jpny01

There is a difference, but in a romance, people have sex because they're in love - they don't fall in love because they have sex, right? Although they do fall in love if one of them trips and the other one catches him and they stare at each other for 15 minutes. So if Min Hyun tripped and Jun Ho caught him, that would be cruel. He should just let him fall.

Sorry if I didn't write what I said clearly - I meant that a lot of people criticising Dome don't seem to mind Vee's participation, not that Vee isn't upset about it. One of the best things about this series is Porsche's spectacular acting in portraying how incredibly upset he is about all this - I've never seen a BL actor that raw before.

And I know you don't require perfection - actually I've seen people attack you for liking series containing "questionable" things. I think maybe part of this is that Vee comes off as more sympathetic than Dome because Dome is reserved and Vee has a harder time concealing what he's feeling. That creates an impression that Dome is OK with all this. But to be fair, Pan is not his sister - the stake for him is a youthful relationship, whereas for Vee it's his family. There's no real comparison.

OK, I definitely get that because I live in the US too - nobody would do that here.

Are you saying that the source material contains SA? Because the trailer doesn't.

So then they do only have one episode to tie all this up. It doesn't seem likely that it will be possible to do that in a satsifying way, but maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat. That's probably very bad news for poor Non.

Well, isn't that what trailers are for? There are a whole lot of BLs out these days - I can't watch them all. Well, I can, but I shouldn't. TBH I'll probably watch the first ep at least.

Sorry, Kuea. That's probably most of the reason this show hasn't connected with me yet - it's been so heavily centered on him. Once we get more Zee and Max I'm sure I'll be happier.

They use a lot of filters, for sure - the one that I tend to notice a lot is the red shift in their color grading - so much so that it was years before I realized the high school uniform shirts are light blue, not pink. But red is warmer and also helps a bit with imperfections, or at least doesn't accent them like blue does.

Have you seen Young Royals? They deliberately left in all the imperfections of teenage skin - it's a bit jarring, actually. I've gotten used to porcelain complexions in BLs. Especially Korean ones where they plaster the actors with an inch of white makeup.

Gameplay is my classic "type" much more so than Jeff. But that kiss scene with Peat - he has a sex appeal that most actors don't. There's a bit of bad boy in there - an edge you don't often see, and he's a real and talented musician (and actor), which doesn't hurt. Like in Ingredients his jealousy was really well-acted and realistic, not OTT.

I'm not mad about it, it just didn't interest me. But you seem perturbed that a stranger has a different opinion than yours...

They probably did that in case someone goes insane and makes a sequel. Putting it on will do something or other so the story can continue.

But they wouldn't love each other less if they didn't do it, so they might as well, right? All things being the same, I'd rather get the sex.

LOL - that's exactly what I was thinking. And I still don't understand why a centuries-old vampire needs to go to school. I guess maybe he wanted to take some refresher courses. Presumably not history classes.

Non is very cute - but he's written as a pretty weak character. If he'd made a move on Khaitoon at the beginning, he would have gotten him.

What happened to Atom? He was hot.

Did we find out that Pete doesn't have mental issues? I wasn't sure what was revealed.

Have you seen Ingredients, where Jeff isn't evil?

Probably Sean because Jeff Satur is sexy as f@#$.

But as a character, probably Pete - even though he's messed up, he's messed up in an interesting way and feels like a real person rather than a 2D character. If everyone were like him it would make things too dark, but to have a character with mental health problems in a BL is a first, and I think his character is well-written.

It's too late for Non, I think - unless they're actually going to give him Khaitoon, he doesn't have enough time to get over K and find someone new in one episode. My theory is still that someone like Non hurt the director at some point, and this is his revenge.

I totally get what you're saying - I think some of the problem is they are squeezing two different books into one series and there are similar themes in both couples, which reinforces the "dark" in the story so that the comedic elements clash too much with the melodrama, which itself is carried away for the situations - the way Kuea was bawling was really OTT and make it seem like he was in a seriously abusive relationship, and both Max and Zee were a little carried away with the coldness.

But there are good actors in this, and 11 more episodes to fix the issue, which will probably not seem as bad once we start to see some human emotions in Zee and Max. I didn't like the first ep, but there's enough there that I'm still looking forward to the rest of it.

I agree with all that. For Max I meant the look in his eyes when Diao was crying - other than that it was cold to the point of overdone - more even than Zee. I really, really didn't like Diao's crying - adults tend to cry a lot more subtly than that unless there's really serious trauma involved - like you said it made the relationship feel really abusive, and that level of crying felt insincere in terms of acting. Watering eyes would have sufficed to get the emotion across.

Love Area is a bit of a disaster, but one thing I appreciate is the uke of the story isn't a pathetic mess - he can walk without tripping, he's extra competent at work, doesn't need anyone to take care of him (there really isn't much of an uke/seme dynamic at all) - but Cutie Pie reverts to the infantilization of the uke - they can't function in day-to-day life or they are incomplete without a seme. And because these stories just drop a boy in the woman's role, it feels misogynist to me.

Everyone is acting like Dome is some player who's trying to have his cake and eat it too. I'm kind of amazed at this - he's in a terrible position, and he must feel so trapped and miserable. It's hard enough being a teen under normal circumstances, but being a gay teen in a conservative society adds another heavy level.

I feel like there's a phenomenon at work in BL fandom that is totally unforgiving of human failings. Nobody seems to remember that it was Vee who initiated things with Dome - so who is worse here? Neither of them have acted on it, and they probably won't, unless Pan makes it happen in some way.

He didn't cheat on her, and if he doesn't love her, he doesn't love her. What should he do? I don't understand why everyone is so hard on him. Do we want him to stay in a loveless relationship and just hurt her as well? Even if he never gets together with Vee, it's still right to break up with Pan.

And why doesn't it bother anyone that Vee started all this? Why is Dome the villain just because he's confused and torn? Vee doesn't appear to be, and yet he knowingly flirted with his sisters boyfriend. Isn't that worse? I don't have a problem with it - I much prefer flawed humans to Buddha-like perfection that seems to be expected of BL characters.

Yes, but the question is, does there need to be quite THAT much of it? The running is important to the VeeDome storyline, but I think the balance is better. This episode only had a few minutes of non-basketball - if you're going to have two other couples, then they need some time too - and because there's not enough FahThorn time outside basketball, the associations and symbolism of the game lose some of the impact - it ties strongly to their relationship as children, but the resonance isn't very strong to the romance in the present.

This is marketed as a BL, so it seems to me that it should. I think the writing for this is still much superior to the average BL - the story is thought out and deeper, but I was finding myself advancing 10 seconds during the game scenes, and I've not really done that for this series so far.

Again, one of the best BLs of all time stapled to tiresome basketball scenes. I like that the sports are relevant to the themes - and the way depending on each other won the day and stuck it to coach Tuan was satisfying, but there should be a better balance of basketball and character development.

As an example, running is also symbolically important to the VeeDome plotline, but we don't have to watch hours of relay races. It doesn't hurt that this couple has the best actor in it - Porsche can even hyperventilate in a way that smashes me in the chest. That boy uses every square millimeter of his body and all of his soul in this. I can't believe this is his first role!

Anyway, hopefully that was the climax for the basketball. I will say that this is so gorgeously shot that at least I appreciated the visual beauty of it. And again, set and costume design are perfection.