Note: I shared this as a comment and I shall share it as my review. It's basically a really long rant. Feel free to disagree but you will NOT change my opinion.

TL;DR: THE YOUNG STEPBROTHER RAPES THE OLDER ONE. THIS IS A PURPOSEFUL PLANNED RAPE, IT IS NOT ROMANTIC AND ANYBODY WHO SAYS IT'S NOT RAPE SHOULD SERIOUSLY REEVALUATE THEMSELVES. The fujoshi plot should have never existed, there are other ways to do fake dating. Mu Ren is bae.

I wish I liked this series but there are way too many things that bother me to the point where continuing to watch this makes me feel like I'm not only purposefully torturing myself but also sexualizing gay relationships because literally, the only reason I would watch this is to see Li Cheng and Mu Ren get together. Not that there's anything wrong with watching just because you want to see one couple get together but given that it's the ONLY reason for me to keep watching I don't think it's worth it.

You can even see the Rape in the hashtags now so people are warned but let me list my biggest problems with the drama:

1. Step/Adoptive brothers: I know that they aren't blood-related but they are family. I don't know about you, but I would NEVER look at my brother and think "Oh, yeah, I'd smash that." He's also 10-years younger than me. I know that in Taiwan it's not illegal but that doesn't make it's any less wrong on a moral level. You're free to disagree with me.

2. Rape: The younger brother purposefully gets his older brother drunk in order to fuck him. What's even worse is that it's being romanticized yet again and I'll explain why. Even though Xing Si (older bro) cries after he realized what happened (which people use as an excuse to say that this hasn't been romanticized) the main reason why it is romanticized is that Yong Jie basically tells him that he'd kiss him when he's awake, insinuating that he isn't taking advantage of him, because he wants his brother to be awake and be able to consciously reciprocate the kiss (NVM that he still kissed him without his permission in the morning). In any other situation, the ML saying that he'd kiss the other lead when they are awake would've been romantic because it means that he didn't try to take advantage of their SO. However, in this case, he proceeds to F*CK his half-unconscious brother without his consent bc as we all know, DRUNK PEOPLE CANNOT CONSENT.

People in the comments are saying that it's fiction so the rape shouldn't bother them and I wish I was that cold-heartedly removed from anything I was watching but as a person who likes to enjoy her stories, I'd much rather watch something that is actually romantic. IDK about you, but one brother raping the other isn't romantic at all...unless all you're here for is some bed scenes which you can find in any porn site with consent too and more detail.

My biggest problem with the rape scene was that it wasn't only shown in quite a bit of detail BUT Xing Si was so obviously experiencing some victim guilt. HOWEVER, he wasn't thinking that it was HIS fault that he experienced what he did but that he was the one to rape his brother. WHICH WAS NOT THE CASE.

If I was to analyze it, I'd say that it could be the big brother talking in him because Yong Jie is younger and therefore is supposed to be the weaker one, and Xing Si is just such a sweetheart that he was feeling the guilt his good-for-nothing brother should've been experiencing instead. What makes Yong Jie such a scary character is that HE FEELS NO REMORSE FOR WHAT HE DID AND HE DOESN'T FIND ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT and for anybody saying that he's a morally grey character and that "he did what he had to do" is seriously wrong in the head.

The fact that we're going to see Xing Si slowly fall for his brother (or maybe fast, you never know with BL) makes me sick. It's absolutely disgusting.

Incest is NOT okay. Blood or no blood relation.
Rape is NOT okay no matter if you truly love a person or not. Fiction or not, a rape plot as a shipping device IS NEVER OKAY.

3. Let's ship 2 straight men into gayness: Now, this isn't that big of a problem, it's just an old trope that's also not that great because it just portrays the fantasy of a woman. The reason it's not a good trope and has to be abolished is that it's the epitome of the BL genre created by fujoshis - it sexualizes the relationship between men. I'm not calling them gay relationships because they aren't. These types of relationships are usually about two straight men who "are gay for each other only".

Some could argue that Mu Ren already likes Li Cheng and I wouldn't disagree because I've seen a couple of instances where Mu Ren does look like he might like his friend. In this case, that's fine, at least one of them isn't straight. What's more, when Li Cheng starts to develop his feelings even further, we can all say that he was a closeted bi man in denial or some other excuse like that. The fact is, I just personally don't like the trope where two grown men have to pretend they are gay for that one woman that gets turned on by it because one of them wants to get in her pants until that same person starts wanting to get in his friend's pants instead. Like no, you can literally have them fall in love in any other fake-dating scenario available, why this?


In conclusion: This is rape, it is not romantic, it is not enjoyable, it is not right, and anybody who doesn't see a problem with planning to and getting somebody purposefully drunk in order to fuck them (bc you very well know if they are sober they would never agree to it, has some serious issues they need to work through. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. You are free to disagree with me but DO NOT try to convince me that this wasn't rape.