Eternal Love of Drama

Thank you

I’m so impressed with how you laid out your page with your interests impressions by category. I need to know how to do that and put my Reccomendations for different countries in one place.

Hit me up if you need any Reccs on Asian dramas but theme or BLs because I started assembling some categories

Haa maybe I should do a review here sometime instead of a thesis. I’ve been tweeting about it here and there, but people get very angry when you ask why the people with no restrictions are consistently turning out disappointing, forgettable, meaningless drivel that even its fans watch at 2x speed, while the creators who seemingly face the most hurdles are peerless when it comes to storytelling that’s called life changing, get views in the Billions - not millions, and have viewers instrospecting and re-watching a decade later, they get very annoyed and say we shouldn’t compare.

But I do think the nature of the societies Danmei/Dangai emerge from versus versus the majority of BL producing counties is salient. If we had access to the output of the others socialist Asian countries on MDL we would see the consistencies across the entire spectrum of BL productions.

I’m definitely planning to put a list of Vietnamese, Myanmar, Cambodian and Laosian BL somewhere once I figure out how things work here.

“a low-budget, first-project, basically-put-together-with-glue-and-determination-of-the-crew Cdrama is STILL miles better than a high-budget, well-supported Thai drama.”

This becomes truer with each attempt to re-make the Addicted drama adaptation in environments where neither budget is limited nor “censorship” is acknowledged to be a problem. There’s an entire thesis to be explored as to why this is so - I have thoughts

Sorry that you took it as hating of men. I am pointing to a pattern of consistency that is familiar and Not restricted to gay men

This the one!

It’s standard operating procedure for how straight men deal with women. After years of stringing along, emotional torture, they turn up out the blue when the woman is at her lowest with flowers and a ring. The woman crying and she accepts this arrangement on a more permanent basis is celebrated through the entire culture as “love” but people with life experience read it as trauma.

The prospective husbands just don’t typically pledge to continue the sadistic neglect in a patently unequal relationship going forward. When you hear people talk about situationships becoming relationships this is the dynamic they’re celebrating.

I used to think a C/F endgame would obviously mean a S2 because the most dangerous conflict has only now started - now I’m not sure if I would want to see it given the philosophy the creators switched to in Ep 7, undoing the critical commentary on masculinity, alienation and late capitalism they seemed to be giving in Ep 1-6.

I loved every episode except the last which seem to be the weakest in terms of narrative coherence and a little bit rushed to get to the finish.

Not sure how they fell down so much at the last hurdle, when the writing had been narrative perfection for 6 episodes straight, but they seemed to do exactly what I feared and dig themselves into the identical pitfalls of the last episode of IPYTM.

Baabin had been in love with F4M for more than two years, certainly before they even met Bua yet at the last minute he completely switches his affections cold-turkey, admitting *tearfully* he didn’t pursue Bua the entire time because F4M didn’t like Bua and he didn’t want to offend his friend? Huh? In what world?

As for poor, desperate Bua, whose emotional neglect I sympathise with, he has never shown Baa any bit of affection, let us nor even talk of love. While Baa, like his best mate F4M was Looking for Someone to Love, Bua has been desperately looking for Anyone who would love HIM - and his social media interests. It is not easy to see how one builds anything but a dysfunctional relationship on that premise.

And once again, just like IPYTM, F4M and Chian reconciling would’ve been fine with me but in order to feel satisfying as a viewer we would’ve had to first of all, witness Chian’s journey to Un-loving Bua, recognising how much he hurt F4M, and starting a process of feeling romantic affection before repairing the hurt and lack of care he showed F4M over a span of years, despite knowing how much he loved him in spite of Chain himself. There was none of that. Instead, even in their last frame Chian warns F4M to expect more of the de-prioritisation and seeming neglect in their future.

And while it made sense that F4M verbalised the trauma that he still suffers from because he cannot trust Chian to handle his heart with enough care and consideration, no trust has been built between them the Entire Time that would allow him to heal and be less insecure. Knowing is an essential part of loving someone, but my God it’s got to be more than knowing what hobbies and activities to put on someone’s nail design and how to give the odd handjob?

This is why the ending felt rushed and the narrative felt trite, in contrast with the previous articulation, just to deliver the most stereotypical ending.

Disappointed that after being heavily invested in their emotional development I did not like either coupling at the end because they made no sense.

This chronic issue that BL directors have of not being able to envision sincere character growth or meaningful conflict resolution, let me just say it gatz to go.

@Babii 100% 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

He’s very good. He promised me we can start a discussion group on Asian BL and I’m still waiting

But boy do we need to talk about GelBoys and the way it’s impacting the into fandom (positively) and why it’s a landmark for the Thai industry after a few years of going off-piste

Ok fingers crossed. They usually make their way to broadcast sooner or later. I’ll ask some mainland friends who are on weibo

Is it finally cancelled? Okay. I thought it was delayed and not yet given a broadcast date. Thanks for filling me in

It didn't seem like it]s the end just because of the cancelled guy, because other people have done crimes and they just took (a looong) time and replaced their face using AI

Promiscuous 😃 ?

I get you.

Wealthy people elsewhere can get away with the most egregious crimes against the public but not in China. I guess when you’re used to criminals and the corrupt with no morals running the country any kind of justice no matter how basic looks shocking 😀

Here for Jing Bo Ran 😊

PS: Meanwhile if you haven’t seen him yet in his last movie - Regeneration (2024), you’re in for a real treat

Like adapted from Danmei or something.

Likely not when what I saw scanning afterwards

There is always so much unwarranted and rampant Sinophobia under every Chinese drama entry here now. They don’t even need a credible argument. There is almost no escape.

Thank you. The west also has a problem with censorship but most people have lived under those regimes since birth so they don’t notice everything about global media from CNN, to textbooks to Hollywood is censored to hell and back

Why is this an issue on this page though? Is this Drama a dangai or adapted from a Danmei novel?

You should put this in the review also. Its a good summary

Truly the beginning of the end for quality Thai BL

Good scripts are now rare as hens’ teeth

@Zorpox & @Fazarck Very good intervention

I really was going to do sigh and just close the page til I saw your comment because every single Chinese BL or queer media we want to engage with on this site is ideologically barricaded by Westerners full of condemnation, scorn and derision. So exhausting.

As far as Addicted goes, sexual aggression is quite rampant and is something that needs ventilating especially among men who really have not had the conversation that women have been having about this for at least 100 years.

These petulant complaints are not driven by reason but Sinophobic resentment because whenever the same kinds of themes involving an ethical sexual behaviour (many of which are majority of fans shockingly, do not even understand or unethical) are introduced in BL from Japan, Korea, and don’t even talk about Thailand, everyone who is western on social media goes: “Hooray! We love the mess” and no one dares to contradict. It’s extremely oppressive.

Haa no but we should take this to Dms so we don’t monopolise the space dedicated for discussion of I’ll Turn Back This Time

The Global Majority cannot wait to see the end of the “Liberal World order” and the most genocidal, vicious, delusional and thieving empire in human history

Fascists however seem to be good at starting unprovoked and unjust wars but laughably inept at winning any. The US famously tried to assassinate Fidel Castro more than 600 times and yet he died peacefully in his bed. I hope the same for Vladimir Putin

Yes of course I’ve been watching this and it’s been extremely fascinating. What has been disappointing but predictable is even though people see the evidence on Red Note they emotionally still reject it because white supremacy requires and thrives on at least a sense of inherent superiority so seeing China for what it really is, pretty much the opposite of American anti-communist propaganda for the last 100 years, has been an assaulted to westerners’ very identity, an identity that was built on lies. So we can expect an excess outflowing of copium for the near future.

This is no clearer than on any page with a Chinese drama on MDL, be it mainstream drama or a BL. We are forced to accept white western ideas of sexual identity and gender politics and to rebuke, reject problematise any other representation of that and 10 times more, so if it emerges from China and the creativity of Chinese queer people. Honestly I don’t know who they think is struggling to create even coded queer dramas; do they expect there is some long line of homophobic, straight-men chomping at the bit to tell queer stories? Ridiculous!

The entire discussion is so aggressively and even violently ignorant I’m really scared to engage anyone here but then as you know capitalism relies on ignorance; that is how it thrives and all of the outputs from it are imbued with ignorance and celebrated as though they reflect reality or truth.

There is a Chinese Director I admire who through good times or bad has been getting his queer drama adaptations or original screenplays to air and some of his stars are gay men some of whom are out and in long-term relationships (https://mydramalist.com/19366-till-death-tear-us-apart ). But because there is no on-screen sex in his dramas, because you have to use your brain a bit in lieu of explicit text, Director Peng is not celebrated as much as vastly mediocre, totally overrated directors out of someplace like Thailand who face none of his barriers and uncritically get all the acclaim. Misplaced loyalty or just people being socially conditioned to embrace mediocrity and mentally cannot escape that feedback loop?