Vitreous

Fluffy comedy

In short: a hyperactive and borderline insane Labrador puppy falls in love with an emotionally damaged, low-energy cat who can’t decide whether the Puppy’s antics are annoying or endearing. But he also can’t quite tell him to get lost.

They could have screwed this up so easily, because some of what the Puppy gets up to borders on harassment, but the Cat is clearly the one in control of the relationship and he constantly gives hints that he is somewhat into the madness being inflicted on him. Major props to the actors - I just watched them in Your Sky and thought, here is a pair who deserves their own series so they can show off their acting chops. And here is Duang With You to fulfil all our wishes and then some.

Largely very fluffy but the spicy bits are indeed spicy, and the chemistry is nuts. Super funny, somewhat slapstick in the visual comedy, also has emotional depth. All I can criticize is that I think the secondary couple needed more screen time. Otherwise this is on the rewatch list, highly recommended.

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Absolutely demented

Was it full of heavy-handed messages about sex education? Yes.
Was the story occasionally unhinged? Also yes.
Were there moments where I cringed so hard I thought my soul was going to leave my body? Also also yes.

Was it all worth it? HELL. GODDAMN. YES.

It pulled me in with the premise and sold me on the comedy. This is exactly the kind of absurd nonsense that appeals to me personally - it’s the palate cleanser I need after I’ve doom scrolled my way through whatever crisis is in the news today. The drama is only so-so and half of the plot could have been resolved with a 5-minute conversation, but I will forgive A LOT of flaws just to get to silly, stupid comedy slapstick with a heavy dose of romance.

Overall this one entered my rewatch list at high speed after the second episode. It’s just so much idiotic fun. Leave your brain at the door and enjoy the ride, and you’ll spend a lot of time smiling if you’re into fluffy unchallenging rom-com. The cute parts are very cute, almost everything is played for laughs, and everyone gets a happy ending.

SPOILERS BELOW!
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Latte and Almond absolutely stole the show any time they were on screen together. They were so damn funny. Yes it’s all very stupid humour, but again, I was into it, and as their story progresses there is real love and affection oozing out of the screen. Their first time being an actual realistic depiction of sex, including unsexy stuff like “who is leaning on whose hair” and “accidentally head-butting the wall” made me laugh like nothing else.

Special shoutout to Almond in the Sex Education Club where he lets his intrusive thoughts win, and then picks up and wiggles the dildo around. The look on his face alone absolutely sent me.

Special sexy shoutout to Almond when Latte shows him his junk in the bathroom to prove he doesn’t have a birthmark, and you can SEE Almond’s brain short-circuiting because it’s got “I WANT THAT DICK” stuck on a loop. Great acting, 10/10.

I really appreciate the constant message that sex is fine and normal, and seeking information and exploring your own body is good. It’s heavy-handed to the point where I started calling Lookpeach the PSA Girl, but dammit if it’s not nice to have some sex positivity for a change. Even Latte, the massive ho that he is, doesn’t really get any crap for sleeping around; it’s just a known fact about him, like Peak being a programmer. As well as that, the other guys don’t give Almond any crap for being a virgin other than to reassure him that it’ll happen at some point. In fact, none of the main characters feel any shame about wanting or having sex. And that’s kinda nice when so much media out there is nothing but angst and shame and self-loathing about feeling desire. It just gives me all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings.

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No one is here for the story

There is absolutely no point in paying attention to the story. Seriously, just skip most of those bits. We are all here for the chemistry, and it is INTENSE.

You have a toxic, obsessive dom who seems almost resentful of how much of a kinkster he really is at heart, and a sub with major daddy issues who is terrifyingly into all the horrible stuff inflicted on him - up to a point. Kudos to the actors for really selling the messed up BDSM relationship, because they got it very right and the series fails in entirely different ways unrelated to that.

So take this for what it’s worth: the story makes no goddamn sense sometimes, and the characters’ actions will have you scratching your heads, but get through it and the intimate scenes will set your screen on fire. For all its flaws, it’s worth checking out, and it has made it onto my rewatch list.

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Good solid series

I watched Between Us before Until We Meet again; at this point I am somewhat undecided on UWMA.

Between Us, however, is just pretty damn good. Yes the criticism about too many pairings and it being a slow roll is accurate but it never lost me even when it felt like there was nothing much going on.

Win and Team? Absolute scene-stealers. Chemistry like an entire science lab on fire. Their whole story is all about true love; how it begins and grows, how it’s so dangerous to let someone into your heart, and how it can save you like nothing else can. Honestly I could take or leave the side couples, but I was watching for them.

There’s something about seeing good love - real, pure, good love - that speaks to us. A lot of BL stories have some amount of toxicity or controlling actions or, y’know, red flags (which I am also here for, let’s be clear!) but Between Us is just the good stuff. It’s the kind of love we want for ourselves, in real life.

Nothing is perfect and it hasn’t landed directly on my rewatch list, but Between Us deserves your time. Especially if you, like a lot of people, just want somebody to love.

*cue Somebody to Love by Queen*

SPOILERS BELOW
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Okay listen. You may have heard some nonsense like “asking for consent isn’t sexy” in various corners of the internet. Between Us proves in the FIRST EPISODE that consent is in fact capable of generating enough sexual tension to power a small city. Win invites Team back to his room, and then he asks the Questions; are you drunk, are you seeing someone, do you know where you are and who is in front of you. Because he is a Good Guy who is ethical in his hookups, of course; he isn’t gonna share his bed with someone who can’t consent or who has obligations elsewhere. And with every question, the tension between them is cranked up by an order of magnitude until we’re all just holding our collective breath. 10/10, cannot praise highly enough, can we please have more of this in EVERYTHING and I will be a happy BL fan.

I have to give huge props to Team’s actor for his portrayal of survivor’s guilt, trauma, and grief. Also to Win’s actor for the scene after he saves Team from drowning; he absolutely sold me on the feeling of frantic, bone-deep terror that the guy he loves so much could have died. fantastic acting and now I need to go watch everything this pair have ever done.

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Adorkable

Let’s dive right in.

Our main characters are:

-Mr Popular, who appears to be a standard aloof and very good looking pretty boy, but who quickly turns out to be neurotic, insecure, high key jealous and clingy, and sick to the back teeth of being fawned over by girls like he’s a fucking zoo animal.

-Then we have Shy Guy, who is basically a very quiet guy who does his own thing with his nerdy friends but finds himself on his own after being assigned to a new classroom and is really not liking it, also he is neurotic, insecure, socially awkward, and very easily flustered.

High school, amirite?

Our side cast are:

-Three other boys who are also in the category of being fawned over by girls as if they’re zoo animals, but they’re handling it better than Mr Popular. They are also buddies with him and 100% on his side.

-Shy Guy’s nerdy friends who are even weirder than him, if that’s possible, who are seemingly terrified of the popular guys and all of them are mildly insane.

-Various girls who are waaaay too into the popular guys and act seriously bitchy to Shy Guy, and one girl who is actually not bitchy, just kinda sad, but we’ll take it.

-Finally: we have the older brother of one of the popular guys who is basically watching this nonsense play out and keeping an adult eye on everyone.

And so our story unfolds: The class is going on a school trip and they have to get into groups, and Shy Guy gets invited to join the group of Mr Popular and his buddies. Why? Because Mr Popular is HELLA into him and also too much of a coward to even talk to him. But what he does have going for him is that his buddies are (a) perceptive and (b) 100% ready to be his wingmen, and they’re all like, sure let’s invite this guy we’ve never spoken to before for no real reason, wink wink.

Hijinks ensue when it becomes clear on the trip that Mr Popular is constantly in danger of just forgetting where he is, grabbing Shy Guy, and snogging his face off. Shy Guy is adorably oblivious/confused, literally everyone around them questions why he’s even hanging out with the popular guys, and the usual tropes are played so hard it feels less like a nice cozy drama and more like a rugby match.

Anyway it’s all very romantic and it turns out as you expect, and it was exactly as awkward and stupid as high school should be so props to the writers for realism, I guess. It’s adorable enough to land on my rewatch list and a very solid, cute little series in its own right.

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That’s… that’s a lot of sex

The setting: a corporate office where they are waaaaay too careful not to talk about what the company actually does or makes, but apparently it does make some kind of physical product. Who knows. They talk about reports a lot IDK.

The first main character guy is the Puppy. I have named him as such because he is either an excitable puppy or a puppy that has just been kicked. He is maaaaaybe in two minds about the whole gay thing still kinda figuring himself out. He is also the new intern at said nameless company.

The second main character is the cliche tall-dark-handsome with a side order of communicating almost entirely in nods and grunts. HUGE bisexual energy. Gives the constant impression that he is all done with this bullshit, get off his lawn before he gets the rake.

Now, what this series has going for it is the side characters, which are numerous.

We have:

-the boss’s son, who is the Puppy’s bestie and treats him like a little brother.

-Grunty’s colleague, a guy with an uncanny resemblance to Link from Legend of Zelda, who has a weird situationship with the boss’s son where they flirt a lot and have sex and generally be uncommunicative idiots.

-the office gossips, consisting of a flaming gay stereotype and his female enabler.

-a pair of high powered executive lesbians.

Our story unfolds when the Puppy gets started at the company and he immediately gets aggro with Grunty, because Grunty dislikes younger guys and picks on them as a form of social interaction instead of, y’know, conversation.

But, see, the Puppy and Grunty have a history, okay, and that history consists of one mutual jerk off session and a blow job in the back of Grunty’s giant SUV.

Why did they do this? Who thought this was a good idea? Are either of them actually gay? Don’t ask those questions, the answers are very dumb.

Basically what gets this train wreck moving is Grunty offering to become the Puppy’s friend-with-benefits in order for the Puppy to, and I quote, “get better at doing sex”.

We shall not comment on Grunty’s enthusiasm on having sex with a guy who is supposedly bad at it. Again, don’t ask those questions, the answers and everyone involved is an idiot.

This series is a bunch of insane office nonsense broken up by limited amounts of drama and an excessive amount of sex scenes, and much as I appreciate their commitment to the whole thing, holy goddamn that is a lot of sex.

Anyhoo: highlights include the high powered corporate lesbians going from propositioning to full on screwing on top of the nearest desk within 30 seconds, so at least you can’t fault their efficiency. It is, however, ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS because it’s clear the poor film crew have no idea how lesbians have sex and they are just trying their best without showing any boobs or butts.

Other highlights include Grunty getting a full on “You Suck” speech from the Puppy at one point, which completely breaks him and it’s just a very satisfying moment because he’s been an asshole up to this point.

As always, the drama is pretty good, the acting is better than it has any right to be, there are some funny moments that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I can confirm the sex scenes are indeed hawt. Yes it’s called “My Stubborn”, but who or what is being stubborn is left as an exercise for the viewer. If it’s on your rewatch list and you’re not lying to yourself, it’s entirely because of the very sexy people kissing each other enthusiastically - and that’s okay.

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So goddamn sweet

Got me interested with the premise but sold me with the characters, and this one landed on my rewatch list by the end of the first episode.

There is something about this dynamic that I find so compelling. So we’ve got the Standard Issue Heir (to begin with, anyway, he does get some character development later) and the Tall Hottie, and one is constrained by family obligation while the other is constrained by disability. The series is basically about their love helping to heal each other from the damage of those constraints, and it is just beautiful. I was 100% there for all of it - every silly comedy moment, every argument, every kiss and look. Major, major props to the actors who did an incredible job with the sign language; it’s so visually satisfying.

This gets a huge recommendation from me and I don’t even really have any caveats, it’s just a damn good series. Not perfect because nothing is, but wow it’s a feel-good delight. Spoilers below because I just need to rave for a bit.

SPOILERS
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Okay can I just talk about how I was nearly shouting at Shaopeng for being so deeply insecure about his disability when it comes to relationships? Like, my guy. Let’s be real here. You are:
- six foot WHOAH
- hella cute
- a former taekwondo champion
- absolutely ripped
- strong enough to toss your boyfriend around like he’s weightless
- a very good cook
Believe me when I say that there are LEGIONS of people in this world who would climb you like a tree and swing from every branch if they thought they had a shot, so c’mon and develop some self-esteem here. Being deaf and mute is not the dealbreaker you think it is.

Jonathan. Oh my crispy fried crackers, JONATHAN. Was not expecting the comedy. Him variously flirting/messing with the wannabe gangster was hilarious. (Sidenote I am bad with names…) I 100% believe he is a power bottom and lying about it, and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Shaopeng is the far more passionate one in the relationship and I DEEPLY appreciate that because it would have been so easy to make him unsure and somewhat passive. Instead, he is absolutely tear-all-our-clothes-off horny, and this has lead me to being certain of two things: one, he is 100% a top, and two, the sex is WILD.

THAT SCENE WHERE HE TOUCHES HIS THROAT SO HE CAN FEEL THE VIBRATIONS FROM ZIXIANG SAYING HIS NAME. Oh my stars I just about DIED. That, right there, is the kind of romance that deserves awards. We should all be so blessed as to receive that dreamy look of love from someone.

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Story was only okay

I can’t help that I’m shallow but I was not really here for the story. The story is only okay. It’s a kind of interesting premise at least.

No, I am here for the characters, and, by all the gods and their various avatars, the CHEMISTRY. It is BONKERS. It is GLORIOUS. It kept me watching all the way through and landed this on the ol’ rewatch list very quickly. (I know, I know, we should care about other stuff but like I said, I’m shallow.)

In my defence: on one side, we have a literal Greek god made flesh. On the other side, we have the hottest twink to ever walk this undeserving earth. And both are great actors in their own right, such that even the plot device of one of them being able to read minds doesn’t stop the sexual tension from being ratcheted through the roof. They’re also kinda funny and adorable, and I was here for all the small moments they had together.

The second couple - I could take or leave them. They did an okay job but I just wasn’t as interested in them.

In summary: has some flaws, has some ridiculous plot holes, but what can I say? It’s fluffy, funny, cute and sexy. Try it if that’s your thing. (Or if you’re into abs. You can thank me later.)

SPOILERS NOW

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I was literally CHEERING when Suriya instantly chooses to run away with Thorn regardless of what his father says. “Oh so I have to pick my family’s wealth or my insanely hot boyfriend? WELP, JUST LET ME GET THE CAR.” Man knows what he really wants, and is ready and willing to move mountains to get it.

Can I say how much I love that Thorn and Apo are two completely different people, and the same actor nailed them both? Seriously, the ending scene when they finally meet was fantastic. 10/10, no notes.

I also have a theory that, while Thorn gets to go back to be with his hunky Greek god husband, the real Apo gets Thorn’s life in his world and immediately took over like the boss he is. I think that story would be hilarious and awesome.

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Cute comedy

I keep coming back to this series to watch th cute moments over and over again, so consider that a big recommendation if nothing else.

So here’s the deal: we have four hot medical students that I have taken to calling the Avengers, as follows:

- Asian Elvis, he of the Very Good Hair
- the Aura Master, able to stun anyone with the sheer force of his presence and money
- Doctor Dangerous, seemingly nice but will 100% wreck your shit if you cross him
- the Tattooed Henchman, a classic bad boy.

And on the other side of this equation are the Super Friends, a group of new students who are best buds and also each other’s wingmen, and who also get into hijinks and, indeed, shenanigans on a regular basis due to their various love interests. And they are:

- the Drama Llama, a grown man seemingly inhabited by the soul of a hyperactive teenage girl
- Mr. Game’n’Slack, a certifiable idiot who does vidya games and little else
- the Short King, who has waaaaay too many issues and not enough access to therapy
- the Quiet Artist, who we don’t see much of in this season but hoooo boy does he ever have Stuff Going On.

Listen: we all know they’re gonna get together, we’re here for the journey and not the destination. But I found the journey to be HELLA worth it in every case. First up, we have Asian Elvis finding out that the Drama Llama, his sort-of-ex who he is still HUGELY into, also goes to this university and from then on we are treated to some high quality yearning and some verrrrry nice chemistry.

Second up is the Aura Master bumping into Mr. Game’n’Slack, who he has a longtime unrequited crush on, and his total inability to pursue a normal relationship with the guy. Somehow they’re into each other (although I’m not sure why, chemistry is a bit lacking IMO) but I’m here for the comedy alone. Their relationship is largely defined by the Aura Master admitting to himself that he did indeed fall in love with a complete idiot, but that is no reason not to be the bestest boyfriend ever and spoil him and love on him etc etc.

The other two relationships are in the later seasons, Beside the Sky, and The Sun From Another Star. Can’t decide which I like more. It’s cute stupid romantic comedy and all the relationships, whether it’s friendships or romance, are 100% worth a watch. This is probably staying on my rewatch list forever (fourever lol).

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No payoff. Seriously.

I understand everyone giving this 10/10 and all that but I have one major beef with this series, and it is a big one that I cannot get past.

The ENTIRE PREMISE of this revolves around sex. It’s in the TITLE, for gods sake. And much as there are plenty of cutesy moments between the two male leads, we get virtually no payoff. Not even a Big Damn Kiss at the end. There are 12 episodes of this thing, are you not allowed to show even a whisper of them being intimate?? At least the Thai remake, for all its faults, had the usual “let’s get our tops off and do the horizontal mambo” scene; I felt it could have been better but it was something.

So take this for what it’s worth: I personally finished this series and immediately felt that I had wasted my time with it. It was a huge letdown and I bounced off it hard. Definitely not on the rewatch list. Read the other reviews and decide if it’s your thing or not. If you, like me, expect something resembling sex in a series that is literally based on whether a guy has had sex, then you are gonna be disappointed.

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