jpny01

I agree, and yes, I was exaggerating. To be more accurate I should have said "...COVID was KIND OF like a bummer."

My problem was that the communication failure was totally implausible, expecially given the number of common friends they have, and it went on forever. And it's such a tired BL trope - not to mention both of them backing off because they thought there were girls as better choices for each other. Blech. So 2016. I find it implicitly values heteronormativity over same-sex love. But if anyone LGBTQ+ has ever been anywhere near that script I would be shocked.

MG&YG was even less original than this, and without all the cute boys, so I agree with you there too. I ended up ff through every scene that didn't have Fiat in it.

The friends doing the 60s dancing was really precious in this ep - that's all I really remember other than Jom's surprising acting in the last scene.

Jom (Jin) did a surprisingly good job in the last scene, I have to grant. Also, they may have cut away to a real guitarist, but when they showed a closeup of Bbomb's hand, it was really playing that song. One of the four times in my long life my music degree has come in handy.

I don't think ITSAY counts as a BL. As you mentioned, great music, plus not one accidental kiss, no pathetic screeching trans characters pawing at boys, nobody turned gay by catching someone who tripped, no evil gf popping up in Ep 10, and not one engineer. There were pink shirts, though, but it's just not enough.

Alex becomes sympathetic whenever he takes a shower, ( I actually prefer VJ's more human-looking build). but I agree, I at least didn't hate his character this ep with a few details filled in, and he wasn't unnecessarily rude to everyone.

I like Phob because he's played by Aof, but the writing is taking him in circles. I know what it's like to be in love with a straight friend, of course, but it's harder to empathize because he's so hostile and MaiEak is so sweet and caring towards him.

I don't think the basketball player's been around before, but the other kid made an inexplicably grand slo-mo entrance. He's so much less cute than the main characters I was confused what they were trying to say with that.

I can't drop this either- sooo much cuteness going on. So much that I'm afraid it's causing an imbalance in the universe again and that we might have to sacrifice a puppy to restrore equilibrium.

The one thing I don't get is Kaownah, who is normally a really good actor but is really weird and silly in this. You can tell in interviews he's really intelligent and thoughtful, and I don't know why they're using him this way. I almost wish he'd turn evil, because he stole the show as Lhong.

It's true that I have my moments!

Oh my goodness - that's a pretty severe antitode!

Thanks - I might have been a bit OTT grumpy yesterday. The series is totally unoriginal and poorly written, but it does have some redeeming features. There was way, way too much sulking, but I thought Jom acted it very well, and his emotional outburst was well done. And I love Ball.

The crutch was funny. With Turbo, the series is more than half over so it's a bit late to introduce that idea at this point - I was hoping to see it from Ep 1.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

I've seen Friend Zone and 3 WBF - I was just looking at the MDL page fpr Gay OK Bangkok and I'm sure I know the name, but the actors don't ring a bell except for Jennie, but I'll try it out. I've never even heard ot Trasher, so thank you!

Bad Filipino BLs are the same or worse as Thai BLs for tropes, but the higher end ones ae refreshingly tropeless. I don't mind some - there are certain plot types that are going to be repeated, like enemies to lovers, and that's fine. It's the idiosyncratic tropes like accidental kisses, or how boys almost always accidentally turn gay and fall in love by tripping and falling so their faces are too close together and they stare at each other for 15 minutes that become tiresome. As if falling and mashing your faced together wouldn't send blood and teeth flying everywhere.

Wow, I don't agree with that, The first time I ever saw Brad Pitt was on a TV show and he totally dominated it. There are action and teen-aimed move starts that are bad, but Matt Damon? I think he's always been good.

I thought Alex's role in Cheat was actually more subtle and challenging - this is basically a broad cartoon. Totally agree about music - Filipnio BL wins in that category hands-down.

The third ep was a letdown - Migo did have the requisite 2 shirtless scenes, (VJ had one two, which was surprisingly nice) but the main characters are too unappealing in boring ways (other than when shirtless). The way Gino oggles men is obnoxious - you can look without your eyes popping out of your head like a cartoon - it's rude and ridiculous.

Nothing happened at all plot-wise, and everything was unimportant conversation. I guess we learned that Alex is an introvert, which would make that resort a hellscape as it's staffed by escapees from a dystopian Disney nightmare where you're exectuted if you don't have a huge fake smile plastered on your face and you aren't talking three times louder than necessary.

It feels like someone wrote a 5-ep story and then found out they'd been contracted for 8 and had to go back and fill in the rest of the time with whatever.

The music is good though - even top-end Thai productions just use stock music they get for free online, which is why every BL has exaclty the same music for any given type of scene. Filipino BLs are much superior in that regard and the same is true here.

I think in general productions ought to review scripts and ask themselves "In BL, every single time in the histoy of the genre, when anyone has unexpectedly run into someone naked, have they both screemed while staring at the penis?" If so, do something different, as if two grown men who obviously hit the gym a lot and have presumably gone through high school have never seen a naked man before. Things aren't funny when they're overused, especially if the reacetion isn't authentic or natural. Try something new. It won't kill you.

Actually, that could be a mantra for the entire BL industry.

You're kind of picking out the handful of positives in a fairly regressive medium, though. BL is fundamentally homophobic even when the characters are explicitly gay because they are placed in heteronomative roles where an invariably straight actor is cast as the "top", and an almost invariably straight but slightly softer-personalitied actor is the "bottom". Even in cases like 2gether where the bottom is larger and more muscular than the top, he faints when exposed to sunlight for more than 5 minutes and otherwise behaves like a 19th c 12-year old girl with consumption. The relastionships are always cast in terms of the seme "taking care of" the uke (I did appreciate that Pi said "take care of each other"), and effeminacy is almost invariably made a strong negative, with the most unpleasant people being flaming or trans, made pathetic and there only for "comic" relief.

I don't agree we should stable our high horses. If everyone did that we'd still have slavery. Rights don't just accrue, they have to be taken, and progress doesn't just happen, it has to be fought for. When I was a kid I would have been beaten to death if I'd come out in high school - now kids come out when they're 12 and nobody cares - but that took decades of struggle and activism.

Yes, but Hollywood generally won't cast people as wooden and talentless as a lot of these BLs do. Did you see 2moons2? I don't know where they found Pha, but I suspect it was a storage closet for broken display mannequins in some department store basement.

I would drown a puppy for 5 minutes with Mork. Not really, but I might refuse it a doggy treat. Pond is a keeper - I hope we see him in more. I was able to slog through Tonhon for Neo, athough he wasn't really in it much in the second half - but you could see from the comments section that it was pretty much unanimous that he was all that show had going for it. I didn't care much for Meen at first, but now he's just adorable - and the actor is doing a fantastic job.

Anything. I'm old and I know a million different ways - this was stupid and insulting to our intelligence.

The problem was that they were pointlessly miserable. And it was 100% Bbomb's fault and that wasn't ever acknowledged. I totally get Jin's confusion - that didn't bother me at all.

KIND OF lacking? Like the Holocaust was KIND OF like a bummer?