#star instructor novel

[laughingherring]

hello!! i just saw a couple of your posts about best teacher baek/star instructor baek and i was curious on your thoughts about the novel/how much you liked it and it’s best parts!! i loved the manhwa and the novel piques my interest!

Baek Suryong my beloved my poor littel meow meow <3 i definitely recommend checking the novel since you enjoyed the webtoon, it's a whole different experience to see things from Suryong's POV when he is somehow even more chaotic once you know what runs through his head! If you ask me about my fave moments from the novel, then i must mention the Namgoong family arc (should be showing up soon in the webtoon once it returns from war) because it has it all. There is Suryong causing maximum chaos, who in one fell swoop makes the whole faction first hate him then love him; there is lore from his time in the Blood Cult and info about his masters, there is Namgoon Su's glorious character development and the real start of his friendship with Suryong, there is face slapping (real). It's exciting! It's dramatic! It's fun! There are so many parts that i love, so i'll try and put them in a vague non-spoilery way to hopefully entice you to also read the novel ahead :3 The one time Suryong got a side job at murim alliance after insulting the leader, The time people found out that actually he's been seriously chronically ill this whole time, the time when Yeonho gained another cool older brother other than Suryong, That time Suryong squared off with a dragon, That time Suryong saw the curvature of the earth from space.... But what i like the most of all is Suryong's journey to learn to show and accept affection from the people he cherishes, to learn to be considerate of the wishes and hopes of others over his own goals and to break the cycle of abuse from how he was raised <3 Now re-reading the early chapters give the perspective on how much he grows over the course of the novel <3

[iamumbra195]

Baek Suryong is literally just a mean-ass older brother and I love it. His relationship with Gang Heonwon is literally the funniest shit ever, 'cause he's constantly bullying him but he's also teaching him how to get stronger and also how to navigate the world in his own weird way.

Watching Gang slowly become more and more like personality-wise is hilarious, he's literally a miniature version of Suryong at this point. Their sadistic streak, violent tendencies, always looking for things to tease each other and the other students about. Oh, and they're both kinda hypocrites who've made a lot of terrible mistakes in the past and are trying to make up for it and become better people.

They literally care so much about each other. Gang wants to win the martial arts tournament because he knows it's Suryong's goal (although that's not the only reason) and he wants to repay the debt he feels he owes to Suryong. And Suryong, when he still only had him and Cheon as students, decided that he didn't just want to be the best teacher with the best track record, he also wanted to be a good teacher, different from the cruel but efficient teacher he was in the past.

Suryong also goes out of his way to protect Gang, even when he knows Gang can handle it because he doesn't want Gang to suffer on his own and it's unnecessarily sweet. He's so protective of all his students but then he'll turn around and kick their asses; he's a mean-ass older brother that constantly bullies his younger siblings into shape.

I love them so much XD

[lichqueenlibrarian]

This paragraph dried out my skin and killed all my crops.

[river-styxxs]

I want you to look me directly in the eyes and tell me that Joshua had a happy time growing up in St Pavlov's 'We Abuse Children' Foundation.

Be so fucking for real

One thing I almost never see people talking about the characters is their storyboard, which for 5 stars who don't have character stories, is the only way we really learn about their back stories (Ik they make them for the 6 stars too but with their character stories it honestly feels a bit redundant)

Anywho

Lemme just read some excerpts from his storyboard:

"Trying to maintain a unique hobby at the School of Primary Defense of Mankind is a rather difficult task. On the first day of school, the instructor took away all his horror novels. Later Horropedia would frequent faculty offices, detention rooms and the School of Discipline. After some time, the title "Horropedia" was abandoned altogether, never to be mentioned by anyone ever again. Soon, he blended into the quiet campus, learning and living by it's rules and obediently completing every task, just like any other typical child, until he grew up"

Now, let's rub our braincells together for a moment. A child who, while had a happy childhood despite it, did watch his parents die, raised in a happy environment which gave him a special interest in machine maintenance and horror movies, and likely having autism, be thrust into an oppressive and cold environment where his special interests are taken from him, he's seen as a trouble-maker until he eventually masks to blend in and be an obedient child.

Yeah home boy was probably fucking miserable

Also the fact that npcs don't call him Horropedia, rather Joshua, indicates that he's only started using the title recently, potentially as recent as bumping into Vertin and Sonetto, and has probably only started acting like current day Horropedia recently, though not too recent as to where his reputation is clean as Sonetto describes him as questionable and Ms. Z states he often doesn't request for outing permission

Anyway he just like me fr

I literally used my own hand as a reference for him scratching his hand cus I do it all the time

[princessanonymous]

When Night Comes

Platonic Yandere Vampire

Previous Part | Next Part

First Chapter

7. 𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓺𝓾𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓮

The governess had begun her tutelage several weeks ago, immersing (Y/n) in a world of etiquette, reading, writing, and history. (Y/n)'s nights unfolded like the pages of a meticulously crafted novel as the governess wove a tapestry of refinement and knowledge around her. In the vast library that echoed with the whispers of ancient books, (Y/n) delved into the intricacies of literature, guided by the cold and rigorous teacher.

To make things more intense, she had been attending dance lessons with the vampire. As twilight enveloped the mansion, (Y/n) exchanged her quill for dance shoes, stepping into a realm where elegance and danger danced in tandem. The vampire nobleman led her through a series of intricate steps under the flickering candlelight of the chandelier. Each movement was a symphony of precision. The vampire was truly a demanding instructor. After each lesson, her feet ached, and the simple act of walking became an arduous task. The nobleman had relentlessly drilled her in dance, squeezing months of instruction into mere weeks.

Before the sun dipped below the horizon, casting its last golden rays upon the world, he roused (Y/n) from her slumber with an urgency that hinted at the gravity of the impending event. In the soft glow of dawn, he requested that she don her most exquisite evening gown, a garment he had purchased just for these types of occasions.They were to attend a grand ball, a rare outing that (Y/n) was looking forward to after her time of confinement within the manor's walls.

Following a soothing bath, a maid arrived to assist her in dressing. The process was notably more time-consuming tonight due to the intricate hairstyle and the numerous layers of her dress. Her gown was an exquisite blend of black and crimson, exuding an air of sophistication. She wore long gloves that extended up to her elbows, and a glistening ruby necklace adorned her neck. A red bow adorned her hair, and she completed the look with dainty satin red shoes.

"We will be departing soon, child," she heard the vampire call from the corridor outside her bedroom. "You ought to be prepa—" His sentence hung in the air, unfinished, as he stepped into the room and abruptly came to a standstill, his eyes fixated on (Y/n).

(Y/n) flinched as she wondered if she had inadvertently done something wrong, causing the vampire's sudden pause. He, however, broke the silence with an unexpected smile—a genuine one that reached the depths of his crimson-tinged eyes.

The vampire closed the distance between them, his movements deliberate yet filled with an odd warmth. A fondness colored his words as he addressed her. "Oh, my dear doll," he beamed, his voice full of fondness. "Crimson suits you impeccably. Smile for me," he gushed, his fingers delicately cupping her face, as if sculpting a moment in time.

His reaction was entirely unexpected, and she had never witnessed him being so effusive. The vampire's gaze, once intense and inscrutable, softened into something akin to paternal affection. With a subtle nod, (Y/n) complied, summoning a hesitant yet genuine smile to grace her features. She attempted to swat his hands away, but his genuine enthusiasm was uncontainable as he continued to coo and lavish her with compliments.

The vampire's smile widened, his satisfaction evident. "There, my dear, that is the spirit," he praised, his tone a melodic cadence that echoed in the room. “You look so much better when you behave.”

The vampire's outfit matched hers as he was wearing a red and black frock coat paired with a high-collared vest with silver buttons. As accessories, he wore short cream-white satin gloves and a single-layer jabot with a ruby brooch.

They eventually left the manor, once the man had stopped gushing about her clothing. As (Y/n) walked out. The moon was bright in the cloudless sky and stars shone brightly. The night was a bit chilly and she felt a cold breeze in the air.

A grand black carriage and a coachman were waiting for them by the entrance. She marveled at the beautiful horses. They were tall and imposing, one was black and the other was white. (Y/n) tried approaching them, then the vampire slapped her hand away and tutted. She glared, rubbing her hand to soothe it as they entered the carriage.

As the carriage journeyed toward their destination, (Y/n) couldn't help but confess, "I've never been to a ball before," she admitted with a mixture of excitement and nervousness, her eyes reflecting the glint of uncertainty. "I hope I won't make a fool out of myself."

"Do not concern yourself with such matters," the nobleman dismissed with a lazy, yet elegant wave of his hand. "You've learned everything you need to know, and you shall fit in perfectly."

Her gaze met his, finding solace in the conviction of his words. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips, a flicker of gratitude for the guidance he had provided in the weeks leading up to this momentous night. With a subtle nod, (Y/n) redirected her eyes on the road for the rest of the journey.

The carriage came to a regal halt in front of the grand estate. It loomed like a castle in the moonlit night. (Y/n), stepping out onto the cobblestone courtyard, couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu as the estate's dark and gloomy façade reminded her of the mansion where she had resided for the previous months. As she was observing the place, she wondered if all aristocratic residences were eerie.

They approached the entrance gates, where vigilant guards admitted them upon presentation of the vampire's invitation. Proceeding toward the colossal entrance doors, they were momentarily halted by a figure standing next to a butler.

"Duke de Beauvoir," he greeted politely. A subtle hush fell upon the conversation as he leaned in, adding in a voice barely above a whisper, "Madame Rossignol has been eagerly anticipating your arrival."

With the vampire's hand resting on (Y/n)'s shoulder, she only faintly registered the conversation, her mind wandering elsewhere. The duke's lips tightened as he responded, an undercurrent of frustration palpable in his tone, "This woman is quite persistent."

"As you are aware," the other nobleman continued, "with your companion's frequent absences, people are starting to inquire."

He squeezed (Y/n)'s shoulder absentmindedly. "I wasn't aware you had taken up the habit of conversing with coffee-sisters*, Marquis de Sauge," he inquired with an icy demeanor, his gaze piercing through the veil of polite exchanges.

The marquis, momentarily taken aback, appeared somewhat affronted. "Not at all," he hastily clarified. "I merely wanted to inform you that Madame Rossignol still maintains her interest."

A flicker of annoyance crossed the duke's expression. "I am not interested in that harlot," he responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Thank you for the warning, Marquis de Sauge," he stated, effectively closing the conversation and dismissing the man, who seemed to have received the unspoken message.

The butler approached, extending a red ribbon to the vampire. He declined it, squeezing (Y/n)'s shoulder once more. "She is accompanying me," he declared firmly, a possessive edge in his tone that piqued (Y/n)'s intrigue.

The butler nodded, replacing the red ribbon with a black one. The vampire graciously accepted it and turned to her. He tied it in a delicate bow around her neck, ensuring it was neither too tight nor too loose.

His face morphed into a somber expression and he said darkly : "Under no circumstances are you to remove this."

She nodded, gulping slightly. She entered beside him, taking her first steps into this breathtaking place. This place was truly a sight to behold. (Y/n) stepped through the opulent doors of the grand ballroom, her heart aflutter with a mixture of awe and trepidation. The ballroom itself was a masterpiece. Crystal chandeliers hung from the gilded ceiling, casting a warm, golden glow over the throngs of elegantly dressed guests. The walls were adorned with intricate tapestries that told the stories of the aristocracy's history, each thread spun with tales of grandeur and wealth. The very air seemed to shimmer with anticipation, carrying the faint scent of delicate perfumes and fine wines.

The strains of a waltz filled the room, courtesy of a live orchestra that played with such precision and grace that (Y/n) felt as though she had stepped into a world of magic. The dancers, resplendent in their lavish attire, twirled and swayed in perfect harmony, their graceful movements a testament to the elegance that defined high society.

(Y/n) couldn't help but be overblown by the sheer spectacle of it all. She watched in wide-eyed wonder as the rich and powerful whirled around her, their laughter and conversation like music in itself. She, a mere peasant girl, now stood on the cusp of a life she had only ever imagined, surrounded by beauty, refinement, and the intoxicating allure of the ballroom.

Yet, (Y/n) couldn't shake a growing unease that had settled within her. After mere seconds, she understood why. The guests, who had appeared so elegant and refined, now seemed to be hiding a dark secret. Their movements, appearing graceful and enchanting, were too fluid and eerily silent, their smiles revealing an unsettling gleam in their eyes. The orchestra's melodies that had filled her heart with wonder now carried an ominous undertone, a discordant symphony that sent shivers down her spine. The red drinks were served by servants and then there were the sharp, incisive glances exchanged between the guests, a silent communication that betrayed their shared, hidden nature.

Her heart pounded with terror as the grand ballroom transformed into a surreal nightmare, the once-elegant figures now revealed as creatures of the night. (Y/n)'s grip tightened on the duke's arm, her fingers clinging to him in a desperate bid for reassurance. Trembling, she sought refuge, instinctively hiding behind him as if the vampire's presence could shield her from his kind.

"They're..." The word caught in her throat, the unspeakable truth lingering in the air.

In a hushed tone that cut through the disconcerting whispers of the undead gathering, he whispered, "They will know you are meant to be treated properly." His fingers, gentle as a whisper, traced the black ribbon around her neck. It was a silent promise of protection.

______________

*: A 19th-century term for “malignant gossipers,” according to this website.

[tenthousandyearsx]

When I still didn't know much about web novels, I briefly attended a web novel academy on Ji Eunyoo's recommendation. The instructor was a writer who influenced a generation of genre literature. He had a quiet, nervous voice and spoke very slowly, which is why I dozed off during the entire class. However, one thing he said stuck with me. "Don't hesitate to include chances, the more the merrier. Give them to the main character."

ORV Side Story – Chapter 584: Episode 6 - Star Relic (1)

[roseaesynstylae]

I have a list of clones we need to see before a certain cut-off date (May 4th, 2026; I am being generous and giving the dictator Disney an extra year). I'm not fussy about the media type; book, video game, show, as long as it's good.

Cody: Of course! The man deserted and...? We can't not know.

Howzer: I need to know what happened to him between TBB and Rebels, even though I know it's going to break my heart. (I wouldn't mind a prequel novel about him on Ryloth, incidentally.)

Sev: Delta Squad is canon. His fate has been ambiguous for almost twenty years. RESOLVE IT. YOU HAVE THE POWER, DISNEY. USE IT FOR GOOD IN STAR WARS FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE.

Fordo: Reintroduce this badass. He deserves it.

Alpha-17: Can you imagine Rex's face when his instructor shows up to save him? Can you imagine the fans'?

Glitch: You think he'll take the Jedi Purge lying down (once the chip is out, anyway)?

[poomphuripan]

Professional Body Double // My Stand In - a Masterpost

Series Title: My Stand-In (ตัวนาย ตัวแทน)

Director: Pepzi Banchorn Vorasataree (KinnPorsche The Series)

Action Director: Khom Kongkiat Khomsiri (KinnPorsche The Series)

Producer: Yuan Wan Thabkrajang (I Feel You Linger In The Air)

Executive Producer: Poppy Parnsuk Thongrob

Episodes: 12

Aired: Apr 26, 2024 - Jul 12, 2024. Every Friday 8.00 PM.

Original Network: iQIYI

Original Novel Title: Professional Body Double (职业替身)

Author: Shui Qian Cheng (水千丞)

Genres: Adult, Drama, Mature, Romance, Supernatural, Tragedy, Showbiz, Angst

Content warnings: Abusive lover, noncon, house arrest

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Official Synopsis

Joe, the stunt man of famous actor Tong, happened to meet Ming. Having developed a deep relationship, Joe didn’t realise that Ming had always seen him as Tong’s replacement. When the truth is revealed, Joe has to take work on a foreign set where an accident takes his life. When he wakes, Joe’s in the body of a young man named Joe who’d met with an accident on the same day. With help, he’s soon living the same life as he was before—with the same people—and he meets Ming once more. In this life, Ming wants Joe back at his side as before and Joe doesn’t know why. Ming, who’s kept all memories of the old Joe, tries to find the truth about Joe’s continued life in order to return Joe to his side and give him the explanation he never had the chance to.

Main characters

Joe (Zhou Xiang/周翔)

Height: 181 cm

Birthday: October 20

Age: 29

Zodiac: Libra

Occupation: Actor, Stuntman, Martial Arts Body Double, Martial Arts Instructor

Personality: Gentle and generous, optimistic and open-hearted, mature and considerate. Independent. Easy going, not very ambitious, caring towards people around him. His parents and sibling passed away when he was 8 years old.

Ming (Yan MingXiu/晏明修)

Height: 188 cm

Birthday: September 6

Age: 24

Zodiac: Virgo

Occupation: Actor, President of a Mechanized Heavy Industry Company

Personality: Haughty, selfish, lacking in patience, stubborn and persistent towards things he has decided upon. Extremely attractive, cold, indifferent. Youngest of the three Yan siblings. Comes from a wealthy, prestigious family with millitary background.

Supporting characters

Sol (Lan Xi Rong): Young attractive popular actor who was once close to Joe. Sol likes Joe. Played by Porsche Tanathorn.

Tong (Wang Yu Dong): A popular action movie star. Tong is Ming’s crush. Tong is dating Ming's sister, May. Tong eventually marries May and becomes Ming's brother-in-law. Played by Mek Jirakit.

Wut (Paradorn Vesurai): Joe's brother-like close friend, who's also his boss.

Jim (Jiang Yuan): Ming's personal secretary and right hand man. Played by Billy Possathorn.

Mike (Yan Mingsu): Ming’s older brother. Played by Inntouch Naphat.

May (Yan Ming Mei): Ming’s older sister. May eventually becomes Tong's wife later on. Played by Shu Nunnicha.

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Where to read the novel

Chinese raw

English translation

Indonesian translation

Vietnamese translation

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Where to listen to the audio drama adaptation

Season 1

Season 2

Season 1 & 2 on YT with Vietnamese subtitles (Note: OP gonna private this video once the series has finished filming, so if anyone wishes to grab a copy/listen to it, now's the time 🤗)

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Production

Director Pepzi and Executive Producer Yuan first posted a photo captioned "Our new series project" hashtagging the Chinese novel title on 16 February 2023 so pre-production starts around February 2023. Yuan tweeted that My Stand In is the series that took longest to cast (8 months). 6 October 2023 was the fitting for My Stand In. Production begins filming on 16 October 2023.

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For latest updates on My Stand In series, you can follow YYDS Entertainment on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, IG, Tiktok.

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Source

[sgiandubh]

Dear 'Hi, darling' Anon

You are so polite and I am so sorry. But I am not going to publish your ask here. The question has been asked before, in many different ways, which tells me a lot about this fandom's - maybe understandable - impatience. The reason I will not answer it in here is simple: as tempted as I might be, I will not write the damn script.

I am an optimist and I believe these two are good people. It is as simple as that.

However, what I can and will do for you, is to tell you a real French story I will try to sum up as best as possible. You take out of it whatever you want. I am just the narrator, here.

I suppose you are not very familiar with this guy, are you?

His name was François Mitterrand, and from 1981 to 1995 he was the President of the French Republic. A cunning, even ruthless politician, he managed the feat of uniting a French Left in shambles and leading it back to power after more than twenty years on the opposition benches. He truly was the master of all combinations, with an almost diabolic sense of human nature and a cult for secrecy and privacy. So much so, that even in a country like France (where people are rather fond of gossip and backstage gaming, provided all of this is masterfully executed) he was nicknamed both 'The Florentine', in an expected parallel to Machiavelli, by politicos & pundits, and 'Tonton' (Uncle), by all the rest of the nation.

His only weakness was to have led a double life for 30 years.

A scion of a deeply Catholic bourgeois family of vinegar distillers from Jarnac, Mitterrand married the atheist and radical Danielle Gouze in 1944. They met in harsh times, while he was one of the chiefs of the French Résistance, after being an underling of Marshal Pétain's Nazi collaborating puppet regime, based in Vichy. They never divorced, even if the couple became increasingly estranged after the birth of three sons, in rapid succession. She found solace in the arms of a Corsican sports instructor and he, by now a rising star of French politics, went his merry way with probably hundreds of affairs. I bet you couldn't tell, by simply looking at his official portrait, but hey - never judge a book by its cover.

By the autumn of 1965, Mitterrand started his lifelong affair with Anne Pingeot, an Art History student at the fabulous Ecole du Louvre, hailing from a well-heeled family in Clermont-Ferrand. She met him in 1957, while vacationing with her parents in Hossegor, a posh summer resort on the Atlantic coast. Both families stroke up a polite holiday friendship, so when Anne went to study in Paris, Madame Pingeot naturally asked 'François' to keep an eye on her daughter. It took him two years to seduce her, with flowers, daily letters, books, midnight walks, art exhibitions, concerts, lies, stories, restaurants and drama - Frenchmen really, really are unparalleled at this cat and mouse game. They never broke up and if Mitterrand never was exclusively attached to her, she remained the love of his life until his very last day on Earth.

The only real crisis moment in this stars aligned story came in 1973, when Anne really wanted out of the whole charade. She wanted a younger partner, an easier plot and (of course) a child. He relented. Mazarine was born in December 1974, in the deepest possible secrecy, somewhere in Southern France (this is a well-known plot device in any good French Nineteenth century novel, by the way). Her father legally recognized her only in 1984, via a simple notary statement. From 1981 to 1995, the second family shared an apartment in a building reserved for the Elysée Palace top level public servants, on Quai Branly, in Paris. At the same time, Mitterrand kept his usual home on rue de Bièvre, steps away from Notre Dame cathedral, on the Left Bank and made sure he was regularly seen there by the press, the paparazzi and the odd passerby. Anne and Mazarine were always monitored by the President's security detail, of course.

Did people know? Many did and at least as many didn't have a clue. Mitterrand was a master at separating his social life into concentric zones, but even as such, lots of people in his intimate circle had no idea he was a new father to that little girl whose toys they sometimes saw in the trunk of his official car, or who happened to be around at political gatherings. They simply assumed the toys belonged to his grand-daughters, the fugitive appearance was a relative and in general, they knew better than asking questions. Sometimes, he joked in interviews, as in 1986, when he told, on a very relaxed tone, to French TV star journalist Yves Mourousi "a certain little miss of my acquaintance told me I have to be more chébran (slang for also slang branché - trendy) and as you see, I am doing my best". Nobody batted an eyelid. When Mazarine dutifully wrote on her first day at school, sometime around 1983, "President of the French Republic" under the Father's job entry on the yearly data sheet every pupil must fill in, the headmistress thought she was joking and never brought it up again. Some of her school friends were even invited for pajama parties at Souzy-la-Briche, at the time the week-end residence of the French President, and even met Mitterrand. Nobody ever spoke.

But some people did know and could not exactly remain silent. When Françoise Giroud, a legend of French journalism, published, in 1983, at the Mazarine publishing house (!), her roman à clef (novel with a key), Le bon plaisir (As He Saw Fit), heavily alluding to the Mitterrand situation, she was forced by her editor to write a very clear frontpage disclaimer. She also had to tinker a bit with details: it was a boy, not a girl, etc. But when venomous polemist Jean-Edern Hallier, disgruntled that his support efforts were left unrewarded, wrote a tell-all pamphlet  L'Honneur perdu de François Mitterrand (François Mitterrand's Lost Honor), in 1984, the manuscript mysteriously vanished without a trace (the book appeared, however, after Mitterand's death, in 1996).

All was revealed in 1995, by a paparazzi photograph being published by the reliable people's magazine Paris Match, with no intervention of the French Presidency administration to stop it. On its cover, a by now terminally ill with cancer Mitterrand was seen standing with Mazarine in front of the (wonderful) fish restaurant Le Divellec, in Paris, under the caption (I will never forget it): La fille cachée du Président (The President's Hidden Daughter). Body language was very clear (another caption: The tender gesture of a father):

And the good people of France could finally see Anne and Mazarine mourning him, on January 11, 1996, after he let himself die upon finding out that the disease attacked his brain:

First row, near the official family.

As I said, draw your own conclusions, Anon. I am not implying anything and I do not think, by any means, this is a copycat scenario. Two fifi la plume (= scoundrel, but also naïve) B-listers are not a powerful French politician, with a decisive influence on the country's society, media and secret services. The UK or the US are not France, never will be. The Eighties had no Facebook, no Twitter, no Internet and no cell phones, able and willing to turn just about anybody into a paparazzo. Mitterrand's fandom, if you want, was the Socialist Party and its army of ambitious technocrats, not the considerable mess that is the OL circus.

What I am implying, is that no secret, no matter how deeply buried, stays forever in the shadows. Have a little more patience and, damn it, faith.

I rest my case.

PS: Anne Pingeot is a Taurus. Don't mind me. I am just babbling, as usually. ;)

[laughingherring]

Novel Suryong is so much more chaotic than Webtoon Suryong, in the webtoon he just did Qigong marathon whereas in the novel

he blew himself up

[absolutebl]

Hi there! I've just returned from a two-week holiday (as I'm writing this I'm actually still driving back home, but I want to get on top of it lmao), so I would like to defer to your knowledge:

could you pretty please provide me with an update on what series ended/started while I was away? I have a vague idea, but I don't want to miss out on the things that didn't get as much promo and are therefore not on my mdl.

if you can, my watchlist will be forever thankful!!

July Report: BL that Stopped & Started & Is worth Your time

Ended July 2023

Step By Step

This was Thailand’s answer to The New Employee, and everything I loved about that show I loved about this one.

This was an office romance between stern boss and sweet subordinate that felt more authentic to an office environment than previous Thai BLs of this ilk. And that authenticity added tension to the narrative and character development (how novel). Now that might be because it has western source material, or it might be because it is actually kind of old-fashioned (it’s been years since I worked as an office grunt). I also really enjoyed the brothers’ relationship, and kinda wished they hadn’t attempted (and failed) to give said brother his own side BL. That one flaw made it a 9/10 for me.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

La Pluie

This BL takes to task the fated mates trope and what it means to have love chained intimately to predestination. It’s about how faith in destiny before choice diminishes the authenticity of emotion, relationships, and connection. This is a high concept to examine through the lens of a BL.

By activating + examining the soulmates trope this show is challenging a foundation of romance: the idea that there is one person meant to be your one romantic partner all your life. This means that we, as viewers, spend much of the show worried about it having a happy ending, and that’s the source of both its brilliance and tension: would the narrative have the strength to truly challenge its own romantic core? But, ultimately, all this elevated complexity was executed in a somewhat shaky manner with the narrative derailing into some serious pacing issues and characters manipulated by miscommunication.

However, with good chemistry and decent acting all around, plus some excellent high heat and representation of consent and a few other rare tropes, this one has to (like it’s sibling show My Ride) earn a 9/10. I enjoyed it even as it made me think, so despite its flaws:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Started July 2023 & Looking GOOD

Jun & Jun

Korea Thurs Viki 8 eps

THANK YOU BL GODS. It is so good. Like everything I want in the world. I’m incandescently happy with this show.

It’s office set,

it’s an ex idol,

everyone is pretty as peaches,

and it’s all about remembering somebody’s smell!

I could not be more delighted.

Laws of Attraction

Thai Sat iQIYI 8 eps

(Icky picked it up but they are serving it in a complicated way that may require a VPN.)

Stars the pair from To Sir With Love with the same production team. IT’S SO GOOD. A morally corrupted trickster lawyer with a tragic past, sad eyes, and a beautiful smile that he uses like a weapon. Meets paladin martial arts instructor from other side of the tracks (who is out, at least to his baby sister).

Corrupt police.

Spoiled rich kid evil.

Ambitious politician.

Tragic death.

Terrible subs.*

This show is very like Manner of Death but so far it is a much better/tighter story (there's a Devil Judge aura happening). It’s NOT BL but it is fucking phenomenal. And you should watch it. Not wait to binge it. WATCH IT.

On a global scale this might be the best thing currently airing featuring gay romantic leads. Its really fucking good. It’s Lawless Lawyer but more complex character motivation and gay af. Fuck yes please and thank you. FINALLY.

Triggers for violence, beatings, death & torture depicted on screen. Like MoD they are not holding back. 

(* A lot of the familial names they are using are not gendered in Thai but translated as such, like “nephew”. This one is gonna go down a lot easier if you know some Thai.)

ALSO:

Stay By My Side - Taiwan Fri Gaga 10 eps

Hidden Agenda that isn’t hidden - Thailand Sun GMMTV YouTube 12 eps

Low Frequency - Thailand Sat iQIYI 8 eps

Started But You Can Probably Wait IMHO

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI)

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki)

Wedding Plan (Weds YT & iQIYI) it's mame so A trash watch is happening! 

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga)

Hope this is what you wanted.

[lichqueenlibrarian]

This has echoes of what Spock says in Amok Time- “after a time you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting”. Jim’s only just acknowledged to himself that he’s been miserable for the last 2.8 years and is flinging himself back towards what he wants most- to be his old self again, with all the old self’s trappings.

[battlestory]

How “Battle Royale” Took Over Video Games

With a simple, ingenious formula, a Japanese novel has inspired some of the most successful games in history. By Simon Parkin

In the mid-nineteen-nineties, Koushun Takami was dozing on his futon on the island of Shikoku, Japan, when he was visited by an apparition: a maniacal schoolteacher addressing a group of students. “All right, class, listen up,” Takami heard the teacher say. “Today, I’m going to have you all kill each other.” Takami was in his twenties, and he had recently quit his job as a reporter for a local newspaper to become a novelist. As a literature student at Osaka University, he had started and abandoned several horror-infused detective stories. But the well had long since run dry; he had left his job with neither a plan nor a plot in mind. The visitation wasn’t a haunting; it was an epiphany.

In the novel that followed, an instructor sends forty-two junior high schoolers to a deserted island. The kids awaken to find explosive collars secured around their necks. They’re ordered to collect a backpack containing a map and a random weapon: a gun or an icepick, if they’re lucky, a paper fan or a shamisen banjo if they’re not. The students must compete to become the last person standing. The winner will leave the island with a lifetime pension; if there is more than one survivor, the collars will detonate. Some of the students choose suicide over submission. Most, eventually, comply and fight.

Takami was a fan of professional wrestling. He particularly enjoyed matches that involved wrestlers who made fleeting, mutually beneficial alliances, a style traditionally known as battle royal. There could be only one winner in a battle royal, so pacts were inevitably broken, lending each match a wary frisson. Takami saw a similar dynamic in adolescence, when friendships were easily formed and revoked. Forcing a group of classmates to destroy one another was provocative, but also strangely relatable. When he told a friend that he planned to call the book “Battle Royal,” his friend, confusing the term with a coffee drink, café royale, replied, “You mean ‘Battle Royale’?”

The novel proved controversial. In 1997, the judges of a Japanese writing prize passed on the manuscript, because it was too reminiscent of a recent murder, in Kobe, in which a fourteen-year-old boy impaled the head of another student on the gates of a school. But, in 1999, Ohta Publishing, a company known for provocative titles (it later published the memoir of the Kobe killer), released the book. It became an international best-seller; Stephen King named it to his summer reading list. In 2000, “Battle Royale” became a hit movie, starring Takeshi Kitano as the schoolteacher. Quentin Tarantino later called it one of his favorite films of all time.

Takami’s premise was well suited to video-game adaptation. The rules were clearly defined, the setting neatly contained, and competitive violence had been one of the medium’s primary currencies since the nineteen-sixties. Video-game technology, however, wasn’t quite up to par. In the early two-thousands, very few computers could simulate, in 3-D, the behavior of dozens of characters doing battle across an island, and very few Internet providers could calculate whether a banjo hurled by, say, Bob, in Kansas, would strike the head of Sven, in Stockholm.

Soon, though, such games would be more than possible: they would transform the industry. In 2020, Warzone, the Call of Duty series’ take on “Battle Royale,” attracted more than a hundred million active players, generating revenues of about three billion. The same year, Epic Games reported that Fortnite, its candy-colored, kid-friendly spin on “Battle Royale,” had three hundred and fifty million accounts—more than the population of the United States. (A recent lawsuit revealed that, when Fortnite was available on Apple devices, the game generated an estimated seven hundred million in App Store revenue.) Today, countless games, along with hit TV shows such as “Squid Game,” bear the stamp of “Battle Royale” ’s influence. Takami’s blueprint, drawn from a dream, has become one of the dominant paradigms in entertainment.

The story of that rise might begin in 2013, in Brazil, where Brendan Greene, an Irish Web designer, was living while saving up for a plane ticket home, following a divorce. Greene, who is assiduously private (his online moniker is PlayerUnknown), grew up on the Curragh Camp, an army training center in County Kildare, where his father served. He and his brothers played on the family’s Atari 2600 console “until it fell apart,” he told me, but he later fell out of love with games, which he felt were becoming too scripted—more like movies than the tests of skill and cunning he enjoyed. In Brazil, Greene was browsing Reddit when he read about DayZ, a punishing, survival-based video game that appealed to his desire for challenge. It was the first game he bought in years, and he quickly became obsessed.

DayZ was a mod, a new game built from the parts of an old one—in this case, a military-combat simulator called Arma 2. Mods, which are usually made by amateur enthusiasts, can be arcane and scrappy, but the scene is a hotbed for experimentation. DayZ’s game play fascinated Greene, who, despite lacking technical expertise, began to make his own mods to the mod. He added a fortress in the middle of the map; players would enter empty-handed, scavenge for weapons, then fight to the death. Unlike most competitive video games at the time, in which characters respawned after dying, Greene’s mod radically gave each player a single life. When you were out, you were out.

The rules evoked “The Hunger Games,” a series of books that share a similar premise to “Battle Royale.” (The series’ author, Suzanne Collins, has insisted that she was unaware of Takami’s work when she wrote the books). One of Greene’s collaborators suggested the title “Hunger Gamez,” but Greene had worked long enough in marketing to know he was “going to get sued if we did that,” he told me. While studying fine art in Dublin, Greene had watched “Battle Royale.” Recalling the film’s poster, which showed two schoolchildren, one holding an axe, the other a shotgun, he mocked up an image that placed his game’s character in a similar pose, alongside the text “DayZ: Battle Royale.”

Greene drew further inspiration from the film. He replaced his game’s fortress with a barn, and arranged twenty-four backpacks at its far end, each containing a grenade, a pistol, a bandage, or a chainsaw. At the beginning of a match, which lasted ninety minutes, the players arrived at one end of the barn. “If you were smart, you didn’t give a fuck about the backpacks and you just ran,” Greene told me. “But new players would rush forward. Someone would get the gun. Then everyone would be screaming.”

In Takami’s novel, portions of the island become off limits at regular intervals, forcing the classmates into smaller spaces. Greene wanted a similar way to narrow the field. Dividing the island into squares was beyond his programming ability, so he placed a tightening circle onto the map; if a player wandered outside it, their character would quickly expire. Each match now enjoyed a natural, exhilarating crescendo.

DayZ: Battle Royale went online in September, 2013. The game used six servers, which Greene managed by hand; he stayed awake for forty-eight hours at a time, acting as a virtual bouncer, allowing new players in and locking the room when it was full. An obscure nook of the Web became a coveted hangout. “People were waiting for hours, even days, to get in,” he recalled. Saqib Ali Zahid, a popular American video-game streamer known as Lirik, was an early player. “He kept coming back for one more game,” Greene said. “A guy of discerning taste like that . . . I was onto something.”

Greene’s mod soon caught the attention of industry professionals. On Twitter, he received a message from John Smedley, the then president of Sony Online Entertainment, who invited him to San Diego to design a battle-royale mode for H1Z1, a game in development. “Here was an opportunity to get my game in front of a global audience,” Greene told me. He joined as a consultant, but left after finding that the H1Z1 team had simplified his vision. Several other companies had become interested in making battle-royale games, and Greene worried that his idea was being wrested from his control. “I was, like, ‘Hello?’ ” he said.

In 2016, Greene received an e-mail from Changhan Kim, a game developer from South Korea, offering him the chance to make a battle royale to his specifications. That March, the day before his fortieth birthday, Greene immigrated to South Korea, and a year later his team released PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or pubg. pubg was based closely on Greene’s original mod, with a few elegant adjustments: a hundred players would now enter the map by jumping from a plane, allowing each to choose whether to head toward a popular area, for immediate tussling, or toward a more remote spot, to scavenge. The game was an immediate blockbuster, earning eleven million dollars in three days. In 2018, it passed a billion in sales.

To read or watch a battle royale is an intense experience. But to participate in one involves a different tier of exhilaration, which flings one between states of anguish and euphoria. The sense of being at once hunter and prey feels primal. The first time I played pubg, I forced my character to crouch in his underpants in a bush, hypervigilant for the sound of approaching footsteps. Eventually, having secured a shotgun and a few improving attachments, I trembled my way to the top of a hill, where I lay nauseous with adrenaline. After a while, another player stepped on my character. A brisk fusillade later, I was out.

“Often, in multiplayer games, you’re just running around, racking up points,” Frank Lantz, the founding director of the New York University Game Center, told me. “That works well, but it has a samey intensity, like a piece of music that starts out fast and stays fast. Battle royale has a built-in structure and dramatic arc.” In 2021, Lantz released a Scrabble-themed battle-royale game called Babble Royale, which he co-designed with his son. “In game design, you’re always looking for rules that interact in particularly interesting ways,” he told me. A battle royale’s steadily reducing map heightens a game’s intensity, and the fact that each player has a single life raises the stakes, making each victory unforgettable. “Every action matters,” the professional Call of Duty player Ben Perkin told me. “The closer you get to the end, the more invested you become on staying alive, for that rush of a win.”

Video games broadly fall into two categories: those which, like sports, emphasize competition, and those which, like films, emphasize storytelling. Battle royale is a rare harmonious combination, a mode that encourages both dynamic, dramatic vignettes and high-stakes rivalry. At Infinity Ward, the Los Angeles-based co-developer of the Call of Duty series, which has long established the template for online competitive shooting games, pubg was disruptive and divisive. “You could see it propagating through the office like wildfire,” Joe Cecot, the studio’s multiplayer-design director, said. “People were, like, ‘How do we make something like this? What would our twist on this be?’ ”

Introducing battle royale to a marquee series was a major risk. Call of Duty’s dominant mode had been Team Deathmatch, where two teams compete across small, carefully engineered environments, and where players can reënter the field a few moments after they’re eliminated. Battle royale, with its meandering combat and vast map, required a profound redesign. The team got to work on a new mode called Warzone, assigning six designers to build a large-scale environment using the game’s existing engine. (They loosely based the map on the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.) In order to introduce bullet drop-off over long distances, they rewrote the game’s ballistics system, and in the process realized that the series had sped up over the years, with characters running at about fifty miles per hour. In Warzone, this made it nearly impossible to hit a moving target at range. The animators installed a line of L.E.D. lights in the studio, which would trigger in sequence to show the speed at which characters ran; after attempting to race the lights, they reduced the top speed by twenty per cent, causing some on the team to balk. “One designer said to me, ‘Congratulations, you have ruined this game,’ ” Infinity Ward’s studio head, Patrick Kelly, told me.

The team also played with the established template. “We felt that battle royale was a bit too punishing,” Kelly said. “The fact you can randomly get shot in the head encourages players to hide until the herd is culled. That brutality promotes conservatism over action.” Inspired by a popular in-house mode, Kelly suggested that they introduce a kind of purgatory: eliminated players would be sent to a “gulag,” where they would take part in a one-on-one match against another loser, with the victor returning to action. This, too, was contentious. “We heard, ‘This is not battle royale—this is terrible,’ ” Kelly said.

The anxiety that Warzone would ruin the Call of Duty franchise was intense. One afternoon, Kelly was so preoccupied while driving home from the office that he ran into a stop sign, crashing his car. But when Warzone launched, in March, 2020, it became an immediate success, with more than six million downloads in twenty-four hours. “It was a transcendent moment,” Joel Emslie, the studio’s art director, told me. “It completely reënergized the franchise. Now the sky is the limit.”

One of battle royale’s virtues is its legibility: any onlooker can understand what’s happening, which is often not true with video games. On YouTube, the channel TopWARZONEMoments posts a daily twenty-minute-long highlight reel showing skilled or amusing moments of play. Within hours, each video attracts tens of thousands of views.

In the past, this straightforward voyeurism has occasionally been paired with political critique. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” begins with a battle royale: a group of young Black men are blindfolded, then forced to fight in a basement for the amusement of drunk, wealthy white professionals. Even Takami’s book, though less overtly symbolic, uses the game to question the status quo. The novel takes place in a world where Japan won the Second World War, emerged as a Fascist power, and brutally suppressed any rebels; the battle royale is a military program meant to seed fear in the country’s youth. But Takami also targets the lure of conformity. His mother lived through the Second World War, and she told him that, though many citizens opposed Japan’s involvement, they feared the danger of protesting. “Even if a rule is clearly ridiculous, nobody will speak out against it,” he wrote later. In the novel, most of the students acquiesce to the game’s rules.

In the video-game medium, where players prize novelty—and, typically, not social commentary—the key to battle royale’s future may lie not in tweaking its rules but in deepening its story. In November, Activision released Warzone 2.0, which introduces some new mechanics. There’s now more than one safe circle, so players are herded into pockets of refuge, and it’s possible to interrogate downed opponents, making them reveal the position of their teammates. These embellishments add subtle points of difference, but it’s unlikely that they’ll energize the form. “Battle royale will now always be a part of the tool kit, in the same way that we’re never not going to have the fifty-two-card deck,” Lantz said. “But there’s not a lot of people making new games for the fifty-two-card deck. When a thirteen-year-old hears that there’s a new battle-royale game coming out today, it’s already a little bit boring. Like, you know, boomer stuff.”

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 19

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another.”

Number 19 is…Will Graham, from Hannibal.

Before I get into the sort of nitty-gritty things with this character, I need to clarify something: I’m referring here SPECIFICALLY to the version from the TV series “Hannibal," played by Hugh Dancy. This, of course, is not the only version. Will Graham, of course, started off in the book “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris…but I have read none of Harris’ novels, so I can’t really comment on his literary origins. In films, there have been two versions of Will, both taken from screen adaptations of the same book. The first was “Manhunter,” which starred William Petersen (a.k.a. Gil Grissom from CSI, who appeared earlier in the countdown). The second was “Red Dragon,” a sequel to the much-lauded “Silence of the Lambs,” which had Edward Norton as the character.

I have nothing against Norton or Petersen as actors, and neither of their portrayals of Will Graham are really all that bad. However, in both cases, they feel a bit too similar to other characters I’ve seen in other movies. They’re not invalid approaches, but they don’t feel like they stand out a lot when compared to various other detective figures, at least in my opinion. Dancy’s Graham is a whole different story. Not only does Dancy benefit from the series being able to do more than either film could accomplish, on account of being longer, but I feel it does a great job expanding on concepts present in those earlier versions (and, I presume, in the book), and creates a much more unique and fascinating character overall.

In “Hannibal,” Will starts off as a forensics instructor at the FBI academy. He has abandoned field work due to depression and stress, both of which are caused by his signature ability as a detective: Graham has what is termed as “pure empathy,” which allows him to almost literally see a crime through a killer’s eyes. He’s able to not only put the pieces together, as any great detective does, but he can actually FEEL the way the killer felt during the course of any crime. He can understand their motives and their emotional standpoints in a way nobody else seemingly can. While this ability does allow Will an advantage in solving cases, it’s just as much a curse as a blessing: some crimes you can understand on a basic, sympathetic level, sure, but Will has the strange ability to empathize with even the most depraved and disgusting human beings. Somewhere deep down, he feels he’s just as rotten as any murderer, and so his skills are also something he struggles to contain.

In the show, Graham befriends the titular character and villain protagonist of the series, Hannibal Lecter (played by Mads Mikkelsen). Lecter is a twisted psychiatrist who is secretly a criminal mastermind, as well as a serial killer: a cannibalistic psychopath who enjoys turning his victims into gourmet meals. Lecter forms a strange bond with Graham, and tries to push him into embracing his dark side and becoming a villain himself. The series focuses on the unusual ups and downs of the pair’s warped and highly peculiar relationship, as they alternate from hating each other as much as any person can hate anyone, to having ties so close to each other it borders on the romantic. This is somewhat like our previous pick, L from Death Note; Graham has the advantage of getting to stay through the entire story.

I love seeing the journey Will goes on in the show, and I feel this version tapped into something different that earlier screen versions didn’t quite recognize. The relationship between the two main characters is what really makes this show work, beyond anything else. Ultimately, the main reason Will from “Hannibal” doesn’t rank higher is also the same as our previous pick: he’s the main detective, and a major part of the story, but he’s not actually the protagonist. The rest of our options to come are.

Tomorrow, the countdown reaches the halfway point, with Number 18!

CLUE: "You don't have to trust me, as long as you can persuade me to trust you."

[the-gnomish-bastard]

Dungeons and Dads! Guess what fuckers? This is a two parter! That’s right, we’re doing warlocks! Part one is if your dad was the warlock and part two is if your dad was the patron.

Let’s cover some simple basis first. Pact boons!

Pact of the Blade? Your dad took dueling lessons and will stab someone.

Pact of the Chain? Dad got a new pet. The pet speaks in tongues.

Pact of the Tome? Dad’s writing a novel. No idea what it’s about.

Pact of the Talisman? Dad’s suspiciously lucky rabbit’s foot.

Onto subclasses!

Archfey? Dad met a guy in a forest while hunting. They seem to get along very well. Ever since then, dad’s been a bit… odd.

Celestial? Your dad found god. Not metaphorically, he literally found god. Or so he says.

Fathomless? Dad went fishing and came back with a bucket of tentacles.

Fiend? Dad joined a group who you’re 94% sure is a cult, but he’s having fun so why ruin it.

Genie? Dad bought a lamp from a garage sale and won’t let anyone else near it.

Great Old One? Your dad used to love gazing at the stars with you. But ever since he did it alone that one time when you were sick, he seems very reluctant to look at what might be out there in the night sky. You never took your dad to be the paranoid type, but you can’t help wondering what he means when he says “You never know who could be watching.”

Hexblade? You’re 87% sure dad’s fencing instructor is a witch or evil hag.

Undead? Dad was never quite the same after the accident. He says he’s the same and that he loves you, but you don’t see any feeling behind those eyes of his. At times, they seem almost glassy and cloudy. He hugs you, but you feel no warm embrace. His hands are always cold, and he doesn’t notice when he gets burned while cooking. What happened to your dad?

[tricorderreading]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The very first paragraph of the movie novelization is kirk explaining where his name originates

(what the fuck is a love instructor???)