#i kept thinking about how architecture isn't for me because I couldn't manage to make a good drawing within one week

[irrepressible-miracle]

Maybe Miquella's curse isn't eternal nascency, maybe his curse is that he'd be slower than everyone else, that he wouldn't have enough time

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Love in the Air (2022) - Review

When clouds in the sky and falling rain tease the two close friends in trouble, Rain and Sky, it takes them to meet Payu and Prapai, who are not only cunning saviours but also guys making storms in the two best friends' hearts. The war of love is about to take place in the warm spring, hot summer, lonely autumn and cold winter. How would the atmosphere of love be? Which way would their hearts wave and the air full of love take them to? (via MyDramaList)

Where do I even start with this one? Maybe with the fact that the synopsis only loosely relates to the story you actually get? Or the fact that unless you're a fan of the "pushy rich guy pursues shy/naive younger guy" trope this series definitely isn't for you. I normally don't mind this trope but something about the way it was executed in Love in the Air just rubbed me the entirely wrong way.

The series itself is basically split into two, the first half following the romance between Rain and Payu and the second following Prapai and Sky. In theory that's great especially because there isn't all that much plot that happens so why stretch it out more than necessary but somehow it still manages to fall flat anyway. Mostly because I felt like the writers were only able to write two kinds of main characters--pushy rich guy and naive, somewhat whiny, younger guy. The problem though is that in the first half where we focus on Rain and Payu, Sky is Rain's best friend and is set up as more of a voice of reason, levelheaded, smart and rather confident type of character, which is all fine and good until we switch to Sky's story with Prapai and his character changes entirely. Instead he quickly turns into the same character as we previously saw in the first half from Rain. And while the writers tried to explain that and gave him a very sad backstory that affects him a great deal still (I so dearly hoped that would make him a more interesting and layered character than Rain...it didn't), it still didn't really know how to make that work anyway.

The story between Rain and Payu starts out fun with Payu, as is typical for the trope, being "obsessed" with Rain and trying his darnest to get Rain to become equally as obsessed with him, fall in love with him, and just to play with him. They kind of bond over architecture, since that's Payu's day job and what Rain studies at university, but it's mostly just Rain making a fool of himself trying to get Payu, even though Payu has been his since the start since he'd already had an eye on him before they even met at the beginning of the series. Payu also works as a car mechanic and owns a shop with his brother, and he also works as mechanic for a rich boss and his bikes for illegal street races. I thought the street racing would play a bigger part in the story but besides being used as crutch for the third act drama in Rain and Payu's story, it wasn't all that important, at all. There was some character growth on Rain's part and overall their story was fine and sweet. Nothing too exciting or new, just fine. Visually the actors playing them fit together so that added to the enjoyment of watching them together.

Then we have Sky and Prapai. Their first encounter led to them hooking up and then having no contact for two months after. Much like with Payu, Prapai developed a "obsession" with Sky in that after their hookup he couldn't forget about him and couldn't hookup with anyone else anymore cause he kept on thinking about Sky and their magical encounter. So, perfectly timed, once the RainPayu storyline finished, Prapai asks Rain for Sky's number and their story begins. For most of their story Sky is not interested in being associated with Prapai whatsoever, constantly tells him to leave him alone, rejecting his advances and attempts to bond. (Trigger warning for SA) This is explained by the fact that Sky's previous boyfriend was a illegal racer as well who used Sky as a toy and eventually started to abuse him and ended their relationship by basically allowing his besties to SA Sky for his amusement while telling him just how bored he is of him and how useless he is. Understandably Sky still has horrific nightmares about it and doesn't trust Prapai even if solely because he is a racer as well. And because we're all adults here, no conversation about this happens until the last episode. After Sky gets nearly SAed by his ex once more. (Trigger warning over) How did the writers choose to deal with Sky's obvious trauma? A five minute conversation with Prapai afterward and voila, problem solved. Yeah I don't think so buddy.

As I mentioned before Sky quickly devolves into the same naive and kind of whiny character that Rain was previously, and the amount of times that Prapai touched his head in a way that I know was meant to be tender and sweet yet to me it just came across as almost patronising or like a older brother/father petting their younger brother/kid on the head. Generally I also didn't really feel their chemistry which was a shame.

Overall once the series finished, I was relieved that it was over. There was too little plot to fill 12 episodes despite the material they had and could've used. There were a lot of missed opportunities and some of the behaviours and tropes just drove me up the wall more and more as the story progressed. In short I, as well as Admin 2, did not have a fun time watching this and if it weren't for the fact that we watched it together and commented and laughed at it together, I would've probably not made it past the first or second episode on my own.

I'm really sorry to the person who left a comment that this is their favourite BL but for me/us it was unfortunately a miss.

From Admin 2 - I won't hide the fact that I like BL because there's a lot that's pleasing to the eye, it you know what I mean, and that BL as a whole showed me something I'd previously not seen/gotten from Western media to such an extent when it comes to queer stories. As proud ally I'd glad that we have something like this.

Because of that the first half of this series was fun for me since the actor playing Payu, "Boss" Chaikamon Sermsongwittaya, is really hot and handsome and in the car mechanic uniform with his half tied up hair he just looked wow, for a lack of better word. In contrast with the good university student Rain, they seemed exciting and believable and it was nice to look at them act together. They have chemistry. Their interactions seemed comfortable and looked natural so they weren't embarrassing/uncomfortable to watch which I can't say about Sky and Prapai.

After researching the world of BL I know that pair is very popular as BL ship but personally I don't see it and I'm not a fan. In my eyes they don't fit together and I also felt like both didn't enjoy playing these roles and especially the more intimate scenes. But I only talk about my own thoughts and I don't want to ruin anyones fun or anything. Without that feeling of believability and chemistry between the actors, I can't call the series good even if I thought the plot was good or whatever else. The choice of the actors for the main couples makes up a big portion of the success or failure of a show. Even if there wasn't that chemistry between them in the intimate scenes, it could've been remedied with other scenes that could've made watching more enjoyable overall, but unfortunately the focus was put more on the former and so it wasn't convincing at all to me. From research I also know that some fans have a ranking of best BL kisses that acts as almost like a way to decide whether or not a series was a success or not as a whole, and to me Sky and Prapai wouldn't rank anywhere on that list.

I haven't watched that many BL series yet and maybe my mistake was starting out this journey by watching series that set the bar quite high when it comes to the chemistry between the main pair (KinnPorsche) and now I automatically look for the same level of chemistry in other series and their actors as well. Because in these types of stories the chemistry is an extremely deciding factor.

They touched upon a very deep psychological issue in Love in the Air but it was shown in a very naive way and also acted very naively where Sky's trauma manifests in Sky acting naively like a child. It comes across too cartoony for both the severity of the issue and also his visuals as actor through behaviours. Likewise Prapai who's supposed to be the person to help him "solve" or overcome his trauma didn't convince me either. For me the trauma and issue they tried to touch on exceeded the skills as actors that the two actors have as well as the abilities of the writer. Which is a real shame because they could've done something really interesting with this.

And I agree with Admin 1 that we surely only had fun watching the show because we were watching it together.