A commentary that's actually just a recipe

Hello, friends! It's been a minute--I, a real-life college student, find myself to be much busier than Thai BL college students, who seem to have copious time to focus on the love lives and delicious food. Speaking of which: today, I'm going to share with you a BL-related recipe, suburban-mommy-of-two style. This means I'm going to give a preamble and then actually give the recipe.

Preamble:

One of the big reasons I enjoyed watching Until We Meet Again, which I reviewed last week, was because of all the cool food Pharm made. It was absolutely beautiful, and it was interesting to see all the meaning behind it. Since I don't have an adoreable boyfriend like him (maybe I will when I become a third year college student and hot af), I have to resort to making desserts for myself. So, naturally, I really wanted to make and try the most frequently reoccurring dessert in Until We Meet Again--Leum Kleun.

I found this recipe on the Internet:

Ingredients:

1 cup of mung bean starch
2-3 cups of sugar
5 cups of water
2 cups of coconut milk
6tbs of rice flour
1tbs of salt
Food coloring of your choice (plant-based is more authentic)

STEPS:

1. Put one cup of mung bean starch into a nonstickable pot/pan along with 5 cups of water and mix well on lower heat.

2 Add food coloring of your choice and mix until it starts to boil and get this dough texture.

3. When the mixture starts to boil and has the right texture add 2-3 cups of sugar and mix well for couple of minutes and than turn off the heat.

4. After cooling off a bit put the mixture into container of your choice.

5. For topping you put 6tbs of rice flour into a pan/pot and add 2 cups of coconut milk and 1 tbs of salt.

6. Mix the texture well until it gets thick and once cooled off a bit decorate your previous mixture that u have in containers.

7. Optional step is decoration with dried mung beans.

Final Result:

I didn't have mungbean startch, or coconut milk, or rice flour. So I replaced mungbean starch with gelatin, coconut milk with orange juice (?), and rice flour with wheat flour. However, my concoction when I directly substituted the ingredients was not turning out to be the right texture, so I decided to make something vaguely resembling Leum Kleun in a creative way: mini orange jello pies. If you're a connoseur of Thai cusine, please forgive me for bastardizing your food, but what I made actually tasted pretty good.

The recipe I created, that has very few things in common with Leum Klen now that I think about it:

Ingredients:

Wheat flour

Water

Sugar

Orange juice

Gelatin

"How much?" you may ask. For the first three, mix water and flour until they form a doughy consistency that is dry enough not to stick to your hands, but wet enough to stick together. Add the amount of sugar you think is reasonable. I added about 3/4 of a tablespoon for a lump slightly bigger than my fist (my hands are pretty average sized). Read the box of gelatin to know how much to put in. I am sorry I cannot be of more help.

STEPS:

1. Mix the wheat flour, water, and sugar into a doughy-doughy consistency that is dry enough not to stick to your hands, but wet enough to stick together.

2. Separate the dough into smaller pieces, and roll flat with a rolling pin to about 1/2 cm thick (for those who fear the metric system: <1/4 inch-ish)

3. Line a cupcake pan with metal foil, and form flat pieces of dough into mini-pie crust shapies inside the cupcake divets.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes

5. Mix part of your orange juice with all the gelatin. Let sit for a little bit. Almost boil the rest of your orange juice, and then mix it with the gelatin-orange juice.

6. When it's cooled a little bit, pour the orange gelatin juice into the mini pie crusts. Put in the fridge overnight.

Final Result:

In conclusion, did I really make Leum Kleun? Absolutely not. But was it good? Heck yeah!

Review: Until We Meet Again

Hello, friends! We meet again, and Bashful Bi is going to tell you some of my thoughts on Until We Meet Again while we're at it, because it's almost Halloween and this drama had some pretty scary moments. So get a blanket, a box of tissues--oh yeah, you'll need them--and hear me out.

Summary (official):

Thirty years ago, Korn and Intouch were university students in Bangkok. Intouch entered Korn's life despite knowing that he was the son of one of the most influential people in Bangkok, the mafia. At first, Korn kept pushing Intouch away, but in the end, he couldn't resist the boy who was so full of life where he was the exact opposite and decided to let him into his heart. However, in a time where homosexuality was unacceptable and having parents that were against their relationship and each other, Korn and In's love was bound to be doomed. Midst the chaos, while Intouch kept on fighting for their future, Korn could not deal with all the suffering his lover was facing and decided to give up. That day, two sounds of a gunshot rang through the air. Their story ended with tragedy, but something had already tied itself between them, bounding them together even after they were dead. 

Years later, a freshly returned to Thailand, Pharm (19) who is a freshman in T- University has grown up always feeling like he is waiting for someone. Being riddled with sad dreams that always left him waking up with a wet face, fear of loud noises, and a birthmark on his temple, the boy has always felt like there is someone he is missing. Dean (21), the third year swimming club's president at T- University has also spent his life searching for someone whose faces he can not remember. 

The red thread of fate that had tied them together in their past life once again pulls the two boys back to each other, tieing them to each other and a past that might not be worth remembering, but a love that is unforgettable. Because the red thread that binds the two hearts together will always lead one back to the other. Even though it might tangle or stretch, but it will never break.

My thoughts:

This BL was a lot to process.

We had fate... and then we questioned it. We had oscillations between the wants and hesitations of a first serious relationship. We had rosy sweetness and agonizing pain. We even had heartwarming friendships amidst the densely romantic plot.

You know what we didn't have? Enough of Win and Team. I liked them more than Dean and Pharm (as one frequently does with side couples), and I'm quite sad that most of their scenes were the weird product advertisements at the end of episodes (honestly, Lays, did I ask? I'm gonna eat your godforsaken chips anyway, you don't need to butt into this TV show). Their relationship didn't make a lot of sense because of how little information we were given, and I feel like it had a lot more potential than it was given credit for.

Also, I was really into the theme of food that Pharm kept making. I love making a wide variety of desserts, and even though I'm nowhere near as good of a confectioner as Pharm, it was still nice to see someone else display such an interest in this. Plus, I got inspired to actually make one of his Thai desserts, Leum Kleun! (I actually made an American knock-off version because I didn't have any of the ingredients to make it correctly and didn't feel like going shopping the day I made it, but it still turned out pretty good. I'll probably write another post about that later). It was probably most interesting to hear Pharm's explanations about all the meanings of the desserts--I never knew Thai cusine was so conscientious about their sweets.

There was definitely A LOT of sadness, which I was honestly not thrilled about, because I'm not super into sadness, and I find suicide to be seriously upsetting for personal reasons. If you read one of my previous posts on color palattes, you'll know that I also found Until We Meet Again to also be very dark literally: the darkness of the show was underscored by the darkess of colors in many, many scenes. I must admit that I stopped watching the series after the second-to-last episode for a month because it got so, so, so abysmal and I just could not take it anymore. But, when I finally did watch the last episode, I realized I had been missing out on, like, the best ending ever.

All in all, this BL was not an easy watch, but I felt enriched after watching it.

SPOILERS

Dean freaked me out because he freaked Pharm out. That guy needed to fucking curb himself and stop being oblivious to the fact that his boyfriend was uncomfortable with about 70% of everything he did to him. This seriously ruined my experience with the show. If you read some of my previous posts, you know I preach consent, and that just was not it. Did Pharm end up okay after everything? Yeah. Would a real person end up okay in those situation? Very possibly not. If it's bad enough that a neighbor could hear Pharm yelling "Stop, Dean, Stop!" then Dean most definitely needed to stop. At least the show kind of acknowledged that when Pharm's neighbor told Pharm to let him know if he needed help, because their whole relationship was kind of messed up.

Do university athletics have any other sports besides soccer and swimming? I like soccer, but in BLs it feels like swimming is just an excuse to shoot scenes where acters have minimal clothing, which is kind of annoying.

Also, that scene with Win, Team, and the mistletoe--is mistletoe not native to Thailand, because whoever made the props for this show clearly did not know what mistletoe looked like. It's not a ball of nasty, yellow-green moss. It is a green vine with white berries. As someone native to and currently living in the northeastern US (where we have an abundance of mistletoe), this bothered me.

The one thing about this show I really, really liked was the ending, when Pharm questions the reality of his attachment to Dean. Did Dean and Pharm's love really exist without In and Korn? It was a valid question, since so much of the past plot, including the development of their relationship, was based on them being reincarnated. (Also a valid question because Pharm seemed really uncomfortable really often, and yet he still hung on to Dean.) The answer to this question was delivered with such a golden sweetness that it almost made up for the tragedy in all the episodes before the last. The ending of Until We Meet Again was definitely my favorite part: it was happy, it was satisfying, and it made sense.

Besides Dean, something that honestly scared me was Dean's intensity with reconnecting with his past life. He had started off as a pretty sensitive and reactive character personality-wise, but as we dove deeper into his past life, those darkly scenes when he beheld various relics of his past life, such as the box of trinkets and photos (and the gun), and his old apartment were... well... scary. The intensity was so much that I had to turn the lights on in my room to watch those. It wasn't that I was waiting to be jump-scared like a horror movie (which I hate--not a fan of scary movies), it was that I was terrified about what he could and would do in such a tightly wound state. If there was anything Until We Meet Again nailed, it was the ability to create a tangibly intense atmosphere.

Overall:

Rating? 6/10 (the plot and acting were great, but Dead and Pharm's relationship was scary)

Flavor? Chocolate (the really bitter kind that isn't sweet at all)

Watch again? Maybe if I skip through the really sad parts

Recommend? Yes (TW: suicide)

Review: Love by Chance

Hello, friends! Bashful Bi's heart recently got bashed by the seeming discovery that the second season of Love by Chance has gotten cancelled because of some bizarre disagreements between someones' managers or something like that, so to say I was disappointed is an understatement. Actually, this ended up being untrue, as I discovered one week into the run of A Chance to Love, the strongly second season of Love by Chance. But instead of focusing on that snafu, I wanted to share my thoughts on the first season of Love by Chance, the TV show that paved the way for Saint, one of the leading actors, into my heart.

Summary (official):

Pete is a handsome and rich university student that is incredibly timid. His shyness is caused by the fact that he tries to hide that he is secretly gay. By chance, Pete gets hit by a kind hearted boy on a bike. The boy, named Ae apologises and helps him up. Whenever Pete trusts someone they use him for his wealth. While he was getting abused for money, Ae saves him. Over time, Ae protects Pete from the world; he takes care of him. But somewhere between the intense closeness and soft touches, Ae begins to feel more than how a friend would. Yet, Pete doesn't want Ae to know the pain of being ridiculed for dating a man. Thus he ignores his feelings for Ae. But Pete falls deeper and deeper in love with the kind hearted boy on the bike who once hit him, by chance.

My thoughts:

My thoughts on various aspects of this series range from delirious happiness to disgust and disturbance, however I generally liked this series for the really good parts and just skipped through the awful parts upon rewartching (as I've already done... more than once...). The way Ae and Pete's relationship starts off and develops is one of the most down-to-earth and believable in the BL genre--from my (albeit extremely limited) perspective, I've seen that friendship is the way most stable and happy romantic relationships start.

As for the other three relationships in the show, two of them are just straight up fucking awful, and the idea for those plotlines should have been an embarassment to the person who thought of them and should never have seen the light of day, much less the screen. The third, while kind of odd, I guess sort of makes sense if you understand how the repression of emotions works from either personal experience or a psychology class. More on these in SPOILERS.

In this series, the actor Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana, nicknamed "Saint," stars as Pete. I swear, I feel like his nickname originated because of his unearthly beauty, because oh my god... it's like he stepped off of an oil painting. He looks flawless. I always feel kind of creepy and intrusive gushing about celebrities' attractiveness, but I mean, in full respect towards Saint, he was seriously blessed with breathtakingly good looks. He also portrays the character of Pete very well--his emotions came across as genuine, and I felt like I really understood Pete. While it's easy to assume that this kind of performance could be typecast into Saint's actual personality, rendering his job quite simple, I watched another show Saint starred in, Why R U?, after I saw Love by Chance, in which Saint portrayed a wildly different, much more mature/sexy/put-together character. Let me tell you, he was completely different and seemed very much all three of those adjectives, and I believed and soaked up every second of it. This is definitely a testament to Saint's actual acting skill, beyond his luck on the genetic front. And, guess what? He also sings and raps under the name of Saintsup, and his songs and music videos are really good. What an icon.

SPOILERS:

The seriously awkward transition of Ae and Pete's relationship into... advanced territory... definitely caused me to cringe while watching, but I almost kind of liked that, because that's the way it often is in reality. People in real life often don't just wordlessly jump on top of each other, at least not in most healthy, consentual relationships--you have to actually communicate your wants, and that can feel weird if you've never done that before. With millions of idealized versions of such scenarios where communication is seemingly telepathetic, I think it's incredibly important to show that it might not always be like that, and that's okay. You just have to be open to the emotions communication brings with it, which should hopefully be inspired by incredible care for each other, which is something Ae and Pete had in spades and that made me very happy. 

You know what else made me happy? They had a happy ending without "stirring the drama pot" of excessive irrational reactions to suspicions of cheating and crazy, whiny ex-girlfriends or weird, intrusive ex-boyfriends. Imaging two guys communicating their feelings honestly to each other?! In short: talanted, brilliant, incredible, amazing, showstopper, spectacular... Unfortunately, that kind of happened in season 2, and that broke my heart even more than it angered me. I totally realize that Saint is doing stuff for another show right now, but A Chance to Love isn't quite the same without his squishy, bashful smile.

The one area where Ae and Pete's relationship falls short is consent after each "first." The most salient example of this is the iconic locker scene, where Ae essentially spews his jealousy, throws Pete against a locker (ouch?!), and kisses him as Pete keeps telling Ae that he needs a moment to process it all. Sure, it's hot and stuff, and both parties end up happy afterwards, but that's technically not consent and that's not cool. Maybe I'm a "psychopath" who "doesn't understand passion," but romantic relationships involve caring about the feelings of your partner as well as your own. All I can say is that I wouldn't appreciate being shoved against a locker like that without the ability to figure out how I felt about my shirt being ripped off. Just saying.

To my knowledge, I have never met anyone as obsessed with porn as Pond. Frankly, that was kinda gross and I didn't appreciate it. If that aspect of his personality was dialed way down by the scriptwriter I would have been a lot happier. He's way better in the second season where he seems a little less weird in that regard.

Trump? I don't know if this was an allegory on the abusive behaviors of our current US president (vote for Biden--shameless plug), but either way, that character was absurd. The acting of this guy really sucked, right down to the forced laughter. Anyway, Trump was used as a plot device above all things, and I was also pretty pissed that he wasn't even mentioned after he became irrelevant to Ae and Pete's love story. I doubt he will show up later in season 2, and even though for character development's sake he should, I think he is an evil that is better left buried in the first part of season 1.

Chompoo? She just sucks. She's so friggin lame.

Also, Tin and Can's relationship was kind of bizarre to me. How could someone like Tin, who touts his class at every opportunity, really fall for a simpleton like Can? Was the Vineyard-Vines-vibe vomit all a show for Tin as a method to repress his polar opposite feeling, caused by an unsuportive, and possibly socially conservative, household? (Spoiler for the second season: yes, it actually was. When the plot went into more detail about that, everything made sense and I like TinCan much more in season 2.) I honestly get Can being weirded out by it all and ultimately asking Tin to back off in season 1, and I'm so, so glad season 2 happened, because they clearly needed more time than the last third of one season to develop.

(trigger warning for the content below!)

Now, the tea you've been waiting for: Techno and Kengkla, and Tum and Tar. 

Let's start with the latter. Why the hell is it a thing in BLs to make guys fall for their step brother? While that's not physically incest, it's still morally incest, in my opinion, and that's a hard no. Additionally, you cannot just use rape as a plot device--yes, that's what it was, since there was no actual development of that beyond making Tar appear distant to his step brother--because that is disrespectful to survivors and minimizes its gravity in the real world. Also, one should never, ever force themselves the way Tum did on Tar, and one should never forgive someone who did that, like Tar forgave Tum. I'm not going to say more than THIS IS NOT AND WILL NEVER BE OKAY, because just thinking about it makes me want to scream in agony and anger.

Techno and Kengkla--a shitshow of property destruction, stalking, raping a drunk person with no sign of remorse, and then manipulating them into being your boyfriend. Need I say more than THIS IS NOT AND WILL NEVER BE OKAY before I enter a state of feral rage over this being portrayed as normal? This should have died in season 1, but some moron thought it was a good idea to give Techno feelings in season 2 and I am NOT HERE FOR IT. Ahhhhhhhhh fuck fuck fuck I hate this so much.

Anyway, if you skip through the unforgivable parts, it's a great show, and I really love Ae and Pete (and Saint)!

Overall:

Rating? I'm going to rate the storylines separately, as well as do my best to do it overall.

    Ae and Pete? 9/10

    Tin and Can? 7/10

    Tum and Tar? -infinity/10

    Techno and Kengkla? -infinity/10

    Overall? 7/10. The standard deviation is huge though.

Flavor? Starts out vanilla... but that is a deception! Chocolate with cherries.

Watch again? Yes, making sure to skip the worst of the storylines.

Recommend? Yes, but make sure to skip anytime the Tum and Tar or Techno and Kengkla storylines show up, or you will want to throw whoever let that happen against a wall. If you do, I bet you one (imaginary) dollar you'll rewatch it at least once!

Review: 2gether

Hello, friends! Bashful bi is here 2day 2 give you my thoughts on 2gether, specifically on the first season. While I'm usually not super into a series at the beginning, it tends to grow on me as it goes along, but, unfortunately, the first season of 2gether had the opposite effect. It was amazing from the beginning until Sarawat asked Tine to be his boyfriend, and the rest of the season was just unnecessary drama based on petty miscommunications.

Summary (official):

Tine is a very handsome student and cheerleader in college, while Sarawat is one of the campus’ most popular guys and is also in the soccer and music club. When Tine is chased by Green, who he does not reciprocate feelings for — he ends up begging Sarawat to fake date with him in order to chase Green away. Somehow, just like the tale as old as time goes — pretend somehow starts to turn into reality. However, before a "happily ever after" there is the process of falling in love, and the slow realisation that somehow they aren't pretending anymore. Somehow, they do not want to.

My thoughts:

I thought this was the funniest BL I've ever watched, honestly. The whole situation of Tine attempting to set himself up with a fake date to deter Green is absolutely ludicrous, but that's exactly what it was treated as in the show, with awkward, pained smiles and panicked eyes on Tine's part, over-the-top indifference on Sarawat's part, and Green serving more attitude than a single person can provide. The whole premise was absurd, but that the show didn't pretend otherwise made it funny. I laughed a lot, and definitely had a good time... for the first half of the show.

I may have used this idiom before, but after Tine and Sarawat got together (sorry, kind of a spoiler, but this is a light BL so was anything really spoiled?), the entirety of the plot was just stirring the drama pot while sprinkling in ex-girlfriends that show up out of the blue, secrets gone awry, and ridiculous misunderstanding that would have been avoided if excessive jealousy was not a vice. 

Also, Tine and Sarawat's reconciliation just sucked.

SPOILERS

A high five is not how you make up with your boyfriend after a fight. A high five is the bro zone. And I am not here for a bromance. I felt like the entire point of the five episodes of season 2 (Still 2gether) was an effort to atone for that sin (I can almost forgive the scriptwriters because of the kiss at the end of Still 2gether, but this is a season 1 review so that's irrelevant). So yeah, the ending seriously did not deliver, especially on top of the fact that Sarawat's random ex just rolled up and Tine flipped out over a hug. (A hug is really gonna make you go cry in the stairwell and fraternize with the guy you rejected several times?)

The fact that this series had two (2) kisses, both in the first half of the series when Tine and Sarawat were not together yet, was kind of sad. Sarawat drunk-kissing Tine was cringy (besides being not okay because there was no consent on Tine's part. Y'all, you gotta ask before you do these things in real life, please), and I don't even know if the snack game kiss counted at all. Do people even play that snack game beyond middle school? I didn't. (If I'll ever play again, I'll suggest we use pocky like Tine and Sarawat instead of pretzels, because pocky are better.) While I do get that not all couples are mushy, BLs are a place I go when I want to consume romantic content. If I wanted to watch something with a non-mushy couple, I'd watch a documentary on radioactivity featuring Marie and Pierre Curie (honestly, I have watched a documentary on their research and it's absolutely fascinating).

Let's take a moment and talk about Green. Too often, gay gays who express themselves in a more traditionally feminine way are portrayed in BLs as nothing more than comic relief--their only function is to be funny, and their funniness is their only personality trait (refer to the Angel Gang in 2Moons2). While Green certainly suffered by the hand of that trope, especially at the beginning of the series, we eventually learned that he had a believable personal reason for the way he acted. And the scene where he beats the crap out of the guys Tine sent to antagonize him? Absolutely legendary, even regardless of how much it defies the aforementioned stereotype. In season 2 (Still 2gether), he has several moments where he acts like a real friend to Tine, and I think the decision to allow him to be a more full character in the show, rather than just a plot device for the Sarawat and Tine ship, was definitely a good one.

The one character I didn't get was Tine's brother. I got the vibe that he was genuinely annoyed with Man's advances on him, and that not for a moment was he faking his "go aways." But then he told Man he missed him and stuff? I mean I guess people can be like that, but that development kind of threw me.

On an almost completely unrelated note: there is a hilarious FMV on YouTube where a segment of it features Sarawat playing guitar with an audio overlay of "Bust Down Tatiana" to make it look like that's what Sarawat is playing/singing. I lose my shit every time I watch it; for some reason, I think it's the funniest thing. I suggest you go look for it.

I do have to say that I liked the second season better than the first. The sources of conflict weren't meaningless, and it was less annoying to watch the stories unfold between seemingly more mature characters. Although I do have to say the romance aspect of Mil and Phukong's relationship developed a little abruptly--I was definitely feeling an exclusively bro vibe from Mil directed to Phukong up until SWERVE and I didn't. But I guess they are kind of cute, even though I still dislike Mil from the first season.

Overall:

Rating: I'm going to rate the first and second half of this show separately, since I felt so differently about them.

     First half? 10/10

     Second half? 4/10

     Overall? 7/10

Flavor? Vanilla

Watch again? I've already rewatched the first half, and will probably rewatch the first half again.

Recommend? Yes

A commentary on healthy relationships

Hello, friends! Bashful bi's task today is to briefly share some important content about healthy relationships. What does this have to do with BLs? The fact that things that are not healthy relationships are sometimes shown as things that are in the genre.

Don't get me wrong--I agree that a perfectly smooth-sailing relationship would be pretty boring to watch for a whole season, and I'm not actually saying that unhealthy relationships shouldn't be portrayed on TV at all. They happen in real life, and therefore appeal to many viewers because of their relatability. What I mean is that they shouldn't be portrayed as something good.

Before I go any further, it makes sense to define what a "healthy relationship" is not. While most people should already be familiar with this, according to youth.gov, a website maintained by the US government to help promote youth health, aspects of an unhealthy relationship include:

- Control. One dating partner makes all the decisions and tells the other what to do, what to wear, or who to spend time with. He or she is unreasonably jealous, and/or tries to isolate the other partner from his or her friends and family.

- Hostility. One dating partner picks a fight with or antagonizes the other dating partner. This may lead to one dating partner changing his or her behavior in order to avoid upsetting the other.

- Dishonesty. One dating partner lies to or keeps information from the other. One dating partner steals from the other.

- Disrespect. One dating partner makes fun of the opinions and interests of the other partner or destroys something that belongs to the partner.

- Dependence. One dating partner feels that he or she “cannot live without” the other. He or she may threaten to do something drastic if the relationship ends.

- Intimidation. One dating partner tries to control aspects of the other's life by making the other partner fearful or timid. One dating partner may attempt to keep his or her partner from friends and family or threaten violence or a break-up.

- Physical violence. One partner uses force to get his or her way (such as hitting, slapping, grabbing, or shoving).

- Sexual violence. One dating partner pressures or forces the other into sexual activity against his or her will or without consent.

These are all, unfortunately, aspects of a romantic relationship that show up for many people at least occasionally. It's hard to completely avoid these things, because we are human and we do make mistakes. Where BLs sometimes go wrong in portraying these actions is when a couple happily moves on from one party's outburst of any one of these without any apology or acknowledgement that it was a bad choice to make. For instance, I feel like it's wrong to cut from a scene where one character is attempting to push his love interest off while pinned against a wall to a different scene where the two are happily cuddling with half of their clothes gone (Love by Chance). The implication of a cut is often that there was no critical plot between the scenes preceding and following it, such as the provision of consent and an apology for not asking for it before. This can send the message that unhealthy aspects of relationships can lead to happiness, which risks setting unrealistic and, frankly, dangerous expectations for people with little personal experience in romantic relationships, i.e. me. Those of us like me are already plauged with the notion that kisses just magically happen through telepathetic communication--it is high time for that to stop, because asking to kiss someone (or anything else) should not feel as weird as it does.

This goes beyond BLs. While most people are blessed with critical thinking skills, allowing them to undergo the same thought process as described above, we're surrounded from an early age by media, and we do ultimately learn at least a few things from it a la "monkey see, monkey do." That's just how brains work--imitating those around us is a survival mechanism. Though portraying realistic navigation through unhealthy aspects in a way that would actually lead to a happy outcome would likely not fix everything wrong with every couple in the world, perhaps it would help people have more accurate expectations regarding dating, and maybe aid people in having happier, safer relationships.

A commentary on color palates

Hello, friends! Bashful Bi is becoming aware that my interest in BLs has grown beyond seeking self-validation through LGBT+ representation into an actual interest in film. I've never really gotten involved with any communities that create or review film, even as a hobby, but I have nonetheless accumulated some thoughts on a particularly artsy aspect of TV--the color palate that is predominantly on the screen, and what it means for the show.

Vibrant, dark, muted, or pastel are all words that came to mind after watching a few episodes of different shows. After noting these different characteristics, it became clear to me that they were part of the story the show was trying to tell. The most salient example I can think of are the bright, saturated colors that pervaded My Engineer vs the softer, less vibrant colors of Love by Chance. Seriously, My Engineer has the greenest trees in the entire BL genre (see below):

A still from My Engineer

A still from Love by Chance, for comparison

See what I mean? The trees in Love by Chance are a more yellow, less rich green. The entire scene has softer, lighter colors. The contrast between these two screenshots, I think, is actually quite representative of the contrast in the colors for the rest of the show.

This may totally be a stretch aggravated by recently having to write many literary analyses, but I do believe these different colors underscore the dynamics between their respective show's characters. In Love by Chance, the relationship between Ae and Pete, the main couple, seems very soft and delicate--they have many quiet, slow conversations, and dote on each other to express their love. In My Engineer, on the other hand, Bohn and Duen, as well as many of the other ships, spend much more time teasing each other and getting into comical situations, leaving to a more lively and fun atmosphere. Therefore, my thesis: soft color=soft character dynamics, lively colors=lively character dynamics.  I guess I should be planning for a PhD in English, not in neuroscience; alas, I want a job when I grow up. But that's irrelevant.

Another example: Until we Meet Again. That show has a lot of dark scenes, both thematically and visually. While they didn't go as far as finding a way to make scenes basked in daylight less bright than they are, there are a lot of plot pieces that occur in rather dark spaces, in comparison to other shows.

  

There were a lot of dark scenes in Until We Meet Again

It may be confirmation bias, but I'm pretty certain that there were more scenes in dark rooms in this show than in any other.

Color palatte is certainly a detail that takes some deep thought to craft intentionally, althouh it's often kind of intuitive. It's an extra thing to worry about when doing set, costume, and lighting design, as well as post-production, on top of the heaps of other decisions that have to be made about that. But the visual input of color for a viewer as they're watching a show is like breathing--you're usually not consciously aware of it, but it is enormously important. Color is a critical aspect of subconsciously underscoring everything that is happening on screen, in BLs and beyond.

Review: Great Men Academy

Hello, friends! Bashful Bi is back, and today I'll be reviewing a show I just watched--Great Men Academy. Not gonna lie: this show is kind of weird. There's gender swapping, a magical unicorn, a school principal that's a statue, and a projector-type device that spews lovelorn ghosts. Still, even though I'm usually not super into that kind of stuff, I ended up liking this show way more than I thought I would, probably thanks to some really good characters.

Summary (official):

Love has always been a fan of the popular guy Vier of the famous Great Men Academy but has never had the chance to meet him. One day, she sees the mystical unicorn rumored to fulfill wishes and wished for her love for Vier to get a chance. Unfortunately the unicorn interpreted her wishes in a different way and Love wakes up to find herself... as a guy?

My thoughts:

As with many series, I was not super into the beginning. Love is just way too obsessed with Vier, who is a total stranger to her. Maybe it's just me, who's never had a substantial celebrity crush, needs heaps of emotional encouragement to develop any feelings, and lacks femininity in everything besides gender identity, but I just could not buy Love's obsession. I mean, I've met people like her in real life, but I don't quite understand them either.

Soon, however, when Love turns into a guy and actually moves forward with her plan of realizing her love for Vier, every relationship in the show begins to get much more complex, and everyone gains more and more depth until literally the last episode, which really kept me hooked. Love turns out to be more than a ditsy girl inexplicably fixated on a stranger, Vier turns out to be more than just the perfect guy, Tangmo, Vier's best friend, turns out to be waaaay more than a character foil to Vier, and even Love's dorky brother, Good, turns out to be more than a nuisance. Pretty much every character gets a multidimensional personality, even Love's two twin friends to some degree, despite the fact that twins are frequently presented as one entity on TV whose sole purpose is to be twins. I'm no expert on acting and actors' skills, but each of the actors' portrayals, combined with a solid storyline, definitely made this one of the most believable BLs I've seen, despite the slew of strange supernatural elements.

Also, allow me a moment to gush about Tangmo: he's literally everything I aspire to be and more. He's perfection incarnate. He's the perfect balance between laid back and determined, allowing him to achieve incredible heights without fraying his nerves in the process (albeit because of his incredible talent). He doesn't get overly competitive with his best friend and is not fixated on achievement, allowing him to thrive in the face of challenge. And yet he still seems like a real person in spite of all of this. What can I say--an absolute masterpiece of a character portrayal.

SPOILERS:

The one thing about this series that made me sad was the story of Rose/Sean. She/he is another of my favorite characters. While Tangmo stole my heart, Sean (not Rose, though) lured me in to give it to him. There seemed to be something mysterious about him since the moment I first saw him that somehow made him stand out from the rest of the Great Men. And even after his last appearance on screen, I was left feeling like Rose/Sean remained an enigma yet unsolved. I desperately wanted to know more about what went on in her/his mind throughout the entire show. I think it's because of Sean's eyes--something about the way he looked at everyone always drew me in. Perhaps it's a testament to the skill of the actor who played Sean, because I didn't feel this way towards Rose at all. In fact, I found myself kind of annoyed by her at time. Perhaps it's because I tend to have zero tolerance for lovesick BS, which is a frequent character trait of girls in BLs. But anyway, Rose/Sean (especially Sean) deserved better than an unhealed explant to the friend zone and a move to Germany. While it made sense, it made me sad.

Something I found really funny in this series was the contrast between Love's "female sensibility" and the "typical behavior of teenage boys." While it's definitely a stereotype that teenage boys are much more prone to do something gross in terms of hygene than teenage girls, I hate to say that, sometimes, it's not unfounded, and it's something I've experienced first-hand. Love's horror at the sink overflowing with dirty dishes and the trash on the floor was relatable to me. While I'm definitely not a neat freak, drinking out of someone else's used mug is straight-up disgusting (especially during this Coronavirus pandemic).

I surprised myself at the end of the show by actually feeling kind of bad for Vier. While it was a horrifically asshole move to allow his best friend to be outed as gay by mass media the way he did, I guess I do understand the internalized pressure he had to deal with to be the Greatest for the third year in a row. I remember I told someone I was willing to sell my soul to ensure that I maintain my all-As record during the first semester of my senior year, when I was applying to college, and that's sort of equatable to Vier's situation. I, too, had overbearing parents and an environment that unconsciously stacked expectations on me for a really long time. Additionally, feeling threatened by my best friend being better than me is not an entirely foreign feeling, although I'm proud to say I've always managed that much, much better than he did. Basically, can Vier's actions be explained? Yes. Excused? Absolutely not. But perhaps Nuclear was right in the last episode, and Vier is human and can make mistakes, so therefore should be forgiven. That was one massive mistake to out your best friend like that, though.

Overall:

Rating? 9/10 (the supernatural stuff is not something I vibe with; otherwise it would be a 10)

Flavor? Vanilla (that one kiss was so worth it, though)

Watch again? Sure thing!

Recommend? Heck yeah!