Be Your Star | S01E01

Vietnamese Drama - 2024

Ya girl is loving Between Us right now, but Love Bill The Series is making a play for my heart. Run don’t walk to it.

And in ongoing proof that I will forgive Vietnam anything as long as their BL is to my taste... Want To See You is just the most soap opera to ever soap opera and I am eating it up with a spoon. Y'all, I love these idiots.

Thach runs hot and cold with absolutely nothing between the two, Phuc is just confused as well, there's possible incest?!, turns out that Thach just keeps pertinent medical documents about his infertility in his side table drawer (why? NO ONE KNOWS!), Linh is just literally a caricature of evil, Duy is a shipper, I have no idea who's talking about who half the times because the subtitles were written by someone with a VERY tenuous grasp on how pronouns work in English and yet I am in love with this show.

@absolutebl they switched airing days on us! But it's fully subbed, at least. Also... soap opera.

anyone know any good vdramas to watch

wait, i've never heard of the mmj voice dramas and vtubing! do you know where i can see those?

They’re all in this playlist!

the vdrama tho...... haru..........

My thoughts on every new GMMTV trailer:

Enigma: cautiously hopeful. It looks very interesting and intense, and I think I will be able to handle the amount of horror in it though it is a genre I am nervous about because I scare easily. I'm just not a fan of student teacher romances, but I'll withhold judgement till after I see it (judging whether I like it. Not judging you if it's a trope you like, whatever floats your boat).

A Boss and a Babe: it looks silly and ridiculous and fun. I genuinely didn't think Forcebook would get another chance to star together and I'm so so happy they did, I love how they play off each other. Oddly I am fine watching boss employee relationships even though the student teacher ones make me uneasy.

Find Yourself: on the fence about this one, though I'll give it a try for Non and Earth. The tropes they are leaning into for comedy in the trailer aren't my favourite and I'm not a fan of them seeming to play drunken sex for laughs, but when the trailers tone shifted to be a more serious examination of age gaps I became intrigued. I'm just not sure I trust how this show will handle that subject in all its complexity.

Double Savage: very excited to have Ohm playing a darker character (I know we still have 10YT this year too). I think he will absolutely kill this role, I love his acting and think he is superb. I also think Film is fantastic and I'm excited to see her too. Looks like lots of lakorn crime type tropes, so that should be fun.

Hidden Agenda: I'm unsure about this one because while I like both Joong and Dunk well enough I wasn't enamoured with eithers' acting in Star and Sky, and they had the most disappointing kiss my god. This looks like the plot is more interesting at least than Star in my Mind, and I love a lot of the side cast. I'm hoping they just felt awkward acting together at first, and they will seem less stilted in this. I'm pretty 50/50 on whether I've liked the director's previous work so this could go either way.

23.5: I'm so so excited for this, it's happening guys!!!! MilkLove GL let's go sapphics let's go! I need this to do well and hopefully herald more long-form GLs. I adore both actresses and love them together as well. I'm expecting very 2015 BL vibes and fluff, and honestly not expecting more than a peck of a kiss (if I'm wrong feel free to point at this post and laugh at me I honestly would love to be wrong), but luckily I adore fluff and softness so I'm going to enjoy it anyways. The yearning! The sweetness! I'm over the moon

Phro Thoe Khue Rak Raek: I think I would be interested if this was just a movie but I'm not sure I have the attention span for a full drama about reminiscing and reconnecting with am old love. I'll probably skip this one unless something really catches my attention. Neo was really cute in this trailer though.

Cooking Crush: I am giddy about this one. I felt so sad Off thought him and Gun couldn't get roles together anymore because of their ages, and then here they are and the trailer looks really funny and cute! I'm also really excited they seem to have reversed their dynamic and Gun is playing the more asshole one, he definitely has the acting range and hopefully this means if OffGun continue going forward they will get to change their dynamic a bit more.

Wednesday Club: I'm not that interested. Honestly don't have much to say about the trailer, beyond Piploy and Jane look so so good! Please I'm already gay etc etc

Last Twilight: I'm definitely the most excited for this one! The plot looks interesting, JimmySea were excellent together in VV, and it's P'Aof who I trust implicitly. It is bringing me back to Want to See You (vdrama), which I overall enjoyed but I need this one to be less of a soap opera, I couldn't handle that twice. Also loved the music in the trailer. Also Jum ❤️ I also think Jimmy will be fun to watch playing the bad boy role, and he is super adorable which is a huge bonus. I'm not knowledgeable enough about adult onset blindness to really judge that aspect of the show.

Loneliness Society: While You Were Sleeping let's gooooo! My third most anticipated, I'm so excited for this! Morally grey and complex lead? With relatable issues around age and loneliness? Sign me up! This looks phenomenal. And I screamed when I saw Jan, I love her so much ❤️ though I am disappointed she got no main roles this year (side note Thailand is doing cherry magic what?????).

Only Friends: holy shit!!!! Second most anticipated and only trailer I've rewatched multiple times because there's so much going on! It's going to be messy as fuck and I'm going to eat up every minute! Can't believe we get Forcebook a second time next year, and KhaoFirst as well. The song they play at the end is fire 🔥 P'Jojo directing AND the cast is stacked!? Book Force Khao Neo Jennie First Mark and Piploy! I'm stoked

Faceless Love: eh. Dew's character really pisses me off, and while I have warmed up to rich asshole business owner types in the past (Poongduck, Business Proposal) my real life dislike of those types of people make it one of my least favourite archetypes and I'm not convinced I'm going to watch. I'm curious to see the reactions of people with face blindness to this as well.

Dangerous Romance: oh this look fantastic! I love this type of messy, high angst enemies to lovers. This is going to be so much fun, and I really liked what the director did with Love Mechanics so I have really high hopes. Plus Chimon is one of my favourite actors, and I would already die for Sailom - he's such a mouthy little sass master.

The Jungle: don't really understand what's happening because there are no subs, though it looks like a spiritual successor to PS I Hate You. Big cast, big drama. I'll watch it no matter what because it's one of my girl Mild's only roles next year and Lookjun's only role. Big downside is having to put up with watching Krusty.

Midnight Museum: not much plot was revealed in this trailer, however the creepy fantasy vibes are immaculate and I'm excited for this. I'm very curious about Gun's character's cryptic past, and hope it's suitably angsty so he can flex his acting, because he is phenomenal! Also Ploy ❤️

Our Skyy 2: oh my god! Special episodes for The Eclipse, Bad Buddy AND A Tale of Thousand Stars? Especially when we had all basically given up on an ATOTS special?!?!? Couldn't be more excited! I'm excited for everyone really (other than another Star in my Mind special lmao please let it fade into obscurity). If Never Let Me Go is as good as I anticipate (and I trust P'Jojo with my life) it will be great to see their characters again as well. My only disappointment is Forcebook is not reprising AkkTheo :( As one of the handful of people who really enjoyed Enchante I just want my Enchante special goddammit!

Beauty Newbie: I really don't think I trust how a plot about someone who's had plastic surgery and is now gorgoeus (let's be real Baifern is fucking ethereal) is going to handle issues like beauty standards. 😬 As someone who definitely falls outside the line of 'acceptable' look wise due to acne, weight, etc I'm not feeling this plot. The only reason I'm torn is my love of Baifern, so we will see if my love for her is enough to give this a try. And maybe I'm wrong and the plot will be amazing and profound, but I have serious reservations.

The Interest: eh. Whatever.

All in all I'm really looking forward to this lineup and think it will be a fantastic year. The ones I'm not liking based on the trailer I'm realllllllly not liking but I can just drop them of not watch.

Side notes: I was really worried Home School had been cancelled, it was one I was really looking forward to and I'm relieved it was only pushed back.

Also does anyone know what Miss Gigie is up to? She doesn't seem to be in anything upcoming other than Warp Effect and I miss her :(

Pronoun Use in Vietnamese BL

Chào bạn! Hello! Welcome to ‘Don’t learn Vietnamese with Squeakygeeky.’ I am your host, an obsessed weirdo who does not actually speak Vietnamese. I’m trying, though. Please remember that this is intended to look at linguistics within the world of Vietnamese Boy’s Love Drama and not as actual language education for speaking to other humans. Specifically, we’re going to be looking at pronouns.

The best thing I ever did for myself was google ‘Vietnamese pronoun meme.’

[id: Meme with text ‘therapist: vietnamese pronouns aren’t real they cannot hurt you. vietnamese pronouns:’ followed various vietnamese pronouns superimposed on cats with creepy glowing eyes.]

The Vietnamese language doesn’t use pronouns so much as it avoids true pronouns and the way you refer to yourself and your conversational partner depends on the relationship between you. In this particular series of posts, I’m going to focus on the words used for ‘I’ and ‘you’ between friends and romantic partners in various BLs. It was inspired by @absolutebl‘s posts on the Thai language in BL. You can’t really think of ‘I’ and ‘you’ separately, you have to think of them as I - you pairs.

I used a lot of sources when trying to learn Vietnamese pronouns, but here I’m relying heavily on 3 posts about pronouns on the blog ‘Learn Vietnamese With Linh!’ I would link them, but apparently tumblr hates when you cite your sources and will hide you from the tags.

Textbook Pronouns:

Tôi = I Bạn = You

These are the most neutral possible pronouns. They don’t really imply superiority, inferiority, or equality. They don’t really imply anything about the relationship between the people speaking. They are what Duolingo will teach you. They are also not that common in real conversation, or in fictional conversations intended for a Vietnamese-speaking audience, which is all we care about here.

‘Tôi’ is used for ‘I’ when writing a novel in the first person. It’s used when you don’t know enough about the person you’re talking about to be able to choose a more appropriate pronoun, including with colleagues and acquaintances. Apparently if your spouse suddenly starts dropping ‘tôi’ to refer to themselves it means they're mad at you. It’s not rude but it can be distant. There’s a sense of disconnect from the person you’re talking to. You can pair ‘tôi’ with other versions of ‘you’ besides ‘bạn.’

‘Bạn’ is also the word for ‘friend.’ ‘Bạn’ is the ‘you’ you use for the unknown reader which is why I used it to say hi to you at the beginning of this post. It’s a little too friendly for government forms, but otherwise it’s the most neutral you. It wouldn’t really make sense to pair ‘bạn’ with anything except ‘tôi’ and our next vocab word ‘mình.’

Mình:

‘Mình’ gets its own category because it does a few things. ‘Mình’ is like ‘tôi’ but also functions a little more like ‘self’ (the literal meaning being ‘self/body’). When posting to social media it’s common to use ‘mình’ for I. If I were writing this post in Vietnamese I’d refer to myself using ‘mình.’ ‘Mình’ is also used when talking to yourself. ‘Mình’ can be ‘we’ but I’m just not ready to face plural pronouns yet. Oh, and you can use it as ‘you’ for your beloved who is like your own self, but I think that’s an old-fashioned thing?

Names:

Real names and pet names can be used for ‘I - you.’ This is totally normal and not the equivalent of talking about yourself in the third person. It’s respectful and maybe a little cute to use your own name for ‘I.’ But if someone is a lot older/higher status than you, you should use their kinship term as a title followed by their name. Celebrities tend to use their own name for ‘I.’ I’ve noticed Bá Vinh, that one actor from every Vietnamese BL, refer to himself using Vinh (Vinh being his given name, not family name. Family names go first, but don’t really get used. Bá is his middle name). 

Friend Pronouns:

Tớ - cậu = a nice thing to use with friends. Unisex, but favored by girls. Tao - mày = a rude thing to use with friends. Unisex, but favored by boys. If used with someone who’s not your friend, it will cause a fight. Ta - mi/ngươi = for close friends, kind of teasing and just weird in any other context because it’s other use is by royalty in historical dramas

In all these cases they don’t switch around, both people use the same thing for I and the same thing for you. 

Kinship Terms:

This means you use words for actual family relationships as pronouns for people you're not related to, based on age (sort of). These words can also be used as third person pronouns for he/she but we won’t worry about that. There are A LOT, but all I’m going to cover are: 

Anh = older brother Chị = older sister Em = younger sibling

This can be used with your actual siblings, but also people around the age to be a younger or older sibling. So a man who is older than you, but not old enough to be your uncle, is ‘Anh’ and a woman who is older, but not auntie-old, is ‘chị.’ You would be ‘em.’ Anh/chị might imply that they’re like a sibling to you, but it might be like using ‘Mr./Ms.’ Context is key. Unlike with friends, the words for ‘I’ and ‘you’ switch depending on who is speaking.

Technically you can use ‘tôi’ (or less formally ‘em’) with ‘anh/chị’ in a way that functions like the friend pronouns with no switching, where you call the other person ‘anh/chị’ even if they call you ‘anh/chị’ in return. This is respectful, and means you don’t have to find out the other person’s age, but kind of makes it sound like you work in an office together. ‘Anh/chị’ is definitely functioning as ‘Mr./Ms.’ here.

Further complicating the situation, a man may be ‘anh’ to a woman’s ‘em’ even if the woman is technically older because, well, the patriarchy, but let’s just go with the fact that it’s cuter to go by ‘em.’ A heterosexual couple will definitely go by ‘anh’ for the man and ‘em’ for the woman. ‘Anh yêu em’ means ‘I love you’ if a man is speaking, but ‘you love me’ if a woman is speaking. Here ‘Anh - em’ has the added connotation of an exchange of endearments, and will occasionally get translated as things like ‘honey’ or ‘dear.’

Okay, you’re thinking, but this was supposed to be a post about BL?!?! The whole point of the genre is that the boy loves another boy! Welp, here we go. Buckle up.

The Use of Anh - Em Pronouns in BL:

Let’s start by acknowledging that masculine/top/dominant and feminine/bottom/submissive gets conflated in general. It especially gets conflated in Vietnamese media (I’m trying to avoid touching the real world with a 10 foot pole except I kind of can’t), because there is no way in the Vietnamese language to discuss biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation as separate concepts unless you use loan words, directly translate concepts from the English term, or are very, very, very careful in how you explain things. (See comments.) Combine that with the linguistic expectation that in a romantic relationship someone has to be the ‘anh’ and someone has to be the ‘em,’ and you get ‘anh - em’ being used in Vietnamese media between fictional male couples in a way that tracks with stereotypical expectations. 

(See: Black, Joshua James Croft (2017) Queer male identities in modern Vietnamese literature. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London. )

The creators of any BL have to wrestle with the degree to which their choices will conform to the audience’s stereotypical expectations of a male couple as well as their expectations for who will get seme/uke tropes within the narrative. And if you don’t understand what I mean by seme/uke you sure are on the wrong tumblr post, but I’m basically using the same definition @absolutebl does in that the seme is the active pursuer in a romantic narrative, who wants to be the protector and who gets similar tropes that the male would in a heterosexual romantic narrative. For example, the seme will save the uke from physical danger. 

The creators of a Vietnamese BL also have to decide who will be ‘anh’ and who will be ‘em.’ For reasons that I hope are obvious at this point, the use of ‘anh - em’ can be expected to track with seme/uke tropes. When all of this stops tracking together it’s time to sit up and take notice. I suspect that in some cases no one really thought about ‘anh - em’ usage because it just seemed obvious, but in others very deliberate choices were made. I suspect all of this also ties into the modern Vietnamese LGBT+ community’s activism and conceptualization of identity (as well as that of the international target audience) combined with the general genre-savviness of the Vietnamese BL industry and the close attention it pays to Thai BL.

But wait, there’s a wrinkle! A magical get out of jail free card! Younger men always call older (but not too much older) men ‘anh.’ So make one character older, or at least make it possible that he could be older, and then that can be the full explanation for ‘anh - em’ assignment and you can act like it doesn’t have broader implications. Just don’t make the uke older or then you’ll really have problems.  

The funniest example of this is Minh Anh, the main character of Nation’s Brother (Anh Trai Quốc Dân, ‘anh trai’ is for when you need to make it clear you’re referring to a biological brother). Yes, Anh can also be a name, and for added confusion it can be part of a man’s name or a woman’s name. He’s ‘anh’ to his actual younger sister and to his love interest, Tâm, who is also clearly younger than him. He’s also shown on top in bed. He is ‘anh’ in every possible way you can be ‘anh,’ truly the nation’s brother. 

The thing is, BL loves a classmate romance, so you can’t always count on an age difference. Phùc and Tùng in The Most Peaceful Place have a friends to lovers arc and as friends they use ‘tao - mày.’ There is an actual pronoun-based scene. Just before this scene, they get back together, put their couple bracelets back on, and sleep together with Phùc being shown on top. In the scene in question, they are still in bed and start their conversation using ‘tao - mày.’ Phùc tells Tùng to refer to himself as ‘em.’ Tùng laughs and refuses until Phùc playfully wrestles him into submission. They do actually stick to ‘anh - em’ after that. This is Phùc asserting linguistic dominance, but also getting them out of the linguistic friendzone. The friends to lovers arc is both narrative and linguistic.

https://youtu.be/krrk48ixqHQ?t=847

The translator made the smart decision not to even try to translate ‘em’ here. It’s just not possible. The translator makes a note that ‘em’ is how a wife or uke would address themselves. Of course uke is a BL/yaoi trope term not a real world thing, so that makes me think the translator wanted to get their point across without touching the masculine/top/dominant and feminine/bottom/submissive conflation with a 10 foot pole.

In The Most Peaceful Place, the use of ‘anh’ and ‘em’ tracks perfectly with the audience expectations for that use the narrative just set up and the physical appearance of the actors cast in these roles. The anomalous thing about The Most Peaceful Place compared to other BLs is that the switch to ‘anh - em’ is very directly initiated by one character, so I think it’s pretty clear the creators know they were making A Choice and went ahead and put a lampshade on it.

I’m planning to do more posts looking at pronoun use in specific BLs, beyond just ‘anh - em.’ Feel free to suggest what you want me to cover next or to guess who is ‘anh’ and who is ‘em.’ I will definitely post about Hey Rival, I Love You, My Lascivious Boss and eventually Mr. Cinderella. I want to post about Stupid Boys, Stupid Love but there are no Vietnamese subs and I’m struggling with the accents and the sheer number of characters interacting with other characters. Tagging @heretherebedork​ because who knows if I fixed truly fixed the issue and whether anyone can even see this, I love tumblr but I hate tumblr.

[id: Gia Lam, the sister from Nation’s Brother, saying, ‘I watch them to learn foreign languages...’]

Pronoun use by drama:

Hey Rival, I Love You! My Lascivious Boss Mr. Cinderella Hey! First Love Want to See You

Other BL linguistics:

Husband/wife language Coming out/identity

well that’s definitely one way to ask someone out

[id: nine gifs from the short film nước chảy hoa trôi (reborn) (2021) by nguyễn trần trung quân, creative director denis đặng. i made these gifs to show my appreciation for the costume design. 1st gif: the main character, played by denis đăng, is a young emperor with long white hair. the gif shows him standing with his right arm behind his back, a lilac chrysanthemum in his left hand. he bears a solemn expression. his robe is of a beige color with light pink blossoms. the collar, the sides and the inner sleeves are lilac. a white tassel is hanging from where his right collarbone is. 2nd gif: the emperor. he wears a dark olive green robe with a dark brown sash belt, decorated with gold ornaments. the sleeves are white. he is walking towards the viewer with an unreadable expression. 3rd gif: a closeup of gif one, this time with focus on the hair piece. it’s placed right above the emperor’s left ear. it’s golden with light and dark blue pearls. 4th gif: the empress. a close up shot of her face. she wears a white robe with a blueish purple collar piece that is shaped like petals. her dark hair is extravagantly pinned up and richly adorned with hair pieces looking like blue and white flowers. she wears light blue and golden dangling earrings. she looks stressed as she catches a breath. 5th gif: the emperor. a closeup of another of his hair pieces. it’s placed right above his left ear. it’s silver and dark blue with three strands of silver attached to the bottom, ending with a blue emerald each. his expression is cold. 6th gif: the empress. her hair is pinned up and kept in place by red and light blue flower hairpins. she wears the same earrings as in 4. this time she wears a baby pink underrobe with flower embroidery, a light blue robe and a rich blue outer robe. some of the falling snow has caught in her hair. her face looks distressed. 7th gif: the emperor. another closeup of a hair piece. this one is red and white, shaped like flowers and petals. 8th gif: a closeup of the empress. her hair is adorned with creme colored flower pins, a green jewel being their center. she wears dangling gold earrings with a green jewel at the end. she wears red lipstick. as she looks up her face bears a happy but solemn expression. 9th gif: the emperor. he is combing his hair, this time not wearing any hair piece. his inner robe is blue while the two outer robes are fuchsia and baby pink respectively. the light falling through a beaded curtain creates a soft bokeh. /end id]

COSTUME DESIGN APPRECIATION. NƯỚC CHẢY HOA TRÔI (REBORN) (2021) // NGUYỄN TRẦN TRUNG QUÂN // DIR. JASON // CREATIVE DIR. DENIS ĐẶNG // watch the full short film HERE

Be Your Star | S01E04

Vietnamese Drama - 2024

Episodes | Gaga | Viki | YouTube | iQIYI | WeTV | Tencent | Catalogue

My Sky / Bầu Trời Của Khánh - Episode 4

Mr. Cinderella Finale

The end and what an end! We get love, dedication, family, a bit of action and a shocking amount of heat for a V-BL! Absolutely A+ and watch after the credits for a tiny little post-credits scene with a tiny bit of hope for our secondary babies. <3

Thanks to everyone who's come along with me on the journey and this joy and the sheer excitement of this new O2 Productions V-BL! Support them if you can, give them all your love, and remember... it's awesome!

@absolutebl Oh, what an ending. They outdid themselves this time, for sure.

The liar and his lover was such an great drama with a great message behind it for friendship, love, trust, dreams, goals, working hard, and how really hard it is to do music in this world. This is their ending mini concert! They sang the soundtracks themselves, their beautiful smiles and voices filling the stage. Them interacting with the fans in a lovely way. This has to be my favorite fan meeting so far. They had so much fun singing and playing on the stage, talking about themselves and their roles in a clumsy and fun way! Watch it

RepostBy @jtbcdrama: "🕴🏻 [EVENT] JTBC 금토드라마 <맨투맨> 마지막 회 함께 보기🔍 . V DRAMA '맨투맨 탐정단' 과 함께하는 6월 10일, <맨투맨> 마지막 회 함께 보기에 초대합니다!☝🏼 . 1️⃣이벤트 기간 ✔️ 2017.05.31(수) ~ 2017.06.06 (화) . 2️⃣참여 방법 ✔️ 응모 및 당첨 관련 자세한 사항은 인스타그램 프로필 링크를 확인해주세요! ‼️본 이벤트는 JTBC Drama SNS 주최가 아닙니다. 응모 및 당첨에 관한 자세한 사항은 JTBC Drama 인스타그램 프로필 링크를 꼭 참고해주세요☺️ . 3️⃣당첨자 발표 ✔️2017.06.07 (수) ✔️V LIVE V DRAMA 채널 & 박해진 채널 내 'Celeb' 게시판 확인 및 이메일 연락 . 4️⃣출연진 ✔️MC 신봉선, 오세훈, 김현진 & 박해진, 박성웅, 태인호, 허각, 이창민 감독, 김원석 작가 ‼️자세한 사항 및 문의사항은 V LIVE V DRAMA 채널로 부탁드립니다! . . #맨투맨 #드라마맨투맨 #MANxMAN #VLIVE #VDRAMA #이벤트 #공개방송" (via #InstaRepost @AppsKottage)

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