jpny01

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.

I wrote a positive review, so maybe contrast it with a negative one to decide if you want to watch it if you'd like.

Yes. COVID interrupted filming and when it resumed, it looks like not everyone was available. The ending does make sense, and there's a new character who almost everyone really liked.

The actor is a college student - he was probably unavailable for the continued shooting. I'm not sure it was completely predictable, even before the continuity break. If you didn't know who the couple was at first, that's already practially revolutionary. Generally you know before the credit are over, and five minutes in you could sketch out the plot with 95% accuracy, And the way people reacted to things maturely was surprising. "If you had told me, I wouldn't have burdened anyone with unwanted attention."

I'm afraid I don't know if it's based on a novel.

That's exactly what I gave it. I looked forward to it every week and it made me happy.

For me what worked was Tae, who I would watch standing in a field for hours on end.

But the production was apparently interrupted by COVID, and since they case a lot of college students, many of them may not have been available. Also, I believe the last section was filmed during the height of restrictions, so they had to severely limit the number of actors on set.

I have to give them some credit for muscling through, but it could certainly have been better.

The original run was 10 episodes, which they had to extend by two or the revised ending would not have worked at all.

If you're in a room with someone you trusted who was suddenly being aggressive with you who is bigger and stronger, there's reason to feel fear, and because people are inhently good except sociopaths, guilt is an effect tool of coersion. If you're a teen or young woman, this is all different that it is for middle-aged gay men.

I hooked up with a guy once who I tried to put off politely but he outsmarted me, and he was fairly attractive and an acquaintance of a relative, so I did it. The sex was terrible. I think he learned how to have sex from porn or something. Finally he fell asleep, little damage done. Then he woke up a couple of hours later. It would have been a lot of effort to get rid of him so my inner monologue was "Well, this might as well happen." So yes, I let someone have his way with me out of laziness, whereas when I was 18 I would have been traumatized by the whole experience. Sex and love are special when you're young. Love is always special and sex is great too, but there's not a lot of importance attached to the individual act. When you've had sex 10 times, each one is pretty special. After 10,000 times, it's "turn off the light when you're done."

That was bleak and exaggerated for the sake of dramatic flair, but you know what I mean.

But he was crying because he thought he had coerced Yong Jie though his authority position when he tried to kiss Yong Jie - remember that was the first overtly sexual thing that happened.

When Xing Si found out Yong Jie had planned the whole thing, he was angry, even slapped him more than once, rejected him, and sent him away.

Yong Jie didn't have to tell Xing Si the truth - he could have just said he's always been in love with Xing Si and what happened is what he's wanted for years. Instead he was totally honest with him like he always is - so he's not a sociopath, he's a disturbed, probably mentally ill, but basically good person.

Remember, he needs to engineer the situation so that he takes the blame for the relationship or (he believes) his step-father will never accept the relationship. The problem is, he's deciding what's best for everyone when these are not his decisions to make. After the beach scene, it's unmistakable that he's correct that Xing Si is also in love with him and won't act on it because of the authority relationship, but Xing Si's reasons for not acting on it are likely many and rational (e.g. their parents will never accept it [although he'd be 50% wrong on that count], if they got together and it didn't work, it could destroy the family, the age difference, the authority relationship, etc.)

Watch the beach scene again, this time looking for Xing Si's sexual attraction for Yong Jie rather than assuming it's not there (that's not a criticism). The scene starts with a bottle in a phallic position in the sand in the foreground which is not accidental. There is no mistaking the erotic nature of what Yong Jie is doing - think about a time when a relative of friend was putting sun screen on you - was is a slow caress like that, or a rapid spread lasting a few seconds? Not to mention the nipple brush. Would you shut your eyes and think about how good it felt, or would you turn around and say "what the f@#$ are you doing?" Xing Si is obviously (to me) fighting what he's feeling.

I actually really like that interpretation, and I think you're right about the power dynamic - I hadn't thought of it that way. But the driver for Xing Si's behavor is his perception that he's in the authority position.

I also think your other prediction is correct, and I think it's another well-intentioned and horribly misguided reason for doing what he did. This guy really plans things out - this was a 10-year plan!

I'm actually in complete agreement with you except on one point. The Canadian law is ridiculous, and if it were to strictly implemented globally, the human race would die out. I would agree that when alcohol is involved, it's better to get a "yes" than an absence of "no", but consent can be nonverbal - I would say it almost always is. And I'm aslo fine with awkwardly inserting that into shows meant for children - better to get a "yes" at least until you have the experience to interpret non-verbal cues with some acuity.

But that is an oppressive standard, and people who commit rape are bad people, not good people who were induced by alcohol to be bad, and they will rape regardless of what the law is. And unless you get a written "Yes", it's "he said, she said", so this accomplishes nothing but to ruin romance for good people.

While extremely drunk, I once slept with a man where there was a mutual attraction but who was in a relationship. I knew it was wrong while I was doing it, and there's no chance I would have done it while sober, but if he had said "no" or even was not really into it, there is zero chance I would have tried to force it. One might say if I did one thing wrong, how can I say I wouldn't do another? Because of scale. Raping someone is a monstrous act of violence and just a step below murder. To me, the guy in the relationship is the person who did something terrible, I was only a selfish asshole.

But by the definition a lot of people are throwing around here, I'm a rapist. If you have the incomplete story, it doesn't sound to good for me.

The additional details are that I had met the guy that night, we were mutually attracted when sober, he was not drunk, I only went to his room because a friend(-ish) I was not attracted to wouldn't leave me alone (he wanted sex) and I needed a place to sleep. I got into bed with with the guy, he initiated sex, and it happend. Then I don't sound so bad. In fact he sounds closer to being a rapist. But this is again where we get into complicated consent. I'm pretty sure he would not have forced me if I said no or physically resisted, or was blacked out, I wanted to have sex with him, and I immediately went along with it because he was cute. Is that still not consent? I think I consented. I wouldn't have done it when sober, but I knew exactly what was happening, and it was something I had wanted while sober. There can be a lot of disagreement, but in the end the decider is me. Likewise, the decider is XS.

There is a difference between doing something you regret and being raped. You don't always know where the line is in advance, but you almost certainly know it when you reach it (unless you're a minor, which is why sex with minors is illegal). Every situation is different, and every situation has to be looked at individually. Proclaiming that consent can't be given when drunk is too broad. That consent can't be given when incapacitated is objective and inarguable.

Anyway, I think YJ did something terrible - and they have not romanticized it (although they certainly sexualized it!). We saw that when XS slapped him, rejected him, and refused to listen to his explanation. I'm hoping they don't just shrug and say "Bad boy. Don't do that again. Let's get married." A lot of work needs to be done before the audience can accept them as a couple. Maybe even a time jump to after a few years of therapy for YJ.

To me, YJ did this out of a misguided desire to give XS what XS wants - because XS doesn't think YJ wants the same thing, and he doesn't think YJ can consent because of the power differential - he tells us that himself. You know, using initials is actually more work than just using their names.

That it's also what Yong Jie wants is certainly material, because you're more likely to delude yourself with dubious justifications for what you want to do. If next episdode we discover that Xing Si has no desire for Yong Jie at all, then I'll jump camps, but until I see the full story, I can't call it rape.

What happened to your friend is terrible, but it has nothing to do with this situation.

I'm trying to understand how it's possible not to see that XJ is sexually attracted to YJ. It was possible before this ep., but not anymore. Please go to 16:35 (it's not an explicit scene), first, note the bottle in the sand. That's not accidental, and it's not the first symbolic image within their scenes. Do you really not see that the scene is erotically charged, and the conflict in XS?

Also you don't even have to have visual acuity - he says to his friends he's afraid he coerced his brother - why would he say that if he had no desire? Have you ever wanted to f#$% a sibling when drunk? It doesn't make you a different person, it lowers your inhibitions.

YJ asked XS if he recognized him, and he smiled and said 'You're Yong Jie." He did'nt even open his eyes first, so you can't tell me he doesn't know full well who it is. And then after after YJ tells him he's deeply in love with him - and it was expressed in unambiguous romantic terms - XS says it's mutual. So if he had suddenly forgotten the person he just recognized moments before, then who is he telling us he's deeply in love with? Unless it's his stepfather, there aren't any candidates.

I woudn't confess my romantic love to my brother with a smile, because I would be traumatized and probably slap him. Well, eventually traumatized - I'd be confused at first because he's 100% straight.

However, if someone I was in love with just told me he's also in love with me, you can bet I'd smile when I confess I love him too.

Why would brothers share a bed if there are rooms with two beds available? That would be beyond weird.

A lot of people have strange impressions of what it's like to be drunk. Maybe it's because too much media use it as a plot device to excuse actions or for humor. You do not suddenly manifest desires that aren't already there. New stimuli can enter the picture when you're drunk (like if you're at a bar), and you might then find someone attractive that you wouldn't when sober, but If my brother wandered in, I wouldn't suddenly desire him, and if he tried something I would resist. Several times I've had to physically resist men I was not attracted to coming onto me while I was extremely drunk - If XS had no desire for YJ, it woudn't just appear suddenly.

That's why you never go to a party and get sloppy drunk without your sig other. And why you never get drunk when you know you're going to be in a bed with someone you're sexually attracted to if you don't want sex to happen.

Remeber that YJ had only given him chaste kisses on the forehead and cheeks - it was XS that initiated overtly sexual activity by grabbing YJ to kiss on the lips - and that's why he was afraid he had coerced YJ into sex.

Repeatedly asking and guilt-tripping is coercive and is at least sexual assault. He leveraged their friendship, the weather, distance home, etc. to get his way - she may have been in a vulnerable place in her life, or there could be other mitigating factors. You also have to consider that many women have to fear that a man might get violent. We should probably avoid an assessment of real-life situations.

Your last point is not a fact, and that you think it is a fact says more about you than it does about anything else. Every situation is different and has to evaluated individually. Almost every single legal system in the world disagrees with you.

I'm not blaming the victim, because there is no victim. If XS were impared, I would agree with you. He wasn't. And YJ didn't want him impaired, because then he would be guilty of rape, but more importantly (to him), XS wouldn't remember the sex and so the whole exercise would have been pointless, and I don't think he spent 10 years planning this just to rape XS. He could just have slipped a rape drug in his drink and taken whatever he wanted.

That's true for YJ, but XS is struggling with this, I believe because of the (step) sibling relationship. And while YJ may nor think of this as an incest situation, the world at large will, to an extent. But note the YJ was past the age when the incest aversion develops when XJ came into his life.

I think the relationship is meant to be transgressive, but functionally it's not really incest. YJ's mother would have freaked the f#$% out if they were real brothers or if she thought the relationship was harmful. She has kept it secret - just tellng XS or her husband would put an end to it. If they didn't have the bond of 10 years of intimate love, what YJ did would not be an obstacle they could get past, and they may not anyway.