Pleochroism

Why only 7.6? Come on MDL reviewers, you disappoint me! 😭

No it wasn’t. You said the drama is “objectively good.” I replied that that I disagree that it’s objectively good (because an opinion about whether a drama is good or not is definitionally not “objective”). And you decided to imply that I don’t know what objective means when clearly you’re the one who doesn’t understand the basic concept of objectivity vs. subjectivity.

If I’m “triggered” it’s because I can’t stand when people insist on arguing points that they’re clearly uninformed or misinformed about. Just admit that you were wrong and move on instead of persisting in trying to defend yourself with bogus claims.

But you’re not judging it outside of your personal opinion. It is your subjective opinion that it is a good drama. That is not an objective fact. Do you understand yet?

Go open your textbook, girl. If you state that something is objectively true, but other people can reasonably disagree with it based on their own personal perspective, then definitionally that means it wasn’t objectively true.

Sweetie, you mean “subjectively” 😭

Subjective means opinion, objective means fact. lmao

I strongly disagree that it’s “objectively” good. Or that the story is well done. Semantic Error was much better in terms of consistent, cogent writing, story, and pacing. And that came out 3 years ago and became unexpectedly successful in Korea! So no, I’m not going to give this watered down BL props just for existing. They could have done much better with the source material they had to work with.

Rant incoming….

I maintain that the “Summer” and tennis storylines are both aggressively uninteresting.

Like has Ji Yu ever actually expressed anything about her passion for music on the series? Has she talked at all about what compelled her to start her YouTube channel or what she loves about songwriting or playing music? Has she said anything about why this audition is important to her? No, she hasn’t. So the entire storyline just feels like a plot device because it’s only ever mentioned to compel some kind of action from other characters. And yet so much time was devoted to it in this episode. Why?

And then the tennis storyline ughhhh. I roll my eyes whenever Chan Young is onscreen at this point because what is he even bringing to this drama? He’s a bad friend to Heesu, his relationship with Ji Yu is bland as hell, and I can’t think of a single reason to care whether he succeeds or fails at tennis. The writing for his character is just consistently so mediocre. Giving him a sad backstory with his dad is not a replacement for actually developing the storyline in a meaningful and interesting way.

This drama should have been like 6 episodes long because the writers didn’t do anything interesting with the extra time. So much filler it’s crazy.

Still watching for the eventual payoff of the main romance. But it would be a much better drama if they’d just stuck to that storyline in the first place instead of going in like 6 different narrative directions.

Right? Like people keep calling this a “slow burn” but slow burn implies that there are actually interesting scenes and steady development between the leads. In this, they just keep beating the same miscommunication tropes to death and filling the time with unnecessary drama and fluff.

The miscommunication trope has really outlived its usefulness to the narrative at this point. So much petty drama for no reason, and sooo much unnecessary filler in epsiode 7. It took me like 2 hours to get through the 40 minute episode because I kept getting bored and pausing to do other things 😭

It’s revealed a few episodes in that his parents are working in China, so he’s living with just his sisters.

But two of them are gay (and her friends) and the third is her boyfriend 😂

It’s very different. A couple of random scenes from the webtoon do appear in the drama, but for the most part nearly every single scene is different and the plot progression is changed substantially. Plus, they invented a lot of storylines and character traits (like the characters’ hobbies) that don’t exist in the webtoon at all.

Okay so I’m finally reading the webtoon and what gets me is they totally could have made the Chan Young/Ji Yu relationship plot work in a much more organic way if they’d just followed closer to the source material. They didn’t have to elevate them to these main roles or make their romance such a prominent plot point in order to make that work. And they certainly didn’t need to add in the silly tennis and secret musician storylines for either of them.

We could have had it all! And in a way that actually made sense and didn’t distract from the main plot of the webtoon! But instead the production decided they just *needed* to insert a bland straight romance front and center into a BL and that’s so dumb!

Personally, I liked episode 6 well enough. Not nearly as good as 5, but way ahead of 4 for sure.

That said, I’ve been saying since episode 3 that I hope it’ll finally be time to switch over from the focus on the Ji Yu/Chan Young romance on to Heesu/Seung Won. Because really - how much more can they possibly do with the straight couple? They’re together officially, and still as bland as they always have been.

I liked the focus on the friendships/relationships between all 4 main characters in this episode, but the Heesu/Seung Won romance needs to take center stage for real from now on or this whole drama will be a write off.

Episode 5 was definitely an improvement compared to episode 4 for me.

Ji Yu facilitating Seung Won and Heesu’s relationship was what I always hoped for so those scenes were really fun! And I loved that we got the backstory of Seung Won’s friendship with Ji Yu, plus some actual character development for him.

Then of course the sleepover scenes were lovely! I kind of hate the way this drama skirts around the word “gay” (and other identity terms), but I love that Heesu was able to have that talk with Seung Won about his mom and that it eased a bit of the burden of being different that he was feeling. It’s great that they finally seem to be developing a relationship where Heesu sees Seung Won as more than just a guy he’s matchmaking.

To me, the weakest parts of the series are still the Chan Young/Ji Yu romance and the Chan Young tennis storyline. I just can’t bring myself to care about either of these plot lines. Neither feels satisfying or particularly interesting to me.

As someone who hasn’t read the webtoon, it’s really interesting to learn that none of this was in the source material. I had seen people say that a lot of changes to the relationships between characters were made, but I didn’t realize that extended to these plot points as well. Now it makes more sense why they feel underdeveloped.

And I agree with you that I’d prefer to see a series like that! Some of my favorite moments in this drama are the scenes between Heesu and his sisters or the friendship scenes between Heesu/Chan Young and Seung Won/Ji Yu. That plus the relatability of unrequited crushes, first love, and mundane family troubles are enough to make a series shine. I don’t think there’s a need to try to make Chan Young a tennis star because the way they’re handling that story (and others) just isn’t compelling.

I find it frustrating because the production value is clearly so high. I was so impressed with the first couple episodes because it’s clear that money and time and planning were invested in this drama.


But those efforts seem to have gone to the wrong place. The production team probably thought that they could market the drama better if they sold it as a youth drama where the straight characters and their relationship are just as important. But they clearly miscalculated because nobody wants that! Especially if it comes across as generically as it has so far here.


I’m still watching and hoping it’ll improve as well, but it’s so sad that they squandered so much of the source material’s potential within the first few episodes.

On episode 4 and I love Baabin so much. Must protect this poor baby blink’s fragile heart! The 936 saved screenshots of his messages with Fou4Mod just about broke me 😭❤️‍🩹

This was my perspective up until the most recent episode, but as of the last epsiode I am getting more concerned about the progress of the main couple’s story - especially since one of the people in that couple (Seung Won) doesn’t have much of an identity yet apart from his crush on Heesu. I’d rather the series spend more time earlier on to develop his backstory and tell us more about him as a person but all we really know at this point is that he leads the counseling club, people think he’s obsessed with getting into university, and he likes Heesu.


I don’t mind the fact that the straight couple was added, but I also think that it’s reasonable for people to have distaste for adaptations of queer media that shift the focus away from the queer couple that is central to that media. I haven’t given up on it yet, but I understand why some other people have - especially if they’re fans of the source material as written.

The rating was 8.0 earlier today and I imagine it’ll keep going down if the show doesn’t successfully refocus on the main couple soon 😬