The Secondhand Embarassment

(there are sort of character spoilers but not story spoilers)

Man, I love Ja & First. They don't wind up with great shows but their dynamic is fun to watch. This show is a bit difficult to get through, though.

The acting of the actors in the show (so the tv show being filmed that Ashi stars in) has such atrocious melodrama acting. The female lead in particular is like nails on a chalkboard to get through (note: not the actual actress, her character's acting). If I didn't know better I'd have thought First had zero acting skills based on that terrible soap opera his character is in.

Punn comes off as autistic coded (I don't mean that in a disparaging way) with Ashi being his special interest/hyper fixation. The over eager puppy dog and huge reactions to everything, in addition to him sort of coming off as a squirmy 12 yr old rather than a man in his 20s causes me so much secondhand embarrassment that I pause this show about 35 times per episode.

I'm still watching (but I don't know why) but I can't imagine how the romance is going to come off. Mostly because Punn seems so child-like (in a developmentally delayed way) that it seems like a relationship would feel like a violation.

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Fantastic Cast with a Subpar Script

Let’s be honest, the cast is the only thing that made this show watchable in the least. Many are praising Frame and Ryan for their chemistry, which they rightfully deserve, but I haven’t seen anyone praising the other cast members. Every single actor who played a member of the volleyball team, as well as Tan’s actor, did really well. They gave us really likable characters we could be invested in even though the writing failed both them and us. They all deserve SO MUCH better than they got. I really hope we can see some of them working together on projects in the future. Preferably ones that deserve them.

***Spoilers Below***

The writing…oof. I’d like to think they at least tried, I really would. But I’m not sure how much they did.
- The entire basis for the switch was thin at best to begin with and made no sense as the story went on.
- We never get to see anything that explains why Zee goes from wanting nothing to do with volleyball to seemingly wanting to play again. Maybe even liking it? There could have been some interesting storytelling if they explored his dislike of volleyball (I think we all understood why) and actually had him quit or showed him caving to the pressure to go back. But there’s nothing. At most we can presume he missed it once it was gone when he saw Sprite training that one time.
- It would have been a lot more interesting if someone on the volleyball side found them out. Eapecially since Sprite was SO BAD at volleyball to start. They made it seem like Tom might catch them bc his mom was also in the hospital but that went nowhere. Those brothers met IN PUBLIC several times but no one every stumbled upon them.
- Sprite needed to confess to First, if to no one else, waaaaaaay sooner. First gave him every possible opportunity to tell him that he wasn’t Zee and Sprite constantly chose to lie to him.
- Sleeping with someone then letting your twin, who is a complete asshole to begin with, interact with that person while being (surprise!) a total dick then wondering why he’s upset at you?! At this point I wanted First to tell Sprite to fuck off and never give him another chance. That was HORRIBLE. (And kind of SA-y to let him think he was sleeping with someone he wasn’t, imo)
- Many characters were made way dumber than they should have been for the sake of the plot.
- First’s sister and her friends at the end? And for that to be it, just left hanging? Was that necessary?
- The rest of the team never finds out about the switch. Not even Sam who is dating Sprite’s best friend?
- No consequences for mom forcing Zee to play this sport all his life even though he clearly didn’t want to.
- No character development for Zee even though he was so vocal about not wanting Sprite to be him, not wanting to play or go back to his life anymore, etc. Basically all gets brushed under the rug.
- Zero awareness or consideration by Zee or Salmon for the fact that the team has had Sprite around for months, that Sprite and First have been velcroed to one another or for the fact they KNOW Sprite likes First and First doesn’t know about the switch. Sure, Zee is a dick but what is Salmon’s excuse?
- The spy storyline fell flat. We never found out what he gave Zee or what it did to him that apparently resulted in Sprite playing that match. This didn’t feel necessary at all.
- The Tom storyline was set up waaaay too in advance for when we finally got answers and that also fell flat.

The last episode wasn’t as bad and disappointing as I expected it to be, but it wasn’t that good. It certainly wasn’t good enough to make up for the outright anger the last like five episodes gave me over the stupidity of Sprite and the story/plot.

In the end: I loved First. I loved Sprite when he wasn’t being so stupid and lying to the guy he liked so much. I loved a lot of the guys on the team.

I would set rewatch value to zero if I could.

I’m only giving this a 6.5 for the actors.

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One-Sided Chemistry

I thought the premise of the show was great. I loved that Kawi could not go back in time on subsequent trips to the same moments he'd already gone back to. He got one shot and had to live with whatever domino effect it caused.

Gawin did a great job as Pisaeng. It's so clear when his feelings for Kawi begin to develop. You watch him fall in love with Kawi so naturally. Never once did I doubt the feelings Pisaeng had for Kawi.

I'm not going to remark on Krist's acting because it's hard to determine how much is direction, writing and the actor's choices. What I will comment on is his character, Kawi. Kawi was, at times, very likable and easy to cheer on. However he was also so negative and self-defeating he often became exhausting to watch. Like Kawi, I frequently wondered why Pisaeng liked him. He could have done better, to be honest.

I wish Max got more screen time and more of a storyline of his own. I thought he was a really great character and at one point thought Pisaeng was going to end up dating him during one of the incarnations of the past. I liked that they talked about the political realities of being queer in Thailand with the current laws. My own teenage years in the US were similar to where Max was in the past timeline.

Pearmai was an interesting character. I think she could have been handled better in terms of her liking and sort of waiting for Pisaeng even though she knew he wasn't into her. It was also very poorly handled when she decided to give the guy she'd JUST rejected a shot once she was finally rejected herself. That didn't sit right with me. I really liked her development with her parents and the struggles she had going on there.

I really enjoyed the message of living in the present and choosing to live a life you don't wish to go back and "fix." Easier said than done off screen, of course. I really liked how the time jumps connected to the last moment Kawi was present in the past or future.

The thing that really brought down my rating was Kawi's side of the romance with Pisaeng. As I mentioned already, I never doubted for a moment that Pisaeng had fallen for Kawi. However, I never believed Kawi had genuinely fallen for Pisaeng, with the exception of the majority of the last episode. Instead of being together because he finally realizes he loves Pisaeng, to me it came off a lot more like Kawi had eliminated all the other options and what he was left with was a best friend who was indispensable but in love with him. So he decided to get into a relationship to keep this person in his life.

I know that's not the intent of the show but its how it came across to me. When they'd kiss Kawi didn't seem to want to be there or participating in it. He fell into a trope I hate in bl of the more passive partner dodging affection (what couple actively avoids kissing each other ALL the time even in private? this is the trope I'm referring to not specifically Kawi as he wasn't that bad but he had plenty of these moments). You wind up with Pisaeng basically begging for attention and affection and Kawi begrudgingly allowing it some of the time. This 100% came off as "I got the consolation prize but I really wanted the actual prize." (Pisaeng being the consolation for Kawi.)

I won't get into it too much, but the whole scene with Kawi being near-unconscious levels of drunk and kissing Pisaeng only for Pisaeng to continue while Kawi is unresponsive was incredibly unsettling. This felt very out of character for someone who had been very careful and considerate of Kawi during the rest of the series.

Gawin carried this show for me

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An Absolute Mess

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that the show that aired is not the show they intended to make. There are too many things that don't add up or that are disjointed to assume it was intentional.

I don't think the actors failed, necessarily. They didn't elevate poor material but I don't fault them for that. I know some of these actors are much better than what is seen in this series. The problem, as I can discern, falls entirely on the writing and editing (and possibly direction).

Trigger Warning: I will be discussing the suicide of one of the characters.

The first almost half of the series really builds up what happened to Blue. Him somehow holds some culpability in his fate, though only Te and Him seem to ascribe any blame to him. Chao and Dream, in fact, don't seem to know what happened to him at all. Early in the series there are comments made by various members of this group of friends that imply a) Blue is alive, b) something bad happened to him, c) not everyone knows what happened to him, d) but everyone DOES know Blue is still somewhere he can be reached.

I suspected early on that Blue attempted suicide at some point and that Him was somehow at fault for that. However I also assumed he failed in that attempt. A big reason for that was the way the characters who knew him spoke about him. The way Te spoke about whatever terrible thing Him did almost implied he was in contact with Blue at some point after the event, or even currently. Te had so much disdain for Him this entire series. Him had such deep guilt and shame this entire series. Until the last few episodes where Him was alleviated of wrong doing by the revelation that he didn't really do anything wrong (though he was kind of a dick to his very codependent boyfriend when his mom wound up in the hospital). And then Te just magically gets over his grudge. What?

My theory is that Blue was originally intended to survive his suicide attempt and come back later in the series. I also think Him was originally supposed to be more of a factor in why Blue made the attempt. However I think the plan changed at some point after the show began airing. Perhaps the original story for Him was too dark and someone felt he couldn't be redeemed properly for a happy ending. Perhaps they felt Blue returning made things too complicated to wrap up in the number of episodes they had. I don't know, I can only hypothesize unless someone involves in the production speaks about it and either confirms my theory or confirms this is what they intended to make.

We go from regularly getting 40ish minute episodes to getting 25-30 minute episodes. We get huge holes like the fight at the end of episode seven leading to an entirely different fight in the opening of episode eight and then everything being magically better later in that episode without explanation. The second half of the series requires you to assume a lot of things happen off screen and make up what exactly happens in those conversations. We also have the atrocity that was episode nine (I think it was nine), where the editing was clearly not completed and the audio is a disaster. Entire lines are missing from the dialogue track and you only know what was said because it was included in the English subtitles. I don't know what Thai speakers did to make sense of that episode. The plot very quickly runs out of plot around episode eight when things are magically reconciled and the entire show shifts to focusing more on Chao and Phai at that point. To me, all of this suggests they had to scramble to cut material that was already included in the final episodes and then had to shoot new material for the last few episodes. The finale was basically a throwaway episode for NC scenes.

Other than how very messy the plot was, my other problem with the series were the characters who made no sense and the terrible "relationship" between Chao and Phai.

Type was a caricature villain. What was his problem with Him? Was it really just an inferiority complex over his family having less money? Why was he so intent to fuck Him over and even hurt someone he didn't know at all to do it? Then we get the out-of-left-field plot of him trying to get back with Phai so he could sell a sex tape of him and him pulling a gun on Chao because he "thwarted" his plans by discovering them and telling Phai. What? This was cartoonish and poorly written, to say the least. Once again, I think there may have been a real reason Type hated his cousin that ultimately got cut from the series but I don't know.

Te. Just...what? I already covered how his hate of Him doesn't really make sense. Sure, he had a crush on his friend who he never confessed to and who ultimately dated his other friend. Blue was clingy and codependent and got overly emotional whenever he didn't have all of Him's attention. Because Blue got so upset Te got angry that Him was in a position to treat Blue poorly (in their eyes) in the first place while he, of course, would have taken better care of Blue. But this does not explain why he would doggedly pursue Nail. Sure, he's Blue's doppleganger and he resents Him because Blue chose Him and later took his own life for reasons that (from what we're shown) don't even really have anything to do with Him. Either there's way more substance to that grudge or he's way more unhinged and obsessed with Blue than we are ever shown.

Then we get a sudden alternate love interest for Te who just materializes out of thin air. This man has had no interest in anyone other than Blue or a Blue replacement for 10 episodes but here comes Piece and he's all for it. What? Piece didn't even appear in the credits until then, which reinforces my idea that he wasn't originally part of the series but someone added in later after airing had begun. We get an apology to Him that I don't think almost any of us would have accepted and then he goes off to flirt with Piece. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the dynamic between those two. They have good chemistry. But Te is a completely different person with Piece than he is at any other time in this series. It comes off as slapped on at the end to make Te palatable, to cover up rewriting the end of the series or to just fill time because they realized they didn't have enough material for twelve episodes.

Chao and Phai...dear gods, save me from obnoxious, intrusive puppies and people who can't reinforce their words. On the one hand, we have Phai constantly telling this kid he doesn't want to date anyone and they are just fucking, then on the other hand he also constantly allows Chao to run amuck all over that boundary. He tells him to sleep on the couch or leave but never makes him. In the last few episodes we see these secret little smiles implying Phai has finally succumbed to a form of Stockholm Syndrome and now finds Chao endearing.

Chao, however, knows how to do nothing other than doggedly pursue Phai, violate every boundary Phai attempts to place and just shove his way into a relationship. Phai says no so Chao whines and badgers until Phai gives in some small amount. Phai says he doesn't want a relationship so Chao repeatedly declares he wants to be in one with him. Phai doesn't want him showing up at various times or has plans with others so Chao shows up. If anyone is somehow unclear: THIS IS A RED FLAG PEOPLE! This guy is exactly the person you should never ever date and if they keep coming around you should report them to the police for harassment.

Did I eventually feel a little bad for Chao? Sure, I did. Phai very easily could have explained a number of things to Chao but chose not to. He even was willing to explain things (such as how he was definitely not getting back together with Type) to people who WEREN'T Chao. He brushes off Chao's emotions and requests for communication. He decides Chao doesn't need to be told anything even though they are in a sexual relationship with some elements of friendship. (This is also a red flag, people, it's just not one that requires police intervention.) He made things so much harder unnecessarily just because he didn't want to ever explain anything to Chao, as if letting him in at all would violate the boundaries of the relationship he was telling himself they had.

Don't get me started on Chao telling Phai in the finale that if he wanted to have sex they needed to be in a relationship and Phai suddenly just agrees after months of insisting it wasn't what he wanted.

Did we really need Pae and Somsom shoehorned in as a couple at the end? Did that couple even make sense?

This novel is long enough as it is and I think it says most of what needs to be said about this series. I would like to see the actors in other series with much, MUCH better writing. I think a lot of them could do really well with good material. I think there was some failing in direction here, but there was a much bigger failing in writing and editing.

It's a mess.
Do yourself a favor.
Skip it.
There is no rewatch value. It's a dumpster fire of confusion, loose threads and dots that don't connect the way they tell you they should.

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This is not a BL. This is a Mystery-Horror-Thriller

This is NOT Manner of Death. This isn’t a thriller that has queer relationships in it. This isn’t a suspenseful drama with two leading male characters who are attracted to each other (at least we are supposed to buy the one sided attraction despite early indications that it’s mutual). This is very much your old school typical “we have queer characters but they don’t get to be with who they want in the end, only the straight characters do” (uh well sort of, she’s not that enthusiastic about her consolation prize tbh).

I’m not sure how Shadow winds up in the BL circles. Yes, there is a confirmed gay supporting character. There is another more periphery character who is definitely queer (gay vs bi vs etc not confirmed). But there are zero queer relationships unless you’re counting the teacher and the now dead kid (which you shouldn’t) or Dan and the Shadow (referred to in the masculine).

Does the show feel a little queerbait-y? Yes, a touch. The early episodes feel very much like they are setting up a relationship between Nai and Dan. Then it’s almost like they realized what they were doing, didn’t want to actually be gay and pivot hard toward Dan and Cha-aim. Then there’s that “someone wants to be your date” which doesn’t feel like a friend date but is treated as such once it’s happening. However Dan also consistently protects and stands up for Nai to an extent that suggests it’s not just bros having their bro’s back (you never see Josh do this for Nai nor is Dan ever put in a position for us to see if he’d go to these lengths for others).

The myster/thriller/horror elements are well done and the story is really interesting. However, as I’ve seen someone else mention, there’s a lot of loose ends and loose connections. Perhaps that’s intentional. Everything seems to connect for a bit until they pivot to the full reveal and then you have these disparate events. Maybe it’s supposed to be a commentary on how you can link unrelated events together if you try hard enough.

The actual Thai history with Red October was intriguing but dangled like a carrot for too long.

I feel like sometimes the story was just stretched longer than it needed to be. This could have been a 12 episode series with a narrower focus that delved more richly and deeply into that focus instead of a 14 episode series that was spread a bit too thin.

I loved the ending. Not sure why it’s labeled as an open ending, there’s nothing open about it imo and it’s not the first time I’ve seen an ending like this in horror. Personally, I’d really love a second season that is more focused to see what someone does with their new lease on life. But I’m not expecting it.

This review may seem very critical but I did genuinely enjoy the series and binge watched it in two days. I think it’s worth watching but not if you’re expecting it to be a BL.

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This Series Doesn't Know What It Is

I have a lot of trouble rating this series. I think it did some things okay, dropped the ball on some, made some really poor choices on some things and tried to talk about rarely discussed topics. However, the series as a whole lacked focus in a big way which resulted in it not doing any of the things it was trying to do particularly well.

Playboyy attempted to be dark and edgy by dealing with the sex industry, for which I applaud it. However, there were too many moving parts. Some people had a problem with the sheer size of the cast and felt they could not connect or understand many characters as a result. I didn't share that issue, personally. However, the show simultaneously tried to have a murder mystery, a commentary on the sex industry, commentary on drug use/addiction and how that can overlap with said sex industry, the reality of being gay in a society where discrimination for being part of a sexual minority is the norm, power dynamics, grooming/sexual abuse, and normalization/acceptance of different types of sex and sexualities. I'll address what was supposed to actually be the plot of the series last.

The focus on the sex industry only felt present in the beginning of the series. We see the main sex worker characters all get out of the profession for the most part. Soong does this back and forth dance with continuing sex work and having his relationship with First, Ultimately the relationship wins over the sex work and while I give them some credit showing his struggle to make money in legitimate ways this portrayal feels so inauthentic and unrealistic. We have no idea what happens with Teena. At the start of the series there's a sense of Zouey being a sort of mark and him planning to continue to work as a sex worker like the rest but ultimately he just become's Zouey's boyfriend. Jump keeps up the sex work as much as he can until he's blackmailed by Porsche. They could have done a lot with this pair and how sex workers can be taken advantage of so easily without any protections or recourse, but they didn't. We never see sex work from Prom's perspective. Phop is saved from sex work by Nuth by becoming a drug dealer. Again, this could have been a very interesting thread to explore but the writers failed to do so. That leaves Aob and Puen, who characters who are relegated to the backburner much of the series.

The plot line of First abusing sex workers at Playboyy would have been great to focus on more if the writers actually wanted to talk about how sex workers are abused because they are seen as disposable and without any way of stopping said abuse. Especially when Zouey gets pissed at him and points out Soong used to be one of them and yet First chose to treat people in that same industry that way. However, aside from Aob threatening First and Keen taking Puen when he's injured from First's paid abuse, this is all brushed under the rug.

The most we really get about sex workers or the sex industry is a) how it makes relationships difficult with what I am going to call normies and b) competition for clients. The treatment of both of these lines of discussion feels shallow and cheap.

The drug angle is almost incidental to both the sex work thread and the murder mystery thread. It feels like it is there mostly to give us a legitimate means by which we can bring down our villain. In the very last episode we get some discussion of trying to get out of that line of work and how to survive without it, but of course this isn't really explored. The drug trade is mostly used as a catalyst for Nant's problems which lead to the supposed plot of the series.

Adjacent to sex worker thread we have the illegal sex tape trade angle. This is predominantly explored through Captain and his private facebook group. Adjacent to this is Nant, who was supplying Captain with material for that group. We do get some repercussions from this. Keen is initially expelled because a video Captain posted (and recorded) without his consent is sent to the university. Keen is initially very angry with Captain. But, again, this is all brushed under the rug with Keen seemingly forgiving Captain because he loves him. (I cannot roll my eyes any harder at this.) Yes, there is some underhanded work on Keen's end that gets his place in the university back and gets Captain kicked out instead but that video is never posted for the public.

The sex tape trade then connects into the rugby team and the homophobia we see there. I will say, the politics of the rugby team in terms of their homophobia and hazing was decent but it was a pretty small part of things overall. However, this does feed into showing the realities of being gay in a society where it is not acceptable. These guys can haze and bully anyone they think is gay and get away with it just fine. (I have a suspicion they are the ones who sent the video of Keen to the Dean or whoever. Captain jumps through hoops to prove his straightness to them to avoid bullying and willingly throws Keen to the wolves to save himself from them. Beyond this, we don't get much on trying to be gay in a largely homophobic or at least unaccepting society. I could point to First's father but his objections to Soong and First seem to be rooted in the type of sex they enjoy and Soong's position as a sex worker, not necessarily because First is with another man.

The abuse in the series (Porsche's abuse of Jump; First's abuse of the guys at Playboyy; Jason's abuse of Porsche, Zouey and Aob; the revenge abuse we sort of see in that edited episode from Jump to Porsche and from First to Soong; that insanely out of character moment when Teena ignores Zouey withdrawing consent; Captain recording Keen and Tutor/Jump without consent and posting it; Captain's abuse of Nant and Zouey -- yes the bullying and manipulation is abuse; probably more I'm overlooking right now) is almost all completely glossed over. Teena has some consequences, Jump gets revenge on Porsche, Keen breaks things off temporarily with Captain, Jason gets outed for abusing Porsche and First gets threatened by Aob. Yep, that's it. That's all we get.

I think Zouey as a survivor of rape was well done at the beginning of the series and I think Korn actually handled that character really well. However, his character ultimately seems to fall into the "love fixes trauma" trope which I despise. Knowing now why he didn't want to have sex, Teena ignoring his withdrawing of consent and the sort of quick turnaround from anxiety (near panic attacks) at the idea of trying to have sex with someone to out of nowhere wanting to do it feels so cheap. This may be how things go for some survivors, but it feels like they wanted an easy answer to something that was much more deep and difficult than they thought it would be when they started that plot line.

As much as this series tried to make "deviant" sex (mostly kink related) okay, it also never reprimanded Captain who pushed the idea that Nant and Zouey needed to have sex. In some ways we see critique in that in Nant's fall but that's it really. The depiction of kink is what I expect of young teenagers just learning what kink is for the first time. I have zero problem with characters being into sadomasochistic sex, roleplay, power dynamics or bondage (the main kinks I recall from this series), but this is a caricature of kink at best. First comes off as a little boy with tantrums being indulged. Every sex scene between First and Soong was so cringy that I don't know what they were trying to accomplish with it. What we see between Prom and Nant or Nont is done much, much better than what we see from First and Soong.

I absolutely despise the "I like kink but can't control it, I'm a monster" thread they broke out with First. Just...what? That's right up there with portrayals of people who like kink being abuse survivors who just need to heal and then they won't "need" kink anymore. This adds to the feeling of First just being a brat with a tantrum, to be honest. And they never address it. He spirals for a couple episodes, abuses the hell out of people and justifies it by paying them to be abused (abused, this wasn't bdsm/kink). And then he gets Soong back so it's okay because HIS Dom is the only person who can keep him in line? I don't know because that entire thread abruptly drops once he has his Daddy back (they may not have a Daddy/baby boy dynamic but it sure as hell feels like it in some ways). Overall, it feels like the writers don't know anything about the kink community or how people who are part of that lifestyle participate in it. Did they just watch 50 Shades of Grey and then try to apply it to these characters?

The plot. Oh gods, the plot. I'm pretty sure the writers forgot they were supposed to have one for much of the writing of this series. As I said before, they had no idea what they wanted this series to be. Perhaps because they were given space to make a more mature, darker series they tried to stuff it full of all the things they wanted to make a series about and got lost and overwhelmed in the process. The actual plot about Nant wasn't terrible, it just wasn't there for most of the series. It went in unnecessary circles considering how convoluted they decided to make it. They took too many episodes to start the actual murder mystery plot and stuffed things in at the end which should have been in the middle of the series.

This was clearly written with the intention of a second season, which is why they stuffed important plot points into the last episode (many after the credits) and didn't worry about wandering off on other tangents whenever they wanted. However, as a result, what they gave us isn't good enough to warrant a second season. Another season would likely be just as messy, disjointed and poorly handled as the first. Maybe worse. Okay, likely worse.

(plot discussion below)

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Good Source, Poor Adaptation

I've read and really enjoyed the manhwa this series is based off. The manhwa is short, only 45 episodes, but really well done and sweet.

This series started fairly faithful to the source material. The first few episodes were my happy place. I've never had 45 minutes fly by so quickly. I loved both Meen and Ping in their roles (but, please, someone teach Meen to throw a proper punch prior to any other gangster/thug/fighting roles in the future!) and thought their chemistry and dynamic worked really well here.

The problem came in when someone decided they needed more plot than the source material contained. The source is sort of a quiet, slice of life-ish vibe. They invented the Boss (Paiboom) and Kenji for conflict and plot that, quite frankly, the original story didn't need and that was poorly executed in the series. Every single issue I have with this show somehow feeds back to the inclusion of this "plot." Tew made stupid decisions because of it. It was poorly fleshed out, decisions within it were poorly justified (if at all) and it was rushed to the finish line to fit within the 8 episodes we had.

The one deviation I really liked in this adaptation was Wahl. Am I supposed to dislike him? Yes. Did I? Nope. Almost never, actually. He is far more unlikable in the manhwa, actually. In the manhwa he never has actual romantic feelings for Guy's character but this inclusion makes him more sympathetic and turns him into someone with feelings he isn't facing or comfortable with rather than just someone who enjoys being the center of his bff's world and has overbearing reactions to being worried about him. I also give a lot of credit to Winner for how he handled the character. He made Wahl likable in a way that he probably shouldn't have been. (Am I the only one who wants a Wahl spinoff with the cute guy in class in the last episode?)

Overall, the first half of the series was cute but the last half I could have done without. I wish they had kept Tew's character as a self-made gangster who was his own boss. His minions, their reactions to their boss smiling at his phone and their adoption of Sanghwa (Guy's character) was so fun and cute. I really missed seeing that in the adaptation. I wish they kept the tension of Guy getting over his crush on Wahl and Tew being happy over having a friend and slowly realizing he didn't just have friend feelings. That focus would have suited the series (and the leads) better than the forced conflict.

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Strange and Lovely

When you watch the first episode you will be confused. It’s bizarre and pretty. It doesn’t quite connect in the ways you think it should. It’s like a sentence with only a predicate. That’s how the first episode left me.

The second episode makes more sense but feels out of place contrasted with the first. You realize here that the story you’re watching isn’t going from point A to B. You may wonder, as I did, if there were unusual
parallels happening between the stories in the two episodes.

Depending how your mind works, how much you immerse yourself in the story being told and how much you ponder what you’re seeing, you may start to put together pieces and hypotheses as early as episode three (perhaps two but I think there’s a higher chance of you hitting on the truth in three - one and two almost feel like an adjustment period to me).

The episodes are short, roughly 25 mins, and there are only six of them. If you can stick it out through the puzzling confusion, the feeling like the ground is tilting under you when nothing looks like it’s moving, then you’ll be rewarded as the threads weave themselves into a tapestry you can begin to make out the picture of.

Rossi and Meen are phenomenal in this! They both show quite a bit of range in their skills and exhibit a subtly and nuance in their physical expressions you don’t get the pleasure of witnessing often. (It’s similar to the experience watching Pond and Nike in 180 Degrees Longitude, except that was a much heavier story so their work is on an entirely different level from what you see here.) There are a couple scenes where the emotions running across Rossi’s face, through his eyes and through his body speak louder than any dialogue ever could. Meen displays such tenderness in his gaze, the kind that makes you truly believe without a doubt that Tiew is in love.

As others have said, this is not for those looking for the sort of surface-level stories and fluffy, formulaic romance you get in the BL industry. There is nothing wrong with wanting that, I watch plenty of it myself. This series simply is not that. This is a thoughtful, quiet romance that happens to take place between two young men. Their genders and other works are all that coincide with the BL genre.

If you are up for it, however, you should come watch them fall in love. Experience their heartbreak and happiness. It’s genuinely beautiful.

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A Hot Mess

Let's be honest, this is some of the most vanilla kink you're going to see (and Kamala needs to learn how to flog someone properly).

The acting is okay at best but the worst actor is sadly Yoon. The writing is awful so I can't blame You alone for why his depiction lacks so badly.

Kim can be pretty adorable. He's also often pretty dumb and should stand up for himself either more or differently than he does. He's not actually a doormat so I give him credit there.

The best couple gets the least screentime: Day & Itt (I had to repeatedly make sure this wasn't connected to Love Syndrome). Though the surprise throuple was fun.

The sweetest couple is honestly Khom and Baiboon even though they aren't technically a couple. And it makes me super uncomfortable how clearly attracted they both are given Baiboon is, as far as I can tella minor.

This series has the most inept gangsters. Terrible writing & a fair bit of terrible acting to go with it. Instalove on the most ridiculous basis. Supposedly kinky sex that's really just handcuffs after that first disasterous flogging (which makes Kamol's obsession with Kim even less believable for anyone who is even vaguely not vanilla). Tigers that I'm pretty sure we're sedated the whole time. Convoluted conflict. It is a HOT MESS (emphasis on mess).

So why did I keep watching it?

Itt's nephew Salmon and his dynamic with everyone he comes into contact with. Itt & Day. Baiboon! My previous boy Baiboon who is adorable and dumb. Kim & Baiboon's relationship. Hope of a couple people getting mauled (they don't, the tigers deserve better anyway). The weird car crash effect in full swing.

Is it good? No. Is it entertaining? Yes if your expectations are adjusted appropriately. Would I rewatch it? No. But did I have fun? Yes. And now I want to hug Kim and Baiboon. They're so squishable.

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The Romanticized Ending of an Abusive Relationship

(Note: Spoilers below, TW for mention of interpersonal abuse, including SA)

First and foremost, Up and Poom were phenomenal in this series. Their acting was fantastic. I have a lost of criticism of the storyline and characters but want to make sure it's understood that these are not critiques of the actors themselves. I thought the production value was extremely high; the directing, costuming, lighting, makeup, stunts, etc. were all really high quality and fantastic.

I have neither read the novel this series is based on, nor have I investigated thorough summaries/reviews of it to try to draw comparisons. My review is entirely about the series.

In many ways, this is a very realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship from start to finish. Yes, the story involves the fantastical elements of body swapping and a shaman/mystic, but if you removed that you have a pretty stark portrayal of the push and pull of an abusive relationship. Knowing what I do about interpersonal violence, the end of the series feels only like a pause, not like a happy ending as many view it.

Joe is a man starved for love. He lost his parents when he was very young and has been on his own. He has friends and has clearly had relationships before, but he is desperate for someone to choose him and stay with him. This is what leads him to initially accepting a sex-only arrangement with Ming, despite that not being what he wanted. He would settle for whatever crumbles he could get rather than knowing his own worth and standing firm on deserving better.

Once Ming had him hooked the abuse began. We see his intense manipulation and controlling nature almost immediately. We see multiple instances of Joe saying no to sex but Ming persisting until Joe gives up and gives in (this is NOT consent!). We see Joe be physically harmed when Ming's anger over his own jealousy or not getting his way is taken out either on Joe directly or indirectly because Joe is trying to break up the violence. Of course, there is the obvious kidnapping and holding him prisoner until Joe manages to get away. After the body swap we add using money to manipulate and control Joe into doing what Ming wants. Ming consistently ignores what Joe wants or what would make him happy. The only thing that ever matters is Ming getting what Ming wants.

People will make a lot of excuses for Ming. Oh Ming was abused; he was groomed; he was neglected. It doesn't matter. Was Ming being emotionally manipulated by Tong? Yes. Was he a victim of Tong's controlling tendencies when he felt threatened or jealous by Ming not focusing entirely on him? Yes. Was his family emotionally neglectful? Yes. Was his family controlling either directly or indirectly? Yes. Did all of these contribute to Ming's behavior? Surely. However being abused is not a valid excuse to become the abuser.

What angers me the most is the way Joe is constantly manipulated back into Ming's arm's every time he tries to get away. He breaks up with Ming after the kidnapping but Ming states he refuses to leave Joe's home. He will stay there and force Joe to face the man who has wrought so much abuse upon him and who has destroyed the opportunity and career he had earned for himself. Joe never has to face him only because of his "death." When Joe wakes up in the body of another he wants nothing but to avoid Ming and move on, to have a different path. However, his need for money to help the mother of his new body who he has taken as his own puts him into a difficult situation. Ming leverages this to get what he wants, a stand-in for his previous stand-in. When Ming discovers who new Joe really is Joe, once again, tries to leave him but is once again forced back because Ming simply won't take no for an answer.

Only when Ming gets confirmation that new Joe is actually old Joe does he start the conciliatory phases of the abuse cycle (remorse and honeymoon phases). He inserts himself in Joe's life even when Joe doesn't want him to. He decides to be sweet. Suddenly he is kind to Joe. Does he ever apologize for his own abuse toward him? No. Does he make any real effort to do better? Some would say yes but to me this looks like placating.

Even when Joe is dying and decides to die (putting aside whether or not the master may have persuaded/manipulated him into that choice), it is only the emotional manipulation of Ming that changes his mind.

One could argue that Joe made these decisions on his own, fully knowing what he was doing. However the person who makes that argument doesn't understand the cycle of abuse. It starts with the honeymoon phase where one is showered with affection, gifts, compliments, etc. Then the abuser becomes moody, criticizing, threatening, playing mind games and/or gaslighting. Next they explode, this is where the physical, sexual and emotional abuse comes in. After there are excuses, guilt, justification ("you're only a stand-in," or the reminders their relationship is only a sexual one). Then we go right back into our honeymoon phase. Joe never sees Ming's abuse as being Ming's fault. It's his own because he wants more than he's entitled to as a mere sex partner, because he was with Sol who he knows Ming doesn't like, because he upset Tong who is important to Ming, etc. etc. Joe keeps going back because of the hope that it will be different, it will be the honeymoon phase all the time. In fact, we even see a honeymoon phase montage early in episode 12 leading up to the decision not to exit the mortal plane.

Joe never once was allowed to make a decision for himself once he met Ming, and every time he tried to Ming was there to usurp control of his decision making. This series is a beautifully tragic portrait of abuse. However, it is the clear intention that we are supposed to cheer on this couple, supposed to want them together and supposed to excuse all that abuse because the abuser is suddenly being kind which causes me to rate it so low.

There are other things I could nitpick, namely the lack of use of Winner and how it would have worked much better for Winner to play Joe's original body and have Poom play the new Joe with the glimpses of Winner we got instead being glimpses of the soul inside the body rather than being reminders of who everyone else saw. We never get to see the synergy between Winner and Poom's performances because Winner practically doesn't exist. The really missed the opportunity there to make the audience adjust to the new Joe along with the characters.

In the end, this series constantly made me angry and it should have. If you weren't angry at the abuse; f you weren't constantly hoping Joe would get away from Ming; if you weren't irate that Tong and Ming both got off without any consequences for their myriad shitty behavior; if you didn't think that in a fictional world we deserved a better ending for Joe then I don't know. This series was beautiful aesthetically with brilliant acting, but it was a horrible tragedy through and through.

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I wouldn't consider this BL

Are there two amab characters? Yes. However one is the spirit of a cis woman trapped in a man's body for the vast majority of it. Honestly, Lan Xi is annoying af. I started to get genuinely irritated, frustrated and annoyed that I was having to watch HER story of trying to get her bf to fall in love with her in another body.

I think the actual story of Hero & Gu Si Ren, which you get in small bits and pieces of flashbacks via journals, would have been much more interesting and satisfying to watch. Gu Si Ren seemed like a sweet guy and I would have liked to see more of him when he was alive.

I felt really bad for Hero being pushed and pulled between his actual feelings and his dead girlfriend's reactions to them which left him confused since he never knew it was her in the body.

Also Lan Xi was sort of ultra girlie in Gu Si Ren's body. To the point where he didn't come off as gay so much as he came off as touched in the head a bit, you know?

The ending was a bit of a redeeming factor, but too much of this was about an annoying, entitled, overbearing, pouty, sulky woman who didn't see the man she supposedly loved for who he actually was or how she caused him to stuff himself into a box.

This would have been a far better story if they just killed Lan Xi off and told the story of the men.

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Surprisingly deep, thoughtful and accepting

This is not a show I would have thought to watch on my own. (Let's be honest, I mostly watch bl series) However, I'm SO GLAD I watched this after it was recc'd in a YT video for various kinds of queer rep.

I did NOT expect the sort of thoughtful and accepting conversations around kink, intimacy, being true to yourself even if it's outside the norm, etc.

I ADORE that this show has mf couple where one of them is trans but they are never referred to as being different from other opposite gender couples. The character being trans is acknowledged only by some transphobes who get quickly shut down by our ensemble of characters. I wish this was more indicative of RL for trans individuals.

Mollie! OMG Mollie! This character was amazing to see for me. Mollie is a femme/andro-presenting nonbinary individual. Not only are nonbinary folks rarely represented in media, but usually we are seen as needing to be very androgynous or leaning toward presenting to the gender opposite we were assigned at birth. As a femme-presenting afab enby, seeing them in this series made me feel so seen! Thank you!

My only gripe with the show at all is that they left one specific part of Alex & Jean's first time together completely unacknowledged. Considering it's a theme that is presented in the very first episode, I was very disappointed about that. That conversation was important to have and they chose to pivot to the side instead. I could make a case for it being okay to sidestep it if it wasn't literally the thing we constantly saw in PTSD flashbacks.

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Pete & Ae are such a sweet, wholesome couple

Honestly, Pete & Ae are the sort of couple I wish we saw depicted more often in bl. Ae falling for Pete, and figuring out how feelings for him, was very natural and sincere. Perth did an excellent job portraying him! Pete was so vulnerable and endearing. Saint also did wonderful with him.

This could have been at least a 9 star rating if it wasn't for all the sexual assault and coercion in the other three pairings.

1. Most obvious: Kla intentionly flat out raped Techno, who was so drunk he couldn't find his own bedroom and barely recognized the kid. Then he was manipulated like hell the next morning when he woke up to the startling news that he had slept with an underage (assuming since he's still in HS) person of a gender he did not previously think he was attracted to. WHAT?!

2. Tum full on pinning Tar down and trying to force himself on him. Sure, he didn't know Tar was a rape survivor at the time. ut that doesn't matter. And Tar should not have gotten over that nearly so fast. That should have put Tum squarely in the Not Safe category with every other man. I figured they weren't biologically related, but did we have to wait until the last half of the last episode to make it clear they are STEPbrothers and this isn't incest?

3. Tin and Can. People may not see the coercion here, especially because viewers tend to forgive characters with sad backstories. Tin pressured Can every step of the way once he decided he liked the guy. And this after being a Grade A Dick to him! he would manipulate Can into getting to kiss him. If it wasn't for this "persistent to the point of it being coercive manipulation" I'd have no problem with this pair....other than Can being obnoxious and too extra. I did 100% cry when Tin got rejected by Can, even if he was sketchy and an asshole.

I'd like to think they did better in season 2 but since there is no Pete and the most obnoxious character I've seen in any drama from any country is one of the mains, I'll just leave that in my imagination.

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What You Think You Want…

I really like how this short plays with limiting our information. It begins without context you get in the synopsis on here. The cinematography intentionally limits your view, playing with POV shots (appropriate given the theme) or framing that only lets you see what is going on from behind and underneath a chair.

The ending is beautiful and full of just desserts.

I really like how it put a mini spotlight on how your perception of someone impacts sexual attraction to them. In a lot of ways this short isn’t about a guy who wants to film a scene with this OF star. It’s about a guy who wants to live out a fantasy that lives in his head and, in the end, that doesn’t really line up with what he got himself into.

note: rewatch value is low bc I almost never rewatch anything so that’s sort of high for me

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Um….what?

It’s cute until he gets off the bus. It could have (and should have) ended there.

Three minutes of the limited time is devoted to a psychedelic trip-like PSA from Cupid with all the terrible effects you’d expect from the mid nineties.

Cute tiny kid falls for big kid who roughed him up with his friends and presumably mugged him. Cute tiny kid even recognizes him eventually, dude who didn’t help him. and it ends with him hugging this guy without ever speaking to him. Just…what?

The synopsis is much more adorable than the short. save your thirteen minutes.

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