jpny01

OMG, his watery eyes had me in tears all the way through this, and his singing was good. There was some auto-tune running, but not much and I really like his voice. The scenes from next week look like Eak gets jealous, and the parents have some secret that they think Simai is too young to know, and I'm guessing it's that he's adopted.

I love that story - thanks for sharing it!

A lot of the characters have Chinese names, so maybe they get married in Taiwan? That's the only country on the entire continent of Asia where it's legal. South Africa is the only country in Africa. The continent of Australia is at 100% marriage equality. :)

The story wouldn't make sense without a marriage though, right? There's no business purpose to two guys living together - you'd need the marriage contract.

Cutie Pie is one of the worst titles of all time, but I'm still really excited about this series.

I think the Thai title is นิ่งเฮียก็หาว่าซื่อ, which google says is "Ning Hee Also Think's He's Sue, which I doubt is right. [Skip to the end if you want to avoid my nonsense.]

Bing says "Stillhia Finds It Honest". Which also doesn't sound right, but at least sort of makes sense.

In case anyone is interested, it comes out in Latin as "Is etiam cogitat quod ille erum suo." (translator defaulted to Latin for some reason). But this inspired me to try translating it into Mandarin, (I was thinking Translate would have put effort into Thai-Mandarin), and then from Mandarin to English, which came out:

"Ning Xi Also Thinks He's Being Sued" (or maybe prosecuted)

I think it's a great title, although I can't help but wonder who Ning Xi is.

That sounds reasonable. We can probably go out on a limb and guess there are scenes with consent issues - and maybe main character cheating. I think those would be the main two that would make viewers abandon ship.

I just meant above that there is ridiculousness to the whole genre - most of that is part of its charm, like high schools where every single boy there is gay. Or a dead person's heart compelling a transplantee to carry out a last wish.

Consent issues are not always as objectionable in a novel where you can read the character's thoughts which may be consenting, i.e. scenes that might be steamy in print but horrifying onscreen. They touched on that issue in Lovely Writer.

Well, I hope it works out because I was really looking forward to this series!

No, I won't keep it to myself. This is a is a discussion forum, and it's for discussing shows. I'm not ever hostile toward other people - I'm critiquing programs, not people, which is what you're doing. There's not any comparison - one is merely sharing thoughts, the other is rude.

I agree Shin Woo doesn't really dislike him, but that's a "standard" variant on the theme, so I still think Shin Woo is firmly in the romantic partner slot. I am confused about what Da On's place in the story is - is it possible he's really not all that nice and will end up being the villain? He said he's not nice...

This sounds like a really troubled production - that almost always produces a substandard result - especially when you have competing visions.

I'd go further - the writer is being absurd. In an American production, you're lucky if you can even recognize the story once the studio has made changes. And really, if they're paying for the production, they get to decide what what is filmed. There can be pre-imposed limits on that negotiated up front and put in writing, but no studio is going to pay for a series and give up all control.

If a writer wants everything word-for-word, she needs to fund the production herself - but it's unlikely the writer has the same level of experience the production staff have with what works and what doesn't. That's actually what I think is one of the biggest problems with Thai BL - it's all adapted from novels, which are a non-visual medium, so they don't really take advantage of what's possible (as opposed to ITSAY, which did) and have elements that don't translate, like "the boy who lost his smile" (and so came off onscreen as a homicidal manniquin).

This is not an attack, but the word "toxic" is so overused it doesn't have too much meaning - do you know any specifics, or was it stated in general terms like that? It is about criminals, so if it's over sanitized it will come out ridiculous - but it's a BL, so I guess ridiculous kind of goes with the territory.

Thanks for sharing the info - I don't know where everyone gets it, but I appreciate it!

Maybe he's trying to get Shin Woo to be jealous to push him to get with Tae. But because he's in a main role, he must be a more important character than that. I'm not getting any second-male-lead vibes, but I can see why other people do. I guess because Shin Woo & Tae started out enemies I'm conditioned to think they'll get together.

That makes a lot of sense. Maybe he's gay and was rejected by them.

Also, they started as enemies. If they don't end up together, I would be shocked but pleasantly surprised (not that I don't want them together - I just like to be surprised).

I think Shin Woo is clearly the main lead - although I only say "clearly" because he and Tae started out as enemies which is the surest sign they'll be lovers as this is a BL :) I hope Da On isn't left with nothing :( The only available main character is Shi Woon, but it looked to me like he was destined for the girl.

Was that a "no" or did he just forget she was waiting for him? I'll go back and re-watch for that - thanks for pointing it out.

That ep was much better for me. I still think Tae is really inconsistently written, but I'm glad they abandoned the half-hearted attempt to make him autistic - you either have to commit to that or not do it. But at least in this ep he had an active role. Before anyone loses their shit, what I mean is that they painted him as awkward to the point of autism at first, but here he says he deliberately creates distance between himself and others but got lonely so he's not doing that anymore. Before it seemed like he was just who he was and the teacher needed to prompt him to leave his safety zone. These aren't incompatible actions, but they're incompatible motivations.

There were several things to like - the air of mystery they gave Da On (I'm guessing his parents have rejected him or are dead), Woo Jin being the first BL character in the history of human civilization to actually call the police when there's a problem you should call the police for, and in general people behaving like people. Also, not one single tired trope!

I really hope they don't give us another horrible female villain and she has a turnaround when she realizes that everyone in the school is gay except whoever she ends up with (I'm guessing Woo Jin).

Also, way too much white makeup on the actors - I didn't notice that in previous eps, but a lot of this one was at night. It looks like they were using it to make Tae's chin look more pointy. For some reason Shin Woo looks twice as cute out of his uniform. Maybe it's coincidentally that he was being insecure and vulnerable in that scene.

If you're hoping for plot progression, you're going to cry.

I agree - there's too much filler, and it's getting tiresome. Nothing at all happened this ep - just the ex showing up in the last 5 seconds, and every single one of us watching knew he'd be there when Shi Lei arrived. I wasn't expecting that suit he was wearing, however.

She forgot something and she probably assumed they had left for work, plus she knows her son likes the director and also knows the director has his own room. But she should have knocked. That was a little bit of a cheap device to stop the boys from developing their relationship further, which I found tiresome in this ep for the first time.

I like this show a lot, but this ep wasn't so much a slow burn as marching in circles. Let's move it foward. This whole episode was filler to get to the last 10 seconds.

OK, here's what I like - the characters are consistent, and largely act like real people. The chemistry is great, the acting is pretty good, and the guys are beautiful.

What I'm starting not to like is the pace. I don't mind slow burn at all, but running in circles I'm not a bug fan of - nothing at all progressed this episode. It was still cute, but the magic wasn't there for me.

Two things that are starting to bother me, and this is BL-wide, not confined to this series:

- Mussing people's hair. That is infantilization, not romantic. Most people would slap the hand of anyone that did that. I might not because I spend zero time on my hair, but most people will have to spend 10 minutes fixing the damage. In the case of this couple, it's their "thing" so it doesn't bother me. But it is accenting the age difference. I'd like to see Si Qi mess up Zhao Gang's hair, but ZG would probably slap his hand away and run to the bathroom for 10 minutes to fix it. Plus SQ would have to wash that bucket of grease off his hand.

- That ridiculous triple-take whenever anything important happens. It's bad enough when it's a kiss, but tackling someone onto the couch in triple-take was LOL stupid. When it's a romantic moment, it drains all the life out of it. I want to see the big kiss, not get car-sick from the jerking perspective.

The White Van of Death is trying to fool us with that blue paint job. We're watching you, White Van of Death! [Shakes fist]

He does certainly have a punchable face. There are different things I'd want to do to his body, though.