#or rather it’s the ONLY characters of kpts

[shouyou910]

hmm yeah I don’t care about kpts unless it’s about vegas and pete

[aeternallis]

So I was re-watching a couple of the earlier episodes of KPTS earlier last week, and I got to thinking about this scene again from episode 2. I remember when I first watched this scene, I thought to myself, “Ah, Porsche…you judgmental himbo, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” 😂

Personally, I’ve always been somewhat of the belief that Porsche and Kim probably wouldn’t get along in the beginning, not necessarily because of Chay (although Chay would probably be part of the reason), but because of how fundamentally different their mindsets are when it comes to how they see the family unit.

Porsche is a good son. He does his best to live up to the responsibilities Nampheung entrusted to him, and he’s stubborn in giving up the last remnant (the house) of his parents’ memory, even if in the long run, it maybe would have been the wiser decision to do so.

Porsche venerates the family unit—I would almost argue that in some level, he glorifies it, in the way he has held Pat and Nampheung’s memory on a pedestal. There’s definitely some sense of betrayal in his expression, imo, when he first gets to that room and sees Nampheung alive and (not) well, yknow?

But Porsche being Porsche, ultimately, he is a good son, and will always remain loyal to his parents. In that regard, he’s not too different from Kinn.

But contrast that to Kim. Kim is also a good son—at least outwardly to Korn, and genuinely loyal to his siblings. He’s investigating Korn, yes—but he does so secretly, without implicating either of his brothers to be complicit in his Sherlocking. He still gives Korn the subtle affection his father expects from him (the fried snack he got him) and plays at being ignorant, but he doesn’t give him much else.

Kim upholds the family unit, only in so far that he remains loyal and steadfast to the people that genuinely matter to him.

Whereas Porsche venerates the entirety of the family unit itself, Kim only upholds what matters to him, and his loyalty only extends to a handful of people within that family unit.

Porsche himself thinks in the beginning that joining the mafia is a bad decision, but he does it anyway, for his and Chay’s survival. Kinn’s family is shady af to him, and he struggles very much in the beginning to get accustomed to their ways. He sees them as an arrogant bunch who hurt good people.

And yet, upon hearing about Kim moving out, he doesn’t praise him for getting away from the madness. He doesn’t say, “good on him, for pursuing his own thing!” or something like that.

On the contrary: Porsche judges Kim, based on his seemingly lack of loyalty to his family. At least the way I see it, it very much rings true of the cultural attitudes in Asia at large, in that we’re more of the collectivist mindset, rather than the individualistic one.

I've said it many times before, but filial piety plays a big role in how Porsche makes his decisions. (Let's not even get into how Porsche felt he had no choice but to lower the gun when Kinn got in the way, in order to protect his father. Porsche would never make Kinn choose between their relationship or Korn, and all the drama that that entails)

I think that’s the reason Porsche was able to judge Kim so quickly, when he heard the (very little) bit of the other man’s backstory from Pete. Of course he would see Kim as a self-centered brat; in Porsche’s mind, without even truly knowing him, Kim is someone who is the antithesis of a good son: he moved out of the main family home, he doesn’t seem involved with the business whatsoever, and he’s left all the managing of the affairs to his father and brothers.

Imo, I think that’s part of the reason why Kim (and KimChay) fascinates me so much, since the POV character of the show is Porsche, and Kim’s story show us, 1) a different angle to the story, in that shit is going on behind the scenes and on the contrary, he's quite still involved in the family business and 2) demonstrates to the audience how unreliable and very limited Porsche’s POV is.

For me personally, it’s details like this that really enhances the story, when the narrative embraces the characters’ biases, and lets that navigate the drama of it all~

[discluded]

I always thought Mile promoting the cream for Guerlain was a bit of a grey area since Mile is technically the BA for a skin care serum as well so maybe they finally are starting to buy out all the conflicting contracts? I think most of their OG contracts are over or soon to be over now. I know it isn't the industry standard but sometimes I wish the agency would let fans know when the contracts are over. Rather than us finding out because Mile posted about how it was great to be Farger BA at the end of the contract or through a social media admin (D7 admin who confirmed via direct messages to fans that their contract is over) I think the only one I will be sad to see go is Farmhouse. even though their events are boring; can't believe they literally just ate bread for a live with no drinks?

IM UGLY LAUGHING I'm doing a poll for this

don't worry mileapo, you'll aways be the bread gays in my heart 😭😭😭🫶🍞

as for them continuing the Farmhouse endorsement, from what I saw, Farmhouse was one of the sponsors that put in the most investment into KPTS and also also was very early to sign on post Filmania, which also explains their ad placement in Kalasin Plaza and the level of unhinged of the bread ads. I think continuing that ambassadorship instead of immediately jumping to another brand when their endorsement value rose also speaks to their characters as businessmen.

yes business is business, but there's a strong element of interpersonal trust in business especially in Asian cultures, when involving the legal system isn't necessarily favorable to any party. so it's esp good for the health of their (not to fans but to other business owners) reputation in the long run ☺️

also, I also thought the same about the Guerlain lip balm, but I guess they were both softer endorsements since they were on some random ass live on pond's ig.

[bitacrytic]

Hi Bit,

After seeing a couple of your posts on My Stand In, I wanted to ask what is going on in MSI? The posts I'm talking about are the ones where you draw comparisons/ parallels between MSI leads and Vegaspete and from what I understand, VP are less toxic??? How does that happen. I loved KPTS but lost interest in MSI very quickly, does it get interesting? I think it has some body migration plot, so is there a plot for that or is the plot focused only on the Romance?

Oh Anon, I will try my best to clear up the confusion. Sorry if my posts have been crazy and all over the place because most times, that's where my head is at, lol.

1. About vegaspete being less toxic than joeming, I guess that's just a matter of perspective. I see it from the POV that-

Pete knew what he was getting into when he went into the lion's den, but Joe (the guy from MSI) did not.

Vegas was honest with Pete from day 1. When he wanted to kill him, or turn him to a pet, or torture him, Vegas didn't pretend to want a romantic relationship. Ming used Joe as a sex doll to quench his thirst anytime he wanted to fuck the guy that Joe looks like. I mean, eventually, it became more than that, but that doesn't matter if Joe never consented to being a toy in the first place.

Vegas learned. Vegas changed. Vegas cuffed Pete after sex and sent Pete into suicidal depression and the moment he found out that Pete would rather die, he changed his tone. Never treated Pete like an object again. But... Ming literally drove Joe to his death, and now that Joe has come back to life, Ming is doing exactly the same things he did before. He's rude. He's controlling. He's invasive of Joe's privacy. Pete left and Vegas changed. Joe fucking died but Ming stayed the same.

Pete and Vegas are two very horrible people in a very horrible world. But Joe is a good boy who thought he was living in a relatively normal world until the day he woke up from a hit to head with his hands cuffed behind his back.

So this is why I view vegaspete as a healthier relationship than joeming... even though I wouldn't wish a vegaspete relationship on anyone who isn't my enemy.

2. Like you, Anon, I LOVE KINNPORSHCE. So please believe me when I say that MSI is a very good watch.

Adult characters

Unconcealed toxicity

Pretty actors (even the characters I hate have pretty actors)

No school uniform

No guitars (so far)

A plot that is PLOTTING

Horny main characters

Angst (oh the pining and the pay offs)

Even if ep1 may have moved too slowly for you, it gets more tense with every episode. (I will admit that ep5 slowed down a bit but that was more of a transitioning period from past to present. I expect that we're about to go back to the regular gbas gbos from ep6.

3. There is body migration. The show starts off with that so it's not a spoiler to admit it. Boy 1 dies, wakes up in Boy 2's body and then goes on to make the same mistakes he made in his first body. It's ridiculous and awesome at the same time. There is a lot of play on thier differences and similarities, both with the body migration plot and with the fact that beyond thier names, thier bodies are almost identical. So there's that. Which is funny because this ALSO plays heavily into the sex lives of the characters.

4. Yes, the plot is focused on the romance, but it doesn't abandon the body migration. Like I said, it plays into every part of the main character's life. His work, his love life, his relationship with family and friends. The body migration bit is integrated with the plot pretty nicely, if you ask me.

-

Anon, please watch it.

Or better yet, wait till it's done and watch it because I'll be honest. Waiting for weekly updates is a proper bitch.

[myezblog]

about the did boc save the best for the last, honestly, i'd love if that was the case but seeing how boc treats characters other than kinn and porsche (and especially vegas and pete compared to KP), i'm not holding my breath. up until now, other characters (notably vegas but pete and others as well) have simply existed to advance KP's storyline. they are just pawns with not agency of their own.

boc definitely wildly underestimated how popular VP is and especially how sensitive their storyline is. like, they've already taken a few traits from VP's relationship and pushed them to kinn and porsche (the whole no kissing thing from vegas to kinn and the way vegas lowkey wants porsche to be the one to kill him), meaning they either don't understand shit about the relationship between VP or they're just way too biased towards KP (or both). underestimating the popularity of VP is especially funny because apparently it's okay to use them for marketing but not follow through that marketing. like i know boc is new to the scene and kpts is their first series but come on now, even an idiot knows you just don't go using characters and ships to promote a series and then act surprised when people get invested in said characters. but then again, boc also promoted kpts as some sort of gritty mafia series, yet it's literally like any other bl romcom, with the exception that the setting is mafia world instead of university or whatever, so the marketing was definitely a miss, rather than hit.

we're 5 episodes from the end and i doubt boc would actually give us VP-centric episode(s), which makes me think that they're going to rush their arc and just give us a few snippets here and there of the actual storyline and leave majority of it off-screen. the only way this sort of storytelling would've been at least somewhat acceptable is if they started the arc earlier, but even then it would've taken careful plotting to make the arc and VP's feelings believable for the non-novel readers. but with only 5 episodes left, at least one of which is entirely dedicated to the final showdown between the main and minor families, there's just not enough time. and because i love to be pessimistic, i'm thinking the "finale" will start at ep13 so that they can leave some time for some lovey-dovey KP in ep 14 because god forbid we haven't seen them fucking enough already... which means the VP arc actually only takes 2 or 3 episodes which is just bullshit and something i'll never forgive boc.

sorry about this essay, i totally strayed from the original point but i'm just kinda pissed off about the way boc treats VP so yeah. short answer: they def didn't expect that VP would be so popular and they royally fucked up.

Thanks!!

Your thoughts are exactly in line with mine. I am convinced too that it is really going to be ep 11-12, bits of 10 and bits of 13. None of it is going to be VP heavy, because there is enough Porsche drama to be covered as well, and kimporschay drama...

Also, i think i blame Pond for this majorly...not BOC per se. he is the scriptwriter and director.

And totally, it is about plot development, not about screen time. This was a good plot with immense character growth..but all down the drain.

Lastly, as Bible said "Spaceship".. we are sure gonna go on supersonic speed.. and well crumbs crumbs everywhere, with not an morsel to eat

[ghcstvalleychief]

the biggest truth: the draw of kpts is KP themselves (and only KP)

I'm trying to be good! Why are y'all trying to pull me back in?

Listen ... No shade to anybody's faves. No shade intended, but I'm sure this is gonna be taken as shade and I can't control that.

Contrary to popular belief, this show was doing well prior to the last few episodes. This show has been doing well for quite some time now. Now, I know there are some ... individuals who may disagree and who may like to claim that something else may have "saved" this show but that's bullshit. (I'm still not over reading that!) The show was already a hit before your faves started getting more shine & screentime. Why do you think that is? When your faves were still showing up once every blue moon and getting less than 10 full minutes of screentime per episode, this show was still doing well. How quickly we forget.

Honestly, if MA decided today that they wouldn't do a second season of this show and it moved forward without them and certain shippers get their wish of a show that's centered completely around their ship, I think they'd be in for a rude awakening. I think they'd be humbled rather quickly. I don't think the show would do as well as they think it would. Just because you're loud doesn't mean you're effective. Just because you're more vocal doesn't mean there's more of you either. It just means you know how to be loud and obnoxious on the internet, and anyone can do that. That's neither here nor there.

There's a reason why people watched this show in the first place and that reason is probably why most people still watch this show. As much as we like the show, we know the writing isn't good enough to keep everyone tuned in like this and certain characters don't have that much screentime to make much of a difference or impression on the general audience either. It is what it is.

[aeternallis]

KPTS Fic Trope: Kim should grovel / Semi-deep dive commentary of the breakup scene

I've seen a number of fans complaining about this trope, so I wanted to talk about it. XD Before that though, I will admit that I myself don't fully understand this trope--or rather, I'm not really sure what this trope fully entails? Because ngl, it sometimes also feels like readers/writers don't actually mind this trope, just only up to a certain extent.

And for anyone curious, I'm firmly on the camp that KimChay should yell/fight out their problems in the most unhinged manner possible like feral beans with lots of sexual tension to muck through AND with no one else involved cuz for the majority of the show, they were off in their own little world anyway~

But I may be on the minority in that, lol So, I digress.

From what I've gathered of this trope though, I'm assuming it's basically: -Kim begging Chay to talk to him/forgive him/ give him a second chance -Kim's own brothers takes Chay's side -VegasPete is somehow in Chay's affections and gets one up over Kim? -Basically no one is on Kim's side, lol

Depending on the execution of the fic, all or some of these points may be featured in the story in order to get these two lovebirds back together.

And honestly? I think the reason why this trope is so popular but also has its share of detractors is because people are looking for the payback or shall I say, "equivalent exchange" of this scene in particular:

It's arguably their most heartbreaking moment in the series, and I will admit, for some people who've had a bad breakup or two in their lives, it may hit a little too close to home, yknow?

And see, I've brought up the opinion before and will reiterate again that what the audience understands about KimChay's circumstances IS NOT what Chay understands as the character that makes up one half of this semi-canon ship.

And based on your understanding of this (as well as your preference, ofc) lies the difference as to whether you like/hate/feel neutral about this trope.

Sure, we can say that Kim did nothing physically to hurt Chay. We can say that Kim did what he had to do in order to keep Chay safe and not draw him into the dangerous world of the mafia, that he was looking out for Chay's best interests. There's just enough of Kim acting like a simp for Chay in the show to get this point across.

But be that as it may, Chay is not the audience. He's not a mind reader, especially not towards someone like Kim who's already closed off and hard to understand to begin with. Lol

And Chay not being able to read Kim's mind or intentions is not a failing on his part as a character; on the contrary, it's what makes him more human and sympathetic to the audience. There's a difference between emotional intelligence and having confidence in another person's motivations. In which case, I think herein lies the other distinction, if you, as the audience, are either willing to give Chay too much credit, too little credit, or just enough to get the ball rolling.

I think what tends to be forgotten about Chay's character at times is that for all his bravery, boldness, and intelligence (which deserves all the praise in the world, because holy moly, if only I had half his guts, I would get a lot more shit done), Chay is also someone who deeply respects people's boundaries. He's a noble character in that way, and why I think in particular Porsche did such a wonderful job raising him.

And we've seen this a number of times, from their very first meeting. He was brave for asking Kim to be his teacher, but didn't push to persuade him otherwise when Kim couldn't say yes. He was bold in tracking where Kim lives to serenade to him, but knew when he had to back off. And even when he confessed to Kim, there was no expectation of his affections being returned, only that he had wanted to show his gratitude to Kim for letting him do his best, and hoping perhaps that the time they spent together would always remain special to Kim.

In this regard, Chay remains loyal to himself and his steadfast nature without ever pushing for more than what Kim could give. But what made the breakup scene painful I think is not just because Kim made Chay believe that he had never loved him, but also because Kim muddled Chay's understanding of the boundaries between them. I would maybe even go so far as to say that what Kim did to Chay was basically a form of gaslighting.

And in muddling that crucial understanding between them, the full scale of the implications in regards to what Chay must have felt in that moment, in my opinion, cannot be overstated:

-the abject humiliation of having believed that someone had returned your feelings, only for it to be implied otherwise by said someone, no matter what Kim's meaning was with his "I'm sorry" LOL -the doubt and lack of confidence in yourself due to misunderstanding someone, without even knowing it -the fear of having shared so much of yourself, when the other person may not even have wanted nor cared for what you had to share in the first place -the loneliness that comes after having experienced all of these emotions, particularly for Chay who was already feeling left behind by his own brother

It's not a surprise tbh, why Chay chose to pull away from not only Kim after this scene, but also from Porsche, at least on an emotional level. Negative emotions like these tend to spill over to the perception of other relationships in one's life; it's hardly ever only contained to the relationship they originated from.

All of these things are painful human experiences, not just something that fictional characters go through, yknow?

And this is why I think this trope is so popular with the KimChay fic writers to begin with. I imagine that those who have written reconciliation fics that feature this trope are highly sympathetic to Chay's plight due to their own lived experiences, and why, while I myself am not necessarily a fan of it, also choose not to judge it.

It's basically wanting to find that sort of satisfaction in fiction that otherwise isn't always found in reality, using said points in the trope.

Ultimately, Kim is the one who muddled that important understanding between himself and Chay. This being the case, Kim has to be the one to untangle them now, imperatively so for some writers, to the point it's at the cost of losing one's dignity (the begging part) and standing alone (his own brothers don't have his back).