maboheme

that bonus episode was adorable, loved the "established relationship" couple goals it had. truly the cutest pairing, wish there was more of them. there is something really cute, fun, and romantic about them when they are together.

Loved it!

I think they needed a different actress to play the FL, she's not working in the role for me, weakest link.

Just finished it, amazing, definitely one of my favorite BLs and I've seen hundreds.

Also, just to add on the stats. We have no idea how many queer people exist. The 10% of the population myth was never a stat that was made with any sort of scientific rigor and it became a cultural belief based on a study of a few college men in the 1940s. Plus in a homophobic society you can never have true knowledge of the queer population rate. People are oppressed and closeted and some face death if even admitting to loving someone of the same-sex. And time will change how and what people identify as. I mean I've seen surveys of Gen Alpha and it’s as much as 30-40% say they are on the queer spectrum. This just shows how much the time period and dominant norms impact whether or not people are out of the closet or even admit to being LGBTQIA. All that to say, it’s likely a much larger percent of the population that would identify as queer is society was open, so that ALSO means we have never gotten adequate representation or stories of queer lives. Which is why people being able to "queer" straight text and series is one way of filling in the gap and it gives queer people a place to see themselves in a dominant society that often erases their stories. That's all I want to say, thank you for engaging.

I studied queer and gender studies and I am queer and hang out with queer people daily and talk about this all the time. For some of us this is life. So yes, I know the terms. You telling me to go back to Literacy 101? To someone like me who has over thousand books in the home and has a PhD? Hah.

"It's not homophobia to assume more people are in a straight relationship than in a gay relationship." ---> Actually, yes it is. Only someone who is part of the oppressive dominant culture can never understand why this is a problem. Your assumption of straightness is part of the problem. Anyone who is an oppressed group who doesn't see GOOD representation on screen knows how awful it is when we don't have our own stories (and just b/c Asian BLs are trendy does not mean queer people are not oppressed or are more represented in the media there. It's still a niche genre). So using statistics as a reason why people shouldn't ship doesn't work, if anything it shows why people should. Not seeing actually good queer stories or rep in mainstream films or series means queer people don't get to see our stories on screen in ways we want. So we have to subvert the canon (we have to queer the canon ourselves). Something queer fans and queer filmmakers have done for generations (and bromances have always been spaces used to do this). I honestly don't care about crazy fans (if you are in any "heterosexual" ship fandom spaces you would know that those fans are equally crazy and parasocial, so again for you all to only complain about BL fans when ALL of fandom itself is toxic --> why?) While these fans may be annoying, no one is imposing their view on you when they ship. That's their personal choice, and you can disagree with how they read the canon and watch the show from your own personal lens. So if people see two people they like together (be it a male and female, or two people of the same sex) and they decide to ship them, does it matter? Does it suddenly make a mainstream K-drama queer? No. So let people be happy. Let them love things, let them fantasize. Let them "enjoy" the series in the way they need to. It's really not harming you at all. And honestly queer ships have only helped to normalize queerness in places where BL exists. Thailand sees it as a soft power and the Ministry of Culture funds BL projects. This normalization played a role in the passing of same-sex marriage there. Look, all I'm saying is the world is pretty awful, and a viewer finding joy in pairing two people together of the same sex is honestly the last thing harming the world right now. I just don't get why it's only on these kinds of dramas that people get upset about shipping outside the norm, and I never see the same militant policing in assumed heterosexual dramas. I never see people come out and scream about how a male and female should only be friends and not sexualized.

And yet again I see you not complaining about a man and a woman being shipped. Your reaction here exemplifies toxic masculinity. You're just upholding a homophobic normative worldview and it's quite harmful. You are the problem. You are why folks don't feel safe. Compulsory heterosexuality is deadly --> the cultural assumption that everyone is straight and that being straight is the only normal option. Actually if you bothered to learn anything about queer history, or ever read a book in queer and gender studies, or hell even talk to a queer viewer, you will know that many filmmakers and also queer viewers "default" to seeing intimate male friendships (or two females!!!!) w/ a subtextual queer lens b/c of the hetero-patriarchy. We don't have good queer representation anywhere in the world, and queer people are subject to oppression everywhere in the world, so for you to get on here and judge people for seeing queerness in the relationships they love is such homophobic patriarchal nonsense. You are the one that is chauvinistic by forcing "straightness" onto anything at all. Queering a text is the opposite of imposing toxic masculinity, it is SUBVERTING it. BL is a subversion of the normative. People shipping supposedly "straight" characters is a powerful way of queering an otherwise homophobic canon. It always has been. And in many places, including Asia and the West, "bromances" were used by writers and filmmakers as one way of seeding in subtextual queerness b/c the society itself was homophobic. Learn something and stop whining about who people ship.

This happens all the time to male and female leads. So why only point it out when people do it with two male leads? Feels homophobic.

People do the same thing to heterosexual pairings and no one says a word. Y'all are so homophobic.

in what world is a friendship between 2 males not viewed as normal? look around, male friendships are common.

Here's the thing, if you look at any MDL post here on a male/female romance K-drama, most of the posting is about the relationship (romantic likely) b/w the female and male characters. People go on and on about those ships. Why in the world do people only get upset when folks do the same for two male leads? It's homophobia period. How is one form of shipping okay and the other labeled wrong and a fetish? Fans ship two people who have chemistry. These two dudes have chemistry and an amazingly complex story, as chemistry-filled and complex as any "heterosexual" pairing in a K-Drama. So of course people ship them. I honestly wish homophobic fans would stop policing people's ships and let people enjoy what they enjoy and ship what they want. I never see anyone on here saying, "Why do fans always ship a male and female together!!!! Oh it's so fetishizing!!!!!!!! Stop sexualizing friendships!!!!!!! Men and woman should only be seen as friends!!!!!" Shipping heterosexual ships is normalized, and that my friends, is because of homophobia.

yeah I thought so too!

I need more. once a week is driving me crazy.

yep this. and people in the comments acting like straight male friendship is somehow underrepresented when in reality it is the norm. I mean how many two male friends turned into rivals and enter a love triangle over a girl do you have in K-dramas? Thousands lol.

and yet straight people project romance on every woman and male in vicinity of each other in a series and "ship" them and no one blinks an eye. somehow those viewers are unable to see a woman and man as platonic, only romantic. A very warped and fetishized outlook, right? I repeat your words to show how ridiculous your viewpoint is. You can only say what you say b/c of how homophobic dominant culture is where it is seen as "okay" to ship m/f ships but a fetish to want queerness represented in shows on the same level as you get heterosexuality. the entire world, and k-drama industry runs on straight couples being seen as normal and right. but the minute people see and want anything else, that is seen as wrong. y'all need to read more books, study history, and learn what it means to not be problematic mouthpieces for heteropatriarchal norms.

and yet no one ever says this about heterosexual romances that are pretty much the basis of every K-drama.

omg this is such a sweet, feel-good BL. it is so refreshing and cute. the dynamics, the family stuff + Rock the best boy, the surprisingly awesome sibling dynamic, and these two boys and the way they're figuring it out together. I've been watching a lot of dark, angsty BLs lately with a lot of toxicity, and I didn't know how much I needed something this cute, but also surprisingly deep at the same time.

I'm going to be so mad if Kay isn't the killer. I need them to be brave enough to actually have him be the killer.

I can't believe I waited so long to watch. Absolutely one of my fav all-time BLs. Gorgeous.