4
2
Honglou Meng
Erehwon
This review may contain spoilers
Ten short sermons on how (not) to write (a BL)
1. If you're going to write a show wherein music is an important theme, the characters' fingers must at least touch the instruments convincingly. A few piano lessons (or guitar lessons) will go a long way.
2. A show about musicians must, well, be musical. No amount of autotuning, nor a liberal sprinkling of English words, can conceal a fundamental want of talent.
3. A rock star -- even a grieving washed-up rock star -- is allowed to age without unkempt unshampooed undeloused hair. It is unforgiveable to make Charles Tu look that ugly. Even more unforgivable to use a wig that looks like it was the sole survivor of a tornado that ripped through a FujoCon.
4. Bowl cuts are not markers of youth. Anymore than manbuns are markers of midlife crises.
5. Still on the subject of hair, are blonde mullets a thing now? Does anyone find them attractive? Orca, if you want to know why Reese resists, just look in the mirror.
6. Don't be a prick tease. If you're going to keep our lovers apart in the name of building up tension, you had better give us a good reason for doing so. Poor Reese. I still don't understand why he couldn't shag that idiot for so long, the one who thought it fit to add blonde extensions to his otherwise perfect hair, a stray strand of which, for the billionth time in BL, Reese felt the need to tenderly push away while he was asleep. (Sea did this too! In the same episode!) I know that blindness caused by a lock of hair is endemic to BL, and often fatal. But Reese, if you can tolerate that mullet, you must truly be in love. You do you.
7. If you're going to have more than a few supporting characters in a story, give them more individuality than a side-couple with no dramatic interest, a straight pair who are just supportive friends, and a dead brother whose main purpose is to be dead.
8. People don't need loud background music to tell them how they should feel. People know how to feel -- assuming that the actors and the script are any good. In a show where music is the main theme, it's just self-defeating.
9. Sassy secretaries are awesome. Use them more.
10. Don't worry about age-gaps or height-gaps. They are beloved for a reason. However, be subversive. Make the short twink the top, and the tall washed-up rock star the bottom. Then get a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the pandaemonium that follows. (But please don't save that bowl for another haircut.)
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: If music be the food of love...
DON'T SAY: Play on.
2. A show about musicians must, well, be musical. No amount of autotuning, nor a liberal sprinkling of English words, can conceal a fundamental want of talent.
3. A rock star -- even a grieving washed-up rock star -- is allowed to age without unkempt unshampooed undeloused hair. It is unforgiveable to make Charles Tu look that ugly. Even more unforgivable to use a wig that looks like it was the sole survivor of a tornado that ripped through a FujoCon.
4. Bowl cuts are not markers of youth. Anymore than manbuns are markers of midlife crises.
5. Still on the subject of hair, are blonde mullets a thing now? Does anyone find them attractive? Orca, if you want to know why Reese resists, just look in the mirror.
6. Don't be a prick tease. If you're going to keep our lovers apart in the name of building up tension, you had better give us a good reason for doing so. Poor Reese. I still don't understand why he couldn't shag that idiot for so long, the one who thought it fit to add blonde extensions to his otherwise perfect hair, a stray strand of which, for the billionth time in BL, Reese felt the need to tenderly push away while he was asleep. (Sea did this too! In the same episode!) I know that blindness caused by a lock of hair is endemic to BL, and often fatal. But Reese, if you can tolerate that mullet, you must truly be in love. You do you.
7. If you're going to have more than a few supporting characters in a story, give them more individuality than a side-couple with no dramatic interest, a straight pair who are just supportive friends, and a dead brother whose main purpose is to be dead.
8. People don't need loud background music to tell them how they should feel. People know how to feel -- assuming that the actors and the script are any good. In a show where music is the main theme, it's just self-defeating.
9. Sassy secretaries are awesome. Use them more.
10. Don't worry about age-gaps or height-gaps. They are beloved for a reason. However, be subversive. Make the short twink the top, and the tall washed-up rock star the bottom. Then get a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the pandaemonium that follows. (But please don't save that bowl for another haircut.)
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: If music be the food of love...
DON'T SAY: Play on.
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