The worst HIStory so far

There are things about this that I didn't hate, but the awful parts are sooooo incredibly awful that the entire series becomes irredeemable.

I could accept a step brothers who fell in love premise, but what I can't accept is a premise about a stalker and rapist where everyone is aware of him being a stalker and rapist and it's not a big deal and there are no consequences for his actions besides a happy ending where he and his "lover" live with their parents. Every scene with the family made me uncomfortable and no amount of back story could redeem Yong Jie. While watching all 20 episodes, I wanted to save Xing Si not see him end up with the very man who assaulted him in a home with parents who raised the monster that fell in love with him. The father was the only rational person in the family, but in the end, he submitted to the will of the others just to maintain peace within the family. This was a tragedy.

Li Cheng and Mu Ren were fine but their story felt outdated. I thought we'd moved past the "I'm only gay for you" BLs a few years ago. And the obsession with top/bottom that resulted in the most predictable outcome felt stale. Also, the attack by the vice president and then him being exposed only after he went after Li Cheng months later felt odd and very wrong. It was clear that the vice president was a preditor, but it was only a concern for the company after he lied about Li Cheng. I have so many questions about the way that company was run but in the end this story was still better than the one with Xing Si and Yong Jie and that's sad.

I liked Mei Fang. Most fujoshis are portrayed in BLs as loud, obsessed, delusional stalkers, but she was a normal person who liked BL and I appreciated that. Rarely are the female side characters the best characters in a BL, but she was one of the few good aspects of this series.

All in all, this was very bad. The writers should be ashamed because they had solid actors and 2 good premises but used outdated harmful clichés to tell their story instead of creating something compelling and interesting. Stepbrothers who fall in love and co-workers/roommates who fall in love could both be strong stories, but that didn't happen in HIStory 4.

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GMMTV's worst BL EVER

I've seen every BL GMMTV has ever made. There are some gems and some duds, but this is in a category of its own. It starts with a random gay person sexually harassing people for no reason. Then 4 friends get with call girls. A freshman in college gets a hard-on over and over. Then there's an attempted rape by another gay person that has ZERO repercussions. There is rampant homophobia. A couple in a long-term relationship that only has off-screen kisses. The characters obsessed with calling a man a "wife" just because he takes on a specific role in the bedroom. An ex-girlfriend who only exists to scheme, plot and plan how to break up the main characters while never realizing that her actions were the catalyst that got them together. All this happens while she wears the shortest skirts and highest heels youtube would allow. A younger bisexual person whose feelings are repeatedly ignored to propel the story. Then when the forced misunderstanding happens towards the end of the series where our main character behaves like a child instead of someone who has wanted to be in a long-term relationship with his boyfriend for most of his life. Once all that is resolved, you'd think the audience and characters would FINALLY get to enjoy some moments of happiness, but no, the homophobic dad returns to chew scenery and sabotage the relationships one last time in the final episode.

The series starts off fine. But by the midway point, becomes frustrating, then irritating, then rage-inducing. I hated the second half of the series for giving us every awful cliché and trope in BL. If this was made today, I'd seriously question if GMMTV hates gay people because the treatment of gay people, gayness and the gay experience is depicted in such negative ways that overall I found it to be harmful. But the treatment of women here isn't much better. Over and over the story shows that a woman exists to have sex and then have a baby, her feelings, desires and goals don't matter, having a baby is the only thing that's important. The decision in the final part of the final episode to allow the father to find a poor virgin to bear his grandchild made me more disgusted than any other part of this series. This show should not have been made and I'm very glad that GMMTV does not still make series like this. I hope they NEVER make anything remotely this bad again. I hope no one else watches this series. And I hope that all of the main actors get better roles in the future.

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A relationship with as much depth as you'd get in a music video

After dropping this during the 1st episode out of disgust, I just binged episodes 2-8 and can barely remember what I watched. I only watched it because I've been seeing Mos and Bank all over social media and wondered if this ship was really worth all attention it's getting. It's not.

I'd love to list the strong points but there are only two. Mangkorn's mom is delightful and Bank does a commendable job carrying the entire series on his back once he started having more than 2 facial expressions.

The weak points are endless. There is no story, none of the characters are interesting and scenes often feel completely disconnected from each other. At first, I thought the casting director was the problem for picking amateur actors who weren't able to convincingly do the job. But as the series went on, it became clear that they were doing their best with a truly weak script. The direction is by far the biggest failure. The director seems to have not bothered to prepare the actors for their scenes and didn't explain to them the motivations of the characters. But worse than that, he shot scenes that should only exist in a flashy music video, not a tv series. The shot of Yai and Mangkorn as yin and yang with the red sheet may look cool in a trailer, but it had no place in the episode. But the editing isn't much better. The editor just threw scenes together to fit into 8 boring aimless episodes. So many scenes just exist before or after other scenes and there is little continuity in each episode. I wouldn't be surprised if the editor just forget to include all of the scenes that should have happened in the middle where Yai and Mangkorn slowly stop hating each other and actually start falling in love. Or maybe the writer didn't write those parts. Either way, the crew (director, writer and editor) should take some classes or find other jobs.

Since there have been so many below-average BLs in 2022, I won't call this the worst. But it went out of its way to check every tired, overused and outdated trope that BL fans have seen countless times before and are completely over.
- enemies to lovers
-an extremely rich character whose wealth, sense of victimhood and bratiness are his only character traits
-parents who think arranged marriages are a good idea in the 21st century
-mind numbing background music that is in nearly every second of the series
-useless friends that only exist so the MCs have someone to talk to
-random "BDSM" scenes that show the characters (actually the writers) know nothing about BDSM
-two people who have no reason to even like each other, "fall in love" because ________
-dead fish kisses (Bank looked like he was miserable each time they kissed)
-women who only exist to drive a wedge between the MC
-a man calling another man his wife
-blink and you missed it GL
-people "being in love" after one month of knowing each other
-someone going aboard after I say I'll never leave you

Also, there's a good reason why so many BLs have side couples. It's really hard to keep things interesting for an entire series with only one relationship to focus on. A second couple shakes things up, gives side characters something to do and allows the audience to have a reason to watch even when the relationship or chemistry between the leads stops being interesting. This show REALLY would have benefited from a side couple that got screen time. There were two potential second couples but neither went anywhere which is unfortunate.

Overall, it felt like the earlier episodes and the later episodes were made by different people. Yai's character changed so drastically that I spent most of the series truly confused about what was going on and why. It gave me some really great laugh-out-loud moments though and those usually happened during the NC scenes. But Mos and Bank tried and it's watchable if you skip parts and use 2x speed, so I couldn't hate it.

Lastly, BL sequels are almost always awful. There's no reason to make a sequel to this one, they were barely able to stretch 30 minutes worth of plot into 8 episodes in season 1. But it's StarHunter Entertainment and they've never made a good series, so I expect more of the same in season 2.

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Not good but watchable if you're bored

This show is way too forgettable to wait until the end to comment, so I wrote my thoughts on each couple as I finished their stories.

1-2 Tue & Ake - I liked both actors before I watched this, so I'll admit my bias, but I enjoyed this one. They had good chemistry and even though their story felt rushed, it worked for me.

3-4 Sun & Nuea - I didn't love the clothes, but overall this was good. I'm looking forward to seeing more from them in Cutie Pie.

5-6 Mon & Team - This didn't work for me at all. Mon's character seemed like an innocent 10 year old based on how he reacted to everything and because of that, their interactions made me uncomfortable. Mon was also my least favorite character in the series so it was hard to finish both episodes.

7-8 Thurs & Pao This was wonderful. There's been a lot of BLs with this premise, but this one really worked.

9-10 Phut & Kaeng The strongest in terms of story, but also the most dysfunctional relationship. These 2 were clearly made for each other. I'm glad no one else got their heart broken while these 2 figured things out. I don't think I'd enjoy a full season of this, but it would be more compelling than of the other couples in this series.

11-12 Sat & Choke. This reminded me of Mon & Team. The relationship is very innocent and sweet, but something felt off. Technically Mon is a little kid and acts like one, but he does a lot of really grown up things and that felt gross. Overall I didn't hate it, but I watched on 2x speed and it still made me uncomfortable.

13-14 Masuk & Tir & Jia. This one really didn't work for me. It spent too much time focusing on Masuk & Tir and not enough time focusing on Masuk and Jia falling in love. Tir lingering over the new relationship made it even more awkward to watch and the new couple felt forced together.

Episode 15 was the icing on the cake that reminded me how bad this show really was. Tir needs to go away! The show had some bright spots and stand out performances, but overall it's poorly written, directed, edited and most of the acting is subpar. If you want, watch it to pass the time and if you like very innocent BLs with simple stories, you'll probably find something here to enjoy.

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