[theqoo] "COPY PASTING FAKER'S STORY" ... CONTROVERSIAL 19+ RATED BL NOVEL HALTS SALES

The BL novel “The Mad Dog Catches the Tiger,” published on the 24th through Ridi Books, was suddenly suspended from sale. This happened after readers pointed out that the protagonist’s backstory was excessively similar to the real-life career of Faker, the world-famous professional gamer who has won the League of Legends World Championship (Worlds) six times. Just one day after release, the author Lee Eun-gyu issued an official apology, but online communities continue to criticize the work, saying, “Did they seriously put Faker’s story into an 19+ novel?”

At the center of the controversy is “The Mad Dog Catches the Tiger,” a BL novel restricted to readers aged 19 and over. BL stands for “boys’ love” and portrays romantic relationships between men.

The issue raised by readers is that many of the story’s core settings overlap with Faker’s actual career. Faker debuted at 17 and went on to achieve an unprecedented six Worlds victories in esports history. As of August, when the novel’s serialization began, he had five wins.

Descriptions such as “a player who leads the team to victory no matter the situation” resemble Faker’s nickname “The Unkillable Demon King,” and the common saying “If you’re with Faker, you win” is also seen as mirrored in the novel.

The narrative inside the work follows a similar pattern. In the novel, the protagonist succeeds in a repeat championship (back-to-back wins) 10 years earlier, then attempts a three-peat but fails, and a decade later challenges the three-peat again and finally succeeds.

Critics argue this is almost identical to Faker’s real arc: achieving a repeat victory in 2015–2016 with SKT, failing the three-peat challenge in 2017, then, after becoming part of T1, winning consecutively in 2023–2024 and succeeding in a three-peat challenge in 2025.

Online, the book’s description stated that “none of the settings in the work have any real-world inspiration and the story is entirely fictional.”

Through platforms like X, readers reacted with comments such as: “The moment the character’s face was described, all I could picture was the real player, so I stopped reading,” “Isn’t this basically a Faker-tribute BL novel?” and “They basically took a famous player’s life, flipped the position to bottom/top, and repackaged it into a 19+ story.”

As the controversy grew, the author issued an official statement, saying, “I apologize to the player and the fans who are being dragged into this unfortunate situation.” They added, “I will revise the problematic parts as soon as possible,” and addressed the main points of criticism one by one.

The author explained, “The three-peat setting for Tiger’s team ‘Critic’ was written during the drafting process in July–August, and the real team’s three-peat happened after my novel began serialization.” However, they acknowledged, “I failed to properly recognize that repeat and three-peat wins by the same player are unprecedented in esports history. It was extremely careless of me, and I deserve the criticism.”

They continued, “I realized that settings like the character being unable to practice, or having a similar in-game ID, can look similar to the real player when printed as text. I should have reviewed everything more strictly, but I didn’t.”

The author also said, “I did not intentionally borrow this specific team or player,” but admitted, “My careless and lazy handling of things hurt many people.”

Currently, searching the title on Ridi Books shows the message: “This book is temporarily unavailable at the request of the publisher or copyright holder, and its information cannot be viewed.”

source: https://n.news.naver.com/article/015/0005215727?sid=103

original post: here

1. Ah I'd f*cking hate it as the athlete

2. This is so annoying and I hate BLs, but this one is 19+ too? F*ck 

3. Ah this is so creepy

4. Ugh disgusting

5. Please sue them. I'd be f*cking disgusted if I was the athlete

6. The fact that they even wrote an article about it is disgusting

7. Ha f*ck don't touch Faker 

8. F*cking nasty

9. Ah crazy, there's even an article now;;; I freaking hate this.. 

10. This is not only defamation but SH

New post

Next Post

✉ PC Stories