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I've seen Chinese internet users joke about China and the US being mirror images of each other (often because Chinese state media likes to publish propaganda pieces criticising the US for the exact same social problems that're rampant in China in order to divert public attention), and it has never felt more true because what's happening on Tiktok is the norm on Chinese social media sites like Weibo.

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"[...] due to the rigorous censorship and governmental pressures on the mainstream discourse in mainland China, male actors in BL-adapted web-dramas cannot and would not admit their sexual orientation, even if they privately identified as gay. Instead, male actors who have starred in BL-adapted web-dramas must project a heterosexual and masculine image to the public for future commercial advantage. The most common way of achieving this is to immediately play the leading actor in a heterosexual romantic drama, or a soldier/policeman character that strongly reflects archetypical masculinity."

-"A Transmedia ‘Third’ Space: The Counterculture of Chinese Boys’ Love Audio Dramas," by Tingting Hu, Jing Jin & Lin Liao

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"Within dominant Chinese dictates, the discouragement of Western-style LGBTQ visibility has also been framed as part of being a good Chinese subject, regardless of homosexuality’s legality. Song discusses this with reference to Liu and Ding’s analysis of the Confucian communication principle of reticence (含蓄, hanxu), which is ‘manifested in the form of non-articulation and indirect expression’ about social matters. Thus, LGBTQ individuals are expected ‘to conform to heterosexist social conventions and refrain from disrupting established social harmony’, even when experiencing discrimination and injustice. [...] a strategy of ‘queer opacity’ – a more specific example of the activist use of opacity that feminist scholars have identified in other contexts – is practised in both political and cultural spheres in China to navigate ‘state and societal constrain[t]s on non-normative gender and sexuality’. This has led to both the consolidation and compromise of the contingent queer agency associated with dangai media, as ‘the state find[s] novel ways to ... tak[e] advantage of queer cultures and expressions’."

-Brand Nohomonationalism: Guofeng (‘National Style’) Framings of Boys’ Love Television Series in China

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“Moreover, in their engagement with BL audio drama, many producers and consumers articulated that they wanted to create or listen to more diverse BL stories through which the gay community could be represented more authentically. For example, when asked what kind of BL stories or characters they would like to see in future works, 14 interviewees, including both producers and consumers, expressed a desire to see more realistic works and more ordinary gay men being depicted. CV ZL stated:

'I support diversity and normalisation . . . I really like realistic works in which gay men don’t have to be pretty or brilliant or be a potent boss. I wish to see just a gay couple sitting at a breakfast store doing what we as ordinary people would do.'

This resonated with CV K’s comment that ‘I hope in the future there will be more authentic works that are more acceptable to the gay community, with more diverse images and storylines that don’t overly cater to the [female] audiences’ tastes’. A full-time female producer, YJ observed that ‘I want to see daily-life stories . . . that can make me feel there must be people like that in real life’.

The desire to see more realistic BL works demonstrated the potential of BL audio drama as a third space to link BL subculture and the larger queer community, to represent those who have been marginalised by heteronormative institutions, and to further shift the gender and sexuality discourses in China.”

-"A Transmedia ‘Third’ Space: The Counterculture of Chinese Boys’ Love Audio Dramas," by Tingting Hu, Jing Jin & Lin Liao

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Movie Tag Game

Rules: Without naming them, post a gif from ten of your favourite films, then tag 10 people to do the same!

thank you for the tag @thirrith !

just did a tag game a while ago so tagging whoever's interested in this one! :)

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"According to another industry insider based in Hong Kong, ‘Among the new titles being published in the upcoming fall season by 100 independent presses based in the US and UK. There are (only) 17 books translated from Chinese out of well over 500 in translation.’ Only one of these books is by a contemporary author; the others are re-translations of Tang dynasty classics and a ‘definitive’ Confucius.

Confucius does well in contemporary China and abroad. Contemporary Chinese literature does not. Works critical of China by Chinese authors published outside China sell more copies than fiction by Chinese authors published in China, whether or not they offer overt criticism of contemporary Chinese society. The most popular post-1949 book about China by a Chinese writer is Wild Swans by Jung Chang written in English and published in the UK in 1991; it sold 10 million copies worldwide and was translated into 30 languages; and it is still being sold, read and studied. Its success reinforces the impression that English-language readers welcome or least don’t object to books that are critical of contemporary China."

-"World literature, global culture and contemporary Chinese literature in translation," by Bonnie S. McDougall

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that one panel of marcille from dungeon meshi

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There's something abstract about the way Viktor cares even before the Glorious Evolution. Or maybe abstract is the wrong word because it makes him sound cold when he isn't.

But Viktor getting caught up in the beauty of Vander's dream of an independent Zaun and giving that as a reason to save Vander is such an interesting parallel to Viktor being caught up by Jayce's passion for magic before he cared about Jayce as a person.

Vi and Jinx aren't terribly impressed by that reason, either, and no wonder. Vander's dreams have nothing to do with the reason he mattered to them, he was a steady, loving presence in their imperfect reality. No wonder Jinx calls Viktor a fortune cookie.

But it makes sense to Viktor, it's how he sees the world long before the Arcane makes it literal. Maybe it's why he can be so close to Heimerdinger - Heimerdinger's dream of his city, a place of safety, equality and progress, is certainly better than the reality he allowed to happen. Viktor's always getting caught up in people's dreams right up until they all get caught in his.

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"In English the doctrine of 'fluent' and 'transparent' translation was already strong in the 1980s as Lawrence Venuti has shown in his study of publishing statistics and book reviews in the United States and Britain. Now that English has become a lingua franca in Europe, Venuti's description of the fluent transparent model of translation with its corollary of the invisible translator is valid for Europe as well. [...] Study of texts shows the way that the self-advertising behavior of the 1920s and 1930s European translator-writers has given way to self-effacement and fluent, transparent norms compatible with the notion of a world literature and a literary market where translation tasks can be farmed out and delocalized. [...]

Prize-winning best-selling novels in their English translations tend to exemplify a formal blandness, a flattening out, and homogeneity. The tropes of this narrative fiction resemble ethnocentric translation strategies (e.g., ethnographic explanations, lengthy descriptions, local color, and explanatory notes). Imagism predominates in poetry translated into English at the expense of the auditory qualities of language and I include with this poetry the literature of spirituality in translation. Literature composed in English itself starts to read like literature in translation."

-"Challenges and Possibilities for World Literature, Global Literature, and Translation," by Kathleen Shields

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A new talk show "The BL Era: Taiwan's Spotlight" just dropped. First episode is focused on the cross-cultural adaptation challenges of Unknown and The On1y One. Guests include Sammi Pan (producer of Unknown, WBL, MTYL), Liu Kuang Hui (director of The On1y One), and social media content creators.

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Since it's common consensus in the TGCF fandom that Hua Cheng loves Xie Lian for all his flaws as well as his goodness - in short, that HC loves XL for who he really is - I'd like to add to this consensus by suggesting that HC also loved XL before knowing who he really is. HC never had the opportunity to actually get to know XL intimately in their youth (not like Feng Xin and Mu Qing did); he looked up to XL and admired him from afar. Afterwards he continued to love XL in XL's absence.

This is where the idea of faith comes in, faith in the sense of "belief in the absence of evidence." In this sense, HC's faith is his belief in XL's worthiness as an object of love in the absence of XL in his life. I find faith to be rare in traditional Chinese beliefs where pragmatism always reigned, and this is explained in TGCF that people usually flock to whatever deity that's good at granting wishes and quickly abandon them once they're unable to deliver (which means HC's faith is rare in the historical & mythical contexts of TGCF).

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Saw a post saying that Gu Mang never chose Mo Xi over his personal cause after he returned, not even once. While this is undoubtedly true, it's not because Gu Mang doesn't prioritise Mo Xi or is careless about Mo Xi. Gu Mang is dauntless in war but cowardly in love. He can imagine himself being the sacrifice, the casualty and the pawn and he has no value if he doesn't offer himself up completely, but he cannot imagine being loved for who he is and living a life of self-fulfillment of his own choosing. His deep sense of inferiority and low self-esteem wouldn't allow a personal happy ending. It reminds me of the commentary on the character Amaranta in One Hundred Years of Solitude, where it's said that the unjust torture Amaranta subjected her lover to isn't driven by vengeance, but by "a mortal struggle between a measureless love and an invincible cowardice."

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If you're ever by a stream with a lot of trout, keep your eyes open for the little souls of Victorian businessmen that swirl about in there. You see, they didn't have enough fun in life, so this is how they make up for it. Or so I'm told.

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Besides their sunny personalities, this is another aspect where Gu Mang from Yuwu is similar to Wei Wuxian, like I said in this post

Can't get over that bit right after Jin Zixuan dies, when they're back in the Burial Mounds and Wei Wuxian is losing his shit about how everything is ruined, and he says, what am I supposed to do now?

And the narration stops to describe him hearing himself say that, and knowing just how bad that proves the situation is.

Because he's not supposed to be the one who says that. Other people say that to him. And he answers them, always. That's how this works.

That's just such a fantastic bit of characterization. I think it might be the clearest statement we ever get about how Wei Wuxian identifies, as a person.

He identifies as someone who can fix it. When there's a difficult situation that's stumping other people. That's what 'attempting the impossible' really is, for him. If he can resolve the trouble by being strong or charming or shameless, that's fine. If he can solve it by being terribly clever, that's excellent. If he has to solve it by figuring out what body part to sacrifice or what crime to commit, well then that's how it has to be.

But if he can't solve it, then he doesn't know who he is anymore.

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