MidnightReader

Trigger warning for self-harm and non-consensual sex

This series can be very frustrating for the first 5 episodes because we go from the past to the future a LOT. A ridiculous amount, really. None of it is in chronological order, which makes the story more confusing than it needed to be. It's enough to make someone want to drop the series after an episode or two, but besides this, I felt like it was a solid series. The jumping from past to present pretty much stops by episode 6.

The only other thing I didn't really like was the characters Ken and Lavid (Rawit) being so stupid. The dads are just as bad. I'm not a fan of stupid characters or ones that lack common sense. I deal with that enough in my day-to-day life. It doesn't bother me to the point of mentioning it often, but Ken is literally out here helping run to companies (into the ground but still) and trying to outmaneuver Kelvin & Vier. It just didn't seem believable that either of the fathers would have given him any power to make company decisions. Lavid just doesn't have common sense.

The GL couple was really good, but it did feel like their scenes were filled with literal filler sometimes. Nana kicks ass! I love seeing a female character who can fight.

The OST was great, but for the main couple's NC scenes, it was a bit wild. In a good way. I was not expecting them to use those songs. Also, the kissing noises? I felt like I was intruding.

I loved the acting all around. Peat didn't have many facial expressions, but I don't think the role gave him much room to give that many. I could tell Fort was really enjoying this role, and his crying was captivating.

Non-consensual sex in episode 5? Not sure. The scene cuts off, but it hints at it, so right now I'm going with yes.

There are several scenes where Kelvin hurts himself and has a panic attack. I'm assuming it was a panic attack since I don't know what else it could have been, but it was very tame in comparison to the ones I've had. As for hurting himself, Kelvin cuts himself a lot in the months after he and Vier go their separate ways, and Peat's response, the relief he gets from doing it, is accurate to how it actually feels when you cut yourself. How do I know? I've done it before when I was feeling very stressed and was in an environment that I had no control over, and it was a way of getting things to slow down so I could breathe. Don't worry I haven't done it in years, and I'm mentally in a much better place. The point is, it was realistic.

This show would be interesting to rewatch now that I have all the pieces to the story.

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I had no expectations, but was still disappointed

The best thing about this series is that it shows how AI is ruining creativity and taking jobs.

All the actors did a great job, but good acting can only carry a show so far when the plot and the script aren't pulling their weight. To me, Dew and Gun just didn't have any chemistry, and it felt less like love and more like Pheem imprinted on Jira.

The plot was hollow at best and felt full of loose ends, especially regarding Jira's "job". The script spent more time on the artistic side of things when it should have worked more on the "plot" and developing the characters and their relationships.

I couldn't connect with or care about any of the characters because we really didn't get to know them. I honestly couldn't remember their names until around episode 7, when the show actually started to get a little interesting. Which is sad.

The friendship between Koh and Pheem just fell apart with neither of them actually caring, and I didn't care either because it had no history behind it, even though we are told they've known each other for 20 years. I believe Pheem had Stockholm Syndrome, but they didn't really do enough with it. It's like Jira just existing took him half out of it, and Koh breaking them up cured him. More time needed to be spent on his healing, and not being used like an emotional yo-yo.

Watching this honestly felt like a waste of time; I gained nothing from it, not even enjoyment.

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Bored and Disappointed

I had no expectations going into this show. That being said, what the hell happened?

First off, the little things. The speed effects & CGI were bad, and the OST was way too loud at times. Also, was that last scene filmed in front of a green screen?

The first couple of episodes were alright, but by episode 5, I found myself doomscrolling while the show played in the background, and I started watching it at x2 speed just to get through it.

I lost count of the number of times I wanted to DNF this series, but I didn't because of Neo. Then they kill him unnecessarily. They could have saved him if they wanted to. Why was Mark trying to heal him while he was still impaled? If it was too late for healing once you pulled him off, turn him. And you can try to argue that they needed permission because they can't die afterward—bullshit. 1. I'm sure Tonkla would have chosen to live & 2. I'm sure taking their head off or piercing the heart, even without having "golden blood," would kill them. I thought about dropping the show after he was killed by Nakan (whom I was hoping to see him have a romance with), but at that point, there were only 3 episodes left, so I pushed through it.

The plot was also way too predictable. I should not have known that Thara was after Golden Bloods for her own personal gain, episode 1. That twist doesn't even get revealed until episode 10. Was anyone really surprised by this? Nakan wanting to take her down because she killed someone he loved was also not a surprise at all. The biggest surprise was that they actually killed Tonkla because he was the only good character in the whole show, and killing him off was just a stupid decision. They should have just gone with an enemies-to-lovers trope and at least tried to save their sinking ship a little instead of letting it capsize.

The world-building was very surface-level and made everything feel fake. The lore of vampires is never properly explained, but we have no idea what normal vampire abilities are because they are all treated as expendable. Not even the important ones are that impressive tbh. The Mortal Instruments did a better job building up its vampire world in its first book, and they are barely a part of it. To me, this was just lazy writing. Everything in the fantasy genre needs rules; this series took the pre-established rules we know and threw them out the window, and replaced them with nothing. That didn't make the vampires feel powerful and impossible to kill; it just left me as a viewer feeling like no one wanted to put any effort into building the world or writing it into the script, so they just gave us nothing.

I've liked Gawin's acting in the few things I've seen him in, but with this series, I didn't care for it. I believe that is largely down to the directions he was given and the script giving him very little to work with.

Besides Tonkla, because he was just a good self-sacrificing person, I didn't care about any of the characters, not even Dome, and I love AJ. I spent more time questioning Tong's IQ and common sense than I should have had to, and everyone else was just uninteresting. Mark was interesting as he slowly became more human, but not enough to draw any interest in me. I do wonder why Thara was so inhuman since she's drained multiple Golden Bloods. Wouldn't that have made her more human and feel some kind of guilt? Did something happen? Is it because of how old she is? How old is she really? Who was the first vampire, and how did it happen? These small things could have built the world up a little, but too little, too late.

NC scenes were probably the best part of the series, and I honestly only looked up from my phone if they were talking, but it wasn't enough to save the series. No matter how many they try to shove in there in the end. It felt like there was one or two in every episode after they "did it" for the first time.

Lastly, the sleeping beauty moment in the last episode? Please never do that again. Or if you are going to, make it make sense and don't half ass it.

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I was not ready!!!

It took me around 2 hours to finish the first episode. Why? Because I was either in such disbelief at what I just witnessed and had to watch the scene multiple times, or I needed to just take a few seconds for a mental reset because I wasn't ready for the things that were happening. It was a lot to take in when I wasn't expecting this level of intensity from a GMMTV non-OFFGUN BL project.

Safe to say I loved every second of this BL crime version of 10 Things I Hate About You. They even kept the 90s vibe, which was appreciated, and included a bonus 50-minute short of 10 Things You Shouldn't Do In A Prison.

OST was good & fit each scene really well. (I normally don't bother commenting on the OST unless it was really memorable in a positive or negative way.)

JJ being in an actual relationship in a series is already a treat, but with another man? I was very happily surprised.

The plot hit a couple of slow areas in the pacing around episodes 7-9, but otherwise, each hour-plus-long episode flew by. The relationships felt both like they got enough time to develop and didn't, especially the beginning of Style & Fedal relationship. I wasn't surprised at the "plot twist" regarding Bison and Fedal's parents. To be honest, I knew who their killer was in episode 5 & was 50/50 on whether Keen knew about it. The truth behind Fedal's ex-boyfriend didn't surprise me either.

The only part of the plot that I wanted to speed up and just be done with was when Style and Fedal just walked into someone's home, held them at gunpoint, married the couple, and then ended up holding them at gunpoint again. It was such a long scene that I was more than done with it, but I understood the point of it. How did they even go from holding them up to marrying them?

THEN WE HAVE THE LAST EPISODE! 1 hour and 20 minutes long, and we spend almost 50 minutes in prison doing things that should not be done in a prison! I'm honestly surprised they didn't just time-skip over the prison time. Especially considering they tied up a loose end that I thought was already tied.

All the actors did a phenomenal job, especially in the crying scenes. I already knew I was going to love First and Khaotung because I've loved them in everything. Joong is always solid, and it was nice to see him play a more aggressive character. Dunk is the one who really shook and impressed me. I never would have guessed that he could pull off a bold, flirty, sassy, shameless character so well. Shy, blindly in love, Khaotung, and shameless, flirty Dunk are my new favorites. I didn't expect to enjoy Fedal/Style's couple more than Kant/Bison, but I did. I loved both couples, but I found myself more invested in Fedal/Style. Probably because Fedal was more antagonistic, and I probably have a type.

Also, can we just get more of Dunk in a crop top? His showing off his waist was another thing I couldn't get over, and sometimes it produced some funny reactions. Dunk showing off his waist and Khaotung throwing his leg over First shoulder in episode one was almost enough to take me out. Like DAMN let me BREATH.

SO yeah, I loved the series and will definitely rewatch it someday.

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It's a rated R Thai YA novel

Honestly, I will never be able to look at a paintbrush the same way again. Which is unfortunate because I'm an artist.

Right off the bat, this series reminded me of The Princess Diaries with its hidden Prince, overly light colored floral outfits, and others vying for the throne. Then the Emmaly crest reminded me of the Hogwarts crest. We had a Hunger Games-esque archery competition. So the story was very YA coated. Until you got to the NC scenes, that is, which were WAY too long and I skipped.

I sadly didn't skip early enough to miss the paintbrush scene.

The CGI was very distracting. It wasn't bad, but it was something that I would expect to see in a WINX Club live-action. Some of the locations didn't match either, which was weird.

Fashion was great except for Khanin's wardrobe. I'm now convinced that Nunew would look good in anything because those clothes didn't look like they would have looked good on anyone.

Acting was great all around. There wasn't a single actor who felt like they were simply playing a character. This was very impressive since the 2 supporting couples didn't get nearly enough screen time. Jay and Calvin barely got the time of day, and Ramil and Paytai were in such an interesting situation that I would have loved to have seen the writers do SOMETHING with. Speaking of JJ, I really loved his singing. I was very impressed. These four did a lot with their characters in the small amount of time they had.

I loved Chakri. I think every time I laughed in this series, it was because of him.

The person behind the rebellion didn't shock me, but I didn't guess who it was because they diverted my attention well. The butler, being a part of it, didn't surprise me a bit. I can only imagine the shit he had to listen to over the years. I just don't understand why they didn't off the king in the years that Khanin wasn't there. I understand wanting to make someone suffer, but killing 2 mothers and failing to kill a baby isn't the way to go. You can't blame that on the king. That's 100% you. And if the goal was to make all of them pay, why didn't they target the others at all in the beginning? Why wait 22 years? Why target Ramil only after failing to kill Khanin? The plot felt very weak in this regard.

I expected there to be more action. More of a cat-and-mouse chase, but Khanin and Charan get to safety relatively quickly, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

Don't get me started on Ramil's father; that man is a real piece of work. Besides the king, I hated him the most.

From episode 1, I wanted to push the king into the grave. The man didn't die soon enough. He must be rolling over in his grave after Khanin left Emmaly and his title behind. Still don't understand why Khanin gave up his title unless he just really didn't want it. (Which, yes, I know he didn't.) I know he trusts his birth father to handle things, but it would have also given him the power to help. Maybe it also restricted him from leaving the country for school or something? It didn't seem like anything changed other than that he doesn't have a right to the throne now. Maybe I'm missing something. They didn't really give us any explanation for why Khanin chose to do what he did. But we got another NC scene! woo . . .

I really wish they would cut back on the NC scenes when we need more explanations, world-building, and character/relationship development. I feel that way, not only about this series, but about many series that I've watched.

Also, we can't ignore the fact that this generation is the end of all four family lineages, lmao.

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Good, but I enjoyed H2H more

My only complaint is that the series felt longer than it needed to be. In episode 8, I felt like we were getting a lot of filler and NC scenes just to expand the show out to 12 episodes, and by episode 10, I was watching at 2X speed so I wouldn't DNF it because I found my attention drifting.

Despite that, I liked the acting, except for JJ's, because it felt very stiff, but I've seen him in other things, and it's been fine, so it's probably because it was his first drama, or that's how they wanted him to act.

Didn't care about the singing. I rarely do unless music is the main focus of a character or plot, like Kim from Kinnporche, or ThamePo & Cutie Pie.

I love this kind of plot because it dives into something that many people experience, but don't really talk about. I have these kinds of dreams a few times out of the year, and it always leaves me feeling disoriented when they start happening in real life, and I think this show captured that feeling very well. I also like that in this series, it's an inherited gift.

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OMG please stop making vampire stories

If you are going to do a story centered around vampires, please take the time to build up the world. Logically would be nice.

The Lore is better than in My Golden Blood, which basically had no lore, but it's all over the place and felt like it was more to make sure everyone got their happy ending than to make actual sense.

First off, the vampire city was called Thaiwilight City, so already we were off to a great start (not). And for some reason in this city, they have a population problem, so no romance! Especially not the gay kind, because for some reason, the older vampires are homophobic even though that would help them with their problem. Couldn't they have come up with a form of birth control?

The vampires are literally humans that grow fangs to drink blood, and have a special city to themselves. You can kill them by breaking their neck. I'm still not convinced they actually live longer. Explain the passing of time, please, because if it does move more slowly, you did a piss poor job of showing it. In the vampire city, 100 years is 3 years in the human world, but when we are going back and forth between the worlds, it's like the passage of time is the same.

A human can become a vampire by either falling in love with a vampire and the vampire bites them, which will then turn that vampire into a human, or by a human who is dying being bitten by a vampire that loves them. A vampire can also become human by biting another vampire they are in love with on the full moon (does it have to be red?). So, for some reason, love is always involved, and it would have been interesting if this had been the reason for the "no love" rule instead of population control.

Why does Phum have a human counterpart? He is from the human world. He was once human before he was tricked into being a vampire, so he should be his own counterpart. I'm still confused on this point. The whole part about that counterpart having to be dead for them to go into their bodies is also very confusing. I mean, it takes the guilt away from them taking over their bodies, but why does it then make their bodies "vampire bodies"? It's an instantaneous process as well, which makes no sense if their bodies are changing at all. If they are "replacing" their human counterparts, you would think they would just be able to enter the human world once the counterpart died without taking over their actual bodies. I'm assuming it was done the way it was so that they all had a human life already set up for them, but it frustrated me throughout the whole show because they never explained how it works!

What was the recipe for the red wine? Nothing in your world makes sense, so don't tease me like this!

As far as comedies go, I did laugh a few times somewhere in the middle of the series, and I honestly don't think this series could have been good if it weren't a comedy. I feel weird saying that about a vampire show.

Frank and Lee have good chemistry. All the actors did a great job; I honestly don't know how some of them kept a straight face while saying some of their lines. I also have a new appreciation for Mod; his acting really stood out to me in this series.

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Waste of time

This is my first review on here, so I'm sorry if it's all over the place.

I watched this drama despite the poor rating because I like watching shows about time travel. Said time travel was pretty much the only thing I liked about it.

First off, the camera work was all over the place, giving us angles we didn't need, and the slow-motion shots (which I don't like in a good drama) were WAY too long.

The only thing I have to say about the actors and make-up is that Marc's eyes are bloodshot throughout pretty much the whole series, and it was very distracting.

The pacing of this show was okay at first, but by episode 7, I was watching it on 1.5 & sometimes 2x speed to get through it because I was interested to see how they would end it.

Soda's character is a silmball. He was already an asshole for hitting on someone else's boyfriend, but then he encouraged Bamee to treat Kiao like shit, and fired Kiao so he wouldn't be around Bamee.

The series could have also just been 10 episodes. We didn't need the drama of Bamee getting amnesia. In fact, the way he was acting during that time is something that would have driven me back to the past if I were Kiao.

Now to the biggest problem. WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT ENDING!? How was anyone working on this project okay with it? Did no alarm bells go off, or flags go up when they read the script? Why? It could have ended in several better and less creepy ways. Kiao could have just never returned to the past and lived his life the best he could. Everyone could have forgotten about each other, and they all live happily ever after in their separate lives. If Kiao needed to remember because it was a lesson than he could have moved on romantically to someone else! Why did we have to end this with a 40+ Kiao kissing Bamee who is under half his age!? You can't tell me that anyone is going to be happy about their relationship when they find out. Also, Kiao is so much older that there's a major power imbalance in the relationship, and unless something happens, Bamee is going to live a long time after Kiao dies. I just don't understand what they were thinking. Were they thinking?

Overall, this series was a waste of my time and left me feeling disappointed. CREEPY ending with no satisfaction.

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This series is a merry-go-round

First off, I didn't really pay attention to the music; it was nothing special.

When I say the series is a merry-go-round, I mean it. This plot goes in circles. We start out with our main character, Keen, facing a lot of personal turmoil and money problems because his father borrowed money from a loan shark, Than is used to solve those money problems. Immediately after that problem is solved, someone else has money problems with a different loan shark. How is this problem solved? With Than and everyone else at the gym fighting in a tournament. This happening twice already felt very repetitive, and I looked at episode summaries, and sure enough, it was going to happen again, so I dropped the show.

Do I think the show is bad? No. I've watched way worse. The thing is, I've finished those shows because they weren't as time-consuming as this one. If these episodes had been shorter, around 40-50 minutes, I probably would have continued. I was already watching it at 2X speed. But no, all but one of the episodes I watched was over an hour. One was almost an hour and a half long! That it too long to sit in an episode, even if I hadn't been bored with the plot.

I couldn't even get into the relationships because both of them just fell together with no real buildup. They weren't together, and then they were so fast that I had to pause and try to figure out where in the hell the attraction started because there was no tension and only a couple of "moments" that hinted at them liking each other. From the moment Keen and Than got together, it also got very physical, between them and the second couple's NC scenes. It became repetitive, and they became moments that I only half paid attention to. Than also pays off Keen's debt after barely knowing him for a few weeks, which felt very unrealistic. Ait and Win will probably have problems down the road because it seems like Ait was doing something shady for his "boss" (probably a loan shark if I had to guess), but I wasn't interested enough to continue the series just for that.

I didn't care enough about the characters or the plot enough to continue the series. The show was missing a strong antagonist that our characters could work to overcome. Instead, we are thrown from one person causing a problem to another with no link between them, which made it feel like the plot had no clear direction or goal.

The actors overall did an alright job, I don't really have any complaints. They did what they could, given that the characters they were playing had no real depth.

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