Honglou Meng

Well, I found the first 4 or 5 episodes of Ossan's Love genuinely funny, and laughed out loud. I think I get the Japanese sense of humour. I didn't like the last two episodes that much, only because they were so predictable, but, like Will & Grace (which once made me realise it was okay to be gay in the West, when I thought all gay men around the world were closeted), it seems to have done something for a generation of Japanese people. It even included a kiss, and a fuller one in a sequel!

I don't remember the Wedding Banquet anymore. But I watched it almost 15 years ago, and it made me very happy then. And it is Ang Lee. The man who did the only Austen adaptation worth watching, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, and Lust Caution (Eileen Chang would have been proud of the last one). I haven't the desire to revisit it now. But it is an important film for many. (Maggi loves it too!)

Happy Together as well, I watched 10 years ago, but I watched it for Tony Leung, Leslie Cheung and Wong Kar-wai. All at the peak of their powers. Yes, their love was hopeless and doomed, even annoying, but I couldn't look away. I think Kar-wai's genius is in making emotions out of nothing, and taking emotions out of everything. Only he could have done In The Mood For Love *and* Happy Together.

I'm glad I keep surprising you! Strangely enough, my past traumas -- I do have a few -- never influence what I watch or read. I don't know, I kind of don't let them dictate my life. Not consciously, but it seems to be a perversity of my nature. The things I avoid tend to be what I fear about the future, or being implicated in other people's suffering. That might explain my dislike of ITSAY, for example.

Well, they sort of tried to do that in History 4: Close To You, in the latter half of the series. But because it preceded by a long, very homophobic bit in the first half, where the pair kept fighting about who was the top, because the top was the 'man', it just fell flat, and the whole thing felt botched. Also, I'm sorry, I can't buy Anson Chen as a top. Not in the show, at least.

I just wanted to emphasise that the list is not in order of preference, but is alphabetical. I can imagine you immensely disliking 180 degrees -- which is only there for how unusual it is, and for its first, second, and last episodes. I wonder what others you dislike! Do tell!

Oh, the list is in alphabetical order! :)

If I were to put ITSAY somewhere, it would be the least worst in the list. MODC will also be among the least horrible, but I cannot, cannot forgive that last episode.

On the subject of music, have you heard the soundtrack to HOTE, though? It's amazing. So much so that I painstakingly decoded the lyrics from the video alone, and memorised them. The band has other amazing songs too. I'd highly recommend it!

I think I said this before elsewhere. But when they moved into the four-bed dorm room, I felt as if I had just moved into a house I bought with my husband, only to find my in-laws living there. My boner has already called an uber.

Etoks, you might have watched far too much (or too little?) gay porn for your own good mortal soul. But, yes I would live for such an exciting moment! But then, this is BL, and they are supposed to be teenagers, and in BL world, teenagers do not have sex, even if the actors playing them are almost middle-aged. So, I expect no lovemaking between them, lest there be a Twitter/X-Files meltdown. Viki would become a veritable Vikipedia on the perils of teenage sex, and GagaOOLala would become GagaNoYouDidn't.

You are right, though, about the small moments of quiet beauty between them. That's why I continue to watch it.

That is so on point. It reminds me of a Swedish friend of mine who said she never thought she needed to be a feminist, until she moved to France, where chivalry is very much alive. In Stockholm, no one opened the doors for her, no one offered to pay for her, and men didn't pretend to find it offputting if she hit on one of them. In Paris, on the other hand, men insisted on opening the doors and on driving the car, the waiters always brought the bill to the man, and if she was forward enough to approach a man, the man found it offputting. But then, she saw how lesbian people were treated there -- she had two mums -- and, at the end of her first year in Paris, she asked for a transfer to London.

Apply this to BL, and ask yourself where an uke belongs. It's not hard to see the answer.

Haha, at the moment, I'm not dropping some shows even if they're awful, because (a) I'm curious to see how awful things can get, and (b) I get to write amusing reviews about it. (That's why I stuck with 4Minutes and with Takara -- albeit with generous skipping -- though Takara was so bad that even my sense of humour was stunned into somnolescence.) If the reviews help people, great! If they make people laugh, even better! But without that incentive, I'd have quit this one long ago.

Hahaha. Well, the second half of No. 3 was based on my recent observations of the growing popularity of manbuns among young people in Walthamstow and Peckham in London, and BedStuy in Brooklyn.

Your last paragraph should be set into a BL Tablet of Stone.

If that last remark and smile was sarcastic, it hurts. I thought people on this site were better than that. (If not sarcastic, ignore this comment.)

But FCC recently established a taskforce to look into discrimination along the lines of gender and sexual orientation on digital forums, so, I hope it falls under their jurisdiction. I'm not expecting the site to change its policy or for FCC to force them to do so. I just want to know the truth.

And I'd rather try and fail at this than not trying at all. We fought far too hard to get here to tolerate such discrimination.

Apparently, there is an official or semi-official policy of rejecting any articles about LGBTQ shows on the website, and a blanket ban on "promoting" them, least of all on the front page. I'm relatively new to MDL, but many people have observed that no article about a BL has ever made it to the front page. A moderator sort of confirmed that submissions about LGBTQ shows tend to get rejected most of the time, though they couldn't confirm that it happens everytime. I have written to the admins to ask if this is all true. I have yet to get a response.

Writing to the FCC will probably do nothing -- because customer complaints are all "informal". But I just can't let this rest if true.

I've written to the admins and the support site about this. If I don't get a response, I'm going to write to the FCC. Please spread the message. I might need all of your support.

Okay, that's helpful to know. Thanks! I've written to the admins and site masters. If they do not reply, I'll write to the FCC.

Can you say what you liked about it a bit more? I'm curious.

P. S. Big fan of your review of To My Star 2, by the way. I thought I was the only one who thought it a monstrous abomination of pain porn.

This almost makes me want to watch it, out of sheer curiosity. :)

I've watched it for you, and it is baaaaaad! (See my comment above.) I do wonder if it can reach the threshold of being so bad that it's good. But... I don't know if I have the will to watch another episode...

This is bad, right? As in the Young and the Restless directed by Roland Emmerich bad? Also, who wrote the script? They should write for a gay porn studio. Only, gay porn usually has better dialogue and gets to it faster...

Hahaha, I expected a more elaborate reply than that. But your indignation shines through. (Fair enough!)

Wow, James might be the most beautiful worst actor since Bright in 2gether.

Etoks, why put yourself (I mean me) down, in order to praise me (I mean, yourself)? You are (I am) able to call people out in a way that I can't (you can't).

Okay, this is getting tedious. But thanks all the same, for being me, and being yourself.