MidnightReader

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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Not the worst Vampire BL series I've watched

I liked what they were going for, but sadly, they couldn't do much with only 10 minutes per episode. It clearly had a limited budget, even though the effects weren't the worst I've seen.

For some reason, I found Lucifer saying "I'm also a Christian," really funny.

The fighting was laughably bad, and so short that it may as well have been cut out.

The kissing was . . . kissing, I guess. Chemistry wasn't there at all.

What was that ending? No, seriously, what was it? Is Minu alive or dead? If alive, how? And what were the repercussions of what Lucifer did?

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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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I went in with high expectations, and I wasn't disappointed.

ACTING: I found a couple of the actors acting to feel very by-the-book, but it honestly didn't bother me; they still did a good job. I particularly liked JJ's acting; I found his energy and facial expressions (especially his smile) to be perfect for a comedy series. This isn't a comedy series, so we didn't get much of that side of him, but you get a good judge of his acting from seeing this and the more serious side that he has for the majority of the show. I'd only seen JJ in "I saw you in my dream" and "The Next Prince" previously and I found his acting very stiff in "I saw you in my dream" which was understandable for his first role, and we honestly didn't get enough of him in "The Next Prince" but based on what little I did see I can tell he's really improved. On a side note, I love it when JJ speaks English, something about it is really cute. JJ & Net really know how to cry.

OST: Was pretty & not overbearing. They went with the mood really well, and the lyrics often matched what was happening in the story or between the characters.

PRODUCTION: Very well done. My only complaint is that there were some moments where we were just staring or rotating around the characters when we could have just moved on, and there are way too many moments where the characters are just standing in silence for too long. Even when we are getting internal dialogue from Nakun, the silence stretches long enough to be awkward.

PLOT: As time-traveling stories go, I think this is one of my favorites. I like how it worked. I do think they spent a little too much time trying to explain it as if it could logically be explained, but it was also nice to hear some of the different viewpoints. Normally, I'm really disappointed when the characters in a series have to investigate something because it feels like they either aren't doing enough or they are overlooking the obvious, which makes them look stupid. Not in this series. I liked it, and the historical setting (which I normally don't like) made it better. I liked that gathering information and proof was harder than it is today, where literally everything can leave a paper trail or video evidence. I also liked that Nakun was noticing the small details; he was really trying to Detective Conan this shit.

ROMANCE/CHEMISTRY: I liked both couples, but the chemistry wasn't anything explosive. For Nakun and Phop, it felt like a natural progression, but with Jom and Kaew, it felt very reserved, which I guess fits with the time period. For Thee and Pun, it didn't make me feel anything at all, and that's probably because we don't really see their progression from passive to interested. Besides My Stobborn, this is the first time I've been interested in the NC scenes.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Made no sense, but I found it funny.

SPOILERS:

I'm so used to the main character traveling through time mentally that it was a bit shocking that Nakun physically traveled clothes, jewelry, and all. It makes sense because Klao is dead and there's no living body for him to enter, and honestly, I think I prefer this because it's like Klao's death was the trigger for the time travel. It reminds me a little of Two Worlds, where they can only travel if the other world's version of themselves is dead. I'm assuming that age matters as well, but it was never brought up in all the explanations they were giving us, so I'm not sure.

When Nakun is randomly sent back to the present day, we spend a lot more time mourning than I expected. I love that we got to see everyone in the past mourning for Klao/Nakun, whereas a lot of series would just move on to them meeting again in the future and living happily ever after. We get to see Phop find Klao's body and then slowly waste away till he dies. I do wish we had gotten to know how long after Nakun returns to the past that it took. Nakun is given time (no idea how much) to heal and become more mentally stable after he returns before he meets Phop again. I did tear up a couple of times seeing both Nakun and Phop become so lifeless. Nakun at least had hope that Phop was alive and that he just had to find him, whereas Phop found Klao's body.

I was upset about them just missing each other because it's so overused, but it's probably in the novel as well.

(I may read the novel, actually.)

I also REALLY love that Phop used a wishing stone to wish to be reincarnated near Klao with all of his memories. He got his memories back on his 20th birthday as well, around a year before Nakun traveled back in time, and it was interesting to see him put the pieces together and then set things up for his trip to the past.

Nakun gets his ring back! It's apparently Phop's family heirloom, which I found interesting.

I would have liked to have seen more of their time together inbetween them meeting again and their marriage, but this is me wanting too much, and I'm aware of that. The "wedding," if it can be called that, was literally just an announcement and signing the paperwork, which they somehow made sweet.

What was the bracelet about? What did it actually do, if anything? We see it vibrate or something a couple of times in the first episode, and then it literally does nothing. Did I miss something? If I did, please, someone explain it to me because I was watching for this darn bracelet to do something or mean something in every episode, only for it to amount to nothing. Now that I think about it, this is the thing that annoyed me the most out of the series, and I thought all the scenes with the mom went on WAY too long, especially the one where Nakun realizes that she's the reincarnation of Klao's father. Why did we have to rotate around them, hugging for so long?

A couple of annoying things aside, I really loved this show.

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Perfect starter drama.

Starts great, but my interest started to wane around episode 7.

They somehow believably made this ridiculous bet work, and I think a lot of that had to do with how obvious it was that Ryo was down bad from the very beginning.

Acting was good, and they really embodied their characters. They also don't act over the top like in a lot of Japanese dramas I've seen, which is a major plus. Our leads also had good chemistry, and the cuddles were good. I love a good cuddle.

The stress relief scene in episode 2 is what made me want to watch the series. It's so cute! Zen also looks small and adorable in that moment. Sad to say, but besides this part, I'm probably not going to remember anything from this drama in a couple of months.

I love a good rivals-to-lovers trope, and this one was done really well; however, It's not memorable. I'm not going to be thinking of it at all now that I've finished it. I don't really care if we get more, even though if we get more, I do feel it's deserved.

Futami's actor was done dirty with that bowl haircut. I've heard he is really good-looking in the manga.

This is an easy drama to recommend to anyone, especially beginners, because it has good acting, production value, the chemistry between the actors is good, and it isn't too in your face with the NC scenes. It also has just the right amount of drama for someone who wants to watch a drama, but not be stressed out.

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Don't expect anything intense or dark

I saw a few clips of this show before I watched it, and it turns out they were all from the side couples' scenes. After finishing the series, I get why; they definitely had better chemistry than our main couple. Kisses were stiff either way. I liked the back hugs and cuddles, though.

I liked that I actually learned something from this series; I had never heard of Hyperventilation Syndrome or Aplastic Anemia before, and it was nice to learn more about them. I'll remember them, whereas I probably won't remember most of the other details of the show. Not that it wasn't a good show, but it was . . . safe. I feel like this show was sold as something much darker with a toxic, obsessive, and possessive romance, and it did the bare minimum with all of those things. I had really been looking forward to those darker tones.

OST was good; it made me feel like I was watching an anime at times.

The acting was good. I have no idea who played Xiaosi, but he did a great job. I loved his character and the relationships he had with Li and Zhai Qiu Yu. Li is his most important person, and he wasn't going to give Zhai Qiu Yu an inch.

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One of the better vertical series I've watched.

English voice-over may have made it better or worse, I'm not sure.

This would have been a good series if it had been longer and we had to sit with the betrayal. Xing was bullied by a fake and punished and neglected by her family for two years, but it didn't feel that way. It also didn't feel like they all had 12 years of loving each other because they turned on Xing so quickly. How could they believe someone they just met over someone they raised? Then their feelings suddenly flip on a dime again once they realise they forgot her birthday? It just didn't feel believable.

This is one of the reasons I don't like vertical series. This was a good plot; it just needed more time to flesh out the characters and make their actions make sense.

You're also telling me that this family never once looked at their camera footage in 2 years? Their cameras were also all perfectly placed to catch almost every evil act as well.

They wait for 30 years for her to wake up, only to have her pretend not to remember them. I mean, they kind of deserve it, but also they waited for 30 YEARS. I felt only a little bad for them.

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Teenage miscommunication with not enough begging for forgiveness.

I was very bored for the majority of this series. Anytime there was a flashback? Bored. There were dozens of them as well, placed literally everywhere in the story. Side couple time? Bored to yawning, which is sad because I liked Ki. My attention drifted so much during their scenes that it was a full-time job staying focused. Anytime Ji and Achi were in Ji's apartment? You guessed it, bored. Honestly, bored and annoyed.

The acting didn't help. Poppy was the best actor in the series. The girl who played Song did a good job as well. Junior was okay, but to be honest, his excessive smiling creeped me out, and I just wanted him to stop. None of the couples really had chemistry, and it left even the non-intimate scenes feeling stiff and awkward. Fluke did get better as the story progressed, and he even made me cry in episode 7.

I cried not because of Money (okay, maybe a little) or Achi leaving, but because I could tell how Ji felt truly small, powerless, and abandoned in that moment, and he wanted to hold onto the only thing he had left of Achi and was scared that his mom wouldn't let him.

If Achi hadn't lied and fled the country and left things unresolved, they could have been together MUCH sooner. I do understand it, though, because they are teenagers and they don't fully understand their feelings, let alone know how to express them. Communication is the most important and difficult thing in a relationship.

As much as I wasn't enjoying the majority of the show, Achi and Ji getting together felt very abrupt, and they had no problems with anything after. It was literally like 4-5 episodes of Ji pushing Achi away because he doesn't want to be hurt again, a couple of episodes of Ji giving in and letting Achi get closer, and then last episode BOOM together and happily ever after. I get that they both never stopped loving each other, and they don't want to waste any more time, but you'd think that they would talk a little bit. I don't consider the flashbacks to be them talking. Show us the flashback; we needed it, but show them talking things out. It would have also been nice to see if their being in a relationship had a positive or negative effect on their lives because of Achi's job.

In my opinion, Ji gave in way too easily. Make him beg a little bit! Achi's smile would have already had me creeped out, but this man showing up in the random places I am, and then at my home? Combined with the sudden kiss that he did not have permission for, it would have had me telling him off and avoiding him, and if he wouldn't leave me alone? Restraining order. But Ji is still in love with him and gave in to everything Achi wanted. Achi should have been working for forgiveness every step of the way, but it felt like he had to put almost no work at all into it because Ji loved him more than he loved himself.

The plot had a lot of potential, but not enough time was spent forming, breaking, and then fixing the main relationship. They did an okay job at breaking it, but it still felt very surface-level. It's hard to put my thoughts on it into words. Like I felt the pain Ji was going through, but I felt nothing from Achi. If they are limited to just 8 episodes, they should have just cut out the second couple altogether, given us a full episode ( & maybe a half) of just flashbacks, then spent the rest of the time with Achi begging for forgiveness, them working things out, and then given them a happily ever after. As it stands, their finally getting together was unsatisfying. I found myself actively not wanting them to get together because it didn't feel like Achi put in enough effort after the pain he caused. I don't care if it was 10 years ago, and Ji is still in love with him. It clearly left scars on Ji.

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Silent tears are the most emotional kind.

I cried a LOT, but I'll get to that later.

I'm going to start with the negatives! Which there are not a lot of. Pretty much the only thing that annoyed me was Cha wanting to give his grandson Zefang his body back, but puts zero effort into figuring out how. How did Cha know that drowning himself would even work? That is a big risk to take on the fly since it could have just killed them both. No one was there to help when he did it! I also would have liked to see Cha have to come to terms with the fact that the grandson he raised, the last member of his family, was truly gone. It didn't have to be long, just something.

Other than that, I wanted to know how Zefang lived at college up to the accident. No one liked him but Guan Ri Qing. Why? What did he do to everyone? What was his and Guan Ri Qing's relationship really like? Why did Guan Ri Qing know that no matter how loud he yelled, no one would come help? Was it because of Zefang? Guan Ri Qing? Or something else? Why did he like Hai Yuan so much? Everything must have been pretty shit for him to let Cha live in his body and move on. There is so much about Zefang's character that we don't know, and if anyone knows if it's covered in the novel, let me know.

I really enjoyed everything else. The acting was really good, especially Martin (Cha/Zefang) and Yaron (Guan Ri Qing), who really impressed me with his crying. Li Ting (Qian Sui) is also adorable. The cuddles are so good, and the nose rubbing in episode 8 was so cute!

I know a lot of people won't like someone like Guan Ri Qing just based on the first interaction, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him even after he locked Cha in the locker. (He was truly sorry about that as well.) But I like to put myself in the character's shoes, so even though I wouldn't act this way, I know that if my boyfriend came back from visiting family a whole different person, wanted nothing to do with me, and was clingy to someone who hates me, I would feel so incredibly hurt. He only wanted someone to love him, and for all we know, Zefang may have been the one person who gave him any real love at all. I cried when Zefang said goodbye to him, and when he realized he still hadn't told Zefang that he really liked him, and now it was too late. I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

I also cried during Cha and Zefang's heart-to-heart, like during the whole thing. I had to pause multiple times to wipe my eyes and clean my glasses. I'm a very empathic person, so I cry easily, but I haven't cried this much to a show in a few months.

Was the story lacking in giving us past context and the character building of Zefang? Yes. Did it hinder my enjoyment? Very little, I was mostly just left wanting more so I could fully understand Zefang's actions. Would I rewatch this series or a sequel? Yes and Yes. I was very reluctant to watch this series at first because I didn't think they could make the relationship work out given the age gap, or make me believe that the grandson would really just decide to move on when he has his whole life ahead of him. Somehow, they made it work.

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This is what people should be afraid of AI becoming

Am I the only one thinking that this is showing us what they are trying to do with AI? It's terrifying to think about not being able to tell a robot from a human.

There are two reasons I didn't like the romance (even though I enjoyed the show). 1.) The main love interest, Immortal Four, is an AI biometric robot. Being in a romantic relationship with a robot screams of mental problems that we know Luo Bushi definitely has (and for good reason). 2.) Luo Bushi literally had to buy him. I don't know how else they would have been able to be together, but this rubs me the wrong way, robot or not.

Don't get me wrong, the romance could be cute at times, and honestly, I wish that Immortal Four would have kept his "sadistic switch" glasses on, but I'm also a person with common sense, so I was thinking the whole time about all the things that could go wrong if this were a real-life scenario, God forbid, so all the dates and sugery sweet moments felt hallow because I was not only thinking about how emotion even worked for an AI, AKA it shouldn't, and if Immortal Four would need actual maintenance over the years. Lou Bushi keeps planning things like he was going to kick the bucket first when Immortal Four could literally die first. They don't really go into much detail about how the Immortal line of robots works, but I doubt their storage capacity is infinite. They can probably get viruses like a computer. Could they break a limb, say, from being hit by a car, and need replacing? Also, why do they bleed blood and not oil? Does that need to be replenished or replaced after so many miles, like a car?

These are only a few of the things that went through my head while watching. I'm too tired to list everything, it is 3:30 a.m.

Also, how was this kid made? Does he age pretty much normally? Why don't we see any pictures of him growing up?

The overly dramatic shots were so over the top that they became funny. I couldn't hold in my laugh at the dart-catching scene in episode 1. Thankfully, as the series progressed, these kinds of shots became fewer and fewer . . . or maybe I got so used to them that I stopped noticing? I'm gaslighting myself.

One of the little things that got very annoying was the inconsistencies. A phone not being where it should have been, a head tilted one way in a camera shot to be tilted the opposite way in another, a phone being dead and then suddenly not, and a very dark hicky being there only to be gone a couple of hours later. These are just a few examples, and they are very noticeable and just little things that didn't need to be there.

Acting was good. I normally don't like tsundere or masochist, but Luo Bushi was both without being overbearing or annoying. Kevin did a good job at playing a robot, and he really had the body built for it *whistle*. The characters were built up enough to make me care about them, even though the emotional investment was low.

Our second couple was cute, but I'm also really glad they didn't steal the show for me. Normally, I'm more interested in the second couple than our mains, and even though I liked Lin Jia and Zhen together, I was more interested in our main pair. And it wasn't just because Lin Jia's problem was solved almost right away by Luo Bushi, the chemistry wasn't there, or anything like that. It was because Luo Bushi's attitude and past hooked me from the very beginning.

Speaking of his past, I wanted more. The trauma is there, but I wanted to see the build-up to that trauma and how fast things went from happy to devastating. I wanted to see the aftermath of everything, about how Luo Bushi went from the well-behaved studious kid to the boy we are introduced to. There was a lot of wasted potential here.

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Do I need to give up on BL thrillers & Mysteries?

Every one of them has disappointed me.

Easily the best thing about this series was the cinematography.

OST was okay, I guess. I didn't pay attention to it half the time.

Watched a lot of it at X2 speed when the talking was really slow (this may have just been me), flashbacks, and when it was just music playing over moments with no dialogue.

Everyone did a good job on the acting, especially Jan (Dao) and Pu (the grandma). I hated both of their characters so much from the very beginning. The grandma was just a right bitch that I wanted to punt in the nearest lake. She was downright horrible to Tontharn for reasons that weren't his fault, and some of the problems she caused. She at least admitted that what she did was nasty, unlike Dao, who, until the very end, thinks she was in the right.

Now, Dao, I didn't like her because she was just shit at her job. I know that it was to spin the narrative, but boy, was she bad at it. I don't for a second think that she was 2nd in her class. Second from the bottom, maybe. I have 1 Forensic Science class from high school under my belt, and I knew more about how an investigation is meant to be run. This wasn't it! What made it more confusing was that the timeline of events was in order, but it was almost impossible to tell when things happened. I blame the writers for that. We start with two dead bodies found on the same day, and we aren't told the time of death, how they died, or if any evidence could be found at a secondary location, or if they were killed where their bodies were found. No one tried to backtrack their movements from the day they were killed, or if they had any other connections other than working for Botphleng's family. No one questions why this person killed and dumped two bodies in the "open" (they weren't really) like they were "playing with the police" and then stopped. I'm not saying killers can't just kill and stop; I'm just pointing out that no one thought it was strange. Did Thunphob die from the head wound or drowning? He was nothing but bones? Get an anthropologist to take a look. Also, his body was found a month before the series started, but how long had he actually been dead? Unless I missed it, no one reported him as a missing person. Then we have the fact that Botphleng could be a target, and she just doesn't give a rat's ass. She literally says, "He's strong, he can protect himself." Whether he can or can't doesn't matter; it's your job to offer him protection. He doesn't have to take it, but you have to offer it.

As a whole, crime investigation and general knowledge needed a lot of work. It would have been nice to see some of it as well, instead of Dao pulling information out of thin air like she was investigating, and not trying to spin the narrative. Honestly, for her reveal, it would have been better if she had been a likeable person who seemed to be trying to help, that way the reveal would have come as a greater shock. Just because most of the hate is going to the grandma doesn't mean that people are just going to think she's the killer. To me, she seemed too obvious a suspect, so I was suspecting everyone but her and her daughter. I also didn't think it was Tanu, Jen, Miles, or Tankoon, so that left very few people as suspects.

I'm going to be honest. I normally don't like Force or Books acting, I liked them in Perfect 10 Lines and nothing else, but they did a really good job in this one, especially Book. Book actually made me cry when he was telling Nim everything that he could remember. Not an ugly cry, but the silent kind that you don't realize is there until it's already fallen. His panic attack was also good.

Why did Thunphob continue using Tankoon's name with Botphleng after they got closer? Seemed weird.

Tankoon pissed me off (this was a script problem) when one minute he would say "I'll help you get your memories back" and then the next say "Your family doesn't want you to remember for a reason". PICK A SIDE AND STAY THERE. Also, who gives a fuck what the family wants? They are clearly hiding something shady if they have spent countless years making this boy forget who he is. Tontharn going back to the house at all after learning about the hypnosis was just wild and one of the stupidest things to do. No one put this boy in a horror movie.

Tanu also pissed me off by saving Botphleng's mom in the fire when his literal son had a large piece of burning wood on top of his unconscious body. I don't know if he knew Botphleng was in the burning building, but if he did, I'm doubly pissed off because what the fuck!? Why save the one person NOT directly in harm's way? Am I the crazy one?

The only surprising, and in my opinion, well-done thing done in this series was Tontharn being Botphleng and the reveal of it.

It would have been really interesting if the real Botphleng had followed Tontharn around as a ghost during the whole series, only to finally be laid to rest once the truth is revealed and his grave is placed next to Thunphob, then they move on together.

I've seen quite a few Thai thrillers, and so far the only one that hasn't disappointed me is Triage. I won't stop watching them completely, but I'm going to be very picky from now on. I went into this with zero expectations, and the only reason my rating isn't lower is because of the acting, and Botphleng's real identity reveal was well done.

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It had it's moments

Most of the good moments in this series were because the actors were doing their best with what they were given, which wasn't much. The script made things 10X more confusing than they needed to be.

I can't tell you how many times I thought the characters were dating because of something said, only to find out five to 20 minutes later that no, they aren't. I know it happened three times with just one of the main couples, which is three times too many. I was also really confused about the family situation with Per and Knight's parents since they all seemed to live together and have a good relationship. I legit thought that their dad was married to both their moms until the last episode, where we finally got some answers.

What happened to Mud? We see him a few times up to episode 6, then for some reason we never see him again. Why? There was supposedly some serious shit going on with his ex-bestfriend and brother, but he just never showed up again during or after the conflict. We don't know if he accepted the relationship, became friends with Knight again, or what happened. He just disappeared like he never existed. His part in the story was to fight Knight over his brother, whom Knight supposedly raped while drunk one night, and somehow the scriptwriters thought it was okay to never resolve that after Mud found out it was a misunderstanding. Mud never went to the cops, talked to his brother about it, nothing, and Knight never tried to explain things after the fact. It was already a poorly written plot point because not only would Mild have known that he had been raped, but who would sleep through that? He would have at least been in pain the next morning because I doubt a drunk man would have had any control. The flashes that Mild saw made actual rape feel cheap after it's revealed that nothing happened. Not only was it handled poorly, but they also stretched it out over two episodes when it didn't need to be. This whole part of the story rubbed me the wrong way.

Mayo was a plot point that felt forced and didn't have a good enough lead-up, considering he stabbed Per. We saw him for all of five minutes over the whole series before this point.

The main reason I decided to watch this series was because of a few clips I saw, and I've enjoyed series with low ratings, so I gave it a chance. I watched a lot of it at 2X speed because some moments had too many long, drawn-out stares between the characters, but it wasn't the worst series I've seen by a long shot.

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Too much fluff, not enough Investigating, and as you will find out, no mystery.

Let's start with the parallel worlds, which, for some reason, everyone believed Mum about without question. We have the main world, which is Mum's, then Dew's world that exists parallel to it. The interesting thing about the parallel worlds in this series is that it only works in room 609 from 12 am to 1:05 am. The month and years are the same, but the days are different; for Mum, it all starts on the 6th, and for Dew the 24th, and each day forward for Mum is a day backward for Dew.

I both love and hate this late detail. On the one hand, it adds a layer of complexity that I hadn't seen before; on the other, it creates a couple of problems with the plot. First, because everything works backwards in Dew's world, that means at the starting point for Mum, Dew already knows everything that has happened to that point, especially when we learn that Mum told him everything on Dew's day one. Why didn't Dew tell him everything when he learned they were working in reverse order? Search me. To build suspense and tension? Didn't work. When I found out that Dew knew who killed him and why all along, I was so annoyed for reasons I will get to in a minute. The second problem is that it took the suspense and tension out of the 2 or 3 times someone tried to or thought about killing Dew (we didn't know it wasn't real at the time). We knew it wouldn't happen because we knew when it would happen. Dew's fate was sealed, and there was nothing that would change it because everything Mum was doing in Dew's world had already happened for Dew, just not for Mum.

Now, to the reason I was so annoyed with Dew when I learned he knew everything. I won't go into too much detail as I don't want to spoil too much, but to fix everything, all he had to do was break up with Mint. That is it. He didn't need to get An to keep her busy & avoid her. Just break up. It wasn't like he liked her as more than a friend anyway.

Mint is a good, if not overbearing and insufferable, sister. Honestly, I was confused when I learned she's the younger one. I get that she cares, and Mum is the only family she has left, but she was a bit much at times. That being said, Dew's world Mint has some mental problems. Not only does she badger him to date her for literal years, but she also fantasized about killing him when she thinks he might be cheating on her. Breaking up never entered her mind! Mum's world Mint was just as badgery, but she at least was happy that Dew was honest with her. I don't think Dew's world Mint would have been, not based on the amount of yelling and refusal to listen.

An should have been able to tell her that Dew wasn't cheating on her since he was following the boy. I mean, he would have told her he was, but his telling her Dew was gay didn't work out too well either. He was a headache; the only time I liked him was in the little time that he was helping Dew with Mint. He was an angry, drunk 95% of the time, who seemed to do nothing productive but follow Dew around. No idea what Joey sees in him.

Honestly, I hated both Mint and An's characters. An because of how entitled he felt he was to know everything about Dew and Mint's relationship, just because he liked Mint, and he accused Dew of a lot of stuff based on messages Mint posted on her social media. I didn't like Mint because she couldn't accept that Dew only sees her as a friend. After years of constantly asking someone to be your boyfriend, it should be obvious that they said yes, so you'd leave them alone. If I had a friend who wouldn't take no for an answer, I would simply cut ties with them. It could easily turn into something life-threatening if it goes on too long, or maybe I just watch too many crime shows and am paranoid. Based on Mint's reaction, I would like to think I'm not being paranoid.

If the goal was to make me hate Mint, Emi did a great job.

The last episode has an alternate ending, which I sadly couldn't find to watch. The canon ending, Wake Up, saw our characters getting their happy ending, but a lot of it felt unrealistic, and it happened too fast. Mint accepts that her brother loves Dew and helps get them together, and the parents are told about the relationship, and they are okay with it. To make it even more convenient, Mum's world Dew also somehow remembers things that happened between them in Dew's world, and after an encounter with a Mum from another universe, he falls in love with Mum. Almost no time went into building up the relationship between Mum and his world's Dew.

As a side note, these guys are having sex on the first meeting, 3 different times, and at least one of them each time didn't think they were gay . . . Why? And one of those times, life or death information needed to be given, but no let's bone first! I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt.

Probably my favorite thing about the series was Mum morning Dew, whether he knew what happened to him or not, is unclear, but regardless, he knew they wouldn't meet again. Then he picks himself up for the Dew of his universe, only for reality to crash in. His distancing himself from the situation and the people involved was very realistic. The ups and downs of Mum's emotions and mental state were well portrayed by Ohm.

I wish we could have seen a bit of the fallout in Dew's world. It's clear what happened, but I would have liked to have seen the other character's reaction, not just a fade to black.

I also liked Wee and Game as a couple. A was a grade A asshole, and I'm glad that Wee has Game to support and love him.

Overall, the series wasn't bad; I just couldn't stand a couple of characters, and that really brought down my enjoyment of the show. I also wish there had been some actual mystery to solve; we had mostly cute couple moments, not detective work.

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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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