jpny01

That's funny - they should have put that in the subtitles. This does have some wit to it, it's just such a mess that its good qualities get lost in the mud.

There is certainly a reason for Matteo to announce his feelings, but it was incompatible with Shogun remaining oblivious to what Matteo's feelings were - so doing both made it stupid, whereas choosing one would have worked either way.

It has Lee Long Shi in it and he doesn't seem to wear a shirt very often, so, yes, yes, I will. But I'm expecting it to be awful. Hopefully awful in the same spectacular way that Unforgotten Night was - that was at least highly entertaining to hate-watch.

And if it's not awful, that's even better, so it's a win-win. Worst case, I ff through what I find dull.

I was excited because of the cast, but it's written by the same person as Gen Y 2 and Hit Bite Love. Yikes.

Same. There's no way I'm not watching Lee Long Shi.

It might be... :)

I don't think we really disagree. I wouldn't want a 15 year old entering a hardcore BDSM dungeon, but when I was that age a boy I had a thing with liked to be physically dominant and I loved it, In BL BDSM is always cartoonish and not very true to life, so it's kind of hard to take anything meaningful from it. I'm slightly dreading next ep, as I couldn't tell from the subtitles if Shogun wants to be a sub or if he is only doing it to keep Matteo, which are two very different things and I'm not sure the writers are capable of that distinction.

If someone is pressuring someone else into BDSM they don't want, that's a larger problem and doesn't really need to involve BDSM to be a problem - it's not any different than someone pressuring someone into something "vanilla" that they don't want or aren't ready for. Especially for girls, being pressured to do what they don't want to is a far larger societal problem and causes way more damage than anything related to BDSM - wearing handcuffs won't get you pregnant, for example.

Making mistakes is inevitable - if you aren't making any, you're so sheltered that you aren't growing up, either, right?

I have to admit, at first I was thinking about Choco Milk Shake "Is he f@%^ing his dog?" But his dog was hot, and sometimes you have to take what you can get.

But seriously, I understand your frustration - what bothers me is when people criticize KBL for being "too short". Sometimes they're too rushed, but for some reason it doesn't occur to them that Thai BLs might be too long. I'd prefer a bit too short to much too long.

Skip through to 16:50 - you won't be sorry. You can stop after the treadmill, although there's a bit more worth watching after that. You can't really go wrong with Aaron Lai in workout clothes.

I'm glad you said it first - I didn't want to sound like I'm obsessed, although I'm obsessed.

So it only took 7 episodes for Johnny to remember he left his grandmother to die alone.

The writing is really, really bad. It's not just bad, it's unforgivably unimaginative. All this is is a bag of BL tropes, including the non-consensual hug from behind.

Also, what is with all the black with navy combos people keep wearing? Hai Yi does it every single day. I don't think that ever works. Aaron Lai can almost pull if off because of the body, but in general the wardrobe looks oddly dated.

I don't get how this was made. Did nobody read the script beforehand? Johnny is the most awful human being I've ever seen in a BL - what a horrible narcissist. He STILL hasn't asked Hai Yi how he's doing or how he feels - all he cares about is himself.

I can't do this anymore. I have to just skip through this for Hai Yi in workout and shower scenes.

Why can BL writers never grasp that fevers are caused by viral and bacterial infections and not walking in warm rain, eating spicy food, being hit by a basketball, failing to blow dry your hair, or anal sex? In Bangkok the temperature, even at night, rarely falls below 25, so there's no chance your immune system is going to be compromised. Even at the lowest temperature ever recorded, 12 degrees, you can't be harmed by rain. A sponge bath does zero to a fever (it might feel good, though, especially if you have a thing for the sponger), and if young & vital people get fevers as often as a typical BL character, they probably have a severe immunodeficiency disorder like HIV, or cancer.

Anyway, that's BL and it's not going to change, so no point complaining about it. THAT'S RIGHT, I just said my complaining is pointless. That doesn't mean it doesn't make me feel better to complain.

But on a more substantial note, the writing is awful. First of all, reading about someone to find out what they don't like and then using that to do things to them that are potentially harmful to them is awful. Art suggesting that Matteo be treated differently because his father is a major shareholder in the school (?), whatever that means, is awful. Newyear is a cutie-pie, but he looked like a dangerous reptile about to devour its prey when King was leaning in to do... I'm not sure what... to Burger. This show is trying to have it both ways - a world where there's no homophobia, yet King is being homophobic. It's discordant and a mess. Internalized self-loathing is a thing, for sure, but we have no indication of that. The writing in general is just a mess.

For example, how many times has Matteo told Shogun how he feels, and even proclaimed his love over the PA system to the entire school, but Shogun asks "how do you feel about me?" What?!? I get self-doubt, but there's a point where it's just stupid and doesn't make any sense. It wasn't even necessary to the story to have Matteo make the announcement - he could have just gone to the principal's office and said it there, and then it would have made more sense and used up less time.

I'm getting tired of Shogun looking like a kicked puppy. Can he have a character, please?

The subtitles are terrible, but I'm trying to be understanding - but really, how hard is it? I've seen super-low budget productions spend money on a translator for the subtitles, then get a native-speaker volunteer to edit them - 99% of the audience would be happy to volunteer, and we do.

It was funny that they kept using articles for Shogun, so he was "the Shogun", which is a title.

I feel dirty that I can't help but notice what lovely legs King has, but he does, so what can I do?

Anyway, the problem is that the subtitles are so bad that it's hard to understand what's happening. Did Shogun mean that he wants to be a sub, or did he mean he'll engage in BDSM because he thinks he has to to keep Matteo? There's a huge difference between the two.

Being at that age is about discovering your boundaries, which you will never do if you don't test them. BDSM is never inherently wrong, nor is sex, owning a gun, being wealthy, or even being a member of the Taliban. Right and wrong are always, always, always about choices you make. If you trick someone who doesn't want to engage in BDSM into doing it, that would be wrong, but it would also not be BDSM, which is always consensual. Likewise, shooting someone in self defense if they're not doing anything to harm you is murder, not self-defense.

Sex for a huge number of people is not vanilla, including a gigantic portion of the BL audience, who absolutely require the Dom/sub seem/uke model. There MUST be a dominant member of a couple, who is ALWAYS the top, and there must be a submissive and passive partner who is always the bottom. That's a kink, not "vanilla." For the vast majority of people who do like BDSM it has nothing to do with trauma, nor does it reflect in any way on who they are the rest of the day.

I'm finding a lot of this discussion incredibly judgmental and it smells a little like the same attitudes that many people (though obviously not anyone here) that find homosexuality abnormal. Just because something is different from one's understanding or personal inclinations doesn't make it abnormal or the result of mental health issues (remember that gays used to be thrown into mental hospitals and given electro-shock 'therapy').

That being said, there is more or less a zero % chance of BL handling the topic in a way that reflects upon reality, so I would tend to avoid it, especially in a series clearly aimed at young audiences.

Wow, that's really judgmental. You're telling people who do something consensual because they want to that what they're doing is abnormal. Just like people call gay sex abnormal. I think that's really frightening and very wrong.

This would have worked if it were shorter. It had way to much repetitive Woo Jae being absolutely horrible to Yeon Woo, and the more we find out about their past, the more horrible Woo Jae seemed. Eps 7 & 8 were good, but it came too late. And the kisses - those were so bad it would have been better to just have them hug.

This wasn't awful or anything, but it wasn't very good, either. I really like Han Jung Wan - he's charming & charismatic, and that body of his... Even Jun Q had a good scene in Ep 7, but I doubt I'll remember having watched this 6 months from now.

I don't think people are dogging on KBL so much as they are on THIS KBL. I doubt there was much dogging (no pun intended) on Chocolate Milk Shake or Semantic Error, which were both 1st rate.

That had a lot of loveliness in it - I like very much that this doesn't lean on the usual implausible failures of communication that plague BL and the drama is mostly internal rather than external. The situation with Gun's mother wasn't just there to insert drama, it advanced the plot and explored and developed the relationships of the characters, which is good writing.

However, it is so totally implausible that Tinn doesn't have Gun's mom's number that I yelled "you have got to be kidding me!" at my screen - that was a clunker of a plot hole.

Gemini is doing a great job of being innocent and in love for the first time, and Fourth... let's face it, he's the absolute star of this series. He is going to be a serious star.

His singing has a couple of odd features - he can smoothly shift between normal voice and falsetto, which is difficult and requires skill and practice, but he has poor intonation at the bottom of his range. I take from that that he's talented and largely self-taught, and could benefit from formal training.

I still don't think this is as perfect as the first few episodes, but this series has developed in a coherent way with interesting relationships between characters and it doesn't lean too much on BL tropes.

I think it worked because we could see it coming and it really doesn't matter anymore if they win or not.

You are not the only one. He's cute-sexy.

He wasn't molesting his friend - they were having a torrid physical thing. You'll note his friend did absolutely nothing to stop him and started reciprocating almost immediately.

Who is attacking Fourth and Gemini? I'm trying to imagine a basis for criticism, but not coming up with anything. Is it Earth/Mix fans who resent them for being much more interesting than their ship?

In general I find "ships" overrated. Often a pair were good together in specific circumstances (i.e. "lighning in a bottle") and it never really replicates. Fluke & Ohm were fine in UWMA because they were cast for those specific roles to which they were suited as their strengths were leveraged and their weaknesses not so evident. They've had almost zero appeal in everything they've done since. I was literally cheering on the evil lady in their last series, but she kept failing to kill them. Likewise, Mix & Earth were great in 1,000 Stars for the same reasons.

Part of it is that in trying to recreate the magic, they cast people as very similar but less interesting charcters. Jim is a duller Phupha, and Wen is a more laid back Tian. It's still sort of working, but the electricity is lacking. Sometimes it works if it's a sequel, like Dark Blue Kiss wasn't bad - but most times it doesn't, like TharnType 2, which was unwatchable. Or LBC2 - unbelievably bad.

Fourth & Gemini are unusual, and still fresh - MSP is still airing, and this was filmed quite some time before, so nobody is trying to recreate anything. Plus they're both very talented actors, not to mention what they look like.

I agree with you about crying - but I think it's something you can ruin rather than something that requires huge skill. Let's be honest, a lot of BL actors are not cast for their acting ability.

I can't remember what it was anymore, but Phupha identified as gay - I think it was his staff that commented (not negatively) - his uncertainty about Tian was more based on who his father was and the inevitability of his leaving.

I took it that Jim wasn't that into Wen - it was more just sex for him. That's one of the reasons I think Earth is good - he's visibly warmed up to Wen, and now he's starting to look at him like he likes him. When they have a love scene as lovers instead of just scratching an itch, I think you'll get what you want.

LITA was surprisingly disappointing. Peat had such charisma in the Payu/Rain story, but his was almost unwatchable - the writing was awful, the acting was so-so.

Gun is amazing - he already makes me feel dirty and I'm afraid of what he'll look like when he's 25. But his acting is way above average already.

So in general, I agree with you on everything, except I think Mix is so-so and Earth is great. I've seen Water Boyy, and Earth was not great in that. But nothing about that series was great.