On crucifixion or hanging as Teh's means of punishment and is Jai or is Jai not a douche?

WARNING: THIS IS INSANELY LONG.

(The below was originally a response to another commenter in the thread but it got so long I thought I'd share it here too.)

DISCUSS:

Your comment/reply sparked a great deal of thinking on my part, so I just let it all spew into this comment, which goes on unceasingly for days. Please forgive my verbosity, but I blame you for inspiring it. :D If you don't read the whole thing, that's fine. It's WAY too long which is why I hid it under a spoiler tag. I don't want the entire commentariat to know how crazy I really am. :)

Yep, you caught me, I am a dude. lol I have a couple of Lesbian MDL friends on here and I thought they were dudes when they friend-requested me. haha It's interesting how we can  correctly or incorrectly interpret the vibe we get from a person's written comments. BTW, I'm not going to do a thesis on it or anything but the phenomenon of gay women being caught up in BL World is a fascinating thing. Not that they have to justify it, they don't, but I'm curious about where that comes from.

My comment about being "a bad person" for identifying/sympathizing with Teh was mostly in jest.  The vast majority of the BL fandom currently see Teh as a particularly unattractive turd, so my identification with him logically places me floating around in the toilet with him, right? I don't know exactly why I feel sympathy for him. I have thought back and I don't think I've ever been in his position of being physically unfaithful to a partner. I've only been in two long-term relationships since coming out. The first evolved to be wide-open as long as we were adventuring together (I'm not particularly proud of that, but there it is and there's of course a lot more background than I can fit in here) and the second was completely monogamous, lasting seven years. In between and since, I have basically been a big ol' ho.

There was never any cheating that I know of, certainly not on my part, and I know I would be very upset if my partner did what Teh is doing, so my sympathy for him isn't because I identify with him. I'm thinking/hoping that maybe I've evolved to a level of maturity from which I see all of us, including myself, as being flawed just by our very nature. HOW flawed and in what areas, is a matter of degree and personality only. NONE of us is without faults.

I like Teh very much and have some things in common with him. I was a theatre major in college and the vibe of those scenes rings true, except that I never, thankfully, had an unethical, scheming jerk like Jai as a
director. He knew exactly what he was up to from the beginning with his line-crossing journal exercise. And what kind of director brings booze TO a rehearsal, to share with one particular actor? A douche-bag, that's what kind. Going out for drinks after is one thing, but I apparently view the rehearsal space as a sort of special bubble in which actors should feel safe in trying/experimenting with anything within the ethical realm of ;acting experimentation. But even from within, there must be limits to protect the bubble.

I've never participated in a flirtation with a director, but there's really only one I was ever attracted to and that attraction faded quickly as we got into the rehearsal process. But I have seen LOTS of cases of directors crossing lines right and left like Jai and the actor going right along with it. The worst thing is that it's impossible to hide from other actors and crew people; everyone knows what's going on inside the bubble. So people lose respect for both parties who it's essential for them to work with and it creates lots of gossip and drama that distract from the task at hand.

So yeah...writing all this out, it seems like I would think of Teh as a jerk too for participating in the mess he's in the middle of, but I don't. First of all, the director has ALL the power. The only thing an actor can do to retaliate and resist would be to quit the show and tattle on the director, but who really wants to do that? Actors love to act and it's especially wonderful to land a juicy, lead role to portray. All that would be lost in the quitting. I think the thing to do first would be to pull the director away privately and lay down the law about not being OK with the line-crossing and let them know that if it doesn't stop the next step is to report them to higher-ups. Even then, there's no guarantee that the powers that be wont do all they can to cover it up and take the side of the director if they  lie and claim nothing is going on. BUT that's not Teh's dilemma: He's pretty much all for the line-crossing. lol

Teh is vulnerable to all this because his relationship with Oh has been stale for quite a while. I believe we're in Junior year already, and Oh has changed in ways not attractive to Teh. The orange hair and old-lady fashion choices are not just a surface thing. They indicate to me that THIS is more the real Teh than the more reserved, conservative dude he was when the two first got together. Remember the red bra scene in ITSAY? That was a fantastic scene and to me foreshadows where Oh is now...he's allowing himself to express his feminine qualities. Which is fine, but it is a BIG change. If my partner suddenly went with bright orange hair and those clothes, I would be self-conscious every time I was in public with him and  maybe somewhat in private too. That hair looks awful on Oh and it can't just be ignored. And Oh has to know that. How can you go with bright orange hair, which you know will draw attention everywhere you go, and not understand that your partner will be regularly in the center of that too? Did he consult with Teh before taking that step? From what I've gathered, I don't think so, which is kind of rude and insensitive. I think it's fun that young people currently dye their hair regularly (unfortunately a lot of oldies are in on the trend too, and it's not a good look) but there's degrees of color choices too. Oh went about as extreme as you can get. For instance, I think it would have looked cool to have some orange streaks/highlights put in his natural dark hair. But as another commenter mentioned Oh went full-on Ronald McDonald on The's ass. Teh also sees Oh as flaunting and taking his family's wealth for granted. And relationships can be difficult to manage when one party is rich and the other is poor.

So all the manipulations of the director, leading up to and including the makeout in the rehearsal space, took place against this vulnerable,unstable situation with Teh and Oh. And don't forget, Jai's been reading Teh's journals, which include lots of intimate stuff about him and Oh, so Jai knows all this and is acting as he's acting even though he knows he is likely helping to permanently wreck their relationship. Teh has written in his journal that despite his current misgivings he loves and cherishes Oh and plans to love him forever. Jai the douche doesn't care.

I think I'm sympathetic to Teh also because I've been in the rehearsal process many times and that environment can become very emotionally intimate and special to all involved. I have often not wanted friends or family to sit in on a rehearsal because their presence spoils the vibe of trust and community within the bubble. If I ever direct a show again, I would ban non-actors/crew from all rehearsals right up to opening night. I would just want my people to feel completely safe to experiment. But Jai's "acting exercises" to me were suspect from the beginning. He claimed he wanted the two actors to "be comfortable" with saying "yes" to a request from the other actor before actually saying "yes." BUT to me it was obvious that if you said "no" the director was not going to be happy about it, so his exercise was a form of coercion and a form of making clear to the actors that HE alone is in control. To follow an instinct to say "no" would be seen as an indication that the actor is not fully into the process and is maintaining inhibitions the director deems as without value.

If it were me in that exercise I believe I'd be totally on-board, right up to and including ass and crotch-grabbing if that's what it came to. UNLESS I was in a relationship. Even within the bubble I would see that behavior as a form of infidelity and disrespect for my partner. I'd say "I am not comfortable with that because I'm in a relationship IRL and the bubble is wonderful but it too exists within the real world and what goes on in the bubble can have unintended consequences outside." There is a reason there are SO many romantic/sexual affairs among actors, arising from the process of making a film or stage play. Very deeply-stirred emotions make their way from inside the bubble to the outside world, which can become to seem mundane as compared to rehearsal-life within the bubble.

So all that's the background, Teh/Oh are under pressure as a couple already, the bubble has been created, and you have a manipulative creep as a director. I'm glad he broke off that rehearsal room kiss, even though he did it because he's an asshole (have I mentioned he's an asshole?) BUT i believe he always intended to lead Teh to that point and then cut it off as a form of exhibiting his control over Teh and as a way to humiliate him too. Like I said, I'm glad he broke it off for the sake of Oh and Teh, but it was a very cruel and humiliating and heartless/crushing thing to do to Teh. Teh was all worked up and ready to totally go with the flow, he thinks his make-out partner is totally into it too, and then...in an instant it's made clear that he's been made a fool of. The only one who thought this was real is Teh. What a slap in the face. I really hate Jai.

I can't believe how much I'm writing, but apparently I need and want to, so why not...? I feel sorry for Teh for all of the above-stated reasons. He's ready to experiment with how he feels and what he is open to regarding his relationship with Oh, he's testing the waters...I've been tempted many times to do the same. I know the powerful emotions/compulsions the theatre process can create, which  compound those temptations. I think I've been fortunate though, in that when in the rehearsal process I was usually NOT in a relationship and when I'm with someone I'm a very loyal partner. I've had attractions and emotions stirred, but I saw and felt them for what they were and did not act on them. Not everyone is able or willing to resist in that way.

Over the last few years I've come to realize I just don't feel the need to JUDGE people, which is not the same as EVALUATING people and their behaviors. Those who judge say Teh IS a bad person, he should have a lousy life, never, ever be forgiven by Oh, and ulltimately, burn in hell for eternity. This perspective tells me much more about the judges than those they are judging: They are insecure, they carry unresolved resentments against people who they feel wronged them, and judging others makes them feel better about themselves. JC said something about "not pointing out the speck of dust in another's eye until you've taken care of that huge wooden beam sticking out of your own." Evaluating, however, means looking at, considering all factors, searching out reasons that a person acted in a particular way and being completely open to forgiveness. Evaluating is about the ACTION the person took, not the person's overall worth. Teh is a good person doing a bad thing, and he needs to put a stop to it. BUT it's also true that we can learn a LOT about changes we'd like to make in ourselves through the very uncomfortable means of fucking up royally as Teh  is  doing. Hopefully he will come out of this a wiser, more tempered and considerate person than he was before. I hope be sees his mistake and begs Oh's forgiveness for his behavior and infidelity (just a kiss so far), but it would probably be good for Oh to let him squirm and plead for a few weeks before granting it. Doing so would help Teh understand the gravity of his betrayal and the value of what he put at risk by caving to his baser instincts.

All of this is made more grandly horrific by the fact that Oh is being so wonderfully faithful and supportive to Oh. Him offering to do the poster was a powerful act of generosity and an indicator of his desire to be a part of Teh's theatre-world. Thing is, right now, Teh doesn't WANT him to be a part of it. It's like Oh is invading his secret, secure hiding space for experimentation. I was still in the closet in college and had a girlfriend who would rarely, but on occasion, sit in on a play rehearsal. I hated it when she was there. I felt inhibited by her presence, unable to be completely free and open. I think Teh feels that way about Oh invading his theatre world.

What else...? Totally agree that ITSAY and IPYTM are head and shoulders above almost all BLs and really shouldn't even be considered in the same category. Those two series feel like high-quality, well-funded feature films, not silly, low-budget student films which describes a lot of the BL canon. The lighting, cinematography, set, set-dressing and costume crews all deserve major kudos for how real the story feels. Small things make a huge difference in film: real people don't go to bed with the room lit up like the sun, real people don't live in spaces rented just for the filming with nothing on the walls, no knick-knacks, posters, debris, whatever to make the set look like a HOME, for instance. Locations have been great too, especially in ITSAY.

Thanks for reading this and for commenting Diva. I have mixed feelings...if I knew there was the possibility of a third season I would almost like to see Teh and Oh left up in the air at the end of this season.