ShortCircuit

He's lying and you're gobbling it up. She has had three lovers in her 30+ years of life, the last of them being the one getting married in the first episode and she was with this one for at least a year. She didn't have "one night stands", LOL and NO sex scene is shown in the first two eps. She DID buy lots of condom boxes with her second lover, because he was a fast shooter and only satisfied himself, never her. It was a tongue-in-cheek joke.

It's not that difficult a story to keep track of. What the heck, why do romcoms make all incels gather as soon as a woman is NOT a virgin in the story and OMG, she had sex with more than one person in her whole life so far!!

If you want to see needless sex scenes watch the first ep of A Killer Paradox. That deserves all the talk about oversexualisation and too much nudity that doesn't improve anything about the plot in any way. This one - at least so far - isn't it.

I think they put those kisses in because the story IS slow (that's actually what I like about it, and about most of MuSuLi's novels too) and it IS a danmei-to-BL-drama adaptation. People have expectations and not everybody has read the novel or will. So they were maybe trying to reassure passerby-watchers that this really is boys-love, and not to drop it just because there's not much action YET. (And maybe to make a point on who's the shou and who's the gong, LOL, and establish that JT really is a sneaky and secretive one but he takes definitive action if he wants to).

I guess Thai BLs have kind of drowned the BL-watching scene into more and more graphic stories, and even though Taiwan is bravely going into it, there aren't all that many dramas where they go beyond simple kissing and aknowledging they love each other in the open. My Stand-In for example took the drama almost completely out of the (danmei) novel, xxx-rated sex scenes included, and that set a pretty high bar. ACS/TOO is not that kind of novel, too, and therefore not that kind of drama... Maybe they needed to spice it up just that tiny bit to create some more interest because of word-of-mouth.

Anyway - I just REALLY hope all danmei authors get the memo and start dealing outright with either Taiwan or Thailand, because dammit, there are SO MANY great novels out there that beg to be made into an uncensored drama!!!

Read the novel. It's not what the X users are trying to make it into. Particularly it's JT trying to save his mother the heartache, not that he himself is homophobic. Also it's his own dislike of his father's actions and how they impacted the family. In short, it's very person-specific, not a wide blanket.

Chinese fans of danmei are usually a bit over the top about adaptations. This drama had to change countries (a few years back when first rumoured they already had a cast of actually mainland actors and team, but the new laws kept interfering and eventually the whole thing moved over to Taiwan, including in setting up the story.) Taiwan isn't homophobic by large, they also legalised same-sex marriage and everything, JT being homophobic in Taiwan doesn't even have the same weight as him being so on the mainland. The part of that plot that is pretty reasonably being kept, probably, is JT's mom over-the-top reaction to her son being in love with a boy, and her mental breakdown leading to their being forced apart.

The change DOESN'T in any meaningful way change JT's character. Let's not be purists in an adaptation we're pretty lucky to get - now imagine what that would've been like in a censored Chinese drama. They probably would have brought that up as the most important part of the story, which it is not, and maybe given it a sad ending or a tragic one, just because Chinese censorship. IF they ever made it.

I am a non-Chinese fan of the novel and to me, the drama is staying pretty faithful to the story and characters. The only thing I really would have wanted to see in it and haven't is them using Sheng Wang's actual nickname - Wang-Zai, because it's cute and it's a link between the MLs that is played on later on, at reunion time. I guess it might be easier for the story to just use Xiao Wang and Xiao Tian, since both are also diminutives, but I really wanted to see Wangzai the cat and JT trying to explain his name, LOL. I guess we won't be having that after all :(

But other than that, so far, so good.

:)

Talk to your hand, as you usually do.

Someone said it was 2012 on the blackboard in the first eps (I didn't notice).

They will probably lengthen the time jump in the drama and have the reunion in 2023 or 2024, I think, depending on when they finished filming.

PS I got a button Nokia back in 2009, they were the norm. Touch-screens came about in 2010-2011, and "actual" smarthphones with all the functions and chat apps started to be widespread around 2014 or thereabouts, IIRC (BlackBerries, Windows Phones, etc - those were a thing until they lost the race). Obviously that might differ in different corners of the world (and prices, and availability). In 1997, they used to have those really big, brick-like phones (they looked like huge car phones, that weren't all that widespread either, LOL). They have actual smartphones in here, and everyone gets them, so it's definitely NOT 1999 LOL.

You lie. There is only one movie, only ONE!!!!!

Why do you have to remind me of the rest :(

PS Though the TV series was pretty good too. (Team Methos here).

Trying to get across to you is like trying to de-program a Tate clone, LOL. Take it however you want, I'll stop replying.

You are misunderstanding and misusing simple biology facts and trying to mansplain basic facts that you got wrong anyway... This is painful to read through.

Have a nice life (all by yourself.) I really hope there's no woman desperate enough to stand by you listening to all this crap...

From all you comments so far, it looks like you're a bitter incel who just can't understand much in real life. I won't be the one to educate you, your single brain cell will have to do the work, as hard as it is.

Just deal, you are not in the right and you know it, you just won't accept it. But I don't really care about your problems with women (in life or dramas, TBH).

It keeps getting better. Do start the novel! Mu Su Li is a great author, and the TL is good.

Since you can see the future, can you please share the winning lottery numbers too? Just for next week, nobody's greedy.

Awwww, they're not going to use his nickname after all :( *sad puppy face*. They're just going to go with Xiao Wang all the way *sigh*.

But the suitcase finally came into discussion (SW looked like he was ready to cry thinking JT would leave soon), and I had forgotten about the sabotage fight to his English exam, LOL.

And now the long wait begins...

No, there isn't.

"on earth, men get aroused around women as soon they hit puberty around 13 years of age."

Do you really think it's normal that women are considered smart to be carrying a weapon of self-defense against the other HALF of the human species?! Just in case their boners tell them to act on intrusive thoughts and they can't help themselves?! Are we supposed to considered normal that some men are acting like animals in heat?! Girls also hit puberty around the same age, what weapons do the men get to protect themselves?

Please control your freaking boners or at least be civil about it and TRY to, thanks. Stop hiding behind biology, we're theoretically civilised, not living in caves still.

Maybe in dramas we can expect men to control themselves and not be over-sexed. And freaking SAFE. Safe to date, safe to take home to the parents, safe to have children with. All those idiot movies with musclebound troglodytes that women die for are men fantasies. NOT women's.

"every Kdrama romance has FL with a huge boner for other men."

So men are allowed to spring a boner for every walking desirable woman, but women are not allowed to window-shop anything. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the other way around.

This is freaking hilarious, LOL. I didn't really expect that. Well, let's get on with ghost-hunting!

Home's default setting: Let's have a paaaaarty!!
Kan's default setting: WTF?!
PangPang's default setting: My bro is my bestie!
Peach's default setting: Ghost here, ghost there, there are ghosts everywhere!

My fave so far is PangPang, she's cute.

You're getting really combative for a side comment.

Yes I never lived in Asia, and what does that have to do with the drama?! Does one need a doctorate in Asian Cultures before commenting?! Did I ever claim it is theater-clear representation of REAL life in ASIA?! Why the heck are you trying to be a gatekeeper, nobody's trying to claim anything about Asians.

I gave you the BH example in jest, exactly because it's about teenagers but all the actors were at least some 10 years older than they're ages in the series. Do I really need to use the /s for such a simple joke?!

And yes people DO kiss for 10 seconds and more. It's called being passionate, believe it or not. I guess passion is cultural too, then. Have a nice day.

They don't go around horny and sporting a boner every minute of their life, so they're eunuchs, got it.

Are you a man? Is this how you define being masculine, getting aroused around desirable (to you) women?!

... This is one of the reasons women have to walk around carrying self-defense tools and just go in groups if there's a perceived over-hormonal male presence, dammit. In the Western part of the world AND Asia. And all over the place, actually, if these would be the men around them.

This seems to be the current beauty standard for males in SK, you're going to have a long time suffering in order to find someone as "gritty/manly" as you want. Maybe just stay with movies or Western media in general.

Yes, it's a happy ending (and happy ever after).

Danmei novels usually have HEAs, LOL.

So in the novel, Wang-zai is Sheng Wang's nickname (based on a little boy drawing on milk cartons or something, and also a play on his actual name, and his father is calling him that as a diminutive when he first introduces the other family - Jiang Ou and Jiang Tian. But I didn't really catch it in the drama, I guess we'll maybe hear it later. Or it was there and I missed it, which is also possible.)

Later on, after they're forced to separate, the only one calling Sheng Wang Wang-zai is Jiang Tian. They also got a cat together. The cat went with Jiang Tian when he decided he's the one to leave in order to let Sheng Wang finish school in one place after being dragged along by his father all over the place and never finishing a school year in the same place. And the cat's name? Wangzai :D (it's different than the nickname but sounds basically the same), so all those long years of separation, Jiang Tian slept with Wangzai, fed Wangzai, petted Wangzai, etc... It's a hilarious part of the reunion, because Jiang Tian doesn't really want to tell Sheng Wang the name of the cat, LOL.

Obviously they do it exactly to spite you. Do you feel the heat?

Just can't wait til he calls him Wang-zai for the first time...