jpny01

Yup. WIh a Romeo & Juliet reference thrown in. That's what happens when you use a ramdon story generator and put your name to it.

You ain't seen nothin' yet. Make sure you pad the walls of wherever you're sitting so you don't break your device when you throw it across the room.

Saying you liked this way better than TTS2 is like saying you like COVID way better than cancer. How's that for shade?

I think that's a good assessment. Zung is very clearly capable of an understated performance, and judging by the dinner scene before it took that unfortunate turn, so is Mark. Instead of leveraging their talent, he went with jarring in-your-face drama that wasn't even in the source material. What you're saying is at the root of my frustration - there is so much about this that is tantalizing and on the edge of greatness but then it never wades into the deep end. But at least it's not stuffed with flashbacks. The Yearbook several times had flashbacks that had flashbacks.

I get the foodie thing - it's probably the aspect about this that has kept me going this long. Well, other than Zung's.... everything.

The source material isn't like this. Because of that, this latest turn of events feels like an excuse to keep the gay out of the story as much as possible. This is Ep 8 and other than Aue saying he likes Aek there is almost zero BL content, which feels like gay-baiting or exploiting the BL audience. I think the casting is a problem - there isn't enough contrast. For example, the guys in the seconday couple are quiet and nerdy in exactly the same way. They do cast really hot guys as evil chefs, though - that new one...

Maybe I'm totally wrong and they'll really commit to the BL side of things in the remaining episodes. I'm harder on this one than I normally am only because it's the one I was most excited for and it's been disappointing - and it has a high budget and makes me feel exploited, plus it was capable of being in the highest tier of BL.

It's not objectively awful by Thai BL standards, and there are elements of it that are superb. The cinematography, IMO, is better than ITSAY. Zung has got to be in the top 5% of BL actors, and they actually paid attention to detail in the depiction of a restaurant.

Jang Eui Soo has starred in 3 BLs and made an appearance in a fourth. He's not homophobic. He's not raking in the money for these roles - they get paid very little. He would make far, far more in a regular K-Drama, and if anything, he's damaging his chances of that by being in all these BLs.

If anything, we should be grateful that anyone that beautiful and talented contributed to the genre in a society that is one of the most homophobic and conformist in Asia.

Fetishizing gay men ceases to be OK when people pontificate about not needing tons of sex in BLs (as if there is, ever). Infantilizing and de-sexing the characters is homophobic.

That exception aside, there's noting at all wrong with anyone "getting off" on gay content. Mpreg is OK if there' a point or critique of society to be made, i.e. inothing you're going to find in BL.

Gay men usually don't use female terms to denigrate women, it's a rejection or parody of heteronormative standards. It's still "meta" misogynistic in that they're applying feminine terms for the passive partner, but it's not out of disrespect for women. Usually.

I'm not really seeing much imitation of heteronormative lifestyles in openly gay men. Except in Oakland. For some reason everyone in the East Bay gets married and has children. Brunch has really started to become a bummer. I guess babysitters don't exist anymore or something.

That said, there is too much misogyny in the gay community when the level should be zero. Misogyny and homophobia are so closely related that anyone LGBTQ+ or female that can't understand either of these needs to do some reflecting.

What in particular makes Western gay content unstomach-able? The self-importance, tendency toward tragedy, and racism? Or maybe the over-PC-ified writing that drains it of any interest? It can't be too much sex - you singled out Love Simon which made even Thai BL seem racy in comparison. And about misogyny, it's hard to get any more misogynist than Asian BL.

Aww, shucks. Thank you.

16 episodes of 1 hour would be close to twice as long as a typical Thai series. That's way too long and would just result in a tedious repetitive plot. But these could benefit from being a little longer. If you'd like to see a long series, you could always round up some investors to pay for it...

The trailer started out exciting me - the clothing is well-tailored, so there's artisitic talent involved and a real budget, Zee looks smokin', the plot is unique... then it sorted of degenerated into a bag of tropes. Engineering students, 19th c 12-year old virgin uke without acting experience in the main pairing, etc. (seriously, a college-age man cringing at being kissed by his fiancee? That borders on homophobic.) Mayhe it will be good - I hope so - but I'm not going to build any expectations. It has the ingredients it needs to be good, at least. I like the cast and the prouction quality looks high. I'm glad Nat is back to being, well, Nat, instead of whatever that was in Y Destiny.

I can't really answer that in any depth without any examples of what you mean, but it sounds like you might have different opinions, and that's great - if we all saw everthing the same way we'd never learn anything.

I agree with all that. There is certainly nothing wrong with Aek refusing Aue, although he was particularly assholish and about it to the point of cruelty. And Aue's response was even worse. I just didn't but it from either of them - it seemed out of character.

There has been zero boy love in this - there is no couple that has done anything overtly romantic, other than the disastrous dinner (unless you count several hours worth of blank staring). After getting nothing for 2/3 of the series, all we get sexual violence.

To me, this is homophobia. They are deliberately baiting the audience and doing everything they can to avoid having any gay stuff.

Interesting. I always thought Aek was creepy. Now they both are to me. I didn't get what Aek's emotions are, other than that he didn't want Aue to do that. What was your reading? I'm seriously asking - no sarcasm.

I think that's what arifsaggio meant - "they shouldn't have rewritten the story". I may be wrong, but that's my reading.

That blurb about Muslim dress was total bull#$it. This was the imperial harem, and the women in it weren't there for prayer and meditation and they certainly weren't wearing burqas - that's why all the attendants were eunuchs and men weren't allowed in. Whoever wrote that has no idea what they're talking about. If any of them had to go out in public, of course they would dress modestly, but not while in the harem quarters! It's true that the costumes have a Western skew to them, but not in terms of modesty - mostly the colors are a lot more muted because the silks of the period were so technicolored they'd look garish by today's standards esecially with production lighting shining on them.

Anyway, I'm sure a Chinese version will be stunning!

Hm. I agree with a lot of this, but I think maybe your critique of the critiques isn't quite what I'm seeing.

1. In 1,000 stars, the romance was restrained, but it was seriously there, and rather intense. I never for a moment doubted the two were in love with each other. Here, Aue has the same smoldering chemistry with everyone - from Aek, I get nothing. Restrained, good. Non-existent, bad.
2. No disagreement about arts etc. But that's not what we mean by dead space. The dead space is in the endless staring and the huge pauses between phrases when Aek is speaking. There is no 1.25 speed on Viki, but there's an "advance 10 seconds" button. I use it a lot when Aek is speaking.
3. I agree. It's not the only show that does that, though. But the comparison to 1,000 Stars is apt. For example, Wayufilm is based on Chiang Mai and its productions are all fairly authentic to the location, and not just the touristy beautiful areas.
4. That's very appealing to me too, and a lot of what made me look forward to this so much. But there needs to be more than that. I could just watch a documentary about Thai food. The chefs would be less evil, for sure, but they probably also wouldn't be that universally hot.
5. Here I think it's mixed. Nuna has been delivering, as did Mom & Grandma - but Vich & Prem, who are fairly significant characters, are so flat (and in the same way) it actually made me LOL this ep.
6. See #2 above. Also, the pacing isn't slow, it's almost non-moving. Until this ep, when suddenly Aek turned into an asshole and Aue sexually assaulted him, neither transformation being set up in the slightest. And ironically, occuring in Leo's backup giant mansion. Sure, maybe Aek is going through gay panic, but that's a pure guess - it should have been set up prior to it happening. We haven't gotten the slightest clue that Aek feels this way. We really haven't gotten the slightest clue about how he feels about anything, except that he loves his mother.
7. There are no superficial tropes like endless piggy-back rides or the weird hair-drying obsession that's been around lately, but there are a lot of cliched plot tropes - evil jealous ex-gf, gays don't exist, etc.

While I was finding this frustrating, this ep pushed it over the edge for me. We've had almost no development of the romance, but there was still plenty of time to heat it up - but here we've had nothing and then they had the main couple have a dramatic and violent breakup before they ever even got together. It's manufactured drama that required both of them to act out of character. Why? We have the drama of the contest, no less than three separate evil chefs, familial issues, the age and power differences - so plenty of "relaxed pace" drama to explore, but instead they have Aek act like Aue was sexually assaulting him by calling him on the phone to invite him to dinner, until Aue really did sexually assault him. It made no emotional or dramatic sense, and it put an ugliness into the story that it didn't need.

This shouldn't have been a BL. If it had been a drama about rivalry between chefs it would have been a superior show. That seems to be what the writer is interested in, and it feels like BL was thrown in because it's fashionable and had a ready-made audience for the grabbing.

Sorry - I was agreeing with you and elaborating on what I think they should be complaining about - I see that wasn't clear, but that's what I meant, so apologies. Like you said, there are conflicts in every BL, and they always get resolved. Well, except sometimes in Taiwanese or Korean BL if someone gets randomly run over by a van or something.

Aww, shucks, now I'm feeling shy and embarassed.

Here's an edit: "Like they are reading the once sentence they have to from a BROKEN teleprompter."

Ep 6 was better, but I'm not sure what the plot of this is. There were cute scenes in this, but it's all very shallow - why does Jill like Jack, other than his hot body? He's never commented on anything about him but shamelessly oggles him (not that I blame him). Jack has never really expressed why he likes Jill other than that his insecurity and chubbiness are cute?

There's an inherent homophobia to the genre - that's why it's so rare that there are gay main characters. It's gotten a little better gradually, though. I find the evil ex-GF trope to be more offensive for misogyny. Women are never motivated by any negative emotion but jealousy. Never vengeance for their murdered father, or to destroy enemies of their family, or even for a lot of money. Always jealousy. In real life, most women are relieved when ex-BFs turn out to be gay.

I once told an ex that being with her turned me gay, which really upset her, but I did that because she had outed me to people I hadn't told yet, including the boy I was in love with, although that didn't really make any difference - if he didn't know that already, he'd have to have had a lobotomy or something. The ex-gf and I are still friendly acquaintances, so we both got over it.