The toxic beginning didn't make me drop it.

It was the forced writing near the end.

Some TharnType reviews about the problematic aspects almost kept me away from this series. But considering the raving reviews I’ve seen on other shows that I dropped, I decided I had to know my own opinion.

You don’t have to like everything a character does in a series in order to like watching. In fact, isn’t it often that we love to watch characters make terrible decisions because we would never make the choice in real life? We want to see what happens next.

Now my favorite top tier romances are the problematic free (or at least mostly) with realistic decisions and characters with amazing chemistry, where the writing and acting shine. But there is another form--that is a guilty pleasure. There’s always some problematic characters and portrayals. The circumstances and plot are wild, and characterizations are sometimes absurd and unrealistic, but they’ll still follow a semblance of logic. It’s just that the premise is so intriguing and the acting and chemistry holds it together enough that you keep watching.

The actions of the characters aren’t so abhorrent that it makes it impossible to enjoy. If you like the chemistry between characters it’s easy to bypass the brief distasteful parts and focus on what you like. Anyone who’s read and enjoyed a lot of BL has probably done it to some degree with at least one story. I’ve done it with many.

Honestly despite the flaws in how he was written sometimes, Tharn’s character kind of carries the plot. Type’s character would normally be incredibly insufferable to watch: stubborn and hard to sympathize with. Type has little characterization beyond “homophobic because he was victimized.” So the story is super reliant on Tharn’s opinions of him for the audience to not resent Type’s character. The power dynamics between them are also quite imbalanced, but not to such an awful degree. The beginning is an unhealthy dynamic that no one should strive to obtain in real life. But the development between the characters feels meaningful despite the issues in the writing. I think the actors carry and elevate what might have been a train-wreck otherwise.

You can tell in TharnType that someone was trying to make poignant commentary on homophobia and discrimination, but they must have gotten distracted by their convoluted plot and characters because whatever message they wanted to convey is nonexistent. You can’t even tell the point they were trying to make.

I don’t consider this a spoiler since it’s sort of in the summary, but I will say I hate how trauma related to being the victim of pedophilia is used as a catalyst for the character’s homophobia. If dealt with more elegantly and not problematically, the homophobia should have been on the surface as a defense mechanism, whereas the real fear is rooted in sexual intimacy, and perhaps more internalized homophobia rather than general homophobia. But none of that was even considered or mentioned. The motivation is a cardboard cutout with no depth.

There’s plenty of series I’ve dropped that did not contain problematic elements. But the problem was they were either boring or lacked chemistry. The two most important elements. So if I have to sit through some problematic portrayals to watch something both interesting and with good (enough) chemistry, then doggone it I’m going to do it as long as I can.

I went in knowing what to expect which maybe made it easier to get past. I can’t imagine watching the series cold and encountering the problematic elements unexpectedly. I could see that instantly turning you off the show.

The biggest detriment to watching was the side couple. I don’t know if I fell asleep when they were introduced but for 6 episodes I had no clue who they were and why I was supposed to care about them. I had to google to find out about half way through. And even once I knew who they were, their scenes were pretty uninteresting, and they only had one scene an episode. They appeared so sparsely that their presence didn’t make sense, and merely acted like a boring commercial break of the main story. Once their story crossed paths with the mains the plot really felt forced and cliche. It just made me tired to watch the new source of conflict, so I dropped it.

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