Reeled in by the e-sports theme; stayed for the cast

At first glance, I was apprehensive about the drama being e-sport themed as it seemed gimmicky. I was pleasantly surprised that the drama itself was more focused on a variety of relevant topics: coming-of-age stories, the duality of social media and how damaging it can be, and more. Definitely one of the better dramas I've watched recently.

What I Liked?

[1] *Xu Kai and Cheng Xiao*: as male/female lead pairings go, this has to be one of my favorites. Cheng Xiao plays Tong Yao, who at face value, looks like she'll tick off every box on the "ditsy, wide-eyed, and naive" female character trope checklist. I'm glad this wasn't the case and I *REALLY* came to adore and admire her character. With the subject being e-sports, the misogynistic undertones are to be expected. What stood out to me about Tong Yao was her unabashedly calling people out on their BS but also fighting for herself and her friends and not crumbling under the social media ridicule.
Xu Kai plays Lu SiCheng, your classic cold exterior male lead. His character development was well nuanced and you could clearly track how his relationship with Tong Yao had a commensurate effect on his interactions with the media and his teammates. He starts off as a very uncompromising and goal-driven team leader but over time he softens and you can see that his family and friends are the most important part of his life and everything he does is to protect them. He's that quiet, almost omnipotent, leader that seems to head off conflict and drama before it can truly get out of hand.
To me, both of the characters felt very relatable: though both strong in their own regard, they each vulnerable moments where it felt like they would crumble under the pressure.

[2] *Avoiding major c-drama pitfalls*: One commonality across a lot of c-dramas is "miscommunication" and how it feeds into the plot line. Funnily enough, in this drama where social media is so central to the theme, the characters are well armed to fend off malicious comments online and do not let it affect their relationships. This was INCREDIBLY refreshing. The characters show that they trust their teammates and friends wholly and give them the benefit of the doubt. Even going so far as to encourage each other to not read the comments and keep looking forward.

[2a] *Parental relationships*: Many of us here will not be surprised by the disparaging remarks the parent figures in this drama make towards professional gaming. That aside, what stood out to me was that the characters still pursued their dreams, despite being kicked out of their own home, disowned, or constantly berated for making irresponsible decisions. It's a very positive message that one should always go for what they believe in and don't let others hold you back. A small *caveat* about what I didn't like was Ai Jia so easily re-accepting his mother after she treated him so poorly. I expected an apology at the bare minimum from his mother.

[3] *The Music*: It's a pretty stacked line up of singers for this OST and one of the most well done I've listened to in a while. Currently 逆著人群奔向你 is stuck in my head and I'm not even mad about it. The OST is a wonderful mixture of sentimental, slow songs, more hip-hop/pop focused songs and I love that Xu Kai and Cheng Xiao even sang their own rendition of 第一默契. I highly recommend reading this lyrics if you don't understand Chinese. The lyrics tie so well into the emotions of the drama and the thematic elements of supporting one another, and tuning out the BS of the world.

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Lovely but discordant soundtrack and uninteresting/problematic characters

I very much enjoyed the OST for this drama, but that's frankly the only aspect that stood out. Some quick hits...

[1] The background music was often times overly dramatic for what was actually happening during a scene and felt out of place in others. It cheapened the acting for me as it all seemed way too melodramatic to be taken seriously.
[2] The female lead is cliche and immature (from what I can gather in the first 12 episodes). It's such an overused theme in dramas to focus on the physical attractiveness of the male lead and this drama is no exception. You see the female lead remarking about how good looking the ML is and she further develops this weird obsession with him after learning he is blind. Moreover it was incredibly uncomfortable how she would invade his personal space, almost like she was TAKING ADVANTAGE of the fact that he is blind. She makes unwanted advances towards him, makes physical contact without his permission and let's not forget when she made a scene in public spinning up that ridiculous story of her being pregnant with his child and him cheating on her with her friend all for the sake of her not losing face.
[3] The ML is flat and uninteresting. You *could* take the stance that Evan plays the traumatised, reclusive and moody kid who grew up in an orphanage quite well, but nonetheless...
[4] For a character who allegedly is a psychology major, the FL makes questionable decisions and assumptions throughout the drama. She feels naive with an almost suffocating amount of optimism. Obviously she won't be able to empathize with the male lead, but there are many instances where she makes no point to understand his POV and almost invalidates what he is feeling.

All in all, a pretty subpar drama that isn't worth the time.

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Cliche and morally problematic

I generally support the BL genre and LGBTQIA+ representation in Asian film/media; however, this drama was ridiculously problematic and very uncomfortable to watch (despite only watching four episodes fully). To start, the 腐女子 coworkers. It's one thing to know those types of people exist in the world (sure), but to seem them portrayed in a BL drama to add nothing more than, well, drama felt tasteless. The male lead taking the advice of his 腐女子 coworkers in order to get closer to the female coworker he had a crush on led to some really awkward and borderline harassment situations.

Apart from that, I can look past the step-brother unrequited love arc, but I draw the line at this drama romanticizing rape. Not only is one of the male leads an obsessive stalker, he also assaults another male lead who seems "too close" to his stepbrother whom he is pining for. Take that a step further when he intentionally gets the stepbrother drunk and rapes him—let's not forget the jarring choice of music which would have you believe the sexual encounter could have been consensual. What really got me was how the characters talked about what happened post-rape and how either being "1" or "0" could have changed the situation. The fact of the matter is that one character took advantage of another one and violated them.

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