Honglou Meng

Hey, I don't disagree with you at all. I find all of the JBLs you mention slow as well -- and I'm glad you enjoyed them! I actually disliked both Kieta Hatsukoi and Cherry Magic for different reasons, which surprises a lot of people. Rather, I merely mention the general fact that most JBLs are 30 mins or less -- *even* when they are too slow. But JBL and TBL are indeed two different beasts.

In the right hands, however, slowness is always a merit -- in one of my favourite films ever, Flowers of Shanghai, the camera barely moves for the first 15 minutes, while a group of rich men and concubines just drink and eat and chat. It's glorious.

Oh, I did a DIY BL kit country by country on Reddit. Search online for "DIY BL Kit by Country", because they won't let me put the URL here for some reason. I hope I've covered all the missed ground!

Meanwhile, although I agree with you that you cannot make someone like what they don't, I do believe in persuasion, and in the importance of changing one's mind if there are grounds to do so. So, after hearing what Etoks and Maggi have to say, maybe I'll revisit the film!

Thanks for laughing with me. And I'm glad you loved TTOF!

I should also say, something in me broke (not in a good way) after finishing "A Shoulder to Cry On" -- so it is possible that the mere sight of another high-school KBL puts me on edge! :)

But maybe I should give this another try in a few days!

Well, during my brief foray into Reddit, I created a list of ingredients for a DIY KBL bibimbap. It went something like this:

"School setting. (Rarely college.) Bright white uniform with blue borders, preferably over a white t-shirt. No kisses. Sometimes the lips can touch each other with all the enthusiasm of kissing a leper. (Because, ewww... gay...) Don't say gay. Two acceptable hobbies/interests: athletics, and music. If music, Jazz. If athletics, basketball. Confine all action to the hallways or the playground -- allow for some bullying. Wound tending (seldom more than a scrape). Usually supportive parents (in one of the most homophobic countries in the world). Time jumps, and chronological confusion. As actors, idols are preferable. But always paint their faces 6 inches thick with white powder, and make their lips redder than Indian summer. As for plot... well, anything will do, because, you just throw the ingredients together and add gochujang, and people will eat it up."

I fear Time of Fever had many of these ingredients. (Or am I being too harsh?) I found myself screaming at the screen "Oh, go on. Do." a lot, which made me sound like Lady Deadlock. I guess little in it surprised me, save the tangerine-tinged kiss?

I have wondered if there is something wrong with my taste, because everybody I respect seems to love ITSAY and Blueming and Unknown, but I care for none of these. (In fact, I hated ITSAY, and I have yet to talk to anyone else who did.) But then, Salò and O Fantasma are two of my favourite films. So...

I must say, while I don't share your enthusiasm for the film -- and wouldn't the world be a dull place if we all liked the same thing? -- you are right about the kisses! They were hot! It took a minute for me to remember that this was KBL. Makes me hopeful that Korea might be slowly moving past its Will & Grace era.

That's very true, and something I'm very much aware of. But, given that this is a BL, and mostly a BL-by-the-number (not always a bad thing), realism of any sort was the last thing I expected of it. Perhaps that's why it vexed me, rather than make me sad.

It is a testament to how conservative KBLs can be that seeing two *actual* kisses in this show feels almost revolutionary. The second kiss is even quite hot.

Otherwise, it's mostly BL by the numbers for me: school setting, fake girlfriends, dead fathers, sporty seme, artistic uke, wound tending (so much wound tending), and, lest I forget, a bowlcut to make a 30 year old man seem 19...

Those who watched Unintentional Love Story for Hotae and Donghee got their wish. I'm only sorry that they don't get to see them happy -- or in a more original story.

When, in BLs, will the boys stop using innocent girls to figure out their sexuality? It's not fair to the girls, and it's not fair to the other boy.

Hotae, sweetheart, it's not that hard. As a teenager, I'm sure you watch plenty of porn. Just go to the top left corner, and click on the link that says 'gay'. See what happens. Know thyself! (/irony).

Your services on behalf of my sanity are much appreciated!

This! Thank you!

2gether had a high-five; here, it's a low-five, where, if either of their hands moved down below their waist, they'd push each other away and go, "Ewww... gay!"

You see, for me, that first kiss was a sign of things to come. It wasn't even a real fish kiss. If I'm not mistaken -- and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm misremembering -- what we mainly see are the backs of their heads. I say more in my review, but, it immediately set off alarm bells in my head that they were going to take the easier, more cowardly route out: which is to say, to reduce Kohei's hardness-of-hearing as a means to sow misunderstandings, and Maya's hardness-of-hearing as an excuse to make her a needless villain. Neither, in the end, worked in the drama's favour, and both drained away to the point of annihilation the promise of the first half of the show. In any event, it neither did justice to the promised romance, nor to the people who are hard-of-hearing.

Sigh.

Ah my predictions came true! Yet, why am I not happy?

Hang on, did Go Hotae really guilt-trip an 8 year old into letting him play football with them, saying that his dad's just died?

That's funny.

I sort of agree with you, in that, this would have made an incredible film in the right hands. But, in a way, I'm glad they stayed close to the manga-roots, and staged it within the confines of a rather standard trope-heavy BL, because, it is precisely the incongruity between the BL conventions and the heaviness of the storyline that gives it its jarring quality. In most cases, a story like Haoren's would be told in such a way as to coax our tears. But the format, at least for me, didn't allow that, and so, the presentation of his past did not feel like a way of manipulating viewers' emotions, which is what most films and BLs would do. Here, it was almost cold, clinical. Similarly, the inner monologues, which I normally struggle to suffer, felt instead like a mockery of them. I almost laughed when Haoren said: "The past is chasing me."

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, and I pray to god that the last four episodes don't disappoint. But something about this feels different.

Not bad? It's brilliant! The best BL in what feels like years, with the potential, if they can keep it up, to be one of the best BLs of all time!

Praise be! But I believe my larger, tongue-firmly-in-cheek point holds.

Also, for the record, I have no objections to the step-brother trope. Taiwan, keep at it!

I feel exactly the same way, though I'm in my mid-30s. I don't like arguments (in the pugilistic sense) at all -- for, as Wilde said, "it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue" -- but I do love dispassionate arguments of the academic sort. You always learn something, and often change your opinions.

That said, the homophobia and the silencing of gay men on this forum finally got to me yesterday. So I felt I had to come to etoks' -- I mean my -- defense. As you can see, I have tried to be civil in my engagements, and offer the perspective of someone who is different, and I'm generally willing to talk to the young -- but I can see that my efforts are largely in vain.

But I think it should be clear to all right-thinking people here who has brought something thoughtful to the debate, and who hasn't. With that, I resign from this thread.

Yes, fellow me. I give up. This is rather tedious, rather like shouting at a white-washed wall. Since we are the same people, and have some sort of split-personality disorder, let's go hang out with Maggi instead, and just have a cocktail.

Well, that's just insulting to people identifying as asexuals, isn't it?

A friend of mine, who identifies as asexual, also said this to me, which I thought was very perceptive of them: "I hate it when people who identify as demi- or asexual use their identity to shut down discourse about sex among LGBT people. I especially hate it when they argue against depictions of gay or lesbian sex on TV."

When asked why, they replied: "It's not as if people without sexual desire have been put to death for their sexuality, is it? I get that the media treats sex as the apotheosis of human pleasure, and people like me don't feel that at all. It is horrible to have all this pressure to have sex, and be treated as abnormal if you don't. And,it is helpful to have a label to realise that we are who we are. It is really empowering. But let's keep things in perspective, and not forget what LGBT people go through."

Something to mull over, perhaps.

Someone (excitedly): There is a new Taiwanese BL out!

Me (knowing nothing about the show): Oh? Is it about stepbrothers?