#spoilers (kind of?) for the new bl novel

[sissy-the-siren]

RHYSHA LIVES!!!!!! THANK YOU ANTHONY BURCH FOR MY LIFE!!!!!!

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

[pharawee]

Gather around, fellow BL aficionados, it's time for part four of my Pit Babe novel commentary.

(And if you want to catch up, here are parts 1, 2 and 3.)

A word of warning: since I'm pretty far into the novel now (every post summarises five chapters) expect heavy spoilers, plot twists and revelations.

Oh, and omegaverse shenanigans. So many omegaverse shenanigans. You've been warned.

Also, a small warning for talk about and the aftermath of SA. As usual, please take care. 💜

Now, where were we? Oh, yeah: Way is the big bad enigma and he's been hypnotising Babe all this time - but gently (tm) because, you see, Way really, really loves Babe so that makes it all right...

Yeah, no. Get fucked, Way.

Currently, Way is still passed out on the floor, but as soon as Babe has come to terms with whatever the hell just happened, Charlie (who came to Babe's rescue just in time, remember?) offers to wake him up.

How? Oh, that's easy. He can put people to sleep at will. It's one of the many powers he absorbed from other powered alphas. That's his whole thing: he steals powers and just keeps them - like Rogue in X-Men but without any of the downsides. And as long as he's alive, the powers stay with him, never to return to their previous owner. Unless they die, in which case Charlie loses that particular power forever. Which in turn means that if Charlie dies... but keep that in mind for later.

Oh, and another one of Charlie's powers: changing his scent at will. Goddammit, Charlie.

As for how he knew that Babe was in danger? Jeff told him because he can see into the future. X-Men omegaverse, here we go.

But anyway, when Way wakes up he's confused because the last thing he remembers is SAing his supposed best friend. Now there's Charlie staring daggers at him, and one very angry Babe. Since Way is pathetic (but not the good kind) he attempts to explain: yes, he's actually Babe and Charlie's adoptive brother. Their father sent him to lure Babe back home and, well, get him pregnant. That was ten (10) years ago.

But, you see, Way is such a nice guy (tm), he didn't want to force Babe! Instead, he set out to ruin him for everyone else, thereby making it impossible for him to grow or heal or trust or love. Whenever Babe met someone he connected with, Way swooped in to poison his mind. And whenever Babe recoiled from that new connection, he turned to Way - the only person he could 100% trust. Or so he was made to believe.

So the Babe we meet at the beginning of the novel (and series) isn't really Babe at all. It's the version of Babe Way wants him to be - and for what? For ten years of pining and mindfuckery? What the hell kind of plan is this?

Oh yeah, the kind that gets you punched in the face. Thank you, Babe, you're really speaking my mind here.

And this is the part where the novel really shines because it doesn't just gloss over the implications of abuse. It doesn't leave Way's many empty apologies uncommented:

"I know what I did was unforgivable. I—" "Did you just realize this? Are you like this because I found out just in time?" Babe's voice boomed as anger flared in his heart. No matter how hard he tried to suppress it, he couldn't. "When I'm unconscious, you can assume it's okay to do it, right?" "I didn't want to do it at all…" "I don't care!" Babe shouted. "The point is, I don't want it! And you have no right to do this to me!"

But when Way's attempts to nice-guy himself out of his predicament don't work, he tries to shift the blame onto Charlie. Because Charlie lied too and, after all, didn't Way warn Babe about him?

Yeahhh, he's still trying to manipulate Babe. Way isn't sorry at all, he's only sorry he's been caught. Or, as the novel aptly puts it:

For Way, this might be like a love confession. But for Babe, it was no different from admitting his crimes.

But the novel doesn't leave it at that.

"So what's next?" Babe asked in a calm voice. "Should I thank you?" "What…" "I asked if I should thank you because you didn't rape me?" [...] "Should I thank you for not forcing me to bear your child?" "Babe…" “Even for my life, my body, and everything about me, I still have to wait for your mercy?”

And that's that. Ten years of (false) friendship have been erased just like that.

Really, I'm sorry for adding so many quotes but this whole chapter is just perfect in its blunt directness. It excels in giving Babe back his autonomy - the very thing Way has taken from him.

We'll return to our regularly scheduled omegaverse shenanigans after this bit:

"Did you know that every time you said that [there was never anyone suitable for me], it made me feel like I didn't deserve anyone's love?" [...] "And it's as if the only love I can receive is love from you…" Babe's sobs were so loud that his voice trailed off, but he took a deep breath and continued talking: "…but you never asked me what I really want." [...] "You only care about your own desires. You want to have me. You want to have children. You tried to make me love you and then agree to have children with you. Even though you always knew that I never wanted to have children." "I know you don't want to have children. And I know why," Way replied with a look that seemed to understand. But Babe knew that he didn't understand anything, not at all. "But because I know. That's why I want to change your mind." "It's not your job to change me."

And then, when Way has the audacity to try and hug him, Babe throws him over his shoulder and slams him right onto the floor, and even Charlie is like, damn, guess for a moment there I forgot how amazing Pit Babe is.

Damn right he is!

Later that night, things are winding down and Charlie insists on staying with Babe - just to make sure he's all right. Because unlike some people (!) he actually knows when to give Babe some space, and so he settles down on the couch in the living room while Babe stays in his bedroom.

But, understandably, Babe can't sleep. There's too much on his mind, none of it particularly good. He misses Charlie and, really, he's in dire need of an emergency hug.

It's Babe who approaches Charlie (only of course Charlie knew all along because he has super hearing now and he heard Babe's tossing and turning. Goddammit Charlie). They reconcile and it's really sweet because, in stark contrast to Way, Charlie's apology is heartfelt and reassuring and full of compassion. He also knows that Babe has been through a lot, so when Babe engages in their usual ritual of make-up sex, Charlie is hesitant:

Babe is so strong that he can lift bigger people and throw them to the ground. But believe me, no one is mentally strong enough to not be hurt by dirty things like that.

I just love how clear and concise the novel is on this part.

Anyway, they talk it out and Babe says that he wants to try anyway. What follows is a really sweet sex scene (but don't worry, Babe's still getting railed by his daddy to his heart's content - some things just don't change). There's talk about wild horses. I don't know why and honestly I'd rather not dwell on it.

Meanwhile, Way is being chewed out by Khun Tony (aka everyone's least favourite adoptive father). He's quite a bit upset but, honestly, what did he expect? He's the one with the stupid plan in the first place. Why did he even agree to let Way pine into Babe's general direction FOR TEN YEARS until he maybe catches feelings? The dude can hypnotise people! Just order him to do his evil immoral job!

But anyway, it's too late now. Babe's powers are already gone so breeding him (whyyy...) is pointless. Tony has a new target now: Charlie.

To my immense relief even Way is like, ew.

But it matters little because daddy dearest has contigency plans in place (and where were these plans TEN YEARS AGO - worst evil alpha breeder ever!). He orders Way to leave X-Hunter and return home immediately - and who knows, once Charlie is out of the picture Babe might end up as leftovers for him. Okay then.

In happier news, Charlie wakes up the next day with Babe's hand on his, well, little Charlie. I'm not being a prude here, that's what Babe calls it. It's a whole conversation, followed by - you guessed it - more sex.

Something is different this time, however. Without hesitation, Babe tells Charlie that he loves him, and then he asks him to be his boyfriend - to which Charlie eventually agrees. More sex happens. Actually, all of this happened during a blowjob which is very on brand for Babe. Things get disgustingly cute when Babe realises that this is the first time they're ~making love~ as boyfriend and boyfriend. This leaves him incredibly shy. Thanks to Way's meddling, he never had a boyfriend, after all. This is his first time being in love, and it's exactly as adorable as it sounds. Only with more mindblowing sex.

This includes sex in Charlie's supercar after a training session right on the racetrack (again I ask, have you even seen the interior of a racecar? How? Where? And who's cleaning this up? The mechanics??) as Jeff and Alan watch from afar.

"Why don't the two of them get out of the car?", Jeff said quietly as he looked at Charlie's car which had been parked near the finish line for a while and he saw no signs of it coming down.

Oh, my sweet summer child.

But yes, I'm happy to report that Jeff and Alan are probably going to be a thing in the novel too. This Jeff isn't a mechanic though. He doesn't even study engineering but oceanography (because he likes the ocean even though he's never seen it - live your dreams, my dude!).

As they sit and bicker, Jeff is suddenly struck by what seems to be another vision of the future. Whatever it is, it can't be good because it makes Jeff cry. Uh-oh.

He asks Charlie to meet him at his condo, and Charlie immediately notices that something's wrong. Only this time it's not Babe he needs to worry about. It's all of them.

I'm worried too but mostly for my own sanity.

Remember when I first explained about Tony's evil breeding program? Ah, those were easier, more pleasant times. Because now Tony figures that if he can't get an enigma to impregnate Charlie, he'll just get Charlie to impregnate an omega (because apparently there's a 50% chance that the baby will be an alpha with special traits - why is this novel explaining Mendel's laws of omegaverse inheritance to me?) .

Jeff is an omega.

And this is what Jeff saw: if they don't act now, at some point in the future Tony will have Charlie and Jeff brought back "home" and use aphrodisiacs on them (one up for the trope counter!). Jeff will get pregnant and as soon as their baby is born Tony will dispose of both Jeff and Charlie. This will cause Babe to seek revenge and get killed in the process.

What did I just read?

The novel keeps this from us for a while, and just casually mentions that Charlie isn't overly worried. He even finds the time to be jealous when one of Babe's old acquaintances shows up to Charlie's next race. They argue. The race starts without them reconciling, so naturally that means Charlie has an accident during the race.

It's bad enough that he's transported to the ER. But as the whole team anxiously awaits any kind of news, Babe realises in dawning horror that his heightened senses are slowly returning to him. He can hear Charlie's slowing heartbeat and the doctors fighting to reanimate him.

He listens as Charlie is pronounced dead.

The novel then cuts to Charlie's funeral which is only attended by a handful of people, mostly members of Team X-Hunter. Babe does not cope well at all but at least he's got Alan and Jeff to take care of organisational things.

Speaking of Alan and Jeff. These two have grown quite a bit closer. Close enough that Jeff asks Alan to let him take a look at Charlie's crashed car. The police are already investigating but Jeff wants to see for himself. Hm.

Meanwhile, Babe is alone at his condo, going through several stages of grief all at once (really, it's heartbreaking but so is the length of this post so I'm trying to keep things short). He's interrupted during the bargaining stage by someone knocking at the door. It's Way and he's come to offer his help. Babe might be grieving but he's not stupid, and so they meet up at a coffee shop nearby.

Way all but confirms that Charlie's accident was Tony's doing. What he meant to do was incapacitate Charlie but unfortunately Charlie died. OOPS. What a brilliant plan, really.

Seems like even Way has had enough of Tony's evil schemes so he's banded together with another enigma in order to bring Tony down. Said enigma is actually Tony's eldest "son" who seems to have escaped from his control to do his own (financially very successful) thing and bide his time until Tony eventually slips up.

That enigma is none other than Pete.

That's right. Pete and Way have teamed up to bring down Tony, and they're asking Babe to help them. Babe tentatively agrees.

While this is going down, Jeff visits some random uncle's secluded house. He's greeted by none other than Charlie (now somewhat worse for wear but very much still alive) who's faked his own death with the help of a man named Reval. Charlie feels guilty for lying to Babe again but they can't involve him in this: once hypnotised, he's still under Way's influence (uh-oh...) and could risk all of their careful planning.

Their plan? Getting rid of Charlie's powers before Tony can get to them.

This is where Reval comes in. He also has powers: he can somehow disconnect an alpha (or omega or enigma, I suppose) from their powers - which is apparently a very difficult and time-consuming process (and would otherwise kill the alpha), especially with someone with as many powers as Charlie.

Why does Reval do this? Oh, he's Babe's real father who's been in hiding until now out of shame and guilt (and some memory loss). Surprise!

Also, very convenient. 🤡

[ineffable-opinions]

Danmei tropes in My Stand-In

This is a quick introduction to some popular BL tropes that are fairly new to live-action BL:

wife chasing crematorium

substitute lover

transmigration

(Contains spoilers)

All corrections and critiques are welcome.

As you probably know My Stand-In is based on the danmei novel Professional Body Double. Specifically, it belongs to 188男团 (“188 group” where 188 cm is the height of every gong (seme) in the novel series). It is a shared universe of novels with characters from one featuring in another and almost all gong are very scummy (or “red-flag” so to speak) initially.

Trope #1: wife chasing crematorium

What 188 group novels all have in common is the trope popularly known among English-speaking fandom as “wife chasing crematorium”. This is a super-popular trope, not only in danmei.

origin 追妻火葬场 (zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; chasing his wife’s crematorium) derived from the longer phrase 傲娇一时爽，追妻火葬场 (àojiāo yīshí shuǎng, zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; Tsundere was on his high horse for a while, now chasing his wife’s crematorium.) Alternative form: 追夫火葬场 (zhuī fū huǒzàng chǎng; chasing husband’s crematorium) – usually involves scum shou (uke) chasing after his gong (seme) after initially abusing gong’s love.

The trope involves the love interest being initially cold or even cruel to the protagonist who is in love. This continues until all of that love gone. By then, the love interest would have come to his senses, eager to seek forgiveness and chase after the protagonist. In some cases, the love is already lost irrevocably, especially when the protagonist is dead – hence, literal crematorium. There are also works where the love interest is discarded all together and protagonist moves on to someone else. Rarely, there are works where the protagonist is the scum.   

In 188 group novels, this is how the basic structure of wife chasing crematorium:

Shou loves gong. Gong treats shou terribly.

Gong goes too far. Shou is fed-up and leaves gong, one way or other. Gong realises that he has been in love all along.

Gong regrets his action and chases after shou. Grovelling ensues.

Gong and shou gets back together. Gong dotes on shou and the couple face other challenges (family, villains) together, if any. Happy ending.

Fans are in it for the melodrama. They want to watch scummy gong to go too far, the relationship to break down and for the gong to grovel and make amends through various selfless deeds, until they reestablish the relationship and trust (as much as possible). Every one of those stories end with a happy ending with the gong endlessly doting on shou and the relationship having turned wholesome.

Trope #2: substitute lover

Other than the previous trope Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In involves the “substitute lover” trope.

Substitute lover trope involves, usually the gong, having a 白月光 (white moonlight): a person whom he loves a lot but can’t reach/touch. This is usually his first love and has a profound impact on him.

Aside: White moonlight in itself is a common trope. Both Vip Only and Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun used white moonlight trope to in a typical kishōtenketsu narrative structure.  

Since white moonlight is unattainable, gong finds a substitute lover.

The relationship between gong and substitute lover is usually just physical. This is because gong doesn’t plan to move on from white moonlight, instead stubbornly carries the torch. Gong doesn’t plan on betraying the pure feeling he have for his white moonlight by giving any of his love to anyone else. So, he tries to ensure that no love leaks out of the dam he has built to store his love for the white moonlight. This is, from gong’s POV, a kind of emotional fidelity which he extends to his white moonlight. A tribute of gong’s unshakable love for his white moonlight.

The substitute lover sometimes resembles white moonlight in some way –

in body – first ever live action BL (shonen-ai actually) adaptation Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) based of Hagio Moto’s The Heart of Thomas plays around with this trope, a lot. More recently, Playboyy sorta lampshaded it with the twins premise.

in spirit – a recent example is Love is Better the Second Time Around wherein prof. Takashi sleeps with his assistant Shiraishi Yuto because the assistant (or his desperation at least) reminded him of his white moonlight Miyata Akihiro.

Aside: There is only one live-action BL that actively subverted this trope: HIStory3: Make Our Days Count. The series introduced a doppelgänger of Yu XiGu (Xiang HaoTing’s white moonlight), a perfect candidate for substitute lover trope. But instead of pursuing it, they subverted the trope.

There are usually two outcomes to the substitute lover trope:

gong falls for substitute lover. In some cases, this involves white moonlight turning into rival or villain.

gong and his white moonlight get together. In this case, substitute lover turn into rival or get a lover of his own.

Itsuka no Kimi e, first ever live-action adaptation of a yaoi manga, employed substitute lover trope in one of its best executions. It is so brilliantly done that I can’t think of anything topping that, unless 4th volume (particularly the case-solving plot involving the photography club) of Takumi-kun series gets live action adaptation.

Trope #3: transmigration  

Basic premise of Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In revolves around transmigration of soul.

This too is a popular trope in BL. One of the most popular danmei Mo Dao Zu Shi and its adaptation The Untamed involves this trope.

Maybe I should say set-up instead of trope for this one. Transmigration involves soul of a character getting transferred to a body different from his own at the time of triggering event.

Own body, different time – either past or future. When past is involved, it is likely a do-over story where the protagonist gets to redo their life, change their love interest, make different life choices, take different course of action, etc.

Reincarnation – completely different lifetime but with retained memories of past-life/lives. Until We Meet Again; Choco Milk Shake (different lifetime for the pets)

Different body, present (near-present) time – character’s soul enters a different person’s body. The character gets involved in his previous circumstances but now in a different capacity. Revive (2016), that danmei adaptation no one ever talks about, went to town with this set-up.

Different body, different life – soul enters character in a book, game, simulation, etc. and would be primarily tasked to thrive there. One Room Angel (2023) explored a type of badro with this set-up.

With transmigration set-up, it is common to have one of these two:

Transmigrator retaining some connection to previous life.

Transmigrator’s previous life doesn’t matter anymore.

These Tropes in My Stand-In

These tropes are explored to varying degrees and with different levels of efficiency in Professional Body Double. In its live-action adaptation, there are a bunch of limitations. Primary one being the cultural difference – audience of a danmei novel are already familiar with these tropes to some extend but the live-action audience is one which has been primarily consuming sweet BL from Thailand that are inherently deficient in BL literacies.

Another is the khujin problem. Branded pairs are very important to Thai BL industry, so they cannot have two different actors playing before and after transmigration. (Actually, this was not impossible but there hasn’t been any precedent. Also, The Untamed enjoyed success by having Xiao Zhan play pre- and post-transmigration Wei WuXian. I wish they tried two khujin (UpPoom & UpWinner) one couple, since they chose to introduce Winner as pre-transmigration Joe. I don’t know, maybe that’s asking for fan wars and pitting actors against each other.) [In the tags, @deliriousblue reflects on what having two different actors could do with example from Cupid's Last Wish (a series I haven't watched) and its impact on audience on an emotional level. @myezblog has commented that Alchemy of Souls (another I haven't watched) is an excellent example of transmigration played two different actors.]

Third limitation is one that comes from medium – you can’t have long monologues in live-action. This deprives audience of the inner workings of character’s minds. Most of the motives, especially Ming’s trouble with warring desires of his heart, is inaccessible to the audience. @clairedaring have posted a deep-dive by Liltsu into some of that here.

Aside: Another interesting trope is giving watch (a taboo gift) – Chinese superstition rising from 送钟 (gifting watch) and 送终 (to bury the dead/attend funeral) being homophones. Taboo gift trope - white lilies associated with death and funerals - have appeared in Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) and Forbidden Love; both of these have substitute lover and death.

Ming’s characterization as a young master, coming from money and prestige that breeds arrogance and deficient in empathy (this post by @tungtung-thanawat is particularly enlightening) is a highlight of his cruelty as a 188 group gong.

While redemption of scum gong is what 188 group offers its audience, it is not necessarily what live-action audience would be wanting from the set-up. It is likely that a part of the audience was in fact looking for revenge plot.

As @lurkingshan highlighted in this post there is no exploration of identity (tied to Joe’s body pre- and post-transmigration) forth-coming precisely because this isn’t that kind of story and body is only treated as a temporary shelter for the soul for most part when transmigration trope is involved. Moreover, the novel is steeped in Confucian values. So, most of the resolution to what it means for Joe to have a mother now is dealt through his selfless gratitude and the filial piety he offers her.

The same is the case with his old body – a proper funeral for that body is what he owes his own parents for having given flesh and blood to the body which housed his soul previously. Remarkably, his own house figures prominently as an inheritance and as an enduring connection to his own parents – a bond more precious to that him than the bond he had to his old body. I am unsure how much of those core Confucian values they will retain in the live-action adaptation, given the cultural difference.

As @befuddledcinnamonroll discusses here, it is tied to cultural ideas of self, religious beliefs, etc.

@bengiyo has pointed out a weakness in execution of the transmigration trope over the substitute lover trope: the latter is a recurring and inverted trope in this series while the former plays out straight. Even though it is clear that coma!Joe is basically friendless and his career already dead (or that he has no career to speak of), it might have been better to hint at a lack of resolution and impending doom, and build anticipation by leaving clues about the troubles that coma!Joe has left behind. That way when the substitute lover trope peaks again, audience would feel as trapped as Joe.

This is where I think Revive (2016) did a better job with friends, colleagues, past-lovers and rivals especially with such similar set-ups: entertainment industry, classism, scum gong, and intersecting lives pre- and post-transmigration.

[suzuran777]

Review: Ooe -Zenpen- (Adelta)

The first part of Adelta's new BL visual novel "Ooe" was finally released on the 25th last month! The second part is scheduled to be released in winter, but the first part was already so good I highly recommend playing it. I’ve been waiting for this game for a long time and also wrote some general information/theories about the game on this blog some years ago, as well as a review of the trial version. I won't mention any big plot-related spoilers, so if you’re waiting for an English version or are just curious what the game is about, you can still check it out!

Synopsis 30th year of the Showa era (1955), our protagonist Oosaki works for a small detective agency and one day receives a strange request from a client. He's asked to attend a memorial service on behalf of his client, which will be held on the remote island of Ooejima. During his stay on the island, a series of strange events happen, and the ship that was supposed to pick them up never arrives. The organizer who invited them is not there, and shortly afterwards they also lose all contact with the outside world. Stranded on this ominous island, ten people unravel the mystery of their shared pasts and the death of the actress An Ooe.

This version of the game focuses on three different routes, Ariake, Shimbashi and Aomi. Similar to previous Adelta games, you play all of the routes in a pre-decided route order, and with each route you finish, a new choice will show up allowing you to proceed to the next route. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, each character was assigned one earthly desire/mental factor that kind of describes the character, so I will also include this again below. Now I've played the game I know that these factors are definitely not their only personality trait, but some parts of it definitely show up in the story eventually.

Ariake -  Disregard (Anapatrapya 無愧): A mortician who likes helping out those in need. After injuring his dominant hand, he has been receiving a lot of help from others. He's immediately very fond of Oosaki and wants to follow him everywhere. His mental factor pretty much indicates that he doesn't consider his own actions 'bad'.

Shimbashi -  Stinginess (Mātsarya 慳): A screenwriter who speakes in a rather strange way, combining overly-polite speach and insults. When he first meets Oosaki, he doesn't seem to trust him at all and doesn't want to tell him anything. His mental factor refers to him only wanting to satisfy his own desires, and doesn't intend to share anything with others.

Aomi -  Envy (Īrṣyā 嫉): A quiet music teacher who doesn’t talk a lot, and when he does speak, it’s limited to short sentences only. He doesn't like small talk and sometimes when Oosaki asks him something Aomi simply ignores him. His mental factor doesn't need much explanation, but even though it's envy I must say that he's not the overly-jealous type (?). It kind of refers to something more specific in his route which I can't really mention without spoiling.

I don't think you really need a guide for this game as it's pretty obvious when new choices unlock, just start a new game after finishing the first route and you'll see! Ariake does have an alternative ending scene, so during your second playthrough don’t immediately pick the choice that leads to Shimbashi’s route, and return to Ariake’s route one more time. Afterwards you can proceed as usual. Sometimes a few choices pop up, but selecting the wrong choice has no consequences and you’ll just be re-directed to the choice menu. The wind chime sound effect indicates which one is the correct choice, but I kind of enjoyed seeing everyone’s nervous reactions while falsely accusing them of something, so I recommend that too since there really are no consequences. By the way, important items are easy to notice because of their red color, like the record in the record player you can see below. Same goes for any text written in red, it might become relevant later (maybe even in part 2).

Introduction to the story Oosaki lives in a boarding house in Suga, a short walk from Hiratsuka station near Kamakura. His boss Shinkiba, who runs the detective agency, informs him about a request he received from a client. The client, a man who calls himself Shizuma Daiba, asks Oosaki to attend the memorial service of actress An Ooe on his behalf. According to Daiba, it was his father who received the invitation, however he fell ill shortly afterwards. Oosaki assumes that the person who invited him is a relative of the actress. Even though Oosaki never met her, he remembers reading news about her death. which shocked him because she was quite young and died by setting herself on fire. Even though it's a rather strange request and Shinkiba warns Oosaki, he still decides to travel to Ooejima. The island belongs to the Izu Island group and is located near Hachijojima. Originally, it was used as a military base during the Second World War, however after this it became uninhabited. Even though he has never been there, Oosaki knows about the island because his grandma who raised him was originally from this island, and he always felt like he'd travel to the island some day.

On his way to the island, he meets one of the other main characters in this game, Ariake, who’s also travelling to Ooejima for the memorial service. He’s surprised to find out Ariake’s grandmother is also from the island. After arriving at the Mikazuki inn, he receives a warm welcome from a trembling man with a knife (??), who later introduces himself as Funeno. He also meets Shimbashi who's staying at the same inn. The other characters are all staying at a different inn, but Oosaki meets them pretty soon too (Takeshiba, Shijoumae, Hinode, Aomi and Shiodome). The final character, Toyosu, appears a bit later and mentions he's in charge of the memorial service because the individual who invited them all (who nobody seems to know) couldn't come after all, which leaves everyone confused.

Since this is mentioned in the promotional material and also happens in the trial version, I think it's not really a spoiler to mention that Funeno is the first character who gets killed shortly after this. They decide to perform a ritual to put his spirit to rest, which involves burning a straw figure, though when they finally burn it they discover someone swapped the straw figure with Funeno's body and they end up burning his body instead... Afterwards, Shiodome reveals that they didn't just receive invitation letters, but they also got a letter describing the crimes one of the other attendees committed. They were all swapped, so everyone has a letter that belongs to someone else and knows about their crimes. The orders is as follows: Funeno > Daiba > ??? > Shimbashi > Takeshiba > Aomi > Toyosu > Hinode > Shijoumae > Ariake > Shiodome > Funeno. I guess now we know why Funeno acted so nervous around Oosaki, as he introduced himself as ''Daiba'' and Funeno got Daiba's letter...

Oosaki didn't receive any of these letters from Daiba though, so after they all return the letters to each other, Shimbashi is the only one who doesn't get his own letter, and let's just say he's not too happy about that. This also means that characters who had each other's letters know about their crimes, which is why some of them seem to be rather uncomfortable around each other. Most of the routes branch off a little bit after the scene where the trial version ends, and then the real murder mystery story starts in which they try to figure out who killed Funeno. Someone also destroyed the phone, so now there's no way to contact anyone anymore. At this point Oosaki's of course also suspicious of his client Daiba, because it's clear he was hiding something from him and sent Oosaki to the island without telling him important information.

Personal thoughts Since it’s a murder mystery game you never know which characters to trust, and because characters do die and will be absent throughout the entire route, it was a really suspenseful experience. I was interested in the story from start to finish, which is why I finished it so fast... I can't explain the feeling of dread every time one of the characters announced that something bad had happened, and you're wondering how bad it could really be. Even though the game doesn't show any super gory CGs (the most they'll show is blood), the descriptions are very detailed, so I think even without that it's easy to understand what happened to them. I also liked how the characters who die and survive are different depending on which route you play, so the game really stays interesting in all three routes.

Even though we know a second part of the game is coming, part 1 doesn't feel incomplete at all and the routes work very well on their own! So if you can read Japanese or want to use translation tools, I highly recommend playing this. It took me over 30 hours to finish the game, including the common route which is about 5 hours long, but I do play pretty fast and am already replaying some scenes, so it might be even longer. Also according to a message that came with the game, part 2's data will be free for everyone who buys part 1, so you don't need to buy them separately. I do want the physical version of the game, but I don't mind spending a bit more because the game's only 4400 yen (unlike most VNs which are about 8000-9000 yen).

My personal favorite character is Shimbashi because of his cat-like characteristics and short temper, I guess he's a bit of a tsundere now I think about it, but I also really like the abnormal way he speaks... he's super polite and extremely rude at the same time and I am curious how this would get translated in the English version. My second favorite is probably Ariake, and because he was the first route I expected his route to be good too, since it's the first experience anyone will have with this game after all. The final route is Aomi, who I was pretty neutral about when they showed him in the promotional material, but I really liked him... I should really not underestimate any character in this game because they will prove me wrong, and so far I really like everyone. I suddenly remember when the game was announced they said all the characters are ''straight'' lol, but as expected, so far it just means they haven't been together with another man before. They do not seem to care about Oosaki's gender at all and don't make it a big deal (I also like how there's multiple lines in this game acknowledging other gender identities btw... it's mentioned out of nowhere but I love to see it). If you didn't know btw, the protag of this game is a top, all of the previous Adelta game protagonists were bottoms.

I've always liked the Adelta game artstyle and character designs, but somehow the art in this game looks even better. Every CG in Ooe just looks so beautiful and I can't stop opening the CG gallery to look at it over and over again. As for the eye color... I also have my theories because in previous games this was an important plot element, and even by just looking at the promotional material, it's clear that those with ties to Ooejima are the only characters who have red eyes, so maybe that will be mentioned in the next part? Also every character has their own ending song, similar to what they did with Uuultra C. The game actually has no opening song/movie, but they might be saving that for part 2. The ending songs are so good though at this point I will not even complain.

The references to existing literature in this game are also comparible to the older Adelta titles, for example the caves on the island kind of remind me of the novel "Kotou no Oni" and the game sometimes references Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None" too, with Oosaki even owning a copy of the book, and eventually comparing the people on the island to characters in the book. As I mentioned in my first blog post about this game, some of the characters' first names also reference other novel characters. For example, Shiodome’s name is Michio, which is also an important character in "Kotou no Oni", Daiba’s name is Shizuma, which seems to be referencing a character in "Inugami-ke no Ichizoku" or "The Inugami Family" (this applies to the names of his brother and father too), and Funeno’s first name is Kureichirou, which is the name of one of the main characters in "Dogra Magra". In part 1, we learn the first names of a couple of other characters too for the first time, and I do have some theories what these could be referencing, especially Takeshiba's... I also want to know more about Shiodome because I mean, from the beginning it's clear the way he behaves isn't exactly what one would consider "normal", so I wonder how he would interact with Oosaki... Cool-B did preview one of his 18+ scenes and I have many questions. Then of course there's Daiba... he's so suspicious and the promotional material keeps referring to him as a ''side character'' even though he was literally on the cover of Cool-B magazine combined with Oosaki and Ariake, so I have my doubts about that.

Honestly there's so many things I could write about but at this point I might be theorizing too much and not actually reviewing the game, but I really don't want to spoil, so I think that's it for now! Part 2 is scheduled to be released in winter, though I'm not sure if that means December, January or later. You can buy part 1 here though! Please support them. It was mentioned that they are planning to release an English and Chinese version, though any information about that will have to wait until the release of part 2. When part 2 is released I'll write a review about that too!

[gffa]

What is omniscient readers viewpoint about? I tried to check the tag but all I got was violence and mpreg?

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a bit hard to sum up, in the sense that I'm trying to avoid spoilers for a lot of you, but also because it's a very meta novel in a lot of ways, BUT BASICALLY: An average, unremarkable salaryman type of character (Kim Dokja) has been hyperfixated on a webnovel for the last ten years, of which he is the only reader. On the day of the final chapter's posting, he gets a thank you from the author, a downloaded text file of it, and WHAM suddenly the novel's events are happening in real life, he has been reverse-isekai'd into this post-apocalyptic novel coming to life. This allows him to understand the video game style rules of this new world from the start, this allows him to know what kind of scenarios (basically "quests" and "subquests") will be thrown at him, allowing him to gather a team of people that will help him survive and allow him to gain a ton of in-scenario currency and "win" all the scenarios thrown at him (because he abuses his knowledge horribly), all while avoiding the protagonist of the novel (Yoo Joonghyuk) who is a regressor, which means he's lived through these scenarios before and is SUPER powerful and is tunnel-visioned about surviving them, so he will kill anyone who gets in his way. Meanwhile, Kim Dokja (who has been alone all his life, who has a terribly sad and tragic backstory) slowly starts to actually care about the people he's gathering to him, they come to love him, so he has people who genuinely love him for the first time in his life, who don't want him to just sacrifice himself for them (and this is a big, big theme in the story), so you get some really good found family dynamics in there, too. This is all just set-dressing, the real plot of the story is about the nature of readers and our relationships with fiction, that it's a complicated but ultimately so meaningful dynamic, that we the audience are "part of" the story we're reading, all dressed up in a SUPER "this isn't BL, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was at first" dynamic between the two most prominent characters. (Because Yoo Joonghyuk is the protagonist of the novel he read, the character that Kim Dokja felt he traveled with side-by-side for ten years, the character that allowed him to continue getting up and living one more day, to see the end of his journey, so even if he's a murderous bastard, he's also the character that Kim Dokja felt he literally lived for.) It's a funny story (because Kim Dokja is actually a horrible gremlin, he's awful and I would die for him), the webtoon is beautifully done, it's found family, it's meta commentary on readers and stories, and it's intriguing worldbuilding.

[isekai-crow]

Cherry Magic / 30-sai made Doutei dato Mahoutsukai ni nareru rashii Episode 2

< Ep 1 | >

This episode is once again, one of the most self-aware BL anime/mangas I've seen in a while, and it makes me so happy.

It's playing with so many BL/Yaoi tropes, and you think you know where it's going, but then it goes in the more realistic direction of what would actually happen!

We get a new character introduction, Adachi's childhood friend Masato, who is voiced by a SUPER BIG NAME VOICE ACTOR - Furukawa, Makoto - Saitama from OPM, Benimaru!!! from Tensura, Taijuu from Dr. Stone, and best of all Mah Boy Woo Jin Chul from Solo Leveling!! He's also Shirogane from Kaguya-sama, Hatsuharu Souma from Fruits basket, and fricken Zacherroni from Magus Bride 2. I could go on. Big Name yo.

Screenshots & Spoilers Below the Cut!

First off... I'm so happy that Adachi's best friend isn't actually in love with him. The ending of Episode 1 super implied that that was the turn this was going to take, but no, Masato is just his friend who happens to be a romance novel and DOES in fact know Adachi best! But not in a sleazy or creepy or yandere way.

Masato might have pointed all of these out, but at least he also commented on those being the reasons why Kurosawa probably likes him.

I'm Surprised by the fact that I'm Surprised lmfao A virgin talking to a virgin for advice - lol, but the advice is decent at least.

It sets Adachi on the right road to actually thinking about himself and his own feelings, because he's already worried about trying not to hurt Kurosawa by trying to figure out how to act. I love how focused Adachi is on making sure not to hurt Kurosawa's feelings. He's such a cutie.

I LOVE THAT NONE OF THIS SEEMS ODD. MASATO IS NOT SURPRISED HIS FRIEND MIGHT BE A BISEXUAL DISASTER. NO FORBIDDEN ROMANCE HERE!!! There's touches, especially later in the episode where they draw straws and are forced to kiss for their coworker's entertainment, of mentioning that it might be awkward for a(n assumed) straight man to be kissed by another man. But whether homosexuality is accepted or not in this world, that's true. Whether its between a man and a woman, being put on the spot to suddenly be kissed is awkward. And they treat this situation equally, and it's so refreshing.

Kurosawa doesn't need to be able to read Adachi's mind to know that he's freaked out, and I assume that KUROSAWA assumes it's because Adachi is about to be kissed by a man. And he doesn't force it! Yay! Almost consensual!! Which is a lot to ask for sometimes with your standard BL.

But also, LMFAO at the translation of STUD.

We then get a whole scene that plays out like your standard BL, and could have gone that route...

How is Adachi getting away with these subtle touches lolol But also this poor boy (Kurosawa).

Part of me wonders how this could possibly have played out if Adachi didn't have mind reading abilities, but that's the whole point of this entire story, so this story COULDN'T HAPPEN without that aspect.

I KNEW this wasn't actually going to go anywhere but I sure was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this would play out!

In some ways Adachi's ability to read minds almost comes off as a kind of an unfair advantage because it gives him extra information which he COULD then use to manipulate the situation, but if you bring in the idea of Power Imbalance between two people in a relationship, it's actually a big part of leveling the playing field between them, especially when you have Kurosawa in the position of the "aggressor" even though he hasn't really been all that aggressive until this scene, and Adachi in the more passive receiving position, being inexperienced and unaware of his possible interest in men.

Also, it's hard to figure out how just Unreliable of a Narrator Adachi is, because we're constantly in his head, while we also get bits and pieces of the people around him, but it's always then filtered through Adachi's reaction to those thoughts.

Final thoughts by jumping backwards! Cake Scene! Adachi to the rescue!! The whole reason for the drinking party!

ADACHI. WHERE ARE YOU TOUCHING. WHY THERE.

This man is so happy to have his fucking cake. Fucking tsunderes man lmao

As shitty as it would be to be able to constantly listen in to the thoughts of everyone around you (intrusive thoughts anyone?), I'm so glad Adachi was happy with finally having a good use of his ability.

This whole story continues to put a smile on my face, and I'm enjoying every episode. I think the only thing that throws me off every once in a while is the art and animation style, but I'm don't know jack about shit with that except the eyes keep making me thinking I'm watching Initial D, and there are some weird angle choices that give characters giant yaoi necks/hands/body parts lol.

Overall rating so far: 8/10! I might go buy the manga for this!

[the-clockwork-three]

tell me about these new blorbos you have reblogged very much just now. i am somewhat interested

AAAAAA thank you anon :D this is now The TGCF Zone and none of you can escape

Quick summary: these are Xie Lian and Hua Cheng from Heaven Official's Blessing, a 800k-word-long webnovel by MXTX

OKAY SO. Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù (MXTX) is a Chinese author of webnovels. Specifically danmei or Chinese BL. She has written 3 novels, all of which have now been officially published in English, with the final volume of tgcf having come out last week. Her novels are, in order of writing: Scum Villains Self Saving System (SVSSS), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), and Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), with the latter two's acronyms coming from their original chinese titles. I really like all three of these novels, although I've been on a svsss kick recently. Also I've been a tgcf fan for about a year now, just not actively blorbo-ing.

All three novels are cultivation novels. Cultivation is this idea in Asian literature and culture that comes from Taoism and myth. Basically if you meditate and train really hard in martial arts, you will gain magic powers, and eventually you could become immortal or a god. Svsss and mdzs focus on very powerful humans, but tgcf is about gods and ghosts.

Xie Lian (the guy in white in the fanart) is the crown prince of a country called Xianle. He is a good kid, and very dedicated to trying to "save the common people". A memorable thing he did was during a parade to celebrate the gods he deviated from his fight choreography (where he was playing the emperor of the gods) to save a child falling from a building. Symbolism!!! The child "falls" for him, wink wink, and Xie Lian is not afraid to to do the right thing even if that means going against what he's supposed to do etc etc.

When he was 17 years old he became a god of martial arts. But after a tragedy befalls Xianle, he gets kicked out of heaven for handling it... Poorly. He ascends for a second time as a god of misfortune but is kicked out again within half an hour.

800 years pass and he ascends for third time, this time as a god of scraps. Unluckiest man in the world, straight-up not having fun 95% of the time, but sweet and humble because the world has repeatedly crushed him to dust but it physically Cannot Kill Him so he has to cope somehow. This is where the novel starts.

Important motif: sword in one hand, flower in the other/the flower crowned martial god. While Xie Lian is very pretty and soft, he can fuck you up. Dude is obsessed with swords.

Hua Cheng is a king of the ghosts. He's mysterious. He once beat 33 gods in duels of their choice. He wears all red. He can make it rain blood. He can summon silver "wrath" butterflies. Everyone in heaven is a little scared of him. Luckiest guy in the world (except for the whole being dead thing).

But with Xie Lian he is gentle and kind. Hes always down to hang out. He doesn't mind that Xie Lian is the bottom of the pecking order of gods, he always treats him with respect. He dresSES AS A GROOM WHEN HE GOES TO PICK UP XIE LIAN WHO IS, FOR PLOT REASONS, DRESSED AS A BRIDE.

Pretty much everything about his backstory is a spoiler, ranging from "you're supposed to figure this out about 20% of the way through the book" to "literally the big twist at the end"

Whatever could be the connection between them ;) and surely one could not describe their relationship as.... Homosexual? Look they're kissing for totally normal heterosexual reasons. Xie Lian just needed the spiritual energy.

Anyways Xie Lian may be a god of literal rubbish, but Hua Cheng is forever his most devoted follower.

I love them, even if it's Been A While since I sat down and read the source material.

Tgcf also features such memorable side characters as: two guys I fucking hate, not because they're bad people but because they're annoying and boring. Rusalka and the Shepherd Girl if they were both genderfluid and gods. Cannibal ghost you can't kill because he's your cousin. The child of the body your cannibal-ghost-cousin is possessing. Even As A God This Poor Librarian Experiences Misogyny. Quan Yizhen.

The second season of the animated show is airing right, so... I guess now is as good a time to get into tgcf as ever :)

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

I half agree with the above comment, and it actually could have worked really well with what we already had.

But i personally really loved the change. For me having the reveal happen halfway throught the series (the series as 14 episodes totaly according to mdl) and having Babe be largely unware of Tony's plans until Charlie reveals everything were a really good change to overall story.

In the novel it happens way closer to the climax, and then we do not see them together again until after everything happened and Babe then forgives Charlie.

Now I am still hoping that they do something with this change, maybe have their dynamic be a little off, having them feel like their moving backwards a bit, I would like scenes where while they work together where Babe keeps asking Charlie question about the past, and they go from happy times to tense moment. So that the situation doesn't feel like oh it's over now.

And then of course there is the Way stuff that is loooming over them.

I totally understand why some people might feel like that scene was more impactful in the novel, like getting the goodbye sex and the hurt and pain and all that drama.

But for me (again personal opinion no one has to agree with me) putting the Charlie reveal in the middle of the show means that we are getting Charlie and Babe being a team and working together and I really like that.

My own small fix to the fight scene would have been that instead of forgiving him Babe would have said stuff like "Ok I believe you, but I can't trust you, which means we are not fucking until I can trust you again" and instead of the date with the car sex, maybe he could have said to Way, "The Charlie is situation is more complicated, he is not evil, things are still weird, I'll explain later, I want to be alone now".

And then in the next episode we would have Charlie having to work a bit to make Babe trust him again.

Also it's seems obvious to me that they are not following the novel at all, and that we have to start waiting for novel scenes to happen.

Not only are more character paired up, I am betting that we are not getting any death scenes at all, Jeff is probably not an omega and in the series Tony still knows about Jeff still having visions (unlike the novel). And it doesn't feel like Charlie grabbed/stole as many powers as he did in the novel.

I think Babe's were the first and only ones in the series. And given that he wasn't intially aware of what his powers even were for a long time, so long that he spend like 90% of his time at the Mansion stuck in his room, Show Charlie doesn't seem to have the arsenal of powers to get rid off that Novel Charlie did.

Whether or not the changes work for people depends on what they do with their new ideas and direction of course. Also BIG SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL ----------------------------------------------------------

I could be clowing but I don't think they are going to do Babe secret real dad is going to show up and take away Charlie's powers while everyone thinks he is dead thing.

I do think there is going to be dead Charlie fake out, or maybe some kind sort of moment where he "dies" for a bit then gets revived. And the powers cross back over that way.

But again I might be clowing.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Speaking as someone who has seen many (and i do mean manyyy) different arguments and talks about adaptations and the strenght of each medium, I think that some of those novel moments would not have been as impactful on the screen (personal opinion, not saying they could have not have been done well - adaptation are treaky) and they would have been something that happens at the Episode 11 equivalant. Which means that us BL loving audience would have been even more likely to find it extra drama right at the end to break them up before they get back togheter because we have been primed to see break ups right before the final acts in BL.

So they might be trying something new.

Again just my opions, I just wanted to write another reason why I think this scene and this change as the pontial to be good in my own personal opinion.

I do agree that there were some scenes about personal agency in the novel that sounded really amazing. But we could still get a version of them. We do still have the Way plot and reveal to get through.

I know everyone’s joking about how omg “how could babe be so dickmatized to forgive Charlie so easily”, but let’s not forget this is an omega verse show. I’m gonna deep dive into some a/b/o stuff in pitbabe so buckle up :)

First off Babe has never had a good sexual experience with a partner. As an alpha he prefers other alphas but their scents make him sick. This is what starts his initial compatibility with Charlie.

Charlie lacks that pheromone, that alpha smell. Which means his smell doesn’t force babe to submit. When Babe is with Charlie he can submit on his own free will.

See the other thing is that Babe probably struggled a lot with power dynamics during sex. Even though Babe wants to be taken care of (well really all he wants to be bent over as we’ve seen), he is still PitBabe, he’s still an Alpha and imagine how hard it must be for an alpha to submit to another alpha.

Babe also still likes taking control in other ways. He doesn’t want to be completely submissive. He wants balance. And Charlie gives it to him. Biologically Charlie is a perfect match and that’s why their relationship progressed so quickly and so intensely.

And in addition Charlie is so loving. He compliments Babe all the time, he makes Babe food and feeds him. He treats Babe like an Alpha even though he himself is also one. This isn’t something many Alphas are able to do. Charlie and Babes relationship wouldn’t be the same if it was in the real world, a/b/o shapes their relationship. So I completely understand how Babe forgave Charlie. For Babe, Charlie is his one in a million. I also love how his one condition is was that from now on Charlie has to take care of him. They’re so cute.

At the end of the day babe is just happy Charlie told him and he’s just happy to be with Charlie. In a way I think Babe not having his powers must feel a bit relieving, but that’s a conversation for another time.

[chuuyrr]

Gojo reader comforting Dazai about what’s underneath his bandages.Or Gojo reader comforting Chuuya about “not being” human,in both scenario’s she is obviously accepting of it no matter how much they doubt it.

upon the tainted sorrow & no longer human — bsd x gojo! reader

masterlist of infinity

╰➤ CW(s): possible spoilers for stormbringer (bsd light novel) and dark era, mentions of suicide and self-harm on dazai's part, and major themes of hurt and fluffy comfort

╰➤ SYNOPSIS: in which your dearly beloved struggles with their inner demons, but you're there to comfort and wholeheartedly accept them no matter what.

╰➤ PAIRING(s): dazai osamu, chuuya nakahara (separately)

before you read: i read from somewhere how dazai and chuuya's abilities kind of talk about each other's past. also, lemme know if this new theme is better than the old one, and if you got the (somewhat) references i put into this.

upon the tainted sorrow — dazai osamu

the reason i love you is you being you, just you.

dazai was an enigma, and he still was. sure, there were many things you didn't know about him, but even without your six eyes, you're no stranger to the mask he wears; the fake smiles, laughter, and his jokes about committing double suicide with you.

although his eyes sparkled and his hands were warm as they held you, they couldn't conceal the emptiness, the black hole embedded in his heart, or the sadness beneath his bandages.

and the thing was, even when you two got together, your boyfriend never really told you much about his past, but you were quick to tell what dazai had been through. after all, the eyes were the window to the soul.

every time he tried to take his breath away, your curiosity and genuine concern grew. although dazai liked to make it light for every failed attempt, it was still heart wrenching for you, and although you never expressed it properly, mostly probably out of fear, you were scared that one day, dazai would become successful and he'd be gone. nonetheless, despite your fear of him, you loved him.

right now, it past midnight. you were supposed to be asleep under the covers with your boyfriend by now, but you were wide awake. you couldn't get your mind off what had just happened. you had just returned from tokyo, specifically from your organization, and were on your way home to your boyfriend's when he attempted again, but this time it was different.

he had gotten a little closer to death's door today, and you can only imagine what lies beneath his bandages as a result. after that, dazai didn't let you see anything. with a smile and a laugh, he simply shrugged it off as another failed attempt. you remembered seeing what was underneath when he got tangled up in the same bandages he was trying to change, and dazai was quiet for the first time.

dazai felt the demons inside his head come after him and flood it with thoughts because of the way you were staring at him with those bare heaven-sent eyes of yours as you changed his bandages and cleaned him up, but if only dazai knew that wasn't the case. you were staring for an entirely different reason.

you simply couldn't find the right words right now. your attention was drawn to what was painting his skin; the sorrow tainting him, and as he became tainted by sorrow, you knew how he languidly lingered on dreams of death.

so there you were, clutching the blanket, staring at the bandages that were still adorning dazai's arms and neck while he was still wearing his pajamas, wondering if you should have said something after you had cleaned and bandaged him up because after that, you two just went to bed in silence, pretending nothing had happened at all.

"[name]?"

when you heard your boyfriend's voice, your eyes widened in surprise. dazai was no longer facing you with his back to you, but had turned around and looked you in the eyes.

"yes?" you asked in a murmur, blinking.

dazai responded, eyes widening, "you're crying."

your cheeks were damped as you reached for your face, and it was only then that you realized your field of vision was also blurry due to the tears welling up in your crystalline blue six eyes.

oh.

"it's nothing," you said calmly, not bothering to wipe your tears away as you closed your eyes, adding a quick lie as a cover up, "just a bad dream, that's all."

"you had been awake all night, belladonna. i highly doubt you were dreaming at all," dazai stated matter-of-factly, running his fingers through your hair, his eyes softening at the sight of you crying quietly.

damnit. of course, your boyfriend is aware. dazai never sleeps, especially not when his demons keep him awake.

you remained silent for a moment, but only until dazai spoke up again, a small frown on his features, "is it because of earlier? if that's the case, i'm sorry.."

you bit your tongue for a second before opening your eyes to gaze into his, a small smile twitching on your lips as you outstretched your hand toward his bandaged arm, "hey, i love you, you know that, right?"

"of course i do, belladonna," dazai chuckled softly, wrapping his free bandaged arm around your waist and pulling you closer to his embrace beneath the covers.

you shook your head, causing him to furrow his brows and let out a confused hum, "huh?"

"i don't just love you, osamu," you clutched his bandaged arm as you buried your face deeper into his warm yet cold embrace, "i love you no matter what; no matter what you have or may have beneath your bandages."

as he held you in his embrace, you felt dazai stiffen and unconsciously squeeze you. your eyes widened slightly as you felt something wet dampen your hair as he buried his face in it, but you kept going.

"you don't have to be honest with me all the time, but I just want you to know that I'll be here," you continued, smiling to yourself.

"tell me, [name]," dazai's voice was shaky and incredibly soft, almost like a whisper, but desperate and longing, "why do you stay?"

"because i want to, osamu. i want to be with you, always," you drew back just enough to face him, gently taking his hand and cupping your own face, "and i accept everything that makes you who you are—i love you."

"no matter what, [name]?" dazai asked softly, pressing his forehead against yours and closing his eyes, "do you really mean that?"

"it's a promise, osamu," you leaned your forehead against his, closing your eyes, but not before turning your head to kiss his wrist, pressing your lips against his bandages.

your face was squished by his larger hand as he pulled it away from your lips, and the next thing you knew, you and dazai were laughing ever so sortly, with him kissing your face as he held you tightly. that night, the stars shone brighter.

no longer human — nakahara chuuya

your beauty never ever scared me

you and chuuya had something in common: you were both cursed in some way. you both had something that made you not quite human. so, knowing how you had your own demons, you weren't a stranger to the ones your boyfriend was dealing with.

it didn't take long in your relationship with him to discover that he was a vessel for a god named arahabaki, and that this fact caused him to question his humanity.

chuuya, in fact, never hid anything from you and was very open about it, especially when he discovered your six eyes and blood-relationship to sugawara michizane because you two shared a kind of inhumanity in a way. he did feel less lonely as a result of it.

even so, it was a constant struggle for chuuya, especially when he had to use corruption, the very manifestation of his ability and the god for whom he serves as a vessel, arahabaki. despite the fact that chuuya has no reason to be afraid of you getting hurt because your limitless ability always protects you, he can't help but be afraid of him hurting you and making you fear of him.

but most of all, the feeling of not being human; of not being qualified as a human, of being a disgrace, that washes over chuuya after corruption always gets him, and it's a horrible, horrible feeling.

you had just returned home to the penthouse you shared with chuuya when you decided to relocate to yokohama despite the fact that your work was in tokyo. it was a little late, considering it was already past three a.m. you stepped inside the dimly lit environment, exhausted as you removed your heeled boots.

you were on your way to the kitchen to grab a snack or two before washing up and joining chuuya under the covers in bed to finally get some sleep when you noticed him on the balcony.

you immediately changed your path and went towards him, where you saw him leaning against the glass railing, eyes seemingly vacant as he held a cigarette between his fingers and puffed out some smoke.

you were familiar with that expression, and if there was another thing you knew about chuuya, it was his penchant for smoking when he was upset. even if you weren't the type to drink or smoke, you didn't mind his vices. in fact, you were more concerned with chuuya himself personally.

"still awake?" you swallowed and cleared your throat. your voice was able to drag him back to reality.

chuuya turned to face you, his eyes widening in surprise as he noticed you standing right beside him, now leaning against the railing. you smiled at him, relieved to see him return to you in some way, and said softly, "hi, darling."

"couldn't sleep," chuuya sighed before putting out his cigarette. normally, he'd embrace you and smother you in kisses and affection, but he couldn't hold you or even touch you right now.

"chuuya?" you asked softly, gently removing your blindfold to reveal your six eyes to him.

"such nice things as a heart don't suit me..." said chuuya, staring at you with a lost, despondent gaze. your gaze was drawn to his trembling gloved hands.

you approached him, taking his hands in yours gently. to comfort him, you entwined your hands with his and rubbed circles on his knuckles. chuuya's breaths paused, but you continued your actions, this time removing his gloves, causing his eyes to widen slightly as they met yours.

"you once told me that these gloves give you a sense of restraint, a sense of attachment to the life you live—i could say the same thing," you chuckled softly, "i have to cover my six eyes to stay human."

while the gloves are for chuuya, wearing a blindfold or even sunglasses gives you a sense of restraint. when it came the two of you, it meant only one thing: you and chuuya were no longer enjoying the rush of a battle the moment you unveiled yourselves, and you two genuinely needed to defend yourselves. in other words, because you two are attached to your life.

"but to say such things as a heart don't suit you? i don't think so," you shook your head, gently pressing your lips against his knuckles.

"i'm not human, [name], and i never will be..." chuuya found himself unconsciously gripping your hands as he closed his eyes.

"i'm not human either, not with these six eyes and limitless, but we can always try, chuuya," you elicited a surprised look from him as he found himself relaxing as he heard your words.

"we can still be human together, even if we're both cursed with our blessings," you watched him lift his head, staring into your heaven-sent eyes that were giving him so much light and hope, "our blessings are not our fault."

chuuya's lips trembled as he shook his head, "but i'm not like you.. i can still hurt you. i can't be human even if i try, [name].."

"i'm not afraid of you or what you possess, and i never will be, chuuya," you exclaimed, releasing his hands and placing both of yours on each side of his face, gently cupping it, "and i will always love and accept you for who you are."

you leaned forward and pressed your lips against his, tasting the minty tobacco that was encapsulated by his lips and tongue. chuuya's arms snaked around you, tightening around you and deepening the kiss. as chuuya pressed his forehead against yours, the two of you drew back just enough to catch your breaths.

you closed your eyes, chuuya's lips grazing into a genuine smile as you softly giggled,

"your beauty never ever scared me, chuuya."

[ author's notes — i don't usually write anything at the end of my works, but i just wanna say, thank you for reading until the very end of this post! i know i haven't been consistently updating, and i'm sorry for that. school's being a pain in the ass and i've been stressed out lately that i haven't been able to write anything. so much has been going on from finals works, incoming college entrance exams and research proposal defense and needing to review harder at the same time as resulted into me sleeping late only to wake up and attend class and tire myself again :P it sucks so much that i'm just gaslighting myself that i'm actually getting enough sleep and doing great. sigh. so, if you're still here, sticking around, still reading my works, thank you. just thank you <3 ]

[aterriblethought]

some thoughts on Room No.9

A while back (like 5 years ago back!) I played through a visual novel called No, Thank You!!! and wrote up some thoughts about it here, so now that I've had a chance to play a game related to it, I thought I'd post some thoughts here. This time around the game is so short that I think I'm going to dive into the potential endings, so I'll call out at what point I'll be mentioning spoilers. This is like part review, part just me rambling because this game made my brain fall apart.

Room No. 9 is a BL visual novel game that was released in Japan in 2016 and in English in 2020, so I'm a little behind on the times. It was produced by the BL off-shoot of "Clock Up" called "parade" that also produced No, Thank You!!! The connection between Room 9 and NTY is kind of tenuous; they feature the same train station, so they probably take place around the same area and time period, and they both seem to feature the same shadowy organization that the protagonist of NTY was connected to. But that's about the extent of the connection and the game features no returning characters or plot points from NTY, and focuses exclusively on two new characters, Daichi (the player character) and Seiji. Similarly to NTY, Daichi is not a nameless PC but a fleshed out character; the game is fully voiced in Japanese for all speaking lines; and the amount of actual choices in the game are fairly minimal, which makes it a bit less like a game and more like a vaguely interactive novel. It took me about five hours to play through the first time so it has a fairly brief play time in comparison to NTY. It also goes without saying that Room 9 is most definitely NSFW. :) Similar to NTY there's extensive options for customizing the content and interface, and I was definitely taken aback the first time I booted the game and it asked if I wanted to turn the scatological filter on. "What am I getting myself into?" definitely crossed my mind at that point.

The story of the game can be summarized like so: Daichi and Seiji are best friends, and at the beginning of the game, meet up for drinks to commiserate about their recent breakups with their girlfriends (yes they're both straight). Daichi had been saving up to take his girlfriend on a 10 day trip to Okinawa, and it's too late to cancel at that point. The suggestion is jokingly made to take Seiji along instead, and the joke ends up becoming the plan, and not long later the two head off to Okinawa together. When they arrive in Okinawa, they board the bus to take them to their hotel... and the next thing either of them know, they're waking up in a hotel room. But the hotel room itself is odd; there's a giant video screen in place of a window, and the door leading out of the room is locked. Neither of them know how they got there. They soon find out they've been kidnapped as part of a "behavioral analysis study," and are shown a video demonstrating the consequences if they don't cooperate (involving the madness and violent death of past participants). The rules of the experiment are fairly straightforward: complete one task a day from a short list of options and earn ten points. If they earn 100 points, they'll be released. Assuming they manage to do a task a day, they can be out in about ten days. The tasks are a rather extreme version of a "would you rather" game, and involve either Daichi being physically injured by Seiji, or Seiji being sexually degraded by Daichi. The intensity of the tasks increases with each successive task, and a task that appears as an option one day may not appear the next. The game largely follows Daichi and Seiji as they attempt to navigate the tasks to escape as quickly as possible and, hopefully, not compromise their friendship.

I recently started replaying NTY, and these "experiments" are mentioned in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it line by Haru reflecting on the sort of things his "grandfather" indulges in. Daichi and Seiji spend some time towards the beginning of the game wondering about the nature of their kidnappers; the hotel's furnishings are upscale, and the food they are served is very high-end. The entire nature of the experiment implies an extensive amount of money is involved. It fleshes out a little bit the scope of just how massive and influential the criminal organization from NTY is that they can pull this off, apparently with quite a number of victims and a body count, and have never gotten caught. Why anyone would do this and how they can afford the cost is never really answered and we never actually see any of the kidnappers. The entire room is bugged with cameras and microphones, so my personal opinion is they sell the tapes or possibly even the data from the experiments for a lot of money. In any case I'm not sure it's worth thinking about that much, LOL. The nature of the experiment lends itself well to a game and it surprised me a bit that they didn't push the extent to which you could have really interacted with the experiment and the point system, but that would have ballooned the amount of narrative way beyond whatever I imagine the budget was. As it is, the game features over 2000 CGs, though most are just minor variations of the same art like eye darts and facial expressions.

Anyway, if you've read through this description it can definitely seems like this game has "fan disservice" written all over it, and you'd be right. This is a brutal game. I'll admit that I went in with some level of expectation of what would be involved and was WOEFULLY UNPREPARED. I am forced to admit that my imagination in this department is incredibly innocent in comparison to what some of the tasks were that Daichi and Seiji were forced to choose between.

And yet I really enjoyed this game and find myself struggling to say why exactly. What I did like is that the game really takes its time to develop the two lead characters and make you care about the stakes they're facing. What I also liked is that the characters' reactions to their situation felt very natural and not forced or overly dramatic. I think this concept had a potential to go to somewhere incredibly horrific and melodramatic, and they just never really go there (with some exceptions... more on that when I discuss the endings). Daichi in particular is a character who already has faced a significant amount of suffering and trauma in his life and recovered thanks to his friendship with Seiji. They already have a strong rapport and know how to lean on each other coming in, so the experiments are mostly designed to try to break the connection between them. Something that impressed me about the game is the way it depicted reactions to trauma... the descriptions of dissociation, especially, were absolutely spot on, and you can tell the writers did quite a bit of research (and it seems like the English translators did a fantastic job, so kudos). .. maybe a disturbing amount of research, now that I think about it. Anyway, I just felt like the characters always seemed real, and I often found myself relating to things they said or did. The progression of your choices always results in something that made me go yeah, I guess that makes sense, even if I never had any fricking clue what result the choices would have (they give you like nothing to go on, it's things like choosing whether Seiji keeps his glasses on during sex which seems like it would be utterly inconsequential but speaks to how much Daichi is thinking of Seiji's comfort). Also unlike NTY, both characters are essentially good people (I'm placing a big old asterisk on this again), so you want to root for them and for things to turn out well.

There seems to be only one "true" ending, so I'll say at this point forward I'm going to be playing kind of fast and loose with spoilers, so if you're actually interested in picking up the game for some strange reason, you were warned. :)

There are six endings, labeled with letters, and the ending I got the first time was ending D. Most of the endings follow a similar route and branch off towards the end. The D ending results in Daichi and Seiji escaping, but they drift apart and don't remain friends. For the most part I felt like this made sense as part of the progression of the story; Daichi and Seiji take turns being the victims of the tasks, with the scales weighted a little more heavily towards Seiji's side, and they are so careful to avoid tipping over their physical reactions into more-than-friends territory that they never really show any physical affection for each other whatsoever. I'll admit this drove me bonkers. I have no idea what I'd do in the same situation, but if it was my friend, I would try to reassure them with something at least as banal as a hug or something. But despite sharing the same bed, Daichi and Seiji always keep a physical and mental distance between them in this version of the story. I'd say it's probably the most neutral of the endings and maybe even the most realistic... it'd be difficult to forget about that experience and go back to being friends if you weren't able to help soothe the mutual sense of hurt in any way.

It's worth mentioning if you're kind of squeamish about the physical torture side of this game, it is very benign, and none of the endings I played went further than driving a nail through Daichi's hand. In basically any version of the story where it comes up, cutting off one of Daichi's fingers to fulfill a task is considered too extreme and not even offered as a playable option. Because the tasks include instructions and any objects needed to fulfill the requirements of the tasks, the physical tasks are almost hospital clinical in their depiction and very clean. The first time around I found myself wondering why this was even included in the game... if it's someone's fetish, it's not portrayed in any sort of fetishy way, and it just sort of makes you wince in agony for these two for having to go through it at all. I think it's mostly there to just split the burden between the two characters and because having only sex scenes results in the hell that is ending A.

It's difficult to say which is the worst of the non-"true" endings. I think if you're playing for the sex, ending A would seem appealing - in this version of the story, Daichi and Seiji pretty much exclusively choose the sex tasks, which puts a heavily emphasis on Seiji being victimized and Daichi being the aggressor. While this results in a LOT of sex scenes, the end result is increasingly horrific, as the repeated abuse turns Seiji into a masochist and warps Daichi into a sadist. In this version Daichi finds himself musing that cycles of abuse often result in a victim becoming an abuser, and as a victim of abuse himself at the hands of a violent stepfather, he resigns himself to becoming the villain. It's portrayed in a way that makes it seem as if Daichi is being considerate of Seiji; he doesn't want Seiji to have to compromise himself at all by being forced to hurt Daichi. Despite physically escaping the room, and returning to something resembling a normal life, I think in this version they never really do escape the room. Daichi and Seiji continue to have violent sex, and Daichi has even escalated to whoring out Seiji, though he hasn't yet accepted money for it. This ending was such a bizarre confusion of sex scenes and absolutely gut-wrenching sadness that the story would result in this happening to these two.

Ending B introduces Daichi and Seiji crossing the friendship line a bit earlier, pushing the requirements of a task to add kissing, but unlike ending A this only seems to add to the level of torment the two of them experience. The two spiral into despair, and at the end Seiji attempts to kill Daichi, and can't do it. They're both absolutely shattered, and perhaps wanting to spare Seiji, Daichi kills him. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the death of one of the participants will result in the release of the other, and Daichi is suddenly turned out back into the world, where he walks around in a daze, struggling to come to terms with what happened and the death of his friend. I was shocked that Daichi doesn't kill himself in this ending. I think the only reason I wouldn't rate this ending worse than A is because killing at least one of the characters seems to be a sort of mercy in this situation. My headcanon would definitely be that Daichi offs himself as soon as possible after the credits roll. He has nothing left to live for.

Ending C is very similar to B and follows some of the same progression, but given a choice, Daichi reaches out to Seiji while he's lost in despair and comforts him a bit. Taking physical comfort in each other spirals out of control, however, as they repeatedly indulge in sex as a means of escaping their thoughts and emotions about the situation. In that sense it is kind of similar to A, except that the characters don't lose their inherent values; they just become lost to the room, and never bother trying to escape, despite having made it so close to the end. This ending is definitely sad... but at least they have each other... my standards are so low!!

Ending E gets close to the true ending, but in this version after Daichi and Seiji manage to escape, Daichi insists on going to the cops in a misguided attempt to spare others the pain of what they went through. There's a bit of a disconnect between Daichi and Seiji in this version. Seiji explains he doesn't want to go to the cops because he doesn't see the point; the criminal organization is so powerful, there's nothing they can do. It's not mentioned but it's also possible Seiji doesn't want to go to the cops because he doesn't want the story getting out there and negatively affecting his family or reputation. But I think it's more likely the real reason he doesn't want to go to the police is he doesn't want the experience to continue. Making the case public means he continues to be victimized for life every time the story is brought up. At the very least if he keeps it to himself, he can pretend it never happened and go on with his life. If you choose to go to the cops anyway, it doesn't go anywhere; no one will believe Daichi, and he won't give them Seiji's name. Seiji disappears, supposedly to continue traveling, and Daichi and Seiji never see each other again. It's left very open-ended what happened to Seiji here; did he really run away? Did he feel abandoned by Daichi? Did he get kidnapped again, did the kidnappers do something to him as punishment for Daichi going to the cops? It's unclear, but a shame. The D ending is not great, but at least we know that both characters are alive and relatively healthy at the end in comparison to E.

The F ending is most likely the true ending and the only one that ends happily. In this ending, Daichi decides to not go to the police and instead to go have fun with Seiji outside their new hotel room. On the train into the city, Daichi is having difficulty processing a return to normal life, and instinctively reaches out to connect with Seiji. Seiji does the same. This seems to reinforce their connection to each other as someone they can rely on for support, and they go on to have normal lives where they're still friends, and Seiji will always be around for Daichi. I think for anyone hoping for an ending where the two end up as a couple, this will seem really disappointing.... but it's the ending that kind of makes the most sense for these two characters, so I think it's sweet. At the beginning of the game Daichi is a character who believes that no matter how difficult things get, there's always a better day ahead, and that he can get through anything with Seiji's help. Seiji saved him as a child in his darkest moment when he was abandoned by his parents, and Seiji is there for him again as they try to recover from the events of the experiment. It's nice to me to see Daichi retaining his hope and positive attitude.

All the endings that involve one or both of them going back to their lives after escaping, and struggling a bit to adapt, really hit me hard. I remember times in my life after surviving trauma where I went out into the world and saw people going about their normal lives and feeling an odd sort of disconnect, like there was a barrier between myself and others. It's almost physically painful the way the world continues to go on completely oblivious to whatever it is you're experiencing or have experienced. At one point early in the game Daichi muses about his situation and how you don't often think about how there are people out there at any given moment struggling to deal with something. It was just one of many lines in the game that felt so real to me.

I think that's about it... if I can think of more to say about it I might come back for a second post. Hopefully this time Tumblr doesn't delete this before I post. Don't come after me Tumblr sexy police!!

[thebroccolination]

I havent read the novel from between us,but i was suprised seeing youre post about youre fav scene..like the open house one, and that its probably gonna be in the series. like...beeing lgbt isnt really a big deal in bl´s. like homophobie doesnt really exist (what i like, cause its refreshing and a nice change, from the sometimes harsh reality) and most characters in bl´s are queer. like there are more queer then straight characters. 80 % are queer, so its not really a big thing. litteraly kinda everyone is into the same gender (its also the case in between us) so im suprised that there is gonna be such a scene tbh..im genrell curios though, how similar they gonna make it to the novel and what changes and all that. i also read somewhere that win is gonna punch team,after he finds him kinda throwning, is that true?!?! also what is the pool scene so many people talk about? Im curious..

Hi Anon!

Okay so! The thing I love about New as a director is that he's queer himself and outspoken about the kind of stories he wants to tell. He wants to tell multifaceted queer stories (and he loves drama). I imagine that's what drew him to Sheep's writing, because Red Thread is very focused on queer struggle and literal rebirth. Hemp Rope is much lighter by comparison, but it still has some very explicitly queer-oriented scenes and conversations. So the homophobia scene I talked about, the one I'm excited to see, is one of several queer-focused topics in the novel. And Win is canonically bi! Like me! I'm a big, big fan of LazySheep.

As for how similar the series will be to the novel: we don't know, but Sheep tweeted recently to assure people that the series will be very much its own thing and there will be scenes in the series that won't be in the novel. Essentially, it's a true adaptation in that Sheep took elements from her novel and adapted them for the screen. I'm genuinely impressed that she adapted Red Thread into UWMA and Hemp Rope (INCOMPLETE NO LESS) into Between Us. I'm a big, big fan of LazySheep

[SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL AND THE SERIES] The punch is in the novel. Everyone's mileage will vary on the scene, but I personally didn't mind it. I actually thought it was an interesting character choice since Win is so perpetually calm and composed. The way the novel set up the scene, Team is flippant and almost bratty about the fact that he nearly died, so I interpreted Win punching him as the only moment in Win's life that he actually lost control. Again, it worked for me in the novel. But when they filmed the scene for the pilot teaser last year, Boun decided his version of Win wouldn't do that, so he hugged Prem instead, and New and Sheep both liked the change, and it was received overwhelmingly positively by viewers, so they kept it in the main series as well (you can see the hug in the trailer).

[SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL AND THE SERIES] The pool scene is the larger event happening around the punch. Team sneaks into the pool after hours when the club is on break because he can't sleep and he's nervous about the upcoming competition. He doesn't stretch first, he swims to exhaustion, his leg cramps up, and he starts to drown. Win is there late doing his vice presidential duties, sees the light on in the pool area, and sees Team at the bottom of the pool. So he saves him. It's probably in the next episode. \:D/

I hope that helps!

[pharawee]

[I've accidentally deleted the original post so if you think this is familiar then it's because I already posted this yesterday. Here's a reblog of the original along with some replies but I wanted a version of this in the tag as well. 🙏]

I can't help it. I just feel so sorry for the Joe that used to be a model and fell into a coma for two years and is now just... gone.

I probably shouldn't. He's no longer there after all, and hopefully he's moved on/reincarnated by now.

But seeing as (for some reason I still don't completely understand) Ming makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I consequently just don't get Joe (aka the only Joe we ever really learn about) AT ALL, i have to focus on something.

And that something is how this Joe is really just an empty vessel for "our" Joe to pour his himself into. There's really nothing left of him except for some short glimpses of Winner Tanatat in a mirror. I know, this is deliberate. The story just doesn't have time to focus on anything beyond Ming and Joe, and that's absolutely fine.

Yet here I am, almost in mourning over a character we know nothing about. Was he kind? Was he well liked? Did he have friends? What about his job? What happened to him? Surely he was close to his mother because there's no hesitation in her love at all and Joe uses her picture as his laptop wallpaper. Beyond that, there's nothing. No trace of him remains. Not even muscle memory.

And sure, there's always a possibility that if someone spends that long in a coma they're not expected to wake up from, they might unfortunately be forgotten by most. But no one came for Joe after he made a miraculous recovery either. No one reached out. It's like Joe isn't only gone but so is every single facet of his life as well.

And I find that almost unfair - almost rude of "our" Joe not to make merit for someone he owes his second chance to. As if Joe only ever existed so that another person could completely replace him.

There's other Thai BL where the premise is kind of similar.

[SPOILERS FOR CHAINS OF HEART]

There's an extra chapter in the Chains of Heart novel where it turns out that the original Peter Lue's ghost is still around, wondering what happened and why someone took over his life. He moves on only when he's reassured that the new Peter Lue doesn't mean any harm and will continue to honour and care for the things most dear to him.

[END OF SPOILERS]

More often than not the deceased's life or even the ghost's presence is honoured and merit is made in their name if any kind of relationship or connection persists. That the same thing doesn't happen here makes me sad - especially if they ever find "our" Joe's body and lay it to rest when the same courtesy is never extended to the other Joe.

I also feel like it lowers the stakes of the whole transmigration thing. If everything remains the same except for a handful of fleeting visual reminders, and everyone who counts almost immediately recognises "our" Joe's essence anyway, then what's the point? Where does that leave Joe the model?

[motherflecker]

New triage episode. I'm sitting here shaking and crying. I need warm blanket and strong antidepressants. Squee send help 😩

ANON....... I CAN'T HELP BC I NEED THE SAME HELP

i haven't fucking weeped like that at a tv show in who knows how long. I CRIED LIKE A BABY. I SOBBED. I WAS UNABLE TO HOLD MYSELF TOGETHER. i'm still fucking weepy as i type this! my nose is stuffed! my eyes are wet! what the fuck!

i expected things to go BAD this episode but i did not expect THAT. it's like we got to the party and instead of going the way we thought it would (tol dies, time loop reset, tin has to Suffer again) -- it just took a hard left and went THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. AHHHHHH.

SPOILER WARNING things i'm kind of excited about for next week: tol being the main character, jinta and tol interaction, tol now having his own version of time loop hell??? i wonder how long this is going to last, is it just going to be an episode or is this going to carry us through the last few episodes? if tol does end up time looping in order to stop tin's death, how many more times are we going to watch tin die??? I'M NOT. READY. FOR THIS. NO???

also the fact that tol is wearing the same outfit he was wearing when tin had that "dream" about him. WHAT DOES IT MEAN????

holy fuck i mean this is all one way to reaffirm that tol is stupidly in love with tin just as much as tin is stupidly in love with tol. soulmates through trauma and time loop shenanigans! perfect! 🫠 UGHH I'M NEVER GOING TO BE OVER TOL'S GRIEF MONTAGE WHAT THE FUCKKKK. HE'S SO SAD.

watching this shit blind with zero knowledge of the novel is maybe, perhaps, a little bit hell. but i'm going to ride it through to the end, even if next week comes and ruins my predictions completely again.

that said -- this episode really showcased how triage took all the great foundation manner of death laid on what a bl can do and just fucking perfected it? this show is so damn good??? how is this a bl??? THIS IS A REAL SHOW, WITH REAL STAKES, AND REAL PLOT. WHAT THE HELL.

[suzuran777]

BLVN review: Paradise (PIL/SLASH)

Paradise is an 18+ BL visual novel developed by PIL/SLASH, who some might recognize for previous titles such as Shingakkou -noli me tangere-. The scenario writer is Kyuuyouzawa Lychee, who has previously worked on CAGE OPEN and CAGE CLOSE. The Japanese version of Paradise was originally released in 2017, but this month it's also getting an English release by JAST BLUE, which you can pre-order here! As usual the review will be mostly spoiler-free so I definitely recommend to buy the game yourself too!

Story Protagonist Azuma works at a local convenience store and his life is anything but eventful. He barely earns enough to pay his bills and also has no real ambitions. To his surprise, he suddenly receives a lottery ticket and wins a 6-day trip to Togajima Island. Hoping he would meet some cute girls during his trip, he's disappointed to find out the only other participants are also men. Soon Azuma realizes that this was not the luxurious trip he was hoping for...

Main characters

Azuma The protagonist of the game. His life is rather tedious and he doesn't really have any ambitions or dreams for the future, so he works at a convenience store and earns just enough money to survive. Voiced by Irakusa Netoru who's known for voicing Seiji in Room No.9 and of course Eiden in NU: carnival.

Mitsugi Architectural designer. Although he looks like the lone wolf type, he's a person with a lot of common sense. Despite that though, he gets angry surprisingly fast. Voiced by Ichijou Hikaru.

Matsuda Salesman. A responsible person who's good at taking care of others. If there's conflict, he takes a step back to analyze the situation and to choose the most logical solution. Looks older than he really is (he's 27). Voiced by Tetrapot Noboru.

Takara University student. He's very friendly and innocent looking. He's often teased by those around him because of his exaggerated reactions. Voiced by Yumachi Kakeru.

Hongo Tour guide. He's soft spoken and tries his best to be polite to everyone. Has a strong sense of responsibility. Voiced by Shinomori Hibiki.

Shimada Freelance photographer who joined the tour to take photos. Always carries his camera with him to take pictures whenever he feels like it. Voiced by Kishiri Tooru.

General info This game has three main routes (Mitsugi, Matsuda and Takara) but Hongo and Shimada do have their own endings as well and appear quite often in every route. There are also four other characters on the island (Kido, Uchimura and two unnamed guys). I actually wasn't sure if there was a recommended route order for this game, but I'd personally recommend Mitsugi > Matsuda > Takara. Though you can start with Matsuda's route too I don't think it affects the story much. I used a guide to get all the endings which you can find here, but you can also enable "easy mode" in the game which kind of guides you to the route you want to play. Usually, the bad ends were pretty easy to get too.

Just like some of PIL/SLASH's other games, this game does have horror themes and some of the CGs are a bit graphic, so be aware of that! If you're familiar with their other games I think you'll be fine, but I figured I'd give some kind of warning.

Let's start with a short summary of the common route! Azuma's dreams of travelling to a luxurious resort are already crushed when he's about to board the ship and realizes the island is uninhabited. Furthermore, he also learns that they will be staying in wooden cabins and have to cook their own food. Nevertheless, he tries to make the best out of the situation and actually ends up enjoying the first day together with his new friends. This positive mood doesn't last long however, as the ship that was supposed to deliver them fresh food every day stops showing up. Not only that, but they also lose communication with the outside world, as Hongo, who's the tour guide, is not able to contact anyone on the mainland.

At first the group tries to stay calm, hopeful that help might arrive soon. Aware that food shortages will be one of the first problems they will run into, they split up into different groups to look for ways to find food on the island. This proves to be quite difficult, as Matsuda comments that the currents around the island are unusual and the fish don't seem to be biting. The others don't have much luck either, as there aren't many edible plants or mushrooms on the island.

While exploring the island, they discover an abandoned village which most likely been abandoned since the Meiji period. Weirdly enough it doesn't seem like the former inhabitants took their belongings with them, almost as if they had to suddenly leave in a hurry. Another strange thing the group notices is that the storehouse has a jail cell in the basement, as if people had been imprisoned there in the past. Mitsugi mentions that this is not unusual for houses that were built during this time period, but it does make you wonder why people would need this on an island, and Azuma thinks the same.

Moving on to each route, I played Mitsugi's route first because I liked his character design. He's an architectural designer who came to the island for some work-related reasons, and at first he has no interest in talking to Azuma. This pisses Azuma off so he immediately tries to start a fight with Mitsugi. This kind of continues for at least a few days, but it was really funny to see their interactions. I was curious to see how their relationship would develop in this route. I think his route is a good one to start with because it doesn't really explain the full story about what's going on in the island, but I think it gives the player some interesting hints about what might happen in the other routes. I also recommend playing the bad ends, as you can also get Hongou's ending in Mitsugi's route.

The next route I played was Matsuda, who works as an salesman/office worker and traveled to the island for a well-deserved vacation. I wasn't sure what to think of him at first because he just seemed like a nice guy who liked fishing, so some parts of his route surprised me a little...! You can also get Shimada's ending in this route.

After finishing the first two routes, I played Takara's route. He's a student who similar to Azuma, also won the ticket for this trip. I think this route is locked (?) and for the right reasons because if you play it first it will spoil the entire game. In this route you finally learn more about the island. I can't really say more because it would spoil the ending, but definitely play the game until the very end so you can find out yourself!

Final impressions First of all, one thing I really liked is how the game really has no boring moments. I think my favorite character is still Mitsugi, but Azuma is such a funny protagonist and I always think it's fun how PIL/SLASH combines elements like horror and humor. I think I said something similar when I reviewed Dystopia no Ou, but these games always have such fun characters. I also liked the illustrations drawn by Kotomi Youji, the CGs are really nice and detailed.

Now I wouldn't say it's the most serious game ever, but honestly I think it doesn't need to be. This is one of these games in which I enjoyed the interactions between the characters the most. If you're a fan of BL games with dark themes I think it's definitely worth it to give this one a try! As usual, PIL/SLASH made sure to add some pretty dark and disturbing bad ends to this game, so I definitely recommend playing those too if you're into that. The dark themes are however also present in the routes that lead to the good endings, so if you're not comfortable with noncon scenes for example, this game might not be for you.

I played the trial version of the Japanese version years ago, but I had a good time playing the game in English this time and finishing all of the endings. Other than some minor typos and the game showing me hints when I wasn't using easy mode (I'm not sure if this also happens in the Japanese version) the English version was enjoyable to play. The game is also only 20 USD which is quite a good deal, since the Japanese versions tend to be more expensive.

Lastly, if you're looking for more content after finishing the game, Paradise actually also has two sequels, -MUSUBI- which is basically a fandisc that continues the story, and -KIWAME-, which is more of a re-telling of the first game's story. Apparently Takara's brother shows up in these games as a new character. Right now they are only available in Japanese though, so be aware of that!

[andoqin]

Novel Rec

Qiang Jin Jiu / 将进酒 by TangJiuqing

QiangJinJiu (QJJ) is about two men who at the outset couldn’t be more different, or really from more different circumstances, who are thrust together by the vagaries of politics and fate and find that they have many similarities that bind them together. 

Shen Zechuan is the only surviving son of a concubine of a traitor Prince (not royalty prince) who barely survived to adulthood (no thanks in part to our second main character) and is now on the path to bloody revenge on essentially the whole of this empire’s aristocracy. 

Xiao Chiye is the youngest son of another country prince, surpremely blessed in physical abilites and the arts of war. His family is responsible for a large part of the nation’s defense and so he is sent to the capital as a sort of hostage for the emperor not to suspect his family of traitorous thoughts as well. This is the worst kind of environment for him, because he grew up on the wide plains and hates the confines of the city, 

SZC and XCY’s first meeting does not go well (SZC is imprisoned and already close to death and XCY gives him a kick that is pretty much meant to send him to the underworld) but they both grow up imprisoned by the politics of the capital. SZC hides away for years, before he comes out into public to execute his revenge and at first XCY’s dislike of him holds true, but soon enough the fascination between the two of them leads them to have what is pretty much a one night stand. 

From there their relationship develops further and further while the outside world believes them to be on opposing sides. And while the two of them definitely have their own goals, they are an amazing force when combined. 

My personal feelings/review: 

I really, really like the way this relationship is developed, initially there is so much animosity, but you can tell there’s something else there too and they have sex fairly early on. Afterwards it doesn’t immediately develop into love, but neither can deny that the attraction they feel is real. SZC even goes to a brothel to see if he feels anything when looking at the kind of men/boys to be found there, but they leave him entirely cold and it is only when he is with XCY that he feels that heat.

One thing that I really appreciated was that SZC looks (and mostly acts) like a pretty boy, but he can chop people’s heads off like nobody’s business if he so desires and that’s something that XCY really appreciates about him too. He is ruthless when it comes to reaching his goals, as he needs to be, but if 

Furthermore the politics in this novel are insane in the best way, there are so many names you have to remember and so many named characters play an important part down the line. 

Another thing I appreciated, which is similar to LSWW, everyone (in their camps) knows XCY and SZC are together and it’s not really commented on beyond the fact that the guards often have to listen to them fucking haha. In the most recent (translated) chapters they have been talking about getting married as well! I don’t think that’s technically a thing in this universe but who’s gonna stop the two of them. They are *such* a great unit together, but they also understand that they have to fulfill their own goals. 

The translation is going very fast, currently there’s 110/282 Chapters translated with a new one coming out around every 3 days. 

I have no idea if it has a happy ending (if you have spoilers, pls hit me), I could see this ending up either way, but honestly what a ride no matter what.

TL;DR: should you read QJJ?

If you like really intricate plots, tropes like enemies to (devoted) lovers, murder couple, and possibly bringing down all of the aristocracy as a main goal? Yeah, do check it out!

Edit: maybe I should include links too...

English translation here: https://jade-rabbit.net/category/bl/qiangjinjiu/

Original JJWXC link: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=3373718