denryion

This was a hard watch for me to get through. The first two episodes in particular were a real slog to make it through.

The series as a whole is really obnoxious with the editing, sound effects, and gag jokes. It’s a very cringy slapstick-style comedy. The humor is immature garbage, and so are all the comedic characters. Mek is super annoying at the beginning, but he gets better. The chancellor is the worst out of all the characters though. The whole prank channel concept was horrible, but thankfully it was acknowledged to be problematic and the characters stop doing it. Every character’s content creation persona was ultra obnoxious.

The concept of a university chancellor shipping two students and forcing them to pretend to be in a BL relationship under the threat of not letting them graduate is so messed up that I can’t even begin to comment. She’s not even painted as a villain. She’s meant to be a comedic character. But it’s the whole basis of the plot so I just went with it.

Also, the whole obsession with followers and online validation that all the characters have is probably not the healthiest. Bear in particular is the worst. He only even likes Bomb initially because he was the only fan that paid attention to him specifically…their whole dynamic is a fan that idolizes someone and the idolized person who loves to be idolized. Mek even starts to like the idea of doing BL content because it gets him lots of followers.

Also, I know it’s just the norm in Thailand with BL content…but I can’t help but feel that the whole concept of people who are not actually romantically involved playing into BL relationships for the purpose of fan service, marketing, and ultimately money, is pretty messed up. Let’s stop encouraging parasocial relationships and shipping complete strangers. And let’s stop encouraging the need for online validation from complete strangers. People shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking these people are anything but actors and the industry as a whole should stop encouraging people to play into relationships for marketing purposes.

This was an ensemble romance, and the result was that there was inevitably not enough time spent on the couples I cared about and too much time spent on couples I didn’t care about. The main couple didn’t get that much more screen time than any other couple.

The only couple I truly liked was the established couple (Lee / Park). They’d been together for 7 years, and I love that there was a truly long term relationship showcased. Aside from nonsense miscommunication tropes resulting from bad writing, they were very supportive and loving to each other. They were equals, took turns leading, and had good consent, always backing off when the other pulled away or seemed uncomfortable or said they weren’t in the mood.

The Bomb / Bear pairing wasn’t compelling because like I said, it was just a fan that idolizes a creator and a creator that loves to be idolized. Bear is obsessed with having fans even in the finale, after a two year time skip. And Bomb is still obsessed with Bear, forgiving him for forgetting their anniversary for the sake of working on his YouTube channel.

The Tim / Mai pairing was the worst and the series would have been better without it. It was a big love square mess. Mai has been in love with Tim forever, but Tim rejects him because he wants to maintain the current friendship dynamic. The problem is that the current friendship dynamic is the result of Mai always hanging around Tim and catering to his every need because he likes him. And Mai lets this go on for years, even after getting rejected.

At the beginning of the series, Tim asks Mai to be his boyfriend and Mai says no…but I think Tim was just making a messed up joke there (considering he knew Mai’s feelings). He goes on to say he likes Kimhan and pursues / flirts with him, even wanting to do BL content with him. Mai finally has enough and says he’s tired of being taken for granted and that he should be able to live his life too…so Tim kisses him. Mai has been sticking around all this time because Tim keeps telling him he needs him in his life and wants him around forever, but he’s saying this with a friendship dynamic in mind. So when he kisses Mai, I think he was doing it purely because he thought it would be the only way to keep Mai in his life.

Mai walks away, but then he comes back the next day and says they can just be friends forever and it’s fine. He then starts to marginally pull away, though, and starts to stand up for himself and tells Tim that he has his own business and can make his own decisions. He starts flirting with Pete, but it seemed petty and not genuine because it seemed like he enjoyed when Tim would get jealous and be annoyed when Tim wouldn’t get jealous. And meanwhile Tim goes back to saying he likes Kimhan and flirting with him. When Tim finally asks Mai to be with him, I can’t tell if it’s because he truly genuinely wanted him, or because Mai kept pulling away and he felt this would be the only way to restore their dynamic. Also, when they get together, Tim comes and punches Pete for trying to kiss Mai. Mai was drunk, so maybe that’s valid, but then Tim kisses Mai himself. So either Mai was drunk and Tim took advantage of him just like Pete was trying to, or he was sober enough the whole time and was capable of making his own decisions with Pete.

And the main couple wasn’t that great either. First of all, the sisters (and parents) shipping and watching / posting BL content of their own brothers was weird. Kimhan had a semi-crush on Tim. More like a fan-crush, but he does visibly check out Tim shirtless after he and Mek are already romantically involved. He does always choose to spend time with Mek over Tim though, and doesn’t eagerly respond to Tim flirting with him. There an unnecessary ex-girlfriend jealousy arc thrown in, although it was thankfully much shorter than the Tim jealousy arc. I don’t know why the friends had to be involved and meddling in every aspect of their relationship. They were all present at their initial confession-gone-wrong scene, and Mek proposes at Lee/Park’s wedding (which is messed up but that’s another problem), and their friends are interjecting with their commentary there too. There were a couple consent issues too: Mek kisses Kimhan when he’s passed out sick, Kimhan kisses Mek when he’s passed out drunk, and there was one scene presented as comedic where Mek is trying to touch and kiss Kimhan but he’s running away and verbally / physically protesting. And neither are good actors…Kimhan’s crying scene was particularly bad.

There was all the miscommunication and self-sacrificing bullshit tropes left in. Mek gets a scholarship to study abroad, but then Kimhan confesses to him, so instead of responding, he says nothing. So Kimhan gets upset, and Mek proceeds to ignore him for the next week instead of communicating because he doesn’t know what to choose. He gets drunk and tells Kimhan the truth but doesn’t remember. Then he apologizes and tells Kimhan he likes him, and Kimhan accepts and they spend the next day on an extended date, and then Kimhan dumps Mek that night, telling him he doesn’t like him anymore, so that Mek will be free to study abroad. First of all, if Kimhan was planning that self-sacrificial bullshit, why did he accept Mek’s apology flowers and spend the whole day doing romantic things with him, and then dump him after the fact? Why didn’t he tell the truth about why he was dumping him? Why was long distance never an option even considered by either of them? And then we get a two year time skip, after which they reunite pretty much immediately, and Mek immediately moves back to Thailand and moves in with Kimhan. They get engaged pretty soon after too, all within the last episode-and-a-half.

I will say, all the couples had mutual affection without shying away once they got together, which I appreciated. There are a few NC scenes between Lee/Park and one between Bear/Bomb, but they were relatively short and chaste (shirtless kissing and implied sex only). None between the main couple or Tim/Mai.