#railway careers

[oldirontender]

local old man falls in love with the meanest most terrible person alive. what happens next over the course of a century will shock you

[mjalford98]

Made a turn by King's Cross to have a look at their relatively new family waiting room on my trip to London last week. I was there mainly for the model railway, but the whole set-up is so brilliant I thought it really did warrant a bit more coverage.

Opening in 2022, the family waiting room features a variety of seating areas and a play area to keep children entertained while they wait for their train, and its design includes lots of references to the heritage of the East Coast Main Line, aiming to pique the interest of young travellers in the hope that it might bloom into a career in the rail industry. In all honesty, the thinking does seem a little cliche and almost politicised, but I still love the idea of a place where some thought is put into the experience of travel in an age when experience isn't nearly as frequently enough of a consideration as it should be. Raising a family can be challenging, and travelling with one even more so, so if we want to encourage families to travel at all, let alone by public transport, then putting the effort into creating places where children can be engaged and occupied during periods of waiting can go a long way to help.

[todayworldnews2k21]

Indian Railways To Recruit For 1,036 Posts, Check Details Here

Indian Railway Recruitment 2025: The application window will open on January 7 and close on February 6. Indian Railway Recruitment 2025: The Indian Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) has announced ministerial and isolated post openings. The recruitment drive aims to fill 1,036 positions across various categories. Interested candidates can apply by visiting the official website. The application…

[sarkarinaukari24]

RPF Constable Recruitment 2024 | Indian Railway RPF Vacancy 4208 Posts Apply Online

[thecreativityindia]

Apply Link: https://thecreativityindia.online/eastern-railway-recruitment-2023/

[khbarone]

How to become a Loco Pilot: 10वीं पास के लिए इस सरकारी नौकरी का ऑप्शन हो सकता है बेहतर,जानिए लोको पायलट कैसे बने

[inky-duchess]

WorldBuilding Ask Game

Here is a little ask game for WorldBuilding in your WIP to pad out one country or all of them! Use it for yourself or ask a friend and spread some love. Focus on a particular section and have fun!

Geography

What does your world look like? What's the biome? Are there different ones?

Are there any oceans? If so, are they accessible? Are they a reliable source of travel and food?

Are there any rivers in your world? Any lakes? What's the longest river? Deepest lake?

Is there a safe supply of drinking water? If not, why not?

Are there mountains in your world? What's the highest one?

What is the weather like? How does this effect life?

What animals inhabit the world? What animals are indigenous or considered exotic?

What are some natural features your world is famous for? Is your world considered beautiful?

How many countries in your world?

How are countries divided? By natural lines or by agreements?

Population

What's the population like? Is it large or sparse?

Is there any factors in population density? Do more people live in a certain area more than elsewhere? Why is that?

Are there different peoples living in your world? If so, how do they get on?

How important is nationality? Are foreigners tolerated? Or are they unwelcome?

What countries get on? What countries hate one another?

Are there any important cities? Why are they important?

What's the architecture like? Are there any outside influences?

What's a typical building material? What's considered an expensive feature to include?

What is infrastructure like? Are roads and railways in good condition?

Is there public transport? Is it reliable?

Government

What system of government does your world adhere to? Is it popular?

Where is the seat of government?

Are there different governmental agencies?

Are there political parties? If so, what are their goals?

How much control does the government have over the average person?

Can your people vote? If not, why not? If so, who has/hasn't the right to?

Are there any parties or organisations that oppose the government?

How does the government crack down on sedition?

Are people allowed to criticise the government? If so, how? If not, how do they get around it?

How are laws made? Who makes them?

Is there any odd laws in your world?

What are some punishments to crime? Are they considered fair?

What crimes are unfathomable for the people?

Who handles justice? Is justice obtainable for all?

Are there any police? What's their reputation?

What role does the military play in your world?

Who controls the army? Head of state or government as a whole?

Is it considered a good career path?

Who can join the army? Are there any restrictions?

What is your world's stance on war? Are there any neutral parties? Or particularly warlike ones?

Commerce and Trade

How is trade done?

Is currency universal or dictated by region?

How is your economy going? What effects it?

What trade is your world known for?

What are some exports? What must your world import?

Are any goods considered luxurious?

What services are available in your world? What services are niche?

What sort of work is common? Is work readily available?

Who is expected to work?

Are workers treated fairly or unfairly?

Are there any ways workers are protected? If not, what are some consequences?

Is your world more reliant on technology or on labour?

Is agriculture possible in your world? If so what can your people grow?

How big is industry? What goods can your people make?

What resources can your country exploit?

What are some barriers to trade and commerce?

Is your nation known for quality? Or Quantity?

Who does your country trade with most often? Who do they boycott?

Are there any major ports in your country?

Are there any banned goods? If so, is there a black market for their purchase?

Society

How society expect one to behave in public? Are there different expectations for different people/genders/ranks?

Is there a social order? Can one move up the ranks?

Is there any considerations made on account of rank, gender, age or position?

What is considered a social faux pas?

Are there any gestures or actions that are considered rude or socially unforgivable?

What would utterly shock somebody to see somebody do?

What are some opinions that are normal for your world but can be considered subversive in real life?

How can one rise up the status ladder? Is there much trouble to do so?

What denotes a person's place in society?

How is life different in cities compared to life in the countryside?

Daily life

Where would someone go to buy their weekly shop? Is food easy to come by?

What would be the daily routine of the wealthy? The common man?

How is hygiene handled in your world? Where does one go to spruce up?

What would be some day to day tasks one might face?

What is the favoured means of travel?

Are there any problems in your world that could effect a daily routine? Potholes? Gigantic spiders? Acid rain?

What ammenties would an average person expect to have access to?

Where would one go if they are injured or ill? What's healthcare like?

Do people feel safe where they live? Are there any places somebody might face danger?

How do people communicate? Is it difficult? Why?

What do people do for fun? What's considered normal fun versus hedonistic?

What pastimes are common? What kind aren't?

Is education valued?

Is there access to education? If so, for who?

Are the population educated? If so to what extent?

Family Life

What is the typical family set up?

Is extended family important?

Who can be considered family? Who can't be?

Is marriage considered a duty? Or is it more of a personal choice?

Is divorce possible?

Can people adopt children?

What happens to orphaned children?

Are children important? If not, why not? If so, why?

What are some typical toys children play with?

What are some games children play with one another?

How is in charge of household chores?

Is there a hierarchy in families?

Are children expected to take on certain roles?

What is the living situation like between the different ranks? Are the roles different?

What's considered the proper way to raise a child?

Culture and Languages

Are there multiple cultures in your world? How do they differ? Do they mesh well together?

How are cultures similar? How are they different?

Are there any traditions in your world? How important is tradition?

What are some rituals your culture undertakes?

Are there any special days? Events?

What are some traditional values in your world? Does it effect daily life?

Are there traditional clothes for your world? Are they something somebody wears on a daily basis or just on occasion?

Are there any rules around what people can wear?

What would be considered formal dress? Casual dress?

What would happen if somebody wore the wrong clothes to an event?

What languages are spoken in your world? If so, how do they sound?

Are there any dialects? If so, how do they sound?

Are most people monolingual? Or bilingual? Or multilingual?

Are there any languages that are closely related?

What is considered a universal language?

Religion

Is religion a thing in your world?

Is religion a staple of life or just a small part?

Does religion affect politics, personal lives and affiliations?

Is your world sectarian? Or ruled by religion?

What are some influences religion has on daily life?

What sort of religion is it? Monotheistic? Polytheistic?

What are some myths your people believe in?

What common rituals does one undertake on a day to day basis?

How does one please a deity?

Where do your people pray? How do they?

What symbols would denote a follower of a certain belief system to a stranger?

What places or objects are considered sacred?

Are there religious orders? If so, who can join?

Is there tolerance or violence over religion? If so, between which faiths?

Food and Drink

What are some traditional dishes in your world?

What would be a basic diet for the common man?

What's considered a delicacy?

Is there a societal difference in diet? What are the factors that effect diet between classes?

Is there any influence from other cuisines? If not, why not? If so, to what extent?

What would a typical breakfast contain?

What would lunch be?

What would be a typical dinner?

What meals are served during the day?

What's considered a comfort food or drink?

Are there any restrictions on who can eat what or when?

Are there any banned foods?

What stance does your world take on alcohol? Is it legal? Can anybody consume it?

Are there any dining customs? Are traditions?

Is there a difference in formal meals or casual meals? If so, what's involved?

Are there any gestures or actions unacceptable at the dinner table?

How are guests treated at meals? If they are given deference, how so?

Are there certain rules about how one can prepare food?

Are there any restrictions on eating with certain people?

How is food generally prepared by?

History

Who are some notable figures from history?

Who founded the country?

Is history looked back on with fondness? Or do your people rather forget?

Are there any heroes in history? Any villains?

What are some highpoints in the history of your land?

What are some points of history nobody likes to speak about?

Does history effect your land, people, culture, language in the present? If so in what ways?

What historic monuments are still around in the present day? What has been lost?

How do people learn about history? Do they learn the truth? Or just an abridged version?

What's a historical event that is important to the story?

[pmamtraveller]

ARTHUR EDMUND GRIMSHAW - SPIRIT OF NIGHT, 1879

Spirit of Night is an exploration of iridescence, the light effect that the artist cherished most. Grimshaw repeatedly tested prisms to capture the experience of viewing colored light, incorporating these effects into this piece. His daughter, Elaine, wrote, ‘My father was always fascinated by colour-iridescence. He would study the prismatic range in the beveled mirrors of candelabra; and if we children found in the big garden a bit of old glass, oxidized by age and weather, we would proudly take it to him, to add to his collection a box which lay open on a table beside his easel'

At the time of Grimshaw’s birth in Leeds in 1836, his father initially worked as a policeman but eventually took a job on the fast-growing railways in the region, while his mother ran a grocery store. Atkinson emulated his father's career and, at 16 years old, began working as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway. He learned painting and engaged in his craft during his free time. He could discover samples of the newest styles, especially those of the pre-Raphaelites, at exhibitions organized by the Northern Society (located in Leeds) and study art history using the books available at Leeds Library, a collection open to all through subscription.

Fairies and fairy tales offered Victorian artists an accepted medium to delve into taboo themes like sex, nudity, violence, and even drug addiction, while the Victorian public eagerly embraced these imaginative visuals. This particular imagery offered the Victorians a means of escaping the material realities of the increasingly industrialized society surrounding them. As Christopher Wood states, we ‘tend to think of the Victorians as stern and moralistic, staring grimly out at us from early photographs, in their black top hats and frock coats. But Dickens was right in his perception that underneath that deceptively utilitarian surface, the Victorians yearned for some ‘great romance.’

[artsandculture]

The Water-Lily Pond (1899) 🎨 Claude Monet 🏛️ The National Gallery 📍 London, United Kingdom

For Monet, gardens offered a refuge from the modern urban and industrial world, although he and his fellow garden enthusiasts benefited from modern advances in botanical science that were creating new hybrid flowers in a wide choice of shapes and colours that could be produced on an almost industrial scale. He made modest gardens in the homes he rented in Argenteuil and Vetheuil in the 1870s, but from 1883, when he moved to a rented house in Giverny, about 50 miles to the west of Paris, he had more scope to indulge his passion for plants. He became a dedicated gardener with an extensive botanical knowledge, and sought the opinions of leading horticulturalists. As Monet’s career flourished his increasing wealth enabled him to fund what became a grand horticultural enterprise: by the 1890s he was employing as many as eight gardeners.

Monet began by refashioning the garden in front of the house, the so-called ‘Clos Normand’, replacing the existing kitchen garden and orchard with densely planted colourful flower beds that were filled with blooms throughout the seasons. He was able to buy the house in 1890, and three years later he purchased an adjacent plot of land next to the river Epte beyond the railway line at the edge of his property. The plot had a small pond with arrowhead and wild water lilies, which he wanted to turn into a water garden with a larger lily pond ‘both for the pleasure of the eye and for the purpose of having subjects to paint’.

The idea may have occurred to him after he had seen the water garden at the 1899 Exposition Universelle in Paris created by the grower Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac, who bred the first colourful hardy waterlilies. Monet began by requesting permission from the Prefect of the Eure to dig irrigation channels from the Ru – a branch of the Epte – to feed his pond, but the Giverny villagers objected, fearing it would contaminate the water and that the foreign plants would poison their cattle. Monet was furious, but three months later permission came through and he began to enlarge the existing pond, replacing the wild water lilies with Latour-Marliac hybrids available in yellows, pinks, whites and violets.

The pond was enlarged on further occasions – in 1901 and 1904 – tripling the size of the water garden. Together with the flower garden on the other side of the railway track it became the principal preoccupation of the last 26 years of Monet’s life. While the Clos Normand garden was laid out along fairly traditional lines, harking back to the formal French gardens of seventeenth-century Europe, with a central alleyway and geometrically arranged beds, the water garden was more Eastern in inspiration. Its less regimented, more natural design and more muted colours created a quieter, meditative atmosphere. Monet erected a Japanese bridge over the western end of the pond that took its inspiration from the bridges in ukiyo-e Japanese prints. He was a keen collector of these prints and he owned a copy of Hiroshige’s Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856), one of the many prints that features a curved bridge. In a more general sense, the water garden reflected Monet’s admiration for the Japanese appreciation of nature.

Monet had to wait for his water garden to mature before he could begin to paint it in earnest. As he later recalled: ‘It took me some time to understand my water-lilies. It takes more than a day to get under your skin. And then all at once, I had the revelation – how wonderful my pond was – and reached for my palette. I’ve hardly had any other subject since that moment.’ In total, Monet painted 250 canvases of his water garden. Around 200 of these represent water lilies floating on the surface of the water, while the remainder also show the Japanese bridge, the weeping willow trees and wisteria and the irises, agapanthus and day lilies on its banks. In all these pictures Monet was painting a subject that was already ‘pictorial’ – a landscape that had been carefully composed according to his personal aesthetic. The National Gallery has three further paintings of the water garden :Water-lilies, setting sun; Irises; and Water-lilies.

Monet painted three views of the Japanese bridge in 1895, not long after it had been constructed, but then took a break from the subject, only returning to it in 1899. By now the pool was overhung by vegetation and surrounded by plants, but to judge from contemporary photographs it was never as enclosed as Monet painted it, and he exaggerated the feeling of claustrophobia. In December 1900 he exhibited 12 paintings at Durand-Ruel’s gallery in Paris, all of which showed more or less symmetrical views of the Japanese bridge.

In this painting, as in the others in the series, we are looking down onto the surface of the water, where the lily pads float into the distance, meeting the dense foliage on the far bank. Weeping willows are reflected in the pond and clumps of iris border its banks. The perspective seems to shift so that it is hard to find a single focal point; it is as though we are looking up at the bridge but down on the waterlilies. The picture, like the water itself, seems to oscillate between surface and depth. The mainly vertical reflections provide a counterpoint to the horizontal clumps of the lily pads. Different colours, applied with thick brushstrokes, are placed next to each other. This way of painting has more in common with Monet’s early Impressionist works than his more recent paintings of mornings on the Seine, where he had used softer, more blended strokes to convey hazy atmospheric effects.

The Japanese bridge series marked a turning point in Monet’s art. From now on his subjects were painted from an increasingly confined viewpoint, conveying the sense of an enclosed world. In later paintings of the pond, he would dispense with the banks and bridge altogether to focus solely on the water, the reflections and the water lilies. The culmination of Monet’s water lily paintings were the Grandes Dėcorations, 22 enormous canvases each over two metres high and totalling more than 90 metres in length, which he completed months before his death and donated to the French state. These are now on permanent display in two oval rooms in the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Tallulah Bankhead (Lifeboat, Devil and the Deep, The Cheat)— Fierce, outspoken, uninhibited, and witty. An amazing actress who strongly supported civil rights and was unashamed of her sexuality.

Dinah Sheridan (Genevieve, The Railway Children)— It kills me that this absolutely stunning jewel of a woman felt compelled to cut short her career, just at the point that Genevieve was flinging her into the stratosphere, because she married the managing director of Rank film company (the one whose logo is the strong man hitting the huge gong) and he made her give up her career. Made a comeback in 1970 to play the mother in the railway children (starring jenny agutter), but how much luminous work did we lose? Oh I can't bear it.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Tallulah:

please read the personal life section of this woman’s wikipedia. a bisexual (or ambisextrous as she called herself) legend

She was bisexual. About her film The Devil and the Deep she said 'Dahling, the only reason I accepted that part was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper'.

Dinah:

[ineffable-opinions]

Top 20 BL Live-action of 2024

Here are the top 20 of 2024: live-action BL that I watched and enjoyed this year. I haven't watched everything that came out this year (I'm saving up some for the upcoming year) and did revisit a lot of older stuff (not listed) when there was nothing enjoyable to watch. This year, I realized that I am able to tolerate, if not enjoy, when I'm not too familiar with the content it is adapted from with some exceptions. I don't treat BL like fables or life lessons. I don't bother with moral validation from the choice of media I consume either. But there are certain real-world killjoys in media that may affect my enjoyment, like what happened with The Sign. Please feel free to ask for content warning.

20. Love Is a Poison - This series made my wish to see Hama Shogo in a BL come true. I loved his character in Koisenu Futari (2022) and wanted more of his character’s interaction with Takahashi Issei’s character. Also, the series leaned into the surreal with the squealing, sparkling succulents. While the legal drama part of the series was light, it was the first time I was invested in the character’s careers since Beloved Enemy (2017) [which is going to have a Thai remake/adaptation]. I absolutely enjoyed the dynamics of a neo-super-darling seme paired with a devoted, kuudere uke. But, I wish there were fewer flashback/compilation scenes.

19. Unknown - I never thought Priest’s Da Ge will become something like this. I am impressed by the meticulous cultivation that source material underwent. That little carp really crossed the gate to become a dragon. The Unknown managed to tone down the golden finger bits and keep things realistic to an extent, fit the whole business venture arc neatly into Taiwan’s SME-heavy capitalism. It fleshed out Le ge, and his relationship with both his underlings and his junior and made him interesting. It gave me one of my favorite mob characters in a BL – an ex-gangster with his blacked-out tattoos running a street food stall. In line with Taiwanese tradition, this series not only employed high BL literacy but also dedicated time to educate. (more on it here)

18. Cosmetic Playlover - I was hesitant to watch this show since I had enjoyed the first few volumes of manga and lost interest in later volumes. I knew they were going to censor the hell out of the first volume. While I am still bitter about that fact, I still enjoyed the series.

17. Love is Better the Second Time Around - this had some of my favorite moments from a BL - two-faced seme employing all sorts of methods to seduce and ensnare the uke, return of the alone-at-the-railway-station trope, seme using helpless, feverish face and acting coquettish (some seriously charming gap moe), teasing a seme's seme (this one did it better than At 25:00 in Akasaka which fumbled it by choice) and kishōtenketsu - 4 part traditional East Asian narrative structure (which appeared in many series this year and the last) with family negotiation aiming at adoption reversal. (I wanted seme to recommend uke in his place to his native household - that way they can also get married, if and when it gets legalized.)

16. Living with Him – The reason why this series is on this list is pretty unique. I never understood Japanese focus and fetish of nape (the way navel is in south India) before this series. The camera managed to capture the uke's neck, especially when he had his head bent slightly, in a stunning manner. Overall, the camera language was very intimate without being bawdy, perfectly suitable for the domestic setting of this BL. I loved the series more than I did the manga.

15. Century of Love - Gave me Hindi serial style BL complete with a red cloth enveloping the main couple during their fated encounter. It is a lakorn, so that's to be expected. I felt that the pair's romance progressed at an uncharacteristically fast pace given the initial resistance. (In other words, I wanted their romance to progress slowly, like over 400 episodes.) I thoroughly enjoyed the characters including the villains.

14. Healing Thingyan – this BL from Myanmar is no longer available at SKY Production’s YouTube channel. I had a good time watching this BL set in a village in the context of New Year where friends become lovers after much hesitation and an interrupted confession from the year before. My heart was pounding when the couple poured water over the left side because that's where their hearts are at. Also, the religious restriction (I am a little weak to this trope) to physical intimacy as a tactic to skip kiss scene - I would have been irked if it wasn't for the execution - the couple standing under arching bamboo, wearing sarong and acting all sweet. It is set in 2019. Later, I came to know that allegedly (I would appreciate if someone can help me gain more clarity on this matter), SKY production could be a proxy of 7th Sense Creation, an entertainment company cofounded by Kin Thiri Thet, daughter of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar’s armed forces and Acting President against whom the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has filed an application for an arrest warrant, alleging his involvement in crimes against humanity targeting the Rohingya population. (source))

13. The Time of Fever - I'm not very sure if this one can be considered a complete story in itself but even if not, it is immensely satisfying. Age-blind casting shouldn't have worked so well but it did. 

12. Gray Shelter - this one made me feel as though I read a nice short story or a novel. It was viscous like honey, the way such types of Korean BL novels (like Picked Up In Winter) tend to be. It had a very masculine vibe with underlying unease of depending and being depended on. 

11. Hitochigai kara Hajimaru Koi mo Aru aka Love Can Sometimes Start with the Wrong Person [fansubs available at Drama Otaku] - substitute lover trope but this time the substitute is two-faced. Everyone has their own agenda but this love is a zero-sum game. (I wanted 3p ending though – not possible since one actor is playing both the twins). I loved all the scheming and all those little lies. This one had explicit use of BL terms like seme and uke by a main character.

10. Perfect Propose - workplace that brings workers to tears, corporate slave uke who decides to quit (without starting a job hunt 😔) and an untethered seme who grows hydroponics tomatoes in their balcony. It is adapted from a single volume manga and not a novel, yet it uses every minute it's got to make you feel ALL THAT. 

9. High School Return of a Gangster - I was sad that they meant it as a bromance and worried for the future of BL creation in South Korea since it was Number Three Pictures, the company that created popular BL Unintentional Love Story and The Time of Fever, by its own admission struggling financially with limited recovery of production costs (more on this here). When I started watching, I couldn't care any less about their intentions. It was an absolute delight. I was still immersed in the exhilaration of Aavesham (2024) and had wished to see such things in the context of a BL. And this one delivered. I was shipping the underboss with his main lackey (they have history between them and reminded me of the relationship between Ranga and Ambaan) at one point and the next moment, shipping him with his foxy classmate. The series toned down the bully-loves-bullied aspect in the novel, and humanized and contextualized the main bully with his life in the underbelly of the economy, so much so that I felt bad when the bullies were prosecuted (what will happen to Hong Jae-min's sister���) while gangsters and the rich who hire them went scot-free in the live action. The face-slapping part left a bitter taste in my mouth with the secretary facing the brunt (and the misogyny embedded in the socio-economic fabric that breeds such hatred) while the father isn't retaliated against enough. I read and enjoyed the novel, but face-slapping was even more makjang. It is tough to get accepted in live action form as it is, in South Korea, since the gangster is middle-aged and it is only towards the end of the novel that the characters are finally out of high school, unlike in Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding with a significant age gap but both are adults and are in a Japanese BL. Gong (공, Korean for seme) (a suspected psychopath, raised under constant surveillance by his father) consciously falls in love with the middle-aged su (수, Korean for uke) inhabiting the body of a high schooler, going as far as visiting his previous residence and pursuing him as one would an old person. 

8. My Damn Business - From the first episode, this one had me hooked. Week after week, I was eagerly waiting for those 8 minute long episodes. It acknowledged the manhwa side of BL and hinted at their iconic smut pages (in a way New Employee live action couldn't). It executed stalking horse trope, with Park Min-jae (R. I. P) playing the stalking horse, in a manner that had me giddy with excitement. I also appreciate GND STUDIO for casting darker-skinned actors – in this one and in Fake Buddies. GND studio also has decent BL literacy as is evident from the above-mentioned series. In the third episode, Fake Buddies used the East Asian tradition of representing gay and lesbian relationships through rose (from barazoku (薔薇族)) and lily (from yurizoku (百合族)) respectively to hint at the BL and GL couple.

7. Boku to Boku ga Sukina Kare to, Kimi to aka Me, Him, and You [fansubs available at Drama Otaku]- Honestly, I didn't expect to be this impressed by this one going in. I had such low expectations. I absolutely love the pairing between Higashi Keisuke and Hiroki Iijima, much more than Higashi Keisuke and Nakajima Sota in Ossan no Pants ga Nandatte Ii Janai ka! and Hiroki Iijima and Inukai Atsuhiro in Our Dining Table. The series played with my heartstrings a lot. I fondly remember several of the scenes and all the emotions they evoked in me. At the end, there was a longing for something, maybe some more time with those characters, especially the model and his uncle. 

6. Pit Babe (2023) - omegaverse with enigma - Japan has like 1 manga but through PitBabe I discovered that enigma has become a popular secondary gender in Thai BL space. I love buff uke and I got one paired with a two-faced, loyal loser seme in this one. Super pretty villain, Tony, had me wishing for him to be an omega (I love megalomaniac omegas). I also enjoyed reading the book – every time it rained, that silent phone call, Babe's jealousy towards omegas, the suspense and the pregnancy scare.

5. Love Sea - MAME lifted me out of a BL slump with this one. I also enjoyed the GL pair a lot - there is nothing I like more than performative cuteness/winsomeness (കൊഞ്ചൽ konjal, aegyo, sajiao, kawaii) and benevolent sexism weaponized and employed for emotional manipulation. High EQ manipulators are so rare, my favourite type of yandere (especially when paired perfectly with someone who gets swept up in the moment easily, like Techno). I wonder why MAME doesn't write Janus-faced men that way too. And the men who perform winsomeness such as Tongrak, Kengkla and Tharn, when they do so, have motivations that aren’t Machiavellian enough.

4. Heavens x Candy - OP Pictures is bringing to screens BL that are otherwise tough to get made. This one explored otaku culture, loneliness, family and love through fan pilgrimages, cute and horrifying family dynamics, adult entertainment avenues and love hotels with those transparent walls of bathrooms. It healed my heart after the blow dealt by I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama. 

3. Love Syndrome: The Beginning – I didn't expect this but I'm glad to have received it. I want more but now that the director, F Nontapat Sriwichai, has passed away, I don't expect anything anymore. If only his legacy would inspire someone with the ability and mettle. I prefer meriba endings over happy endings. So, when Love Syndrome III was the first to get an adaptation, I was drawn into Yeonim’s universe. The movie focuses on Gear and Night’s relationship and spends relatively less time on Day and Itt. Yet, it is not hesitant to portray the beginning of their relationships, especially the eroticized violence and the morbid conditioning (調教), showcasing exceptional BL literacy.

2. Kubi (2023) – [Fan-subs] I must praise the excellent production quality before anything else. It is about multiple legendary figures in Japanese history such as Oda Nobunaga, Araki Murashige, Akechi Mitsuhide, Mori Ranmaru and Yasuke. The movie has historically accurate ending with specifics changed to fit the narrative. It is based on Honno-ji Incident and Battle of Yamazaki. Those who died then, dies in the movie too but who killed who and why are fictional. (meta here)

1. Takumi-kun Series 6: Nagai Nagai Monogatari no Hajimari no Asa (2023) – this one and Kubi came out last year but I got the chance to watch them only this year. Thanks to fan subs by @furritsubs. I read and re-read those chapters from the novel and I'm still basking in the magic of Shinobu Gotoh's storytelling. First time since Unni R's story and screenplay for Charlie (2015), I got immersed in a love story where the couple barely even interact and the romance unfolds in a thriller-like fashion. While a lot of character motivation gets lost on the way in this live action, most important of them were impossible to miss when snow fluttered around in a bottle, when a delirious Takumi sought Gii in a crowded stairway landing and when Yoshizawa jumped out to stop Takabayashi from hurting. (ongoing meta series here)

-

• An iconic scene from bonus chapter 2 of The New Employee aka The New Recruit manhwa adaptation (web novel written by Moscareto and illustrated by Zec) ahead.

Gong comes home to find su in a sexy position at the doorway, fingering himself according to gong's instructions over phone.