#i watched cdramas and kdramas a lot compared to western dramas

[chuluoyi]

i didn’t know you were chinese!

i don’t talk about it much bc i want my blog to be as inclusive as it possibly can be 🥹 and actually, i wasn’t born in mainland china but i’m of chinese descent so my family still values a lot of its heavy traditions and way of life—they’re all ingrained in me :’)

[queensumomo]

I’m becoming quite hooked on CDramas lately, although still with a smattering of KDramas (like my most recent favorite “Captivating The King”). I’m smack in the middle of Lin Gengxin classics “Princess Agents” and “God of War Zhao Yun”, am excited about the upcoming Luo Yunxi drama “Follow Your Heart”, gearing up for Zhao Lusi in “The Story of Pearl Girl” and excited to begin with “The Princess Royal”.

I still have several CDramas in the pipeline, such as “The Substitute Princess’s Love”, “Royal Nirvana”, “Journey To You”. And a lot more.

CDramas, like KDramas, are like peanuts and popcorn. Once you start eating, you just can’t stop. You keep on wanting more. Asian dramas are more fun to watch for me now compared to Western dramas. Well, maybe coz I’m Asian. Their stories are closer to my values and cultural sensibilities. And I do find Asian actors more handsome and beautiful than Westerners. ☺️

[dramasauce]

oh really? i think it might've started from my anime days i always loved anime characters in glasses and it just crossed over to all forms of media 🤣 whenever they make a character take them off i'm like no put them back on! 😂

i understand being critical with kdramas i am too especially this year a lot of kdramas have fallen flat for me in the second half 😭 i tend to go into all dramas with no expectations & most of the time i don't really know what i'm going in to watch i love not knowing about the plot or anything 🤣 since i mostly watch for certain actors (it makes my drama viewing experience so much more enjoyable since 90% of the time i can't be disappointed, but i won't lie i'm very easy to please at the same time 😂)

have to agree with you on joseph zeng i'm glad mysterious lotus casebook introduced me to him (that's why i ended up watching RoTF) & how could you not be ??? that man is so 🥰🥰🥰🥰

you also watched Warm on A Cold Night?? i loved that drama! i've been with bi wenjun since his idol producer days 🥹 so i watched that for him & i loveeed BFTB too another ending that left me a bit annoyed — userdramas secret santa 🎄

From my anime days I was always a sucker for a white haired man. I blame Inyuasha T_T.

I think its because kdramas take themselves a bit more seriously and is comparable to western standards. Whereas cdramas are a bit more loose (prob because of the limitations/censorship).

I think many kdramas started falling flat for me like 2020.. IDK it was a weird shift? maybe. I can't explain it. Maybe it's because I haven't seen my favorite setting in a WHILE. I miss medical dramas. There's been some but not enough lol. IDK. Maybe next year will be better for both you and me!

I WISH I could go in no expectations but I always do. That would be a much better watch. I don't usually watch dramas solely for actors. I have to like what the plot is about. Even if I love the actor, I wont watch if it has tropes I don't like. I wont say I'm difficult but I'm not easy either lol.

No he really isssss. He has such a pleading face. IDK. He always looks like he cares so much. AHH. I'm just... he's so cute!

Yesss I loved Warm on a Cold Night! I was just a bit disappointed by how oblivious they made the female lead for so long. The ending was alright, but I wasn't 100% happy with it. But I enjoyed so much of it. My first drama of his was (tech Sweet Tai Chi but I didn't finish it only watched like once episode so I don't count it) Sweet Teeth. I thought they looked so good together.

BFTB--ALL Fantasy dramas end like this basically and it drives me CRAZY.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i meant white/western audiences are slow to understanding the subtext rather than asian fandoms, when i was a kid i remember most asian countries didnt even have "kiss scenes" in movies or dramas, for us the "subtext" was normal for straight couples too (I've seen a few white folks think cql is a story abt 2 straight friends). the issues with the poor production and it has shit production coz of the budget but the drama wasnt supposed to be a big hit. also like how u just made it the "idol drama"  as if most kdramas and cdramas arent full of idols. I mostly agree with ur cql fandom hate too but to me it seems like u sometimes just want to prove that cql is worse than it is just coz the fans it brought in. I dont blame u either, I've seen some shit metas and the cql fans who hate the novel and call the writer homophobic are also funny. What makes me irritated is that the amount of hate cql gets on here is equal to the amount of hate novel gets, when the drama made alot of things possible for asian LGBTQ audiences. This is the first drama that my gay asian friend (who isnt out) watched with his parents and got them to fall for all the ppl and support the couple. Novels have our imagination in them but dramas need to make a lot of ppl happy and also keep censorship at bay. for me personally cql seems like it made it possible for alot of closeted kids be comfortable talking abt a gay couple with their parents, as novels are limited to a fandom. (Like I've not read a single harry potter book but I've watched 4 of the movies 😚)

I'm not trying to attack u but I'm trying to tell u that just coz the drama brought in a shit ton of weirdos in the fandom it still helped alot more ppl than u can imagine...

Hi anon, 

One thing where we seem to be of a different opinion is that criticising cql as a work of fiction, or highlighting the political economic context surrounding it, in no way negates what it can mean for people. I personally consider that these are completely different matters. These things often have nothing to do with the inherent quality of a thing, or even how good “queer rep” it is--they are relative to people’s specific and personal experiences, or a particular moment in the media landscape. All the things she said holds special meaning to me because it was the first time I got to see two women kiss on tv and it felt revelatory. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged right in front of the tv and refusing to come eat until the end of the music videos--at a time when I could not articulate why I was so fascinated by it. I know that this song is still meaningful for a lot of queer people my age, even if many people hate it for being a straight gaze fantasy. Regardless of what it personally means to me, I’m not going to argue that the music video is a masterpiece, or be blind to the reason why the kiss was included in that music video. CQL is very meaningful to your gay closeted friend, and allowed him to discuss wangxian as a gay couple with his parents, and that’s absolutely great. But I personally think it’s a little bit far-fetched to suppose that the same couldn’t have been said of any other live adaptations of a danmei novel who didn’t shoehorn in a het romance: if the timing had been different, perhaps the first drama with romantic subtext between two male characters he would have seen with his parents would have been Guardians, or the incoming adaptation of TGCF. Hell, H2O was so popular that they might have just watched that one together as well, even if the subtext “romance” is between two side characters. 

Let me be clear as well that I am not trying to argue that MDZS is this groundbreaking piece of fiction wrt “gay rights” or queer representation in China that changes minds and sways public opinion. It’s one of many danmei novels--it just is one that has a lot of literary merit. I simply think it’s disingenuous when people in the western fandom claim that a subtext romance is better “representation” than a canon gay couple who get their happily ever after. CQL is more impactful because it is mainstream, but it does not mean the representation it offers is inherently better. It is also ridiculous sometimes because the hurdles faced by a danmei authors vs the government-backed media giants who benefit financially from putting out censored version of their stories is just..... not something that should be ignored in my opinion.

Asian audiences being more used to romance depicted through subtext does not, at least in my opinion, negate the power of heteronormativity or compulsory heteronormativity to influence readings of that subtext by a portion of the audience. Chinese people are absolutely creative and innovative in the ways in which they manage to circumvent censorship, but a webseries financed by a media giant is not going to be a transgressive attempt to pull the wool over the censors’ eyes--at the end of the day it needs to be a safe investment. 

You seem to suggest that I am hard on CQL for being an idol drama but do not bring the same criticisms to other idol dramas. I find this weird because it’s not like I’ve ever praised an idol drama, and I know I haven’t because I simply don’t think they are competent works of fiction (although sometimes the camera work and editing is at least competent, compared to cql where the production quality is kind of poor). The closest I’ve come to doing that is praising My Mister, which is not in any way an idol drama, but which I suppose features an idol (IU) in the cast. When I said the first jdrama I watched was Hana Yori Dango, that was not an endorsement of how good it was--because honestly it’s one hot mess barely held together by the chemistry between the two leads--it was just a statement of fact. 

I am very critical and judgemental, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that equates to “hate”. Yes, most of my discussions of CQL sprout from existing discussions within the fandom. But most of my posts indirectly reference or respond to something I saw. What’s the difference between me addressing a common novel fanon and me addressing a common opinion on cql’s virtues? 

TLDR; a work of fiction being significant to people is something to recognise but it should not preclude being able to discuss that work critically, especially wrt how it executes its story since the inherent quality of the work as art has no direct correlation with its impact, be it on individuals or on a specific media landscape. Moreover, the impact of a work on queer people or on the social perception of queer people is not inherently proportional to how “good queer rep” it is: it has usually more to do with the context (ie people don’t remember Brokeback Mountain because it was the best movie with a gay love story ever made until then--there was more at play). 

[yibowang]

1) I am wondering if you can comment on the difference in experience between being a fan of kpop idol/actors vs someone in the c entertainment such Yibo? Difference in fandom? Difference in source material? Difference in culture? Size of international fandom?

2) I feel like lots of c netizen rates CQL quite terribly (feel like their opinion is quite influenced by the fact that it is based on BL novel + idol actors). I am not sure if mydramalist has a more subjective rating either because only those people who might be open to like cdrama (and possible not against BL content) tends to watch CQL and thus might have inflated rating. Your thoughts?

3) Also want to ask you, do you feel like fanning someone in C entertainment is somewhat lonely existence? I feel like sometimes there is big gap between opinions for i fan vs c fandom (culturally). Unlike kpop/kdrama that tries to cater to western audience, there is very little effort made on c entertainment part.

hello! i want to start off by saying that yibo is the first and only chinese artist i’ve stanned so i really don’t know much about the c-ent industry and fan culture outside of what’s related yibo. i’m also relatively new to stanning a chinese artist and there’s honestly still a lot that i don’t know/don’t understand so this is just my limited experience. also i won’t be commenting on cql bc i really don’t know what c-netz think of cql ;;; this might get a bit rambly as well adjklfahdfk

in my experience yeah, there’s a big difference in stanning a kpop group compared to yibo like i was honestly scared when i first started stanning... there were so many new things i had to wrap my head around, so many new apps/websites i’ve never navigated before, different unspoken rules as to how fandoms run etc etc. but the first thing i want to say is, stanning yibo even tho he is only one person takes up so much of my time. like just constantly heaps of content + information is being released i feel like even when nct is actively promoting there’s not these many things to look out for. this might have to do w the fact that he’s insanely popular so there’s constantly brand promos, shows, new releases, rumours, fandom drama that needs to be kept up with. and omg the rumours. like this is not really something that was a big deal in kpop but for yibo??? i feel like rumours are a big part of c-ent. rumours of which brand he’s going to endorse next, which drama is casting him, which actors want to work with him omg like i said before just sm information even if it’s unreliable information 😭😭and before as a kpop stan all my info was from twt but now my main source is weibo. i think we’re quite lucky tho bc yibo’s international fandom is relatively big so a lot of weibo info does get shifted over to twt!

as for the fandom itself, i always feel like international fandom is quite chill lmao maybe bc i’m nctzen 😶but compared to i-fans. yeah. they’re really passionate and do a lot of things in support of their idols. for e.g. recently yibo’s fans have been going out in public asking for people to vote for yibo. this is not really something we’ll see in the kpop fandom. fans also play a huge role in the artist’s image + selling value i feel like? yibo on his own has a good reputation amongst gp but his fanbase also have to reflect that. it’s kind of stupid but the fans really do impact the artist a lot more. competitiveness is also on a whole other level bc of this passion tbh like fandoms of the top traffic stars generally don’t get along well + should try their best to stay away from each other. for this reason stats + rankings seem to be pre important and i need to mention this bc why are there sm rankings??? it’s like everything is ranked adjfgfhdkl and there’s weekly rankings for everything!!! just as how fans are super supportive antis are insane. hate is everywhere and in my opinion a lot worse than what goes on in the kpop fandom bc of the scale that it can get to. i feel like this is bc of the behind the scenes influences that go on in c-ent which seems to be a lot more apparent + stronger than kpop. like there’s a lot of shit that goes on behind the scenes that we don’t know about and is really out of our hands bc power + money does matter 🤭

as for accessibility yeah )): it can be difficult but like i said before i think we’re lucky bc of yibo’s relatively bigger international fandom. his china bar also tires to cater to international fans and provides subs + information on twt. but content esp older content is a lot harder to find sometimes it’s not like kpop where you can find almost everything from a few sources and just need to slowly make your way through it all. with yibo i’m constantly discovering new things i’ve never seen before but it’s usually through digging or pure luck 😩😩ngl frustrating at first esp when you’re not familiar with navigating the necessary apps. however you do get used to it and eventually it kind of just becomes like any other stanning experience tbh only a bit more effort is needed! 

sorry this got kind of long i hope i made sense but this is honestly something i can go on about bc the experience really is so so different. i tried to only talk about the main things i find diff but there’s sm little things that also play into it ahhhhhh c-ent really is complex