act like that's a super common thing to do?!?????

I'm gonna stop ranting, but the last two episodes had too many head scratching moments for me to not be very frustrated. The very end was fine, I just wish they had gotten there in a different way.

I'm gonna focus on the positives in this post because the series did a lot of things really well for 10 episodes. Jimmy and Sea were wonderful and both gave strong performances. Mhok was a walking green flag from start to finish and I loved that he seemed like a real person. Society and shows usually make guys like him the "bad" guy, but his circumstances never defined him. He was a kind, capable and good person who also dealt with hardships. So relatable!

I also loved that neither of Day/Night's parents were truly awful. Lots of BLs have terrible parents that ruin their kids lives just because they can. Both parents were flawed and made mistakes, but they were people who were also trying to navigate life and didn't always make the best decisions. Also relatable.

But for me Night and Phojai were the best characters. Mark is 100% a star. His acting talent is among the best at GMMTV and he proved it week after week in this series. I loved Night and after the big reveal, I loved him even more. I wish I had a brother like him. Phojai and Gee were real women, not desperate, obsessed pyschos, which is how women are usually depicted in BL. Phojai was such a complete person, whose life didn't revolve around the main characters. Her and Night getting a happy ending was pretty much the only thing that kept me interested in the final episode.

I loved this show when it showed regular people living their imperfect lives. And when it showed that "disabled" people don't need to be pitied and that life doesn't have to end just because someone has a "disability". That's what made it special, real and memorable for me.

I have zero interest in him. And his back story in episode 7 only reinforced my opinion that him and Sahara were not compatible. Yeah they were both on the swim team and cuddled a bit, but their relationship had no depth or honesty. They both had a crush, but I've been given no indication that they could grow together or be good partners for each other.

I really loved half of episode 7, but I wanted to fast forward through the other half. I know why Nekoto is in the show, but I just wish we got A LOT less of him and his inner monologue. I would have prefered that screen time be devoted to Shinji and Takuya.

But as my favorite series races to the finish line, I'm just glad Toki exists. He's has the purest heart and I'm so happy him and Sahara found each other 🥰🥰

This gets worse every week 😴. The "couples" have the same conversation every single week. Every aspect is so amateur that it kinda feels like someone made this as a joke just to see if anyone would actually watch it. I should drop it, but I won't 🤦‍♀️

P.S. Ryan needs a new agent/manager IMMEDIATELY. He deserves sooooooo much better than this disaster.

I liked the 3rd act.

I don't live in Africa or Asia, so I can't speak to the examples you gave. But I also want people to be treated fairly no matter what they look like. I know colorism happens all over the world. I'll stop there because this is a global societal problem that advertisers are using to generate profits. CC is just the latest example.

Thank you for your comment. When I was that character in episode 8, I immediately thought of the well known and obvious colorism/racism in Thailand and it made me really sad. Sad for a country full of people various shades of people who almost always have lighter skinned actors and idols. Sad for that character and all of the real people like him who are pushed to the back of society. And for all the kids who are told they are "too dark" to be considered attractive by companies who sell fake beauty (even models don't look as "perfect" irl as they do in ads) in ad after ad.

But to answer your question, Singto and Earth are the only big stars I can think of in Thai BL. But I know Earth had lots of difficulty in the beginning of his career and often faced colorism and attacks from viewers and I'm sure people behind the scenes as well. I've also heard of many BL actors using skin lightning treatments. And I know EarthMix had a skin lightning cream ad on EMS, which I think was really messed up.

But I've also seen a couple of darker skinned side characters in Thai BL. James Rusameekae Fagerlund and Sam Samuel Dapradit Akubia who are both Thai, are the only ones I can remember with speaking parts.

I'm not a fan of ZN, but I couldn't disagree more. ZN are one of the most popular couples in Thai BL and also the most profitable ship at Mandee. IMO the main issues with this movie and the CP shows were bad scripts. If these two were given a solid script, they might make a great series. Most Thai scripts are average or worse, I don't blame the actors for that.

Also, I'm sure many viewers agree with you, but their fans don't. As long as ZN want to work together and keep putting out content that their fans enjoy, I see no reason to split them up. Most Thai BL actors dream of getting a popular long term ship and only a fool would give that up after an average movie that barely anyone outside of their core fans watched.

This is a long response, but there's a lot more to Thai BL than what we see in movies/series. I think it's shortsighted to expect that a ship should split up just because you don't like something they've acted in together.

Inequality exists all over the world, it does today and it did in the past. Just like sexual harassment has happened throughout history all over the world. I'm not going to point out aspects of various cultures and say that's why sexual harassment occurs in that culture. There are a ton of reasons why it happens/happened, but the common denominators are humans and power imbalances.

I'm disappointed. I've been watching Asian horror longer than I've been watching BL, so I was looking forward to this. ZN aren't the best actors ever, but their chemistry is undeniable, so I was expecting the romantic elements to be solid.

Unfortunately for me, the horror was MIA for most of the movie and ZN were pretty much playing the same characters from Cutie Pie the only difference was it was sort of set in the past. Neither was given anything to do and NN's damsel routine got boring quickly. I'm rarely one to be mad about limited skinship, but more of it could have at least temporarily improved things. We barely got anything.

But for me the biggest miss was how they basically ignored the gender/gay politics of the era the story was set in. There could have been a very interesting story about the fact that the older generation of characters were given no choices and had to live within a society that had very strict rules for them and how that hurt all 3. But they took the easy way out, their backstories had no depth, they made the "villain" the same irrational woman we always see in BLs and rushed to a happy ending. With 6 gay characters, completely ignoring what it meant to be gay in 1960s and around 1920s Thailand COMPLETELY wasted the setting. They should have watched "Your Name Engraved Herein" for inspiration or just set it in modern times and called it "Cutie Pie with a Ghost", instead of wasting money on those 1960s era sets and costumes.

I really hope they stop type casting Zee and NuNew. NN's acting will never improve if he keeps playing the same character.

I hate to say it, but episode 8 was a bit of a miss for me. It felt like filler and the foreshadowing was sooooo obvious that I was just waiting around for a climax I wasn't invested in at all. Metha was the MVP of the episode for me, he was really funny.

Since Asia has about 60% of the world's population, it makes sense that it happens more in Asia. But it shouldn't happen to anyone anywhere.

It was a hard to watch. But I was glad Karan stood up for himself knowing what the consequences might be. I agree that more needs to be done to prevent these things from happening. But as long as the powerful people treat less powerful people as objects instead of humans, these things will persist. Unfortunately.

🥰🥰🥰 That's just me smiling ear to ear after watching the perfection that was episode 6! This week was filled with, angst, sadness and tears in so many series and my comfort series really saved the week.

I know I always come on here raving about how much I love the show, but this episode was really deep and powerful. Most office BLs ignore what it's like to actually work in an office, but this show does the opposite. Afternoon coffee, losing pens, hazing from older employees it's all so real and reliable. The sexual harassment was so wrong, but it also happens to A LOT of employees. I'm a sucker for realism, even when it's tough to watch, that scene was done so well!

I think the script is nearly flawless (which is sooooo rare in Thai BL) and the cast is INCREDIBLE. Jan is once again playing the ultimate fujoshi in the best way possible. And SingJan created a hetero relationship I'm actually invested in FOR ONCE. Plus New is convincingly playing a character that takes time to fall in love and doesn't just wake up one day in love with the other guy because the script suddenly requires it. And Tay not being another generic hot, rich, seme with no depth, who obsesses over the other guy for no discernable reason is wonderful. Seeing what made Karan start falling in love with Achi when he was at his most vulnerable moment, was really special.

This show is AMAZING!!!!!!! If the other GMMTV adaptations of Japanese mangas are half as good as this, 2024 will be an awesome year!

P.S. Junior and Mark were also great this week.

For me this show started as must see tv every week, but as it's gone on I've become less invested in it. But I'm this far along, so I'll finish it. IMO episode 9 was fine.

When you watch dozens of BLs per year, you know everything won't be your favorite. But I do like the unique premise. I just wish many of the series with the biggest new ships on social media, also had MDL pages where everyone could actually discuss the pros and cons of each episode without personal attacks from people who are new to BL and only care about protecting their favs from anything they perceive as criticism and people who rate every single series 8+. But I know that's not gonna happen.

I'm not gonna bother posting my thoughts on the plot of this week's episode, because I'm not in the mood to argue because I dared to point out any observations about this episode on a platform that literally exists to discuss series. But I will say, I wish the show had less irritating female characters. But I wish that for most BLs.