jpny01

I was joking too. :)

Do you think cheating on your man is funny?

I'm right there with you.

Thank you too - you said things for me to think about. And you're totally right about the raging over the toxic thing. I don't know if you're aware of it, but carrying the bride over the threshold is a Roman custom that commemorates the Rape of the Sabine Women, wherein the early Romans kidnapped the virgins of the surrounding areas because they didn't have enough women. So bridal-style is a rape symbol - NOW what's toxic? Saving people from fires, or abducting virgins? (To be fair, the Sabine women eventually forced the men to stop fighting and unite into one people, but still.)

LOL, totally true about bridal style. If you watch behind-the-scenes for Addicted Heroin, even a really in-shape guy was really struggling to carry a guy like that just across a room. Piggyback isn't really suitable for long-distance carrying either, unless it's a child - the way you really carry someone is over the shoulder. Here that's called "fireman" carry.

MOD was starting to suffer from a WTF? element to its plot, but that's better than nothing happening, for sure. Also, they had Inspector M in that skin-tight uniform, so that made up for a lot. :)

I understood you're not attacking - no worries. But if you think about Thai BL, there are trends that are imitative, as if the author is afraid that if something isn't there that it won't be good. Something as specific as blowdrying hair or giving someone a piggy-back ride are not suitable for endless repetition, because it's copying someone else's idea.

SOTUS was successful, so we had an endless stream of engineers. Brothers had cute hair-drying, so now that's a requirement in every BL. I'm not sure where piggy-back rides started, but it started suddenly and now it's in everything (and replaced being carried bridal-style, a previous overused imitative trend). The best BLs don't rely on rote imitation, they come up with something different. ITSAY was well-acted and filmed, but it also had an innovative plot with original quirks, like Teh sniffing ink, and the acting rivalry.

If it's enemies to lovers, that's different - that's a plot trope that's as old as fiction and it works. It's something that can be done over and over and it will still work. But not really specific things, and there are times when the story is twisted in a strange direction just to have the imitation. In Brothers, they shared a room and bathroom, so hair drying made sense, and it was written as a sublimation of their desire, so it served a specific plot purpose. In all the copying, it doesn't have a purpose - it's just there to be there.

To use your analogy, you go to a restaurant with your boyfriend (or whatever) and have a great dish. Then he copies the dish, not as well as the restaurant did it, and cooks it for you every night for the rest of your life. At some point, you'll scream "ENOUGH ALREADY!!!"

The copying is also usually symptomatic of a larger lack of creativity, and series that imitiate everything are usually the least memorable.

Well, he's certainly not good at showing he likes m/m action!

"Let's be Romeo & Juliet with nothing standing in our way". I don't think whoever wrote that really understood the play. (Note how well that rhymed. I am THAT good.)

I'm going to say it. Japan wins BL. Everything in this is so well-done. The acting, the comedy (dry and intelligent, not stupid and slapstick), creativity, attention to detail (even the dog's facial expressions were perfect), the economy of force in the writing - we've had five medium-length eps and more has happened than in most 12 long episode productions from... elsewhere, and just the general quirkiness.

Anyway, I love this.

On the one hand I'm excited for a more mature story with adults and adult life, and I like that the characters are average-looking instead of chiseled perfection. On the other hand, the trailer is so convoluted and confusing that it got boring. I'm definitely going to watch this, but I'm not developing any expectations.

It's not that these things aren't cute, it's that they're terribly overused to the point that they're just something on a checklist. In Brothers, the hair drying was a special thing between them, and it was super-cute. But now, it's copied by every BL to the point that it's silly and meaningless. It's like if every couple stood at the prow of a ship and spread our their arms and shouted "I'm the king of the world!" it would be stupid, not romantic. Likewise with the hair-drying.

If a writer can't be bothered to come up with something original, why should I be bothered to care about her story?

I'm not usually one to complain about love scenes, but that one felt a little creepy to me. Mario's facial expression said "eww." and Jethro looked like he was trying to swallow Mario like a fish. The slo-mo just accentuated the weirdness.

Jethro has become tolerable, but now Mario is unlikeable. Sorry, but he's a grown man acting, not like a 12-year old, but like an 8 year old. His "move" was a bizarre peck on the lips, and his response to everything is to storm off and sulk, and his best friend is a cartoon character. Jethro shouldn't have posted that, but he erred out of love and exuberance, not anything negative.

I was at first hoping he'd end up with Arnold, but Arnold deserves so much better. It was clever of them to cast Ron Angeles, though, because if they hadn't I would have dropped this.

Neither of them is particularly likeable, so it's a good match.

That is a good insight you've given me - BL is written by women, and they do this. Men to not ever blow dry each other's hair - ever, for any reason whatsoever, so it comes of as bizarre to me. Especially if you have short hair - it's just such a weird trope.

Their names more or less reveal it will be Mix & Match. This would have been the perfect series to do poly, but that will never, ever happen in a BL. I'm grateful there was a French kiss. That's downright kinky by BL standards.

Wait, is there another episode? That felt like the ending. I'm pretty sure the 6 eps is an error.

This won't change anyone's life, but it's super-cute, and umm, the kiss. Defintely not your typical BL mannequin kiss.

Yes, good binge material. It's very cute, and the first time I've ever seen a love triangle pulled off in a way that doesn't make me hate everyone.

This has to be the most underrated BL of all time. It's not the best BL of all time, but it's the most underrated. My theory is that people on MDL punish brevity. I'd much rather watch a 6 episode series that has a story that keeps moving and gets somewhere in a logical way with characters that are consistent than a 12 episode series that meanders all over the place and everyone acts like a completely different person in Ep 11 to generate artificial drama.

Let me ask: at the end of this were you thinking "I wish there was more!" That's because it was good and you liked it. What did you think at the end of Fish Upon the Sky? Problaby something like, "Well, that's over. Pond is handsome." (that's really all I remember about it). Craving more is a reason to give it a high rating, not a low one!

I don't like sound effect either - I thought they were more restrained than usual, which is progress - I had to turn off the volume of the earlier episodes of Lovely Writer and just read the subtitles. It was just out of control.