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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

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 ...

Between Us (Filipino Series)

It was an embarrassment to watch this show. Where do I even start? Right from the very basic storyline (non existing), to awful acting and direction to the very questionable trans representation (where their only job is to have loud makeup and flirt with school boys). Even school projects would do a better job than this show. The makers also had the audacity to have first 3 episodes 40 plus minutes long. Thankfully, somewhere they had sense and the episodes were then reduced to 20 minutes. Still at a total of 15 episodes, this should not have been even a short film.

The series shows us two love stories centered around students attending the same university. Sai and Khel meet at the school library while trying to check out the same book. While Khel did not leave the best impression on Sai, soon after the two agree to become friends. Both are later named candidates for the school's pageant where they spend more time together, and their friendship grows deeper. The second couple is Art and Mack. Art is a friend of Khel. He is a smart student but begins to face financial difficulty.  He joins cafe as a waiter and his first customer is Mack who is very rude to him. To make matters worse, the school assigns Art as Mack's new tutor in exchange for financial relief. The show then focuses on these two stories and how eventually the two couples fall for each other. In between there is plethora of side characters, for whom, 'annoying' doesn't really describe the extent of cringe that they bring.

Too many story lines, too many characters. I started getting confused as to who each character was, and what they were even about. It would still hav been ok, if the acting and direction was even half decent. You know it is gong to be a long journey when within first 10 minutes, you start rolling your eyes in disbelief that you may have to endure such torture for 15 more episodes. But thanks to high speed and fast forward button on my player, (trust me, this is the only way to watch this atrocity) I was able to finish it. Between the toxic female characters in hooker heals and the tropey completely over-the-top trans characters; the very uninteresting lead two gay couples, this show has a big NO written all over it. Run away from this as far as you can. (0.5/10)

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