ksk79

Making my way through it slowly, as the female characters feel too stereotypical. After nearly a decade, it’s clear that women in China are no longer seen as the weak, male-dependent figures they were once portrayed as. The workplace politics in this series mirror a conservative East Asian work culture. Still, in real life, it’s refreshing to see the younger generation calling out these unproductive practices on social media. Today, in real life, the younger-gen staff working in such establishments with unproductive East Asian practices will happily quit and find work at competitors' establishments.

I am looking forward to season 2. I would like to see Kang Shi Young move on from her fixation on Dr. Cha and instead develop an interest in a new doctor at the hospital where she works. Additionally, I hope the show focuses more on the camaraderie between Dr. Lee Yoo Joon and Dr. Cha Yo Han.

A great mix of idealism and a few doses of reality makes this a great series that should continue.

Would love to read the novel or its script. If anyone knows, please share.

@Uwusita77 I'm surprised no producers have bought the script and adapted it into a BL series yet.

@stolenart I am starting think you and I are on a somewhat same wavelength. ;)

Interesting observation, @aplrbn. I hadn’t noticed that since I’d already read the novel. The adaptation shifted the perspective, changing how viewers perceive the reason behind the character’s reaction. Disclaimer: I am very curious about the creative processes of how the screenwriter adapted the novel to resonate with the series’ audience. The novel and the series are going in different directions so far.

@Lorien_cm Thank you for sharing your view. (It reminds me of a concept learned in a university Cultural Anthropology class decades ago).

@swagata As a former consumer researcher, I am pleasantly surprised and grateful to have read your "essay". My reaction won't likely be like yours as we have different demographic and psychographic attributes. We aren't robots molded and programmed from the same factory. ;D

@Lorien_cm So, you think that if he were injured in a work-related accident, his perspective might change? I wonder if most BL fans on the official platforms hosting this series would feel the same way. I wonder if you use the characters BLQ & LXF to create a case study, the East Asian gay community would have a different opinion on their relationship. But here, we're dealing with a BL series. What I am curious about, though, are what tropes make genre fans happy to consume the media. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

@Lorien_cm interesting case. Share what you think would have happened if that were the case. If LXF character exits the storyline in episode 8, the remaining audience for this series will likely change. Only sociologists and anthropologists, including me, will flock to see the remaining episodes eagerly.

@swagata Thank you for sharing your interesting interpretation. The series seem to focus too much on LXF, so viewers get an unbalanced perspective.

@ADark "the director kinda recreated popular scenes from her previous work" Why, assuming you’re a BL fan, don’t you like scenes that imitate her supposedly successful styles from past works?

@KSM4 I appreciate the feedback. As I read the comments, I find myself questioning what the “magical” elements in a BL series are that are attracting its target audience from a film production perspective. (I am obviously not the audience for this, but I am extremely interested as one who worked in the film industry). This was actually executed by a female director who has previous "success" in this genre. Personally, most BL tropes and visuals fail to engage my sensory perception; in fact, many evoke aversion and apprehension.

Producing a synopsis is tedious and unnecessary because we don’t know to what extent the adaptation deviates to appeal to non–East Asian viewers who are BL fans. The series obviously follows a different objective than that of the novel. It's perhaps similar to the series 'Feel what you feel,' which was radically adapted from the web novel. Those of us who had read and reread the novel saw that the series did not present it in its entirety.

@Truth Hurts I am also thinking of that, too. It looks like the adaptation is going that direction.

@joopis, I was startled too to see Romaji. I took Japanese for over 2 years progressing from Hirakana to Katakana, and then some Kanji. The Kanji part was where I stopped because I begged my father to let my siblings and me study Japanese because its scripts looked simpler than Mandarin!

It was Hong Kong Cantonese-dialect gay movie directed by an openly gay director and was released in 1998. A death occur because of deeply ingrained homophobia of the character. Other gay characters in the creative work did live on. 'Happy Together' was another Cantonese-dialect gay movie released a year earlier; here, no one dies; naturally, the ending did not fit the expected BL trope. Most gay viewers, I think, are satisfied with the ending considering the situation.

@stolenart Thanks for the info. Really appeared in BL before? And I thought this medium template was stolen from Thai evening melodramas, many of which according to media planners, are deployed to get particular viewers to their screen devices. It makes sense though since I discover the premises of BL for its particular audience.

@hansel714 Thank you for sharing that interesting fact! Although I had frequently visited Bangkok and L.A.'s Yaohan, I wasn't aware of the fictional drama associated with it.