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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

By Golu
This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
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Love @ First Night: Season 1 & 2 (Web Series)

By Golu
I found this web series while randomly browsing on Youtube and I am surprised not many people know about its existence. I have to admit that. initially it took me a while to warm up to the characters and the over-the-top acting by its characters, but slowly I got sucked into the lives of the characters and must say I thought it was quite decent. There are few shows that show show queer African American community the way this show does.

Our main actors are Spencer and Jayden. They meet one night at Spencer's roommate Alex's birthday party and hook up. Its only the next day they realize that Spencer was actually the blind date that Alex had invited over. Alex is a player and just sleeps around but after this incident doesn't leave any chance to make Spencer guilty of stealing his potential love. Jayden and Spencer meanwhile are getting close and quite like each other. We also meet Jayden's sister, who is very supportive but is also dealing with own personal men issues. Alex and Jayden are slowly growing apart because of Alex' bitchy nature and also mainly due to his other friend Gary, who keeps giving all wrong advice to Alex. Gary hatches a plan to bring into picture Orlando, who is Jayden's ex partner who uses to physically abuse him. Exactly a year later on Alex's next birthday, he presents Orlando as a surprise pretending to not know who he is fully intending to take revenge and hoping Spencer and Jayden would break up. Season 2 starts with Jayden and Spencer dealing with Orlando's sudden arrival in their lives. Meanwhile Alex is slowly falling for Orlando, who clearly wants to sleep around and want to have an open relationship. This season we see more of Jayden's family background including his sister's issues. With the arrival of Spencer's mother, whom Spencer hasn't come out to, and with Spencer's co-worker hitting on him, the two of them go through their ups and downs but still managing to communicate. The season ends with Gary's true face being exposed but also with a question mark of what else is Jayden hiding from Spencer.

As I said before, my first reactions were, Oh ! My God! why are the characters so loud and over the top but after a few episodes, I got used to it. I have to say most controlled acting was by Jayden followed by Orlando. Jayden's sister was the most annoying and so was Alex. I think there could have been a decent balance of a loud character v/s showing him just a bitchy queen who has not grown up. Coming to Spencer, he was all over the place, sometimes he was too good and other times just random facial reactions and expressions would totally catch you off-guard. On a brighter side, no stereotypes are made of the fact that characters are African-American or the fact that they are gay. Its a regular story where no bones about both of the things are done and thats a very welcome change. Also the scenarios that have been shown could be happening in our everyday lives so connecting to them is easier (minus the loud reactions to everything). A few changes I would recommend is that it was only Jayden's apartment that looked like someone actually lived in .rest all other locations are so minimal furnished and used, its clear that they are being used just for shooting. I know its a trivial thing but the sets does make a difference.

Apparently Season 3 is in works and I for one would look forward to what's happening next. This is no great shakes by any means but its not bad either. Just get used to the theatrical Over the top acting style and you will be good. (6/10)
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