#cmedia

[2700lagostas]

A Moment But Forever (Nian Wushuang) - Episode 01

[xiaoshengnu]

wallpaper collage of xiaolanhua by yours truly ;)

[pangzi]

Hou Minghao for PowerCircles

[999-roses]

here's a... ship? trope? Thing. that I don't 100% get but find fascinating. full respect for folks out ther making art and content, and generally engaging in this... genre. trope.

【和尚的爱情】 [The Romantic Love of Monks]

Monks. The Chinese Buddhism flavor of monks, where they shave off all hair, denounce worldly possessions and family ties, and join a monastery. Specifically, these guys are committed to celibacy. Yeah on a logical level I'm like yeah, ok, this is a particular flavor of star-crossed lovers trope. But, I still, I.. it's too wacky funny to me. I.. I can't with the shiny cue-ball heads, PLEASE.

and there's. so much gorgeous art created. for this. uh genre? (Unfortunately it's typically m monk x f lead, and my limited exposure has yet to bring monk-flavored BL to my attention. I'm 100% certain it exists out there though.)

Anyway here's some popular media renditions of this, er, genre-trope. Please pray for my soul as I descend:

From Journey to the West, Tang Monk/Queen of the Kingdom of Women (西游记 - 唐僧/女儿国国王) (my rating: famous and classic, but there's something off about every rendition I've seen)

the 3rd installment of the HK Monkey King film series basically circles around shipping 唐三藏 with 女儿国国王. The Chinese movie title is 西游记：女儿国. There's some re-imagining/writing revisions from the source material, Journey to the West. The AMVs are spicy and the music is fire, and holy heck does the script/director want them to get together. The movie is corny, 孙悟空 is downright unhinged, the cg parts are too much, the pacing/tone is all over the place... a lot of this movie is weird. It's got mixed reviews but all the youtube comments love it idk.

ok but also... that second poster/playbill 💀🤣 (the text at the top is a pun on 好运来 -> 好孕来) (to explain: the mpreg is canon in the og jttw, if you drink the waters from 母亲河 you get pregnant. That concept gave me nightmares as a child.)

and here's a wonderful cover/mix by JJ Lin. The original song 女儿情 appears in 1986 Journey to the West :

the song is POV the Queen of the Kingdom of Women in full pining mode for Tang monk. And the mix-insert of 菊花台? Seamless lyric inclusion. chef's kiss. I think someone else singing an arrangement based off of JJ's made it into the 女儿国 movie mentioned earlier.

2. Green Snake/Fahai (青蛇/法海) (my rating: based)

There's the recurring retelling insisting on pairing Green Snake with the Fahai, the Buddhist monk that traps her sister White Snake in the pagoda in the traditional telling of 白蛇传. Here's a fan AMV on youtube & a fan AMV on bilibili. Both take clips are from the 1993 HK movie 青蛇. Honestly? This is the ship I endorse the most and have the least issues with (love 妖x人/妖x仙 dynamics but also in some retellings 法海 is also 妖). Regardless, the 1993 film is a masterpiece, I wholeheartedly recommend a watch (and in Canto if you can find the original audio. I don't like the mandarin dub's audio mixing).

3. Faithful to Buddha, Faithful to You (不负如来不负卿). (my rating: cursed) UMMM this one is wonky with age and time travel making it questionably problematic so uh, you're warned.

This story started off as a webnovel and later got a live action series (afaik live action isn't finished?). For some unknown reason I watched it when the first season was airing... and... Forget that whole "getting together with a sworn-to-celibacy monk" thing being taboo, now we're time traveling and meeting said monk when he's 13 to become his tutor, and a few months later in your time, you time travel again to when he's 26. (FMC doesn't have feelings for him until she meets him when he's an adult but. Girl. This is still too weird okay?)

4. 少林降魔 Vanquishing the Demon (2020) (my rating: spicy [purely based on seeing an AMV])

this movie is solidly xianxia, and it looks pretty enough I'll watch it eventually. But, waow, this AMV clip. I think it made me understand how this genre!trope fits solidly into hopeless romantic/star-crossed lovers territory.

I'm probably missing a bunch of other pieces of media there's a looot of AMVs with clips from either CG donghua or video game cinematics but UM yeah hello. I didn't know this was such a thing. I'm not explicitly out there searching for BL monks okay *old man hacking cough* but I hadn't really found any... yet. The end result of my dive is... I guess I now find monks just a little sexier now, FML

[mistiwysteria]

I just watched the 2013 movie 我想和你好好的 (love will tear us apart) after finding it for free on youtube. I’d never heard of the movie before and knew nothing about it besides a few comments saying how unexpectedly the movie progressed, but I loved it. I liked how liang liang and miao miao weren’t presented as anyone special, they were both just normal young people who made do with what they had, who happened to come together and came apart again. 

but what I really like was the fact that they didn’t villainise miao miao for her attempts to control the relationship. sure she tried to control liang liang, she was paranoid and borderline abusive but neither was her behaviour completely unfounded; her job as an actress contributed to her insecurities and liang liang did sneak around her back instead of confronting her behaviour in a honest and constructive way- and then later went as far as to meet up with his ex on the regular. while this does not excuse her abusive behaviour, it humanises her. 

maybe I haven't been watching many movies recently but I was actually quite surprised how fast paced it was. the speed in which liang liang and miao miao’s relationship went hurtling downhill was quite jarring and a little exaggerated but to be honest I actually quite appreciated it for what it was. it’s like that idea in literature where you highlight the fact that the piece of literature is actually just a piece of literature in order to emphasise the point you’re trying to make. what I took from the movie was how easy it was for what seemed to be a totally normal relationship to become so toxic, that abusive behaviour is not the evil rootless thing that it’s often presented as- it is awful, but it’s never totally black and white- miao miao at the end of the day is still a human being. 

[blorbocedes]

if anyone is curious, nico's leaf jacket is LV and 2000 euros 😭😭😭

you just know he's stunting on the rest of the commentators at sky in their office wear

as per dug up by @legobrickcow

[hunxi-after-hours]

collecting some of the thoughts in The Disappearance of Rituals on performance, communication, and authenticity:

Chapter 1: "The Compulsion of Production"

"Digital communication is increasingly developing into communication without community. The neoliberal regime encourages communication without community by isolating everyone as the producer of him- or herself. Producing is derived from the Latin verb producere, meaning presenting or making visible. Like the French produire it still carries the meaning of presenting. Se produire means 'to play to the gallery'. The colloquial German expression sich produzieren probably has the same etymology. Today, we are constantly and compulsively playing to the gallery. This is especially the case, for instance, on social media: the social is coming to be completely subordinated in order to garner more attention. The compulsion of self-production leads to a crisis of community. The so-called 'community' that is today invoked everywhere is an atrophied community, perhaps even a kind of commodified and consumerized community. It lacks the symbolic power to bind people together" (13).

Chapter 2: "The Compulsion of Authenticity"

"The society of authenticity is a performance society. All members perform themselves. All produce themselves. Everyone pays homage to the cult of the self, the worship of the self in which everyone is his or her own priest" (16).

"Taylor's moral justification of authenticity ignores that subtle process, within the neoliberal regime, by which ideas of freedom and self-realization are transformed into vehicles for more efficient exploitation. The neoliberal regime exploits morality. Once it is able to present itself as freedom, domination becomes complete. Authenticity is a neoliberal form of production. You exploit yourself voluntarily in the belief that you are realizing yourself. In the cult of authenticity, the neoliberal regime appropriates the person himself and turns him into a highly efficient site of production" (18).

"With the rise of the cult of authenticity, tattoos have also become fashionable again. Within a ritual context, they symbolize the alliance between individual and community. In the nineteenth century, when tattoos were very popular, especially among the upper classes, the body was still a surface onto which yearnings and dreams were projected. Today, tattoos lack any symbolic power. All they do is point to the uniqueness of the bearer. The body is neither a ritual stage nor a surface of projection; rather, it is an advertising space. The neoliberal hell of the same is populated with tattooed clones" (20).

"The culture of authenticity goes hand in hand with the distrust of ritualized forms of interaction. Only spontaneous emotion, that is, a subjective state, is authentic. Behaviour that has been formed in some way is denigrated as inauthentic or superficial. In the society of authenticity, actions are guided internally, motivated psychologically, whereas in ritual societies actions are determined by externalized forms of interaction. Rituals make the world objective; they mediate our relation to the world. The compulsion of authenticity, by contrast, makes everything subjective, thereby intensifying narcissistic tendencies" (23).

[2700lagostas]

Martial God Asura (Xiuluo Wu Shen) - Episode 08

[999-roses]

omg the animation clips/proofs of concept they've put out are amazing!!

Artworks by chinese artist Yu QIuyang for his "You Ming Zhi" global project (animations / illustrations / comic books).

[tianshiisdead]

All the Chinese American movies being about trad mom VS westernized daughter is crazy where is my mom who wants western approval/to fit in/for her daughter to fit in VS annoying China obsessed daughter who hates white people and LARPs as mainland Asian online

[pangzi]

Hou Minghao for PowerCircles

[999-roses]

aight I finally sat down and finished watching live action Hikaru no Go and I kind of lost it when I saw the status under 褚赢‘s 围达 Online Go profile read ’你是我的眼‘ after 褚赢 disappeared forever/right before 时光 deleted the profile 😭😭😭😭😭 also 时光 sings a lil line out of that song too 💔

[rinbylin]

mum was asking for a cdrama to watch for the first time in years. and the only condition she had was "no guzhuang" 😭 ... unlocked a repressed part of my memory when i was more modern dramas than guzhuangs (lol who was that?? what changed me?? actually, hlht, i think) like mum like daughter really

[lanliingwang]

Genuinely think people need to realize it's not. Bad or makes your love of a media less if you criticize its instances of racism and other problems -- if anything, we should all strive to be critical of those instances in general (regardless of it being largely amongst ourselves and our friends or out on public social media)

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

It’s funny that ‘tiger moms’ are viewed as such a default thing when they’re very much tied to the whole ‘China just came out of the century of humiliation, the civil war, the cultural revolution, life sucks but if you work hard you can get a better life’; it’s why it’s so common in diaspora/immigrant families. If you’re rich, chinese parents tend to be pretty lax as long as you’re not an absolute embarrassment.

Also the stuff people are complaining about in mxtx writing is funny because like most of that is just normal cn writing stuff. Truly people need to watch more cdramas than cql

It's so tiring to see this as some major default when it's very much a generational thing. And why die on this hill of normalizing fictional abusive adults with this take when the novel is reiterating the exact opposite

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

And as you said this is all very common material in cdramas or any other cmedia. There are entire warnings about CP materials and only featuring said canon CP's for such things because the fans do not pay to see side pairs they want the canon ones and what is expected. Just look at the mess of romance gatchas and the uproar if devs even hint of a side character with a main from a CP. As well as the reason as to why the Untamed got what it got and had been an out of the norm production the fans fought to get.

For all the complaints of tags, web novels have those in order for readers to find what they want and don't want for original publications. You get what you get upfront and if you want love triangles, side ships it will be upfront with that, if you bother to look yourself and I dunno... bother to navigate a novel site yourself for once?

But ahhhh so many rants with some of this and the supposed fandom etiquette that just is not the same as the western sphere and shouldn't have to be because it's not from that base to begin with and authors shouldn't have to cater to American fanbase expectations.

[ge]

what do you like about rotmhs? like what draws you in?

GAHH IM SO GLAD YOU ASKEDDD at the top of my head thhe top three things i felt really drew me into and made me fall in love w rotmhs is the found family/bonds before blood narrative, the action/fight scenes, and the comedy..

rotmhs is not a romance and i feel like that really pushes people away from reading it, especially folks who were first introduced to east asian novels through bl (specifically mxtxs novels like mdzs tgcf etc etc) which i feel is incredibly disappointing because yallre missing out on a certain depth of writing and nuance you otherwise wouldnt get in a romance focused novel. (orv is another extremely popular knovel with no romance.. if you like orv PLEASE give rotmhs a shot)

rotmhs is about a dead man resurrected a hundred years into the future having to come to terms w the fact that everyone he loved is dead and that the only home he ever had was destroyed, its inhabitants and centuries worth of teachings burned to the ground, and that it was partially his fault these things happened, so in order to prevent a future catastrophe he knows is on the horizon, he trains the youth of this new generation and finds a new home surrounded by ghosts in the wreckage of his home of his past

⬆️…very dramatic but somewhat accurate barebones synopsis of rotmhs which is fairly faithful enough methinks.. rotmhs doesnt make a point of going ‘heyy these guys are family nowww theyre brothers and sisters and love each other like familyyy’ LOL the growth is very subtle and before u can really blink ur like ‘oh man.. chung myung would kill for these kids. obliviously though. i dont think he knows he even likes them’ all the while hes still aching w the loss of his loved ones before.. if we’re being really really honest chung myung, the mc, truly is the star of the show and a character i got attached to incredibly quickly.. hes so stupid but so smart he has so many issues i want to hit him with my car then nurse him back to health just to hit him again

chung myung himself is a whole other thing i could get into but he has so many layers.. so much depth.. on the surface ud look at him and think what a punk but look a little closer and then ud think oh this punk has depression ptsd survivors guilt hallucinations etc etc LIKE DAMN.. I THIUGHT HE WAS JUST A FUNNY LITTLE GUY WHYD I GET SUCKER PUNCHED

what was i even talking about. OH right romance. please please dont let the lack of romance dissuade you, imo it is soooo refreshing to read something that isnt focused on romance like i love yaoi like the next bl reading bitch but damn.. ive always been into found family and while the bl novels i have read did always have a little hint of it, i always wanted more and rotmhs fills that void

(that being said i cant stop yall from shipping if yall want LOL im guilty of shipping charas too despite everythiing i just said… if yall want yalls yaoiyuri fix may i direct yalls attention to the ‘doomed by the narrative, tragic best-friends-to-almost-lovers tangchung’ & ‘love at first sight sweethearts iseolsoso’ ….. :SMILES: I LOVE TANGCHUNG..!!!!!!)

NEXT, the action and fight scenes in rotmhs, even in written text form, are sublime to say the least.. my fail cis dudebro trait is that i love crazy insane adrenaline rushing heart pumping shounen-esque battles so much that i could typically care less for the rest of that specific piece of media as long as the fights are good.. FORTUNATELY FOR ME rotmhs is crazy good at balancing its comedy, action, and otherwise more ‘mundane’ scenes together so harmoniously that its such fun read even when theres no swords crossing or heads being beaten in

also important to note, despite being a knovel w korean naming of characters/places, rotmhs actually takes place in ancient china in a wuxia setting so jumping head first into it wont be all that confusing for first time readers/cmedia fans and u can use ur knowledge of cnovels to fill in the gaps.

theres not really much more i have to say on the topic of fighting, im just personally a huge fan of the crazy spectacles rotmhs brings to the table.

saved this for last but THE COMEDY…!!!!!!!! after being soo dramatic w all my previous points and comments ur probably thnkng rotmhs is heavy and somber w no breathing room.. WELL YOURE WRONG. ROTMHS IS FUNNY AS HELL quips and jokes and simple funny actions and scenes litter nearly every page. i mentioned this novel balances its action and comedy well and im NOT LYING youd think maybe the heavy action and light comedy would awkwardly clash but u cldnt be more further from the truth.. rotmhs wears action and comedy like a pair of twin gloves

rotmhs handles its action and comedy in equal doses and it all fits together like matching puzzle pieces, like i really cant stress enough how fun it is to read. not every fight scene is somber, most of the time its chung myung oneshotting someone by hitting them across the head so hard they pass out..

unfortunately im not really the best at listing instances so its be better for u to go read it for urself but this scene from one of the later chapters is soo funny every time i read it i start giggling

(LIGHT/MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL it probably doesnt even matter u wont even remember this when u start reading)

right so i think thats most of it.. too lazy to read through everything i just wrote so if nothing makes sense… well. …well!

rotmhs deserves to have the same amount of fame as ORV and MDZS and TGCF have and it is my civil duty as one of the oldest mxtx novel outlets on tumblr to put yall on it..

my thumbs hurt from typing so im done now but if u have anymore questions PLEASE ASK IM SO DESPERATE TO TALK ABOUT ROTMHS ok byyyeeeeeeee