Kiwi

Splitting hairs. I was really careful with discussing book stuff only under spoiler tags for Khemjira, and a good thing too, as everything I ended up talking about showed up in the show. Please add spoiler tags.

Zaleng is so pretty it’s distracting. I love that his brother is a Likay artist. I’m reserving judgement on the drama, but I like the likay context. It’s a lesson in Thai culture, which makes it worth watching for now.

I have a feeling about how this might play out. I’m really enjoying it, but I’m not sure if it’s on that basis, or for what I’m actually seeing. Either way, the writing and acting a more naturalistic than a lot of Japanese romances I’ve watched so far, and I’m loving that. There are fewer of the !!! moments where characters get all shouty and overreactive, which I’ve come to expect. Up until a few years ago I watched Japanese film, but not TV, and even then only their samurai and gangster films, so the cutesiness and stylised nature of TV romances is something I’ve had trouble with. This is more my speed. It feels more real, despite being in a SF/fantasy context.

We’re subtropical here, so it’s less frequent, but I love summer downpours :)

It happens. Ever heard the term “microburst”? They’re fun when it’s warm, such as in the tropics or subtropics during summer.

Since this is not made in China I’m excepting it from my mainland boycott, and it’s a ride. you need to be able to take on board the humour, because it’s quite dark. For a debut it’s a stonkingly intense role, but he’s pretty fabulous in it. The character is a sociopathic one, as well as a very broken one, and he grasps it with both hands. He’s a walking red flag and drops triggers for the first few episodes at least, but check it out at some point. If you’re boycotting Chinese dramas in a blanket way, save it for another time. If you’re okay with Chinese series off the mainland, make it sooner. It’s like watching a very beautiful, slow motion demolition job.

Machiavellian. Definitely Machiavellian.

Hard floors are a blessing…

There are lots of warm, fuzzy looking dramas coming out of GMMTV. I’m keen. I need fluffy mind candy right now.

Oh wow, from the trailer thumbnail I thought it was a heteromance. Zaleng is spectacularly pretty.

This looks like a warm fuzzy 🐻

Incest is a social convention set up to protect from genetic in-breeding. Cousins who aren’t reproducing are hardly in the same moral, genetic, or social red zone as a heterosexual pair that might do so. Do we even know if they think they’re first cousins, or something more distant? To me a cousin could be at a far greater remove than that and still be called a cousin. I guess it does depend on language though. If they’re cousins at a remove, or second or third cousins, incest doesn’t really arise, in the eyes of the law, or the Christian religions. Nothing I’ve seen, as someone who doesn’t speak Korean, would lead me to assume they’re first cousins, maybe you know more?

Sea’s character is just like me as a kid. I’m so looking forward to seeing this.

It is if the gendering is correct.

Okay, that’s very meta…

In video games giving your main/player character a character deficit works to put your audience behind their eyes. Romantic dramas need the lead to be their own entity. I not only had no clue of his motivations, likely behaviour, or personality, all my attention was drawn away from him to his three suitors. Each of them had a personality, a goal, and enough individuality to interest and attract me. They all annoyed, amused, softened, frustrated, and interested me in turn. The lead, was just a cute little object for them to contend over. Towards the end, I was honestly more invested in the relationship between Yeonsang and Gyeon, that any between Doha and anyone else. I think they’d have been a good match.

The app has completed greyed out for me. I had to mark it completed in a browser.

That is the straightest queer romance ever, and I don’t mean the lack of intimacy.

I’m viewing it as “bad boy gets an object lesson in morals from his crush”, because I think it’s going to end with Shulang on top, with Xiao getting schooled, with plenty of damage. It seems really tongue-in-cheek to me, which lightens up what could end up being very dark otherwise.

thanks 🙃