TianQi

He does come off as an ass and Kong seems to love that aspect about him. I think he sees Film as a challenge that he, and I for that matter, think he can win. lol

Clarification for many things in the first part. More flirting and sweet glances/smirks. We almost, ALMOST got the "I'm only gay for you", but honestly, it comes off more as "I've never been with a guy before, but I've considered it and now you've sufficiently piqued my interest". Still a little tropey, but with Film's character, you really have to read between the lines with what he says sometimes. A lot of the time, he's not meant to be taken 100% face value at all and I think Kong gets that.

I'm looking forward to part two. This was a good start. I liked how they made a thing of them moving from Facebook Messenger to Line. This is a huge deal for Gen Z'ers and I think it's really cute how they incorporated it. I also enjoyed how neither of them was passive. They were both clever and flirtatious.

I think Boat and Gun, comparatively a bit better chemistry than Pond and Phuwin. I think ITSAY worked because of the writing and the cinematography. Yes, it was shot in a beautiful, Thai beach town, but just how everything was shot was beautiful. That and the acting make it a good film, but in the larger realm of gay cinema internationally, it wasn't groundbreaking. It was right on par with many of the other gay coming-of-age films out there.

I mean if the series was just gonna end up being about Zhao Gang and Si Qi, they could have just started it out with that. I don't think anyone would have complained.

I still really feel like we should leave ITSAY outside the BL category. xD I know we talked about that before somewhere, but...yeah...haha

I think for many people, things like pacing and the overall cohesion of a plot aren't super important when it comes to BL. BL's appeal for many lies in the chemistry between the leads. Whatever's happening around them and how it happens only matters if it serves to have their chemistry intensify and gets the audience to gush. Tropes are lazy, but people like the tropes. The cheesy romantic ones, anyway. People pay money for meet-and-greets to see these tropes specifically re-enacted. They pay money at BL cafes in Japan to see the servers/actors do it. However, I personally believe we all have at least one that makes us want to throw our TVs out the window. For you, I know it's the "faces too close" trope and for me it's the "nobody can use a knife or scissors" trope.

This episode was cute and funny. The funniest thing for me was Sky coming out the shower with the towel pulled up above his belly button. lol He looks like an old man at a sauna. The cutest thing was little baby Bank. I'm really falling for him.

Although Ohm is amazing and does well in virtually anything you throw him in, I just couldn't get into this from the start of the second half. It just didn't work for me. For lack of a better word, it just all felt: icky.

I had a good feeling about this show at the beginning and it's getting better and better. I love how each character has so many layers to get through and even the characters who seemingly don't have much to them are still so essential to the show (SHIWOON). I will say I didn't expect Taekyung to fall that hard for Taekyung. I legit thought he was going to value the friendship all the way through, but this is interesting and I'm so happy see where this will go now though. Also, words cannot express how grateful I am that we get two episodes a week.

Hopefully he doesn't end up exploding on anyone.

Daon, Taekyung, and Shinwoo all need to learn how to people before someone ends up in a fight. I thought we were finally going to see Daon crack when he got hot porridge spilled all over him, but he didn't. Something's gotta give and soon.

I think this happens precisely because it's BL. Can't happen in any other reality. lol

I liked this review for the most part. I slightly disagreed with ep 5/6 and then you completely lost me with ep 11/12 lol, but I like how this was worded. :)

Ep. 1-2
I like this couple and their chemistry, but the writing was bad. Despite the other parts of their acting being good, I was at no point convinced that they were Muay Thai fighters. That took me out of it at some points. Maybe tennis or track would have been a better choice of sport for them.

Ep. 3-4
If the last three episodes don’t blow them out of the water, this might be my favorite couple, if only for Nuea. Maybe because I’m somewhat of a Sun-type who likes very cute and very sassy/bossy guys.

Ep. 5-6
I didn’t hate this couple. The chemistry was good and Mon is adorable, but it just seems off that Mon would be *that* head over heels in love and dedicated to Team for almost no other reason than how handsome he is.

Ep. 7-8
The simplest, least conflicted couple in the show. Both actors were nice and it just felt good to watch their story.

Ep. 9-10
Either way, this definitely the hottest couple in the show. They aren't my favorite so far, but they're for sure the hottest. While I love how sexy Kaeng is, his actions at the dinner were a little bit much. Also, something about the way Puth ended things with the tutor seem weird to me. He was so into him, then suddenly not.

Ep. 11-12
Imo this couple had the most potential, but this fell flat for me for a few reasons. 1) The English-speaking. Sat speaking on the phone in fairly decent English, Chinese, and Korean at the very beginning of the first episode was cute and funny, but all the extra English? For what? It comes off like they’re those rich, stuck up kids who’s parents could afford to send them to international schools in Thailand, so they just speak English whenever they want just to pretend like they’re cooler than everyone else. I knew kids like this. They’re annoying. If the story had somehow tied the characters to a foreign country or something, I think I wouldn’t feel like this. 2) The pacing. At some point at the beginning of the second episode, I put the speed on 2x and it still seemed like it went slowly.

My ranking (so far) and this is based on chemistry alone since that's where I think it's most competitive among them:
1. Sun/Nuea
2. Kaeng/Puth
3. Team/Mon
4. Ake/Tue
5. Pao/Thurs
6. Choke/Sat

Is it just me or has this show slowed down a lot?

This felt very real and as it's the middle of summer right now, I was fully immersed. Everything about it is really "incomplete", but not in a bad way.

It seems like Sky would have asked him that too when he was asking him all the questions about his life.

Hope that’s not a bad thing. haha

My theory's the latter, but yeah, your therapist put it very sagely.