jpny01

I dropped that in ep 4 - if he was in it earlier than that I must have been asleep or something because I would have stayed with it - I'll probably go finish it now! In Lovely Writer I was thinking about Aey, "Why are you stuck on a mannequin when you can have THAT!"

LOL, I was assuming "the episode airing on Wednesday" - I can tell this series is going to be confusing to me.

If they had taken the ingredients they had and competently assembled them, they would have had something special. I completely agree that this was a missed opportunity, but I give points for effort, when it comes to a low-budget production like this - and I completely understand the contrary view, which I would be more likely to tend toward in a larger production.

My hope is they can learn from their mistakes in this series and do a better job on the next, which also stars the Tae actor.

The initial promo material had someone completely different for Nite 1, so it looks like they were having a lot of Nite issues. So Nite 1 was really Nite 1b.

OK, I can see that. Part of the problem is that this isn't written with realistic drunkenness. A blacked-out person can't utter a complex unslurred sentence like that. There is also a difference between being tired and being incapacitated, the difference is not clear here. We didn't actually see XS stumble around because YJ immediately picked him up. A blacked-out person can't grab someone around the neck and pull him in for a kiss, or ask "you don't trust me?" when YJ refuses. That last line requires a LOT of cognative effort. First, you have to recognize who you're talking too, second, you have to be aware of the complex context of your relationship, and third, you have to able to analyse someone's behavior and reach a conclusion that postulates complex motives. If I were drunk, and not even super drunk, and tried to kiss someone that pulled away, I wouldn't say "don't you trust me?" I would slur "You're mean!" and pout.

I'm not arguing that it's impossible to see XS as incapacitated, but I don't think it's written or meant that way.

The Church definitely delivers some mixed signals about homosexuality.

It's worse for girls though, due to societal prejudices that assign shame to women for their sexuality and more positive attitudes towards men, e.g. a girl is a slut and a boy is a stud. Also, there's no societal value assined to male virginity - in fact it's generally a negative, whereas female virginity is treated - literally - as sacred (reference the Virgin Mary).

That's why there's so much non-consent in Asian dramas - it's better for a woman to be raped than for her to actually pursue and enjoy sex - likewise a boy being raped is not as bad as a boy seeking and enjoying bottoming.

There is a legitimate reason to be resistant to this trope because it's rooted in misogyny and homophobia, whereas in a Western drama that's almost never the case, at least not for decades.

The reason I have no objection here is that this is an adult drama and nobody is pretending that what Yong Jie did is OK - it's quite clear in-drama that everything thinks it was f@#$ed up - it hadn't been romanticized and waved away - yet.

Also, this development was not hidden. One of the trailers was entirely about the brothers couple and it was clear what the themes would be - so if you're so strongly opposed to those themes, then you had the opportunity not to watch, so it's a bit sanctimonious to judge people who watched it and viewed it as shades of grey rather than black & white.

It is not sanctimonious, however, to express strong disagreement in a non-judmental way. The lines are blurry and there is large margin for disagreement.

Where I'm flabbergasted is how anyone can possibly think Xing Si does NOT have a sexual attraction for Yong Jie. There I don't think there's much room for argument - every time Yong Jie touches him he swoons. And the beach scene was conclusive in that regard.

I don't think BL audiences like ambiguity and dark complexity like this - usually BLs are very straightforward - bad guys are bad guys, and for Yong Jie to be a bad guy, Xing Si can't want him sexually.

In that case, Xing Si is resisting because he thinks he's be taking advantage of Yong Jie, whereas Yong Jie is an adult and can be party to that decision. It might be nice to start with a conversation rather than spending 10 years on an incredibly complex plan to seduce him, and he had no right to do what he did - but it would look much worse if Xing Si only viewed him platonically, in which case Xing Si was unaware of what was happening in the love scene, which would be rape.

But as I said, I don't see how it's possible to miss Xing Si's desire for Yong Jie, so to me it's a horrible violation of trust, not a rape. And that conclusion is partly because being drink lowers your inhibition to do things you want to do, it doesn't generate desires that are not there.

I'm procrastinating instead of doing something I need to do, and I blame you.

For me, in the enemies part, they hated each other TOO much, to the point that they were awful people. Then the change was too abrupt. It's really hard to do enemies-to-lovers in such a short timeframe - there isn't time to have them gradually warm up to each other, and so they relied on a really stupid and tired cliche rather than organic development of their relationship. I didn't mind the editing, although I agree there were a couple of abrupt transitions. "Ok, I guess it's nighttime now."

If they had been a bit less horrible to each other at first, it might have been more successful, like maybe if their dislike had been due to a misunderstanding - but it was because one of them was unspeakably rude. The bad boy has to be a good person in bad circumstances. If he's just a rude asshole it doesn't work, or to make it work there needs to be a longer character ar so that the other member of the pair brings out the good side of him.

Does that sound like how you saw it?

Because of Chap? If so, I can't blame you there!

Does that violate some rule or something? It's it good that it will be around a long time, or is something you want to see more scheduled to air after this series is over?

It is not allowed to have a series run fo a long time or something? I'm not sure why everyone is commenting on this - I feel like I'm missing some important detail.

But I can't argue about Chap - my eyes popped out of my head the first time he appeared on Lovely Writer.

I didn't understand what you meant - do you mean the couple was not good? Or "so-so"? What you wrote means "very good".

They can't do that. YooPerLay would be TOO hot. Our screens would melt. Although YouPerLay really, really works as a portmanteau.

OK, so that was not good - but also not terrible. The change in relationship was extremely sudden, and caused by the most absolutely tired cliche you could possibly imagine, and although I'm not spoiling, I probably should tag this because you all know exactly what I'm saying without me saying it.

You can't go from visceral hatred to where it went in 1 second. At least not without rewinding and showing how the characters really feel under the hatred.

I will say that when they're nice to each other, it is really sweet, and they have good chemistry, albeit partly because one of them is gorgeous (the guy who plays Mork in Lovely Writer). It was also refreshing that one of them had a natural "reaction" to being touched by the other - I thought that wasn't allowed in BL.

Anyway, this is the sort of story that needed to be longer to work - 50 minutes is not enough to go through such a massive change. It would have been better to have them warm up when Tue gets sick.

It's funny, I was thinking, "Where is the magic damp towel? The BL damp towel can cure cancer!" but it duly showed up, just later than usual.

Finally, a comment on the show itself rather than the airing strategy! I'm taking a break from watching at the moment because I hate it and am hoping it gets better. It doesn't sound like it will. I know everyone loves the tsundere thing, but when the characters start out that horrible to each other, they come off as horrible people and I don't care if they get together - I'd rather they die in a car accident - preferably soon. Then their hot brothers can bond at the funeral.

Friends-to-enemies works better when the situation makes basically good people hostile to each other, rather than being hostile to each other because they're rude assholes. I haven't seen enough to judge the acting - they're doing fine at snarling at each other, which is all they've had to do so far in the first 13-min or so.

Secondary Couple Syndrome is real, though - they often put better and more experienced actors into the secondary roles, for whatever reasons. Maybe they want to cultivate amateurs or there's a financial reason, not sure.

PhuKao in Oxygen was so much more appealing to me that I started ff through everything else, which I was totally uninterested in. Also, we may not realize it when we're watching, but I think it may be off-putting that the setups for the main characters are often ridiculous and consume a huge amount of time with manufactured drama, whereas the secondary couple is usually a more straight-forward character-driven romance.

The other thing the secondary couple have going for them IS their limited screentime, which leaves you wanting more, and they don't have enough time to get annoying. If you had a full series about their two characters in My Engineer, you might start to find it less interesting - it is based on one character not speaking much, which is difficult to sustain.

The number of hits isn't really relevant. My Engineer was a mainline show broadcast to a much larger audience - YYY was an "indie" production never intended for the wider audience. If Yoon & Perth were the main couple in, say, Oxygen, they would certainly have had as much or more views than PerthLay. And Oxygen may have been more watchable to me.

I totally disagree - I think Talay and Yoon have better chemistry, although I think both couplings are great. Maybe it's Talay! Althoigh Yoon & Perth are both sexy, so it's probably all three of them.

With the guy, that was a 100% voluntary sexual activity where I participated out of laziness because it seemed less tiresome than getting him to leave. My point is that what would have been a traumatic event when I was 20 was at a much older age "Friday".

The priest when I was 14 was due to being in a coercive situation with an authority figure (i.e. I did nothing because he was an authority figure) and not understanding the situation. It wasn't that bad, just confusing, and in the end it was the first time I understood I wasn't the only gay person in the world so that was a silver lining.

It's a sad commentary on my childhood that being molested by a priest is what passes for a positive experience.

All that is completely true, but it doesn't make Gene a likeable character. Because he's the protagonist, people are letting him get away with it. If Aey said that (it's not a compliment if a man finds you attractive), the forum would be full of comments about how hateful he is.

And again, while there's nothing wrong with having internalized homophobia, or being slow to come to terms with one's feelings, it isn't an excuse for poor behavior - it may be a cause of poor behavior, but a mature person takes responsibility for his behavior and apologizes as necessary. He can be immature and inexperienced with regard to his sexuality, but he's too old to be immature all-around.

I think Gottillc's perspective is correct - Gene is deliberately written as an uke, which is a feminine character. Not having experience with relationships is one thing, but being rude and immature is another (I mean Gene). I'm not sure I understood your point about being just a fantasy character - are you saying that Gene's role is as an archetype or symbolic or soemthing, or do you mean all characters in BLs are fantasy characters and don't need to be realistic? If it's the latter, that's hard to agree with. If characters aren't people, that behave in ways we can indentify and sympathize with, I don't think you can call that well-written. and it wouldn't draw people into the story. BLs have a fantasy element, but that should be in the situation, not the characters (unless they're actually a fantasy character, like a stuffed animal come to life or an supernatural being like a ghost), e.g. in UWMA the main characters are reincarnations. That's the fantasy, but the characters are normal people,. Or, there are a lot of extremely implausible coincidences in BL - that's the fantasy part and we're generally fine with that unless it's abused - but the characters still need to be realistic.

I have social anxiety too, but it doesn't make me rude to people and it doesn't make me immature. I have no problem with Gene's lack of experience in love, but he's in his mid-late 20s, has been to college, and lives in an urban center, so even if he's not in his comfort zone, he's not a child, or even a teenager, and not inexperienced with social interaction. He knows what good manners are, and he has to have some experience in dealing with people. I get being awkward and shy, but he's downright rude. He never apologized to Sib for saying terrible things to him at the end of Ep 4, so it's hard me to like him. People get irritated, so I don't mind he blew up but you apologize afterwards. All Gene did is call him cute.

Which brings up Gene's homophobia. He questions whether or not being called cute by a man is a compliment. Not knowing you're gay is one thing, although a 20-something man in a fairly tolerant urban area who writes gay-themed fiction and is in an industry heavily-populated gay men should give him a substantial leg up on figuring himself out, but that's still an individual process, so fine. But it isn't fine for him to say homophobic things, and he knows better.

He's consciously written as an uke, because BL writers and viewers like that dynamic, and as an uke is a male dropped into an unevolved girl's role (by which I mean strangely Victorian rather than liberated and modern, i.e. needs to be taken care of by a man), that's why Gene is girlish. I was hoping that this would have some satire to it and that would be subverted, but this isn't really a satire, it's a conventional BL with a couple of half-hearted satirical elemenets thrown in.

The trailer makes it look like fan expectations will be an important factor, so maybe it will shirt into satire in the second half. Anyway, my issue with Gene is that he isn't very nice and very immature.