#vier great men academy

[bl-bracket]

Poorest Little Meow Meow NOT from a BL: Bonus Round

[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]

Han Juwon: He is a typical kdrama lead in theory, his mom has been taken from him at a young age, his dad sent him far away to private schools and is using him in his political schemes. Han Juwon has mysophobia, not a social bone in his body and a RBF that do not endear him to people at all. He's not above using people and a little tweaking of the law to reach his goals.

Wave:

Ryu Sooyel: look how soppy wet he is. no one respects him. not even himself

Vier:

Kishimoto Ruka:

Katha: Khatha is such a poor little meow meow that he should be allowed to participate.

Lee Dongsik: He has been wrongly accused of killing his twin sister 20 years ago but never really cleared his name (no body, no crime, no convicted murderer) and is still searching for her. People still think he did it and are not afraid to treat him like shit. He's heavily traumatized. And let's say he's not above a little manipulation and crime to find his sister and her murderer

Jiang Zisuan: he spent like half of his life trying to avenge the death of his older sister and then for some reason just cant seem to actually do that before (SPOILER) dying in a random woman‘s arms who he employed because she looks like his sister and imagining that its actually her. she also was kind of in love with him which made this whole situation worse. and he killed so many people on the way except the guy he actually wanted to

Yun Biqui: SPOILER WARNING FOR SERIES: Ten years ago, Yun Biqiu was tricked into betraying the sect leader he idolized, Li Xiangyi. At the behest of a beautiful woman, he poisoned LXY; he only intended to temporarily incapacitate LXY, but the antidote he was promised turned out to be fake. LXY disappeared and was presumed dead, and Biqiu never stopped blaming himself and hoping that LXY would return. EXTREME SPOILER WARNING FOR END OF SERIES: When LXY eventually did return ten years later, Biqiu pretended to be re-beguiled by the beautiful woman in order to sabotage her evil schemes; to convince her of his loyalty, he also pretended to betray LXY again, stabbing him non-fatally and bringing him to her. His sabotaging allowed LXY to escape, though, and helped contribute to the defeat of all the baddies. Despite this, he still believed that he deserved to die for everything he'd done previously; when confronted with his past treachery and presumed current treachery, he did not defend himself, and would have willingly submitted to his own execution. Luckily, LXY arrived in time to reveal the truth of Biqiu's regret and loyalty, and also finally gave Biqiu peace by forgiving him for what he'd done ten years ago. And Biqiu cried 🥺

Master Amin: girlbossed to close to the sun

Shiro: Sleeping with a sleazy, much older politician in order to get information about his missing sister, who isn’t even his sister by blood. Openly gay yakuza and ready to fight about that. Cohabitating with a painfully strait laced and uptight virgin penguin. (A cop. Not a literal penguin.)

[gabrielokun]

[clairedaring]

GREAT MEN ACADEMY (2019) | 1.05

[poomphuripan]

Do you have any show recommendations for this weekend? Or anything catches your attention for the next couple months? My stand in has been raising the bar so much, none of the currently aired shows are worth watching T.T 4 minutes seems alright but they have like 8 episodes only, I’m so afraid to get hopes up

hi nonnie (❁´◡`❁)

fridays are so dull without my stand-in i know, also saturday too when wandee gooday ends this week (┬┬﹏┬┬). but there are some very good series about to start soon and currently airing... perhaps you can give these a try?

Century Of Love - magical realism, action, romance, comedy

Synopsis: San is faithfully devoted to his love. He has spent his life waiting for his lost beloved, Wat, to reincarnate from her death a century ago. But when the darkness of the night looms, he will be forcibly afflicted by the power of the five shades stone. If he fails to find Wat within this century's time window, he will inevitably succumb to a tragic death for eternity. The final year of the century is about to end before the stone's power turns into his eternal curse. He meets Vee, a frivolous, charming adonis who seems connected to his life. San is appalled by Vee at first sight, but this unrelated boy is actually his beloved Wat, whom he has been anticipating for almost a century.

my thoughts so far: it's really fun, quite fast paced (understandably since there's only 10 eps and there are 2 eps airing each week), the chemistry is fantastic, as expected of daouoffroad.

Meet You At The Blossom - wuxia, romance

Synopsis: Jin Xiao Bao, the son of the wealthiest man in the Jiangnan region, falls in love with icy, white-clothed beauty Huai En due to an unexpected meeting. This young woman he sees as his future wife, however, seems to have aroused a lot of enmity. When he comes to the rescue of an injured Huai En, who's tainted by an aphrodisiac, the true identity of this beauty is revealed.

my thoughts so far: i haven't caught up with the latest ep but first two eps have been fun. it's adapted from the debut novel of shui qian cheng who wrote professional body double aka my stand in novel so you can see similar traits of her typical scum ml in huai en. the actors are probably rookie so the acting leaves much to be desired and a lot of room for improvement in that aspect but supporting it anyway since it's the first uncensored wuxia bl freed from censorship limbo.

Currently these two are the only "pure" BL series i'm watching because most of the time i just end up rewatching series i already know and love. I'm always on a casual Nadao/GDH rewatch, so if you haven't seen these before, I highly recommend them, not QL but they're fun nonetheless.

Great Men Academy - magical realism, unicorn hijinks, body transformation, queer

Synopsis: Love has always been a fan of the popular guy Vier of the famous Great Men Academy but has never had the chance to meet him. One day, she sees the mystical unicorn rumored to fulfill wishes and wished for her love for Vier to get a chance. Unfortunately the unicorn interpreted her wishes in a different way and Love wakes up to find herself… as a guy?

my thoughts: i have watched this series more than 20 times in full, and lost count of the times i've casually rewatched certain eps. it's just super wholesome and TANGMO BEST BOY! watch this for tangmo best boi, you shall not be let down by scene stealer tangmo and his 5 minutes screentime.

Bad Genius The Series - academic rivalry, heist, thriller, drama

Synopsis: Lin, a genius high school student who makes money by cheating tests, receives a new task that leads her to set foot on Sydney, Australia. In order to complete the millions-Baht task, Lin and her classmates have to finish the international STIC (SAT) exam and deliver the answers back to her friends in Thailand before the exam takes place once again in her home country.

my thoughts: if someone asked me what is the most perfect thai series i've ever watched, i would choose this series in a heart beat. bad genius the series is one of the rarest case where i genuinely believe a series remake has outdone its film predecessor (worth noting that one same studio produced both). it's got the perfect amount of angst and tension and cinematography style that i adore. if you want a breath of fresh air, i HIGHLY recommend this series for a change from all the other ql series airing.

ps: if you can't find official links to watch the two series above, don't feel bad about watching them in unofficial/grey websites because the original platform they were on shut down 2 years ago ಥ_ಥ they're literally my hidden gems but i don't want to gatekeep them any longer

for upcoming series, i'm thinking of starting The Trainee and I Saw You In My Dream and 4 Minutes. But I usually try to take breaks in-between series I have huge hyperfixation on like I Feel You Linger In The Air or My Stand-In like right now and I just rewatch low stake series I already love like Lovely Writer or some series I mentioned above.

i'm really sorry if this isn't much help because you're talking to someone who rarely watch new series unless they get a random urge and motivation to sit through a 30+ eps lakorn just for one actor. but i hope you found a motivation to watch one of the series i recommended above if you've been thinking about any of them (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

[lurkingshan]

Great Men Academy

Y’all this is such a good show (she says to everyone who already watched it years ago). It’s Nadao Bangkok (RIP) so I knew production values would be high and the cast would be excellent, which was of course true. Love was a compelling character and I came to really love her, especially as portrayed by James. It was also more of an ensemble show than I realized, which gave us the opportunity to dig into some interesting stuff with Love’s brother Good and Love’s friends in the academy (Love, Menn, and Nuclear are such a good squad).

And as I discussed with @bengiyo, I thought the show was doing some really interesting stuff with gender identity and the stifling oppression of being forced to conform to either feminine or masculine ideals. Especially in the early parts of the story, Love felt much freer and more herself when she was able to live as a boy without having to perform femininity. And we saw the boys all battling with the confines of masculinity in their own ways. I loved that both versions of Love felt authentic and real and that in the end, Love got the chance to reconcile these two sides of her we’d seen throughout the story, and be loved and accepted in any body.

I only have one real complaint: this show needed a lot more Tangmo (and significantly less Vier).

Tangmo is an excellent person. He is kind. He is playful. He is funny. He is generous. He is loyal. He is basically head over heels for Love almost immediately after meeting her. He has himself a little queer awakening about it, works through his feelings privately, and then gets back to being a good friend and mentor to her even when she has hurt his feelings and rejected him. And he sees her for who she is rather than what body she’s occupying. He’s a fantastic character.

But sadly, there were long stretches in the middle of this show where he disappeared from my screen, mostly so we could spend lots of time with Vier’s daddy issues and ex. And I gotta be honest, fam. I don’t care. I recognize that they made us spend all that time with Vier so we would have some empathy for him when he keeps fucking over his best friend for the sake of winning this competition, but for me at least, that was time mostly wasted. I didn’t much care about the details of his feelings for Rose (the best parts of that plot had to do with Sean, and I was honestly so glad to see them let go of Vier at the end), and I did not find his issues with his dad particularly compelling. None of it engendered enough sympathy in me to forgive him for intentionally using Tangmo’s feelings for Love against him. If I were Tangmo I’d be putting this “friend” in the trash bin.

I would have appreciated seeing some of that story time used to give a bit more depth to Love and Tangmo’s relationship. By the time Tangmo confessed properly, Love had clearly developed feelings for him and wanted to accept him. And she cared about him enough in the end to give up her wish to make sure he lived. But for me, it didn’t feel like we really saw the moment when Love’s feelings for Tangmo changed, because she and the narrative were too focused on Vier. As a result, while I thoroughly enjoyed the end of their romantic arc, it felt like some connective tissue was missing to make it really feel earned. If I could change one thing about this show, it would be that.

[onstoryladders]

saw that gifset of tangmo from great men academy and i was like "awww i love him" and then i suddenly (and violently) remembered how much i loved vier vdjdbdhd he sucks so bad no wonder he's my favorite

[vegaseatsass]

Second text post in a row before I go to my parents' just to say Laura and I finally finally finally finished Great Men Academy this afternoon, and !!!! WHAT A SHOW. I tried to type out a whole thing here but I'm getting tangled up in my own words but basically to ME it felt like pure unadulterated wish fulfillment around gender stuff, being loved and seen and accepted regardless of the shape/perceived gender of your body, in a way I def wasn't prepared for a show to just nail into so richly and joyfully. SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Like my god I can't think of a better end than Tangmo/trans girl!Love? Like it IS important that Love can try again next year to wish for the body she wants because it wouldn't be hopeful otherwise, but the potential of Love and Tangmo having a year of dating where Tangmo legitimately just loves and sees the person inside any body she has and can't be shaken by any sex (or gender!) changes to come is 🧑‍🍳👌👌👌 But I also have many other ships I wanted to list very quickly!!!

Tangmo/Tangmo Huge bummer that VR!Tangmo didn't get to spend more time hanging out with his favorite person!! I was heartbroken for him!! "Hey there, handsome" is how my blorbos talk to each other in fanfiction, I mean cmon, and all VR!mo wanted was to stay by Tangmo's side. Not win the race or team up for pranks or anything else, he just wanted to sit with him and vibe. That is ship fodder if I ever saw it!

Vier/Tangmo This dynamic is ship catnip for me. If the canon wasn't so good I would be otping with all my heart and soul. Not going to start adding words but seriously some of the most emotionally impactful moments of the story for ME revolve around them and I have friends I want to rec the show to on the strength of their relationship ldkfjskldsd can you imagine. It's the Love show and here I am off in a Viermo corner.

Vier/Nuclear Now the first moment I really shipped this was when Nuclear told Vier he was disappointed in him. I was like "You're not angry you're just disappointed? D-daddy kink?" BECAUSE the one thing I didn't love in the whole show was trying to wrap Vier's annoying dad up in a bow with the rest of the happy endings, I would much prefer Vier get some real space from his dad, find his identity outside his dad, and find his daddy outside his dad in a pink-haired junior who used to worship him. But also esp w/ trans girl Vier (ESP w/ happily fat trans girl Vier) via @syzyg3tic's headcanons and the way Nuclear is w/ the ladies, oh man, please let us manifest this in their future

Love/Rose TELL ME MORE. SHOW ME MORE. GIVE ME MORE. You gave me a crumb and I gobblesnorfdevoured that crumb like a luscious feast and now you want me to just move on? Je refuse.

Trans girl!Vier/not cis!Rose The best end for the two of them honestly. Vier wished to be over Rose but wouldn't it be really in keeping with the gender unicorn's style of doing stuff to not actually CHANGE his underlying emotions but just give Vier some time and space to be normal around Rose until they both fully self-actualize genderly, and the relationship between them suddenly looks refreshed and untread.

Vier/Nanai the mpreg guy from Girl from Nowhere I stand by the belief that Vier should help Nanai parent his baby. I came to this belief before I knew the full deal about Vier's father and now that I do know that deal I can't think of anything more suitable or joyfully redemptive for both of them, they are MFEO frankly Honorable mentions for

Love/You: I'm still mad they didn't demonstratively fake date with LOTS of PDA and it would be funny to have sibling/sibling double dates

Nuclear/Love: THEY WERE ALWAYS CUTE AFFFF and I love to see him continue to treat her like the bro-est bro, like Menn stop being weird a girl can be a bro and she is ours. It just does my heart good

Oh final note: Someone please talk to me about the worldbuilding in this show one day soon. I am bewitched bothered and bewildered. Was the unicorn narrating the reality tv show the entire time? What is the unicorn's relationship with spoiler the statue director?? What are the implications of a world with this level of VR and also unicorns -

[tinstol]

Vier is Aroace. That’s why he’s so resistant to the idea of anyone being attracted to him. And it makes him feel insecure and angry and like less of a man because he can’t connect with someone in that way.

[meteorjam]

Ok but I will never be over the way GMA didn't forget about Menn and his feelings like yes he worked thru them and accepted the way things went with "Mon" but the scene where he realizes he's been tricked after the fact??? Iconic, heartbreaking, stunning even

[mkfusionink]

*When P’Love figured out that P’Taengmo is hiding something*

[bl-bracket]

Also since we're approaching the halfway mark of the semifinals, I think it's a good time to announce the topic of our bonus round....

Poorest Little Meow Meow NOT from a BL

That's right- no BLs this time. I received several FANTASTIC submissions this time around that I unfortunately could not allow due to not being from a BL, which then inspired me to do a little bonus round of these poor little meow meows that don't hail from a BL.

Now, there's still some constraints because I don't want to open this up to any and all media, after all it is a bonus round and not an entire bracket. So here's the guidelines:

Must still be from a live action series/movie from an East Asian country (the same rules that apply to the BLs)

Must be EITHER a bromance OR a QL that is NOT a BL

Bromance, as I am defining it, is a piece of media that has at least two main characters that are men, in which the plot is heavily revolved around their relationship (that is never canonically shown to be reciprocally romantic). Other romantic subplots involving the male leads with other female characters is fine, provided that it remains minimal/not the focus of the story. So a drama focused on a het romance in which the male lead also has a close male friend would NOT be okay, but a drama where the focus on the two male leads' relationship and one of them happens to have a have a girlfriend as well would be okay.

(Also for the purposes of this poll, the two male leads can't be biologically related. that's not a bromance that's just a show about siblings lol)

As for Chinese dramas, if it would normally count for the regular BL bracket (eg Word of Honor, The Untamed, Guardian) then it won't count for this. Basically if there's an original novel and it's a damnei/bl then it won't count.

In terms of non-BL QLs, any show that is centered on a queer character/relationship in which the main character is not a man having a romantic relationship with another man, will be allowed (so GLs and hard to define QLs like The Warp Effect, Two People Who Can't Fall in Love, Great Men Academy, Marry My Dead Body etc)

The same definition of a poor little meow meow applies: must be (1) pitiful or pathetic in some way and (2) must have some moral ambiguity.

You can submit characters either in the tags/reblogs/replies/asks. I will also be including propaganda in this one too, so if you leave any in the reblogs/replies/asks I will add it! (not the tags though as those can be harder to keep track of for propaganda!)

Some characters already submitted from before/ones I've added:

Katha (Midnight Museum)

Ryu Sooyeol (Bad and Crazy)

Vier (Great Men Academy)

Yun Biqiu (Mysterious Lotus Casebook)

[sweet-potatoq]

sometimes i remember vier from great men academy and all the emotional attachment there can be summarized in GRRRR WOOF WOOF HISS HISS ARF ARF SKYAAHHHH

[clairedaring]

ICE PARIS as VIER in GREAT MEN ACADEMY (2019)

[mosbanks]

Watching great men academy I will never understand Love’s interest in Vier Tangmo and Sean are much better options!

[neowriterperciver]

If I write a fanfic about Tangmo and Love (great men academy) you will read it? I have some ideas so... will be thankful your opinions.

Pd: I need second season

[unexpected-nightview]

That judo match between Vier and Tangmo. Just.