jpny01

Yes - James is cute, but Smart has "it", and looks matter in his career field.

I'm happy if I could be of any help. I just watched the final episode and it only reinforced my feelings about the above - Leo has a line that's pure psychopath and the resolution of the Leon/Pob storyline is not at all surprising.

It might as well be - I feel like I paid enough to watch the series.

I don't think anyone is surprised so much as irrationally holding onto the hope that it wouldn't end that way.

Well, Tharn never kidnapped Type and tortured him, so I'm not sure that's way less toxic than TT. I'd rather have a surprise blowjob in the shower than be kidnapped and tortured.

You should probably put that under spoiler. On the other hand, if anyone thought that would have a happy ending, they've never seen a Mame project.

I would add James. His performance was understated, but that's hard to do well.

"Top notch" is a bit strong, but definitely impressive for a first-timer - everything about him was impressive for a first-timer. But I thought James was even better.

Buy if you're talking about Leon and Pob, then of course they don't end up together.

Well, Mame topped herself with this one. I would call it a trainwreck, but then trainwrecks would say, "we're not THAT bad."

Have you ever tried to travel to a Third World country with one week's notice? Could you manage it in a week? How about if it was such a disastrous place that they need recent college grad volunteers so badly that they ask for them with only a week's notice?

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.