Yuna

One thing that I admire about MAME is how masterful they are in colouring something green when it was clearly neon red. Not many can do that. But the fact they were able to do it in both the stories that got adapted is a talent. Art majors are crying in the corner. Artists wish they could colour as well as her.

And what's even more masterful, is how people actually fall for it. It's amazing. Truly. I wish I could gaslight my audience into thinking a creep is the most wholesome sad boi ever. Actually jealous of MAME.

Now, let's break down this series as I understood it and see what went wrong.

Cir got in an accident one day, and after waking up from his coma he immediately finds Phu and believes he's his boyfriend. Then, he claims that he is from a parallel universe where they were boyfriends. However, we later find out that parallel universes don't exist and Cir was lying because when he was in a coma he saw a dream that he and Phu were together (and according to him felt so real) that he decided to make the executive decision to lie about it and convince Phu he truly is from another universe. Keeping up so far? No? Okay, great, because plot twist, parallel universes actually do exist and the "dream" that Cir was having wasn't actually a dream, but him teleporting into the body of another Cirrus from the universe before his and living that life for a while. Then plot twist again (which isn't really a plot twist, but whatever), the reason why Cir knew everything about Phu (down to his ROOM PASSCODE!!!) was because he has been watching Phu since high school. Then we get a bit of angst, some amnesia plot line, a confession in the middle of the road because these two fucking idiots haven't learnt their lesson after Cir got hit by a car TWICE, some family drama and finally a happy ending.

Got all of that? Great! Now let's discuss.

Let's start with PHUKAN by asking the most obvious question first. Why is Phu, a grown-ass adult, acting like a child? Why BLs can't move away from making their bottoms absolutely childlike is weird to me. It's like a weird fetish they all have. You can make your characters sunshine-y, but that doesn't immediately equate them to children. Take North for example from Fourever You. He's a sunshine character, and most definitely NOT acting like a fucking child. Just stop. Enough.

Many have said this before, and I completely agree with them, this is just Rain 2.0 but less of a brat and more naïve. Because how the fuck did Cir manage to make him believe in PARALLEL UNIVERSES??? I'm sorry, but this is the most unrealistic part of the show. If someone came up to you and claimed to be your boyfriend and proceeded to list EVERYTHING they knew about you INCLUDING YOUR FUCKING DOOR PASSWORD, you'd think he's fucking delusional and out to murder you, not that HE'S FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE! The entire premise of the show falls on the shoulders of Phu's naivety and that's downright stupid. You genuinely can't expect me to believe this whole ass 20 year old didn't realise Cir basically stalking him since high school. And that no one around him thought it was weird either.

And let's not forget how whiny he is. My dear lord give me strength because I was about to lose it within the first five minutes of the first episode and the show didn't even start. I don't know if it was Noeul's acting or if it was Phu's character, but whatever it was, it made wanna bash a brick against his head. And this constant whining coupled up with everyone around him babying him was not helping. Yes, his dad died. Yes, his mother loves his dad more than she does her own child and refuses to come back to Thailand. And yes, that can explain his naivety, but for some reason, the writers equate that naivety to him being childlike. You can be naïve but still be mature. You can be naïve but still have bloody common sense. Phu being naïve is not the problem, it's the writers using his naivety to make him a child and using it to explain his lack of thinking that's the problem.

The show already shows us that Phu has the tendency to always put others first, and I really liked that for his character. It added more than him being childlike. Now, they could have easily used that as the driving force of the show instead of making him fucking stupid. He thinks Cir is goddamn bonkers, agrees to go along with his ramblings of them being boyfies until he finds out what is actually wrong with him, then falls for Cir along the way. Done. Not so hard. But of course, the writers want you to believe someone who has developed their frontal lobe will believe a crazy guy who legit appeared are their doorstep after running away from the hospital. Yes, of course. So realistic.

And speaking of realistic... *cough cough* CIRRUS, come here my boy. Take a seat on that chair. Yes, that one by the wall. *Whacks him with a frying pan*

Listen, I'm all for tops that are completely enamoured by their bottoms. Really, I am. Nothing gets my feet kicking more than a man who is totally obsessed with you while being the greenest fucking flag possible.

What I do have a problem with is when that said man blatantly disregards their friends, your friends and his family. I don't find that hot. I find that disgusting. I don't like men who are jealous of their own family and friends when they get close to their partner. And whose entire personality is their partner. Like, I can't tell you a single thing this man likes doing except that he likes Phu. He doesn't work. Basically doesn't even attend his classes. Is always where Phu is and is constantly giving Phu's friend the death glare. And is so overbearing to the point where I'm uncomfortable. Honestly, if that works for Phu and he still loves the man, then great on him. At least he's not abusive.

But I'll tell you what he is though. A FUCKING STALKER!! Yes, you heard me and I'll say it again, he is a STALKER!! And not just any old stalker, but a class-A stalker. I'm not joking. Cirrus is EVERYWHERE. Like, everywhere. Phu could move to America without telling a soul and Cirrus would pop up in front of him in the middle of butt fuck nowhere. There is nothing cute about this. It's downright creepy. If he were to watch Phu from a distance in the places where they are together (like in class, the playground, the canteen...) fine, whatever, everyone does that when they have a crush. BUT TO ACTIVELY FIND OUT WHERE PHU'S DORM IS, WHERE HE BASICALLY IS AT EVERY MOMENT OF THE DAY, AND HIS PASSCODE??? Yeah, fuck off. That's fucking weird no matter how nicely you treat someone after getting together. And to top it all off he has evidence of his stalking by keeping a pile of pictures he secretly took inside a book he keeps out in the open. He's a weirdo and stupid. At least they address this problem with Toh in Secret Crush on You (and this dude had it worse), but no one here points out how weird this shit is. In fact, they all brush past it and glamorise it as him being so in love and boohoo isn't he so pitiful sad emoji sad emoji. Yeah, no. Shut up.

The genres of this show are Thriller, Romance and Fantasy. At first, I was so confused on why this was labelled as thriller when there were no thriller elements, but then I realised it's for the stalking. Should have been labelled as horror if I'm being honest.

And I haven't even gotten to the part where his reasoning for all of this isn't just cuz he was in love with Phu and is a coward to make a move, but also because he wants to keep Phu safe from his mother. And you know, the easiest fucking solution is to stay ten feet away and not move into the same apartment complex that your crush lives on. But what would I know? I've never been in love.

But this whole side-plot is so stupid. He traded away his freedom for four years of university, and after getting his degree he's basically not allowed to do anything out of his own free will. So why? Why the fuck would he start a relationship with Phu??? What was the plan here? Fuck around then ditch him? Because before the whole pep talk about Cir finally putting his foot down from Wim, he was still planning to uphold the rules/orders from his mother. And even in the end, before Phu finally got his shit together, he was still under his mother's palm. AND HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO SHOW HE WAS GOING TO BE HIS OWN PERSON!! This entire plot point of Cir finding his own freedom and getting out of his mother's clutches is so inconsequential to the whole plot of the show, and it basically went nowhere BECAUSE HIS OWN BROTHER TOOK HIS PLACE. WHO CIR HAPPILY FORGOT ABOUT!! We had a whole thing about how Cir would never let his brother take his place as his mother's property, but in the end, he just walks out hand in hand with Phu and never once looks back?? Be so fucking for real now.

And now onto the parallel worlds because I'm tired of typing about these two.

I haven't read the source material, but we do know that there weren't any parallel universes in it, and that Cir was making all of that shit up. And here is where the show did something good. Because if they just kept it as the original, then Cir wouldn't just be a creepy stalker, but downright delusional, manipulative, gaslighter and basically psychopath levels of get a restraining order against him. And while he is all of these already in the show, it's all mellowed out (apart from the stalking) by the fact that they included parallel worlds. Until the introduction of this, the pacing had been terrible and the romance just kept dragging with unnecessary plot beats to fill in the space. And it was because of this addition that I was finally invested in this show because something interesting was happening. Even if that investment came after 9 episodes.

HOWEVER. And yall know there was going to be a however. By making this addition, the writers shot themselves in the foot because they didn't know what else to do with it. They brought in such an interesting concept, only to fumble it in the end. The snippets of all the different universes that we could have possibly explored were amazing. And the lore that they were giving us was genuinely interesting. Until it just brought on more questions.

Why is Cir the only one who goes through parallel universes? Why did he travel into the body of another Cir while in a coma? And why did the other Cir travel into his? Is there a time limit? What makes them return to the original body? Is this a paradox? Because from my understanding, all these Cirs start making moves onto their Phus after finding out how amazingly they were loved by him and how wonderful their love was. So from this information it begs the question, who is the original Cir? Is there even an original Cir? Are they reincarnations of each other or are they separate entities? And the Cir dressed in black, the one from the previous universe, insinuated that none of the parallel universes had happy endings. Why? What happened? Why is this world special? Why did this Cir, the one that lied, stalked and manipulated Phu because he was a goddamn coward, get his happy ending, but not the Cirs that didn't lie and actually had a backbone? And these are just a few.

It's honestly just a shame that they didn't focus more on this part of the plot and only introduced it to add more drama into the story. It could have been such a good sci-fi mystery, but nope, we just stick to heavy handed romance instead.

Special mentions:

- Jin is my favourite character. Why does he have mind-reading powers? Fuck knows. When did he get them? Not a clue. Is he the only one with supernatural abilities? Couldn't say. For a second, I thought maybe we could be doing a supernatural children harvesting cult plot with Jin and his mind reading and Cir with his parallel universe jumping, but I guess that's too much of a plot. He was my favourite simply because I love the "I know everything but I'm just gonna smile, give out cryptic messages and watch the chaos ensue" characters. They're honestly my favourite.

- Wim was amazing, I wanted more off him. Just wish he didn't shout so much. It got annoying really quick. He deserved so much better than Cir as a friend. Dude does so much for Cir only to get nothing back.

- The mum. Fucking horrid. I don't see the point in her if they weren't even gonna try to give her a redemption arc or put her behind bars. This whole bullshit of, my children are my property and I'm using one of them to get back at my husband was ridiculous. We know nothing about her and everyone expects me to believe she's scary and powerful.

- Ozone. He needs to ditch his brother and find a better one. The fact that he got stuck in that household by taking his brother's place and no one even mentions him again is foul.

- The fiancé was so unnecessary. When are going to stop villainising exes and fiancés? Stop making them the scum of the earth who lust after the ML for the sake of drama! It's 2025, we need to stop this bs already.

- While I extensively complained about Phu's naivety/stupidity I loved when he actually stood up for himself when he needed to. He can get his praises for that.

- Boss as the Cir dressed in black was my favourite. There was something sinister about him and I whished we got more.

- Boss and Noeul definitely improved since Love in the Air. Noeul with black hair was so pretty and should keep that for his next series as well.

- The amnesia plot line. Why? Just why? Why are we bringing this trope back? Let it die in the trenches where it belongs. It was unnecessary and ridiculous.

This was a fun show for what it was, especially if you don't look too deeply into it. The characters are fun when you look past their glaring flaws, and the romance is quite cute if you decide to ignore the blatant elephant in the room. It's a MAME story so my expectations weren't that high to start with, and I knew coming in that Cir wasn't the green flag everyone portrayed him to be hence why my rating isn't lower. Set the bar low and go into it, and if don't like stalking your crush and then lying to them about it trope, then this will probably make you mad lmao.