#Historical Chinese

[justshipsandstuff]

Started reading the light novels for the Jinmao, but stayed for the shenanigans (volume 10-11 were Great!)

I pray for the day we know your name, Lahan’s brother. Your ordinary swag and your expert farming knowledge have captured the heart of regular peasants

[endless-nightshift]

The scale of MXTX characters hand writing from Worst to Best

Hua Cheng: literally intelligible, those basically aren't even words any.

Wei wuxian: the equivalent of a sleep deprived adhd stem student notes right before an exam. Technically legible but only to him, people who know him really well.

Luo Binghe: it's good. Not outstanding but Nicely legible, pretty when it needs to be.

Shen Qingqiu: technically there's nothing wrong with his hand writing, but His writing is too modern for the Xianxia settings he's living in and although it's not too much of a problem it's definitely enough to make peoples eyebrow raise.

Xie Lian: stunningly beautiful calligraphy. Truly just art in written form.

Lan wangji: the most beautiful and technically perfect hand writing you have everything seen. Calligraphy teachers weap with joy when they see his writing.

[aiohon12]

Wip concept perhaps

It's going to be while brb

[peonycats]

(audio source)

[despazito]

while we're at it i hate that whenever somebody brings up tibetan mastiffs nowadays they're almost always referring to the viral overbred monstrosities coming out of china and not actual normal tibetan mastiffs.

if you're going to a registered breeder who regularly shows their dogs in AKC/KC/CKC circuits, they will look something like this:

in recent decades it became fashionable to breed very exaggerated dogs as a status symbol for wealthy people in china, nothing about these dogs are practical it'll cost an arm and a leg to keep groomed. these are very extreme examples of the breed and really really shouldn't be normalized as the desired tibetan mastiff type:

for contrast, here's a bitch from the 1920s bred in UK and old photos from central asia, yes they were large but were never meaty or extremely heavy-set dogs, they should not look as if they're constantly fighting gravity.

[muffinlance]

I'm sorry, this was bothering me enough to send in an ask.

The stupid question is: how strict is Earth-Kingdom-is-China vs Fire-Kingdom-is-Japan generally? I mostly ask because although none of the canon characters use real Japanese names, but it feels like everyone uses Japanese names for Fire Kingdom and Chinese for Earth, which makes Chinese Wanyi for Zuko's ship not fit in.

I mean, the waters are muddied from China's historical domination over the area, and it's a really great pun, but I woke up and my brain wouldn't let go of the entirely petty issue.

Ugh. Sorry for the stupid ask, especially since I don't come bearing any like funny trivia with to mitigate with. Please feel free to disregard as well, especially since I'm too cowardly to link to my actual tumblr account.

There's absolutely no strictness, because that's a fanon division anyway, and not one I adhere to. Fanon is fake and we can make of it what we want, and I want the pretty ship name!

[chinesehanfu]

[Hanfu · 漢服]Chinese Tang Dynasty(618–907AD)Traditional Clothing Hanfu Based On Female figurines of Tang Dynasty

【Historical Artifacts Reference 】:

▶China Tang Dynasty Standing Female Figure,Collection of the Guimet Museum

▶China Tang Dynasty Painted double-bun female figurine,Collection of Xi'an Museum,China

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📸Photo：@佳期阁

🧚🏻‍Model ：Owner of 佳期阁

👗Hanfu: @佳期阁

🔗Weibo：https://weibo.com/6614078088/ObZKG5Cu8

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[nickiisthings]

Qing Dynasty hanfu (1644-1912) Silk Museum of HangZhou (杭州丝调博物馆）

[absolutebl]

BLs with Strong Historical Elements

Costume dramas, historical BLs, and BLs with time travel or flashbacks to historical locations & times.

These are in order of my personal preference, best at the top.

I Feel You Linger in the Air

2023 Thailand

IFYLITA is an exquisite BL, from filming techniques to narrative framework (much like Until We Meet Again). It's about a gay man from our time who falls into the past, becomes a servant to a noble house, and falls in love with the heir. It turns out this has all happened several times before. Steeped in history and family drama it edges into lakorn (but not as much as To Sir With Love and with way less scenery chewing). This is an elegant and classy soulmates BL... from Thailand which normally doesn't even try for classy. The main couple (both as a pair and as individuals) were excellent, particularly Bright (Yai) whose eye-work acting style is a personal favorite of mine. Pity about the ending. Oh it wasn’t that sad but it wasn’t good either. This show could easily have earned a 10/10 from me except that it fumbled the… erm… balls in the final quarter. Argh. Whatever.

Nobleman Ryu's Wedding

2021 Korea - WeTV

A boy cross-dresses to take his runaway sister's place as a bride to a shy scholar, turns out they like being married. A historical setting allowed this BL to use some seriously old fashioned romance tropes (arranged marriage, evil step-sisters, Cinderfella) but also modern BL stylings like fake relationship & secret identity (drag) plus some cute gay panic. It reminded me of 12th Night more than anything else which just happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play. For all these reasons, I adored it.

(the ghat kiss!)

Tinted With You

2022 Korea - Viki

Fun stylish time travel meets portal fantasy with a likable cast, historical setting, and two actual kisses that mitigate the rough plot and issues around anachronisms.

Word of Honor

2021 China (censored) - Viki/YouTube?

I don’t rec Chinese stuff often, because I believe in censoring the censors, but this show is one of my favorites of the post 2016 censored bromances. It’s two murder-gay assassins (pining sunshine/tsundere), and they are so insanely gay for two boys who will never be allowed to kiss. Tropes include: wuxia, soulmates, paranormal, historical, and fantasy elements.

To Sir, With Love AKA Khun Chai

2022 Thailand - YouTube?

This is a true lakorn (basically Thai tellenovella or soap opera) with scenery chewing performances, especially from the mother characters. Gone With the Wind + Days of Our Lives but gay. That said? I loved it: A glorious central brother relationship (the best, made me cry), het romances, class divide + gay *gasp* main romance - oh my word, the campy drama of it all! Arranged marriage, rebellion, cut sleeves, over-the-top death with curses and regrets, beautiful if inaccurate costumes, secrets unraveling, cover ups, sparkle murder, sex herbs, coils within coils including snakes and murderous green metallic sequins (is anything gayer on this earth?). It’s a WILD ride but it does end happy for our gay boys. A man cries when he finds DEATH GLITTER. Come on! You haffa watch it. That said, like Manner of Death I struggle to rate something on a BL scale when it patently isn’t a BL. So I ended up giving this exactly what I gave that show, 7/10 I enjoyed it a whole lot, but not as a BL.

The Untamed (Special BL Edition)

2020 China (censored) - YouTube

Censored wuxia bromance, amorphous ending. Probubly the best known BL of its kind out of China and responsible for bring many fans to the BL side.

Our Skyy 2: Never Let Me Go

2023 Thailand - YouTube

I was nervous to watch this PondPhuwin vehicle but I liked it a lot! Doomed soulmates + paranormal time travel to fix the past. I’m happy for the outfits and the dancing (if not the singing). It’s not a bad premise and it’s nice to see GMMTV lean into its high production values for a change. I'd adore a full historical starring these two and this was definitely the best of the second series of Our Skyy. I don't think you have to have watched the original Never Let Me Go to enjoy this.

Legend of Long Yang: Rebirth

2017 China

Gaga

Whipping boy trope... literally, servant character takes the strap for the prince, who then makes him his bodyguard and lover when he becomes king. Low budget historical, comes off as kind of cosplay wuxia version of Irresistible Love, but we get (in the credits) an actual kiss, and they both live. So yay for small mercies.

The Director Who Buys Me Dinner

2023 Korea (historical flash backs)

iQIYI

A new employee at a film company encounters a director who claims to have lived 300 years and insists that they have to date (eat, hug & kiss) if baby doesn't want to die. It has a lot of Japanese elements, not the least of which are: an office setting, the fact that every character in this show is unhinged, and a killing of the gays. Featuring a gorgeous & stellar cast, TDWBMD should have utilized them less for melodrama and more for chemistry. This BL surprised me by going there with a lipstick mark AND an actually gay idol. But (you knew there was a but) while it's a unique twist on an office romance it is NOT a unique twist on the doomed red thread trope, resulting in it feeling less than the sum of its parts and ultimately unsatisfying. This might have also had to do with the fact that this was one of those KBLs where I felt how very short it was the whole time I was watching, like I was missing something constantly, in every episode. Worth watching for some but seriously flawed.

First Love Again

2022 Korea (historical flash backs) - Viki

A popular novelist who remembers his past lives meets his soulmate for the third time, only to find she has been reincarnated into the body of a man. This one started out a touch mean-spirited, but we eventually got a good kiss. The confession/rejection scene was justified and the reconciliation and ending was... fine. All in all, the pacing felt rushed and the romantic arc was underdeveloped. They go from like to love to boyfriends in a red hot minute. But that’s par for the course with Korea’s short form. If you don’t mind a heavy does of melodrama in your BL this one has a solid story with a strong concept that’s well acted and produced, making it a classic KBL with better than average chemistry but ultimately a touch forgettable.

Love in Spring AKA Spring of Crush

2022 Korea

This show was all over the place with uneven acting, narrative, and focus (sometimes it wanted to be a slapstick comedy, sometimes a depressing melodrama) which meant no one, actors or viewers, took anyone or anything seriously.... AND it’s a bromance. I was left wondering if SalHyung is now code for “they were roommates” in Kdrama historicals but otherwise largely apathetic and unimpressed. Korea, I now know you can do better. Do better.

Mermaid's Jade

2019 China (censored-esk) - Gaga

Kills the gay.

The Male Queen: Han Zi Gao

2016 China - Gaga

Kills the gay. Schrodinger's BL, both a BL and entirely not one at the same time.

Diary of Heong Yeong Dang

2014 Korea

Kills the Gay

I was gonna do a top 10 list, but there aren't enough by my metrics, so many end sadly.

This post at the behest of @verymuchof thank you for the idea!

Dated April 2023, includes only BLs that had finished their run by that date. Not responsible for cool costume flix that come after that. But you should check the comments to see if any have been added by others!

I might have missed a few that only have time historical elements since I don't always track those.

Also I would like to point out a decided lack of Japan on this list. My ninja yaoi consuming tiny past self is VERY upset about this void.

WHERE ARE MY GAY NINJAS??!!!

(source)

[honeygleam]

leslie cheung as cheng dieyi in farewell, my concubine (1992) dir. chen kaige

[bixels]

I wanna get around to doing some small story beats for the "Main Six Takes Manhattan" story. It'd be a good chance for me to play around with different art styles too.

I'm really excited about this story too because it'd be splitting everyone up into pairs for their own little arc.

Rarity attends a fashion showcase in upper Manhattan, with April-Jacqueline in tow as her "attendant." The two get swept up in industry drama as they uncover the abuse faced by amateur designer Carol Cho under the American fashion house "Polomare."

Pinkie and Thea head to Harlem for a rent party, hosted by Thea's city friends. Despite Thea's protestations, Pinkie can't help but be the life of the party as its tenants and musicians attempt to raise enough money to fight their landlords and demand housing justice.

Dash and Félicie navigate NYC's transportation system to go to a ball game: the New York Wonderbolts vs. the Washington Senators. While Dash meets her heroes, Félicie can't help but feel homesick and smothered by the big city.

[jade-len]

i adore how mxtx sorta flipped the idea on the whole top/bottom thing with svsss, and just BL relationships in general.

making bingqiu very open to switching, not making the "bottom" super feminine and actually leaning more to the handsome side compared to the "top", how luo binghe is manipulative sensitive and cries easily, etc. one of the main themes in svsss is literally about sexuality (and possibly even about gender roles).

as a queer asian man myself, i absolutely despise the "yaoi archetype" and it was one of the reasons why i avoided consuming BL media. hell, years ago when i first saw heavens official blessing, i mentally groaned and went, "ugh, let me guess, the bottom is super feminine and innocent, while the top is masculine and experienced." of course, that's not the case now, but it's disappointing how that thought was there purely because of the god awful way fetish-y media portrays homosexual people and couples. because, believe it or not, we are not assigned male/female typical gender roles just because one likes to top/bottom (and even then, it's not even like that! some people have preferences, sure, but it's not so strictly "i'm top/bottom")

so, while i absolutely LOVE the english novel designs (especially luo binghe's cute curly hair, gongyi xiao, etc, and personally believe a lot of the takes from the western artist on the designs are an improvement), i am greatly saddened by people subconsciously assigning shen qingqiu as someone more delicate and feminine and luo binghe as someone super masculine and muscly. like, if you're going to have luo binghe depicted as the western design (i believe this stems from binghe being applied to more western ideals for men, and, admittedly, i actually really love his design), at least don't make shen qingqiu feminine and delicate? don't have his appearance play into the stupid yaoi thing?

i get that people have different takes on svsss, especially how the western version depicts it. but, people just... seem to very over exaggerate the top/bottom roles when it comes to bingqiu (again, these two are, canonically, VERY open to switching).

it's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it comes across as, "so, who wears the pants in the relationship?"

so, can we please have more canonically handsome shen qingqiu? canonically beautiful and pretty boy luo binghe (they literallly state that binghe looks EXACTLY like his mom, su xiyan! while a more handsome woman, is still very beautiful!! plus it is stated several times that binghe is slim, and that shang qinghua made him that way!) or at the very least, a BL couple who actually look like normal people (ok thats a little hard considering binghe is literally supposed to be perfect) and not just a stupid fetishized version of themselves.

and no, i'm not saying that queer men shouldn't be feminine or men who are feminine shouldn't be in a relationship with guys who are masculine, etc.

TLDR: please stop twinkifying shen qingqiu and going against what mxtx defied for us queer men (the stupid yaoi roles). and for the love of whoever you believe in, do NOT think that i hate the english design or people's personal interpretation of characters, i just hate the subconscious assigning of gender roles to bingqiu and how media portrays and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships in general.

edit: also i love teardrew's (check them out on twitter!) interpretation of shang qinghua. while i do really like the the eng novel design's tiny scared hamster vibes, teardrew's version just radiates "up to no good, paranoid but suspicious looking bitch" rat man and i love it so so so much. i'm not gonna repost their art bc i don't know how they feel about that but perhaps you can search up "svsss designs" on here, you'll see it pop up eventually lol.

edit 2 (1/16): i just saw someone reblog a post (that im pretty sure was referring to this one because, well, if you saw it i think it'd be a little clear kahxj) that was about how bingqiu switching and completely eschewing traditional top/bottom dynamics was a fandom idea or smth? so now i'm wondering, since i swear i remember that they were open to switching, but it's just that sqq preferred to bottom and/or was just a little too lazy to top. plus, sqq is a pretty unreliable narrator who says he doesn't want something one moment and then he does. how could he say no to bingbing? esp if he seems to wanna try bottoming too. perhaps i'm mixing things up though, idk? so if anyone can find that passage that says he only and strictly wants to bottom or whatever please show me! but i think the point of this post still stands haha (i wanted to ask about it, actually, but when i clicked on the og post's user it turned out that they blocked me ? so that was a little surprising oops. hey if ur somehow reading this, im... sorry for making you want to block me bc of this post? akdhxjj)

[artist-ellen]

Fooduary Day 10: Dragon's Beard Candy

Happy Lunar New Year!!! This one probably doesn’t seem very obvious but a white-candy version would be terribly unlucky!! (And I need all the luck I can get). So I tried to make the lantern slightly reminiscent of the treat while the character is styled in Han Dynasty fashion. According to the legend-history of dragon’s beard candy it was invented in the Han Dynasty (202 BCE 220 CE) which makes it our oldest dessert yet! And yeah, I went off script for this one. Day 10 was supposed to be Cinnamon rolls but I’m moving some stuff around because I so rarely get the chance to post something to celebrate.

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram, tiktok or check out my coloring book available now \ („• ֊ •„) /

https://linktr.ee/ellen.artistic

[yourdailyqueer]

Nadine Hwang (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 3 March 1902 

RIP: Died 1972

Ethnicity: Chinese, white

Nationality: Various - she moved about but died in Belgium and lived with Nelly in Venezuela for 20 years.

Occupation: Lawyer, veteran, chauffeur, spy

Note 1: Was one of the first Chinese female pilots and served in the Chinese Air Force as an honorary colonel. There is evidence to suggest that Nadine Hwang also spied against the Nazis as an agent on behalf of the French Resistance.

Note 2: Had a relationship with opera singer Nelly Mousset-Vos

[junotter]

Legitimately can't explain what caused me to get just get really into this hetaliaAU that exists solely in my brain but I couldn't stop

At first it was just imagining like a Japanese woman in kimono in like 19th century New York and then I started thinking about how amazing fem japan is and like then ameripan came in and now I'm like losing it

[hikarifujisan]

🔥👑 Fearsome empress 👑🔥