! TRIGGER WARNING ! SEXUAL ASSAULT !


now i myself can't always be as hard on it as i ought, because there's many things they did with the couple that i'd wanna see more of in bl, but there's no way i'll tolerate people downplaying the many issues with this drama. just because they did some things right, doesn't mean this series can be excused, as the mistakes they have made are of the awfullest kind.
type's homophobia is explained to be rooted in trauma of sexual assault, which is a very serious and tragic topic that needs to be talked about more. i wish this would've been an opportunity to do exactly that, but instead they downplayed the extent of it and had tharn FORCE HIMSELF ON HIM MULTIPLE TIMES and MOLEST HIM IN HIS SLEEP which was portrayed as 'harmless teasing'. just seeing this written down like this is making me uncomfortable, but the writers apparently thought it was completely okay and made it happen on screen, resulting in a weird relationship and never addressing it again. type's trauma was also treated like being with a man could suddenly erase it. that is not how it works and just utterly wrong. to this day, i can't believe they got away with things this severe, just because they got pretty people with great chemistry to act it out.
their relationship later is, like i mentioned, also pretty toxic on both sides, although i have to admit that the amount of it was only realistic for those circumstances and it improves a bit throughout the show. take that as you will. it doesn't make up for anything, they never became a healthy couple.
so what made this drama so popular despite it being pretty much unacceptable?
easy - mew and gulf, romantic and sexual tension, one partner seemingly devoted and the other savage and bratty and lots of looks of love made people look past those 'flaws'. tonhon chonlatee got rightfully dragged, but barely anyone has that same energy for tharntype, because the force behind it knew what people wish to see more of and put it in there along with their wrongdoing.
please open your eyes. you can like what's good about this drama, i can't fully hate it either, but matter of fact is: it is very, very, very problematic.