#i know in my post i mentioned the people who started reading full on webnovels within months!

[rigelmejo]

Related to this post. My goal is trying to encourage you to read if you'd like to. It's okay if you just dabble with a graded reader with 50 unique characters, or try to chug through a manhua or a webnovel. Just that if you want to read, starting to work toward it does not have to feel super out of reach. You can start trying little bits of reading as a beginner, or upper beginner, whenever you'd like. It's not something you have to wait to learn 3000 hanzi and HSK5+ to start. (And lol repeating myself as always: I really do think the Heavenly Path Notion Site's Reading Guide is a great resource for starting to read, and working one's way up to more difficult materials).

Let's suppose you want to learn Chinese mainly to read webnovels (or other reading material).

Now, personally, I recommend some study of pronunciation like pinyin, and watching some videos or reading some articles on tones and tone sandhi, grammar, hanzi and hanzi structure. Because at some point you'll probably want to listen too, speak too. So you know - use other resources to study the other skills! If you plan to do anything besides read eventually. Also, I think some pronunciation study actually helped me with remembering hanzi (the sound components in them) and reading skill.

But lets suppose you're studying mainly so you can read webnovels. Which is what I did in my first year. And you can set a goal to start reading webnovels within a year. For some people it takes as little as 3 months to start reading webnovels, for others like me it took around 6 months to start reading webnovels and 12 months to feel comfortable.

Download Pleco app and Readibu app. These apps will be your best friends. Pleco app is a dictionary tool so you can look up unknown chinese words, and it's Clipboard Reader area is where you can paste any chinese text into and then click-translate any words. I recommend the first time you look up any word, you press the dictate/speaker tool so you can hear how it's pronounced. You can save words in Pleco and study them using Pleco's built in SRS flashcards if you wish. Mainly though, the important part is using Pleco to look up words, read example sentences, and to use the Clipboard Reader area to read any Chinese text you find online. Pleco has an area to purchase graded readers, these will probably be some of the first things you read (if you choose to use paid resources). Readibu app is a click-translation Reader app for Chinese, you can browse the app for webnovels, or you can go to the Search area and paste in a url of a chinese webnovel, then Readibu will say it's not in the database so click 'search with Google' then you'll see the url as a result and click it, then bookmark the webnovel page in Readibu. From there you can click the open book icon on any webnovel, and it will make it just click-translate text and provide you the Readibu app features. Once you're reading a lot of webnovels, you may wish to use Readibu to read, for some people it will be more convenient than Pleco for going chapter by chapter.

Make a plan to start studying hanzi. I recommend you focus on the most common 1000-2000 chinese words, or the HSK 4 vocabulary, or both. The goal here is to get your vocabulary and hanzi recognition around HSK 4 level. I used this book (Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: (HSK Levels 1 -3) A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters) because it just clicked with me, I just read through it over a few months. You can use SRS flashcards (like Anki or Pleco) collections that people have made (I recommend this Mnemonics Simplified Hanzi Deck, or Mnemonics Traditional Hanzi Deck). For common words, I recommend Spoonfed Chinese anki deck (note it has some mistakes but I like that it has audio and sentence examples), but there's a ton of anki decks and common word frequency lists (you can genuinely just study a list) just pick a resource you like with either 2000 common words or HSK 4 vocabulary. Literally just pick any study materials where you can learn roughly 1000 common hanzi and 1000 common words or more. Whatever materials work for you. Study however you want - some people find anki flashcards useful (I just cram studied 1000 words for a few weeks each then never looked at anki again), some find books useful, some find textbooks useful, some use vocabulary lists, some use videos, just pick something. Your goal is going to be to study these words/hanzi in 3-6 months. 8-10 months if you want to wait to read longer, or need more time to study. I studied 800 hanzi in the book I linked for the first 3 months, then 1000 words the next month, then 1000 words the next month, then about 500 more hanzi the next month. It is okay to cram study! It is okay to not memorize these hanzi and words! Just get a basic familiarity! You are going to fully learn these common hanzi and words when you READ later.

As you are studying common hanzi and words, start reading a grammar guide if you would like some knowledge of grammar. Or watch some grammar videos on youtube, whatever clicks best with you. Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar is a good grammar guide summary book, AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki is an excellent website you can read. I read another grammar guide summary, the website no longer exists. Again, do not try to memorize and drill this stuff, just go through it and get a basic familiarity. You can move on if a particular grammar point makes no sense right now. Learn about grammar the same time you're studying hanzi and common words, so the first 3-6 months.

Okay it's been 3 months! You know some hanzi (maybe 50-500), you know some words (maybe 50-1000 depending on how intensely you've been studying)! Start reading! You're going to start with Graded Readers, which are reading material made for learners. Heavenly Path's Comprehensive Reading Guide suggests some free graded reader resources in the Below 1000 characters section. I used Mandarin Companion Graded Readers and other graded readers I could purchase in Pleco. Mandarin Companion has some graded readers with 50 unique characters. I started with some Pleco graded readers that had 300 unique characters, then moved up to graded readers with 500-800 unique characters. Read graded readers! Reread them! Look up any words you don't know (using Pleco or something else). Listen to the pronunciation of any new words. If reading in Pleco, you can use the Dictation tool to hear the sentences read aloud. When using graded readers in general, use any audiobooks that accompany them. Mostly though just read, read, read, and look up anything you want. Look up grammar points in something like AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki if you are now starting to see some grammar that confuses you while reading. The reading practice is what is going to teach you the words you've been studying in other materials.

Now it's been 6 months. You've been working your way through graded readers of increasing unique character count (and are now reading graded readers of at least 800 unique characters or more). You've been working your way through studying common hanzi and words, and now have studied at least 1000 words or more. (If you cram like I did, you probably have studied over 2000 words but only the 800-1000 words in your graded reading material have been 'fully learned' and the other words you studied are only vaguely familiar, this is perfectly fine). Go to Heavenly Path and start reading the stuff they recommend for people who know 1000-2000 characters. I think @秃秃大王 by 张天翼 is perfect for people who know around 1000 characters to start with. You can keep reading some graded readers like those that go up to 1500-2000 unique characters if you'd like, but start trying to read novels for native speakers too. Again, I recommend anything in the easiest 'recommendations' from Heavenly Path's recommendation list of webnovels, a lot of novels for children will be perfect at this point. You'll gradually work on increasing the unique characters of your reading materials. Read in Pleco or Readibu so you can use the click-translate tool. To find webnovels online, paste or type the chinese name of the novel (and author if you know it), and then 'zaixian yuedu' like this '秃秃大王 张天翼 在线阅读'. It is very easy to find novels online in chinese.

From here you just continue reading more difficult novels! Go at the pace you choose! Once you're reading stuff with 2000 unique characters, then if you wish you can stop studying hanzi and common words outside of just looking them up in reading. You can of course continue to study hanzi and words outside of reading. But if you'd rather just learn words by looking them up as you read, you can start doing that as soon as you switch to novels for native speakers (1000-2000 characters). Congrats, you are reading webnovels!

Some people start reading webnovels within a few months, and you can start with a higher unique character count if you wish. Such as starting with MoDaoZuShi or Zhenhun or SaYe as soon as you go from graded readers to regular novels. The difficulty curve will be a lot steeper, and you'll be looking up a LOT of words for a while. But other people have done it. I started reading webnovels around 6 months, after doing graded readers for a while, and it took picking several easier and harder reading materials until I found a comfortable reading level to continue from.

So it boils down to: start studying very common words and hanzi (a list, a book, anki, whatever works for you, and you don't have to memorize just get some Exposure some Basic Familiarity), read about grammar if you wish (again just get some Basic Familiarity so later if you need to look up a grammar point in depth as you read, you know what to look up), and START READING ASAP. Use Pleco and Readibu to read with click-translations of words. Start with graded reader materials, then as soon as you can tolerate move on to novels for native speakers. Heavenly Path's website is a great resource for finding reading material at your level if you have no idea what to pick and don't want to trial and error different webnovels until something is doable. For anyone who finds sounds help with memory (like me) or who plan to eventually learn to listen to chinese, listen to the pronunciation of any new words when you look them up. If you watch cdramas, cdramas often have chinese subtitles on them, those can be good practice for reading as well.

You can start reading within a year. You can read graded readers within a few months, as soon as you feel it's tolerable. And then you can just learn new words BY reading, review words you've looked up before BY reading, review grammar BY reading, and work your way up to reading whatever webnovels you want. I find learning words BY reading much easier for myself, doing what I want to do in the language as I'm learning to read, much easier to stick to and enjoy than anki flashcards or word lists or textbooks. So from me, the suggestion to push yourself to read graded readers ASAP is so you can get to the part of learning BY reading quicker.

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[dangermousie]

Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor   antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both  as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men   always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be  friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest  parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is  also finding the middle path between their two very different  philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or  dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and  setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period  setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with  character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our   protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant,   sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s  servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as  we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and  occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named   Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers  and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both  out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely  likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two  take up farming, get involved in  the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then  they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.