Nell

The ending was for sure a flop. I rated it down to 7 for it as well. It was introducing more conflict for the sake of conflict, and just rushing to tie everything up fast with a neat bow afterwards when they could've spent the last two episodes just rounding up the characters and settling them in. Big misstep.

I agree with your statement, character choices should be frustrating and to put safety rails on every plot point takes away from a story.

That is not what the comment is talking about, though, at least not from where I see it. Because the story didn't present it as this brutal and cruel thing to do to your son, and it also didn't give us Xun An making the choice to forgive his father for trying to beat the gay out of him. It was just treated as this almost minor reason why the main couple didn't see each other for a few weeks and then it was done with. Narratively it wasn't handled well and it wasn't a satisfying plot line. A satisfying plot line doesn't have to be all sunshine and rainbows, it can be a devastating one, but it needs to make sense. The way the abusive father was handled was neither good nor it made sense, and it leaves people with the lingering impression that parental abuse is just something to get through and then brush aside without addressing. Does this make sense?

I think what they mean is that there is zero consequence that the father faced for essentially trying to beat the queerness out of his son? It's not addressed further after it happens and the dad is shown to be involved with their lives after the fact, like he didn't spend a few weeks beating up his child. And Jin Xun An doesn't seem to blame his dad for it either and just takes it, and is then fine.

I see what you're saying but the story and the show is saying "Well he is like this, oh look he wants to play chess with your bf now and he booked a restaurant so its all cool now no need to worry about it anymore, he's both your dad now :)"

The proposal in the final episode almost killed Bai Lang's character for me. I thought that the 'they were both planning to propose' bit was very sweet and fun, I literally encouraged one of my close friends who knew they'd be proposed to soon to pull the same trick and also drop down to a knee when their girlfriend did, and it went amazingly. It's such a fun way to break gender norms and revel in your queerness. Only for the moment to be shattered by Bai Lang completely dismissing the gesture and telling Jin Xun An to return his rings?? Rings that he probably put no small amount of thought and care into getting, because he's in love enough to want to spend their lives together?? Fuck off with that. You put both rings on and you tell that story until you die. It's not cute.

I get what you're trying to say, and I also think that people's efforts should be appreciated, but the way to do it isn't to tell people who didn't like it to not watch.

You're correct, there are dramas out there with worse plots and worse acting, but that doesn't make this a gem, because that's not how this works. It's like saying 'Well Joe had no correct answers on his test, but Bill had two so that basically means Bill is a genius!' No, they both failed maths.

As to why people keep watching a show that is bad? Plenty of reasons, maybe they expect it to get better. Maybe they find it amusing. Or maybe they want to have the full scope of the story so they can come here and leave an honest review that might help others.

I agree with this review wholeheartedly, but I do wanna point out one thing about your comment - I'm a queer person and my friend group is almost exclusively other queer people too. It's a phenomenon that occurs more often than you'd think, we just gravitate together