TianQi

Well, we've been building up tensions (in a good and even way, I think), but there are only four episodes left, so I'm expecting things to get really good from here on out...let's see!

I've seen this drama like 10 times...what's wrong with me? haha

Story wise, well, it's a "love triangle", so I suppose we all start watching it with the assumption that it's doomed, right? Well, I don't think the ending was SO terrible given the situation. I really enjoyed the music and how good-looking the actors were (the eye candy made otherwise boring scenes much better). I didn't like the acting most of the time. I feel Tom Wang's acting gets a little better halfway through, but watching Charles Lin was cringey sometimes, even if I do think he's the hottest guy in this drama. We could have gotten a fuller story and more character development out of this too. I didn't feel like the character of Hai Qing made much sense. I understand that he'd be really interested to see Yan Fei after meeting him once, making out with him for five minutes then never seeing him again for a year, but the way he just jumps over to him from Ping Jun without really ever showing remorse or regret is just...odd. At one point he says the one thing he's certain of is that he doesn't want to lose Yan Fei (and this was around ep 6-8, I wanna say). If that's the case, then the question of "Do I really want to be with Ping Jun?" Never really existed. As soon as he met Yan Fei again, it was over...they didn't need to drag that part of the story out. It just makes Hai Qing look like a worse person.

I'd watch it again if someone else wanted to watch it with me, but I would do it in large part because of the eye candy and the shots of Taipei (one of my favorite places to visit and the bar in the movie is an actual gay bar I've been to a few times, good memories).

I feel like there are two types of Chinese BL. The first type is shows like this, Addicted/Heroin, and Like Love. These are stories in which it's clearly indicated that the leads are "in love". The result is angsty fans wanting to see more intimacy (not just physical) and the government cuts a lot of the story out so it ends up a little sloppy. The second kind is like Love Is More Than A Word, Till Death Tear Us Apart and Men With Swords. It's never properly said that the leads are "in love" and the relationships between them are clearly defined, but in spite of that, the romance and love shines through.

So, I agree with you on this one, Liz. The ending was almost unforgivable. I wouldn't say it was a "waste of time" exactly, but I definitely can understand why you say that.

Pretty sure Zach Lu was the lifeguard at the beginning of Dark Blue and the Moonlight.

These were awesome for me for a few reasons:
1) They're REAL stories about the experiences of gay (mainland) Chinese men. With the government being so restrictive, we rarely get any insight into the average lives of China's LGBT community, so these little 10 minute windows were lovely.
2) They're not BL, but just gay short films. Most gay Asian films fall into the BL category and I love BL, but it was refreshing to have films about normal gay people.
3) For as short as they were, the cinematography was on point.

Sí.

I, overall, enjoyed this series. They pretty much did what they could in terms of intimacy given China's censorship. I have a question for people who read the novel though: Is Yuan Zong's character as one dimensional as it is in the show? I mean, it's for me to believe that anyone's serious and cold about everything.

I really liked the Da Yu-Zhi Shui couple. They actually did seem like a real couple to me even if Da Yu did spend a lot of the time being in love with Xia Yao. Are there any good BTS of this show? I wanna see more of the actors. Gong Jun's smile is one of the best things on earth. haha

If you think this was heavy, you should watch 'A Frozen Flower'...another Korean movie that deals with homosexuality.

This was the first Thai BL series I ever watched, so I think I'll always have a special bias toward it. This season's definitely better than the first. I love all the couples/pairings, but it's a little sad that we don't really get to see more develop from the others (probably because there are just too many couples haha). If you like BL and can handle high school level humour with adult level social issues, you'll like MIR.

For being the second to last episode, episode 29 was very uneventful. :/

" it's just kinda weird how this entire group of friends are all(most) gay but no one wanted to talk about it " haahaha with this one sentence, I fully understand your entire point hahha you're totally right

Gay means you're a guy who doesn't girls. Of the four main couples/eight main people, we technically only know that two of them are actually interested in girls to begin with. They are Fuse, Frame, and Mo. When it comes to Tee, Rodtang, Nine, and Book, it's never actually that they ever liked girls anyway. Also, none of the boys ever who did have a gf/likes girls says "Ok, I'm gay now", it's more just they fell in love with a guy. Just because Mo, Frame, Fuse are in love with a boy in the show, it doesn't mean they don't like girls anymore. You can like both. haha

If you mean to say that you just don't like the fact that all the main characters in the show are homosexual relationships, that's one thing, but we can't really say they "turned" gay.

But yeah, I really did enjoy the actress who plays Fuse's sister. I wish we could have seen more of her. She was great.

The drinking thing also ran across my mind, but technically, it's not really "illegal" anywhere to show teenagers drinking or engaging in pseudo-sexual activities. I think during filming they were all at least 16, but tbh they look younger than that so I get the awkward feeling.

I guess it's strange in that the actors are actually high school-aged instead of casting 21-23 year-olds to play 16 year-olds which is more common.

Anyone know where to watch this? The link below's not working.

I think we're off to a good start. The characters each have strong personalities and you can already see who is attracting who. Production quality is decent, so I'm looking forward to more of that and because of how well-rounded characters have been in previous instalments of this series, I'm interested to see how these characters will grow.

Lovely story with very passionate leads

Completely agree! This is one of the few shows in which I like feel like I love all the couples equally. One couple is super "mainstream" and "cool", another is silly and always bickering, then another is a little muted, but very sentimental. I think the Peng Ze/Zhen Zhen pair is particularly special. In BL, we see a lot of clear dominant vs submissive couples, but we rarely see clear effeminate + masculine couples (maybe because it makes some people uncomfortable? I dunno). But yeah, all these couples have such great chemistry IN SPITE of the government censorship. I really applaud them being able to convey it. +1 for Chinese BL <3

Where did you watch episode 29?