#kuku rambles

[kukuandkookie]

People keep claiming Chinese BL manhua really only have stories featuring toxic male leads, so I offered to give recommendations with green flags... Someone finally said yes, so here's what I typed up in response!:

I Ship My Rival x Me:

One of my personal favourites!

Based on the hilarious novel, commonly known as I Ship My Adversary x Me and also has an audio drama adaptation on MaoEr FM. Basically a story about two actors who are seen as complete rivals by everyone except the actors themselves, which annoys the main character (Wei Yanzi) enough that when he discovers there are actual fans who ship them instead of pit them against one another, he’s so excited he sort of starts shipping them too (in like, an abstract, theoretical manner lmao). This of course causes shenanigans as he actually gets to know the person who people ship him with/pit him against, Gu Yiliang.

Gu Yiliang is a true sweetheart and the greenest of green flags. He’s a complete puppy and I love him. And this means, naturally, the only misunderstandings in this story are of the hilarious kind (you’ll know what I mean if you read it lol). 😂

This one actually used to be available officially in English on the Bilibili manhua’s international app before it got shut down, but it recently got picked up by Seven Seas, the company behind a lot of official English translations of danmei (Chinese BL)!

Touch Your World:

A literally colour-blind boy (as in, he cannot see colour at all and only sees things in black and white) discovers someone who he can see colour on. This person is a designer who has suffered past betrayal and trauma that has caused him to shut himself up and grow much more on edge, but this chance meeting draws both parties out of their shells.

Pixiu’s Eatery, No Way Out:

Not a green flag top in the traditional sense, but here we meet the mythical Pixiu: an ancient Chinese mythical creature who now runs a restaurant. While he’s a penny-pincher with a temper and he doesn’t get along with his love interest at first (a ghost named Wen Xi who he finds suspicious due to Wen Xi’s ties to a past rival of his named Taotie), Pixiu and Wen Xi eventually grow, quite naturally—and hilariously!—into a found family.

The Wife Is First:

Based on a novel of pretty much the same name (and is written by the same author as the popular manhua and donghua, No Doubt in Us (a heterosexual body-swap romance, which also has a subtle gay side ship)). Here we meet Jing Shao just as he’s about to lose everything: once a royal and a powerful general, he has been betrayed by all those around him…except the husband he has never treated well.

As such, when we first meet him, we actually witness his—and his husband’s—deaths. But then he awakens and finds himself back in time to the night right after he was forced to wed this husband of his, and Jing Shao vows to treat him well from now on because he stuck with him through thick and thin despite everything.

Don’t Say You Love Me:

A high school romance with a supernatural twist: Lin Yutong was confessed to by his best friend, Qin Weiyun, at their graduation party. When he drunkenly freaked out and ran away, Qin Weiyun was hit by a car during the chase…

Devastated by his loss, Lin Yutong quickly wakes up to find himself back at the start of his high school journey, right before he meets Qin Weiyun… And this time, he wants to keep Qin Weiyun safe.

But his overly familiar attitude at first gets the wary Qin Weiyun a tad suspicious, because he’s actually quite an aloof person.

The author and artist of this one is also behind another popular manhua titled Your Dream Is Delicious, which is about a demon named Yi Kui who discovers he enjoys eating the nightmares of Lin You. This eventually leads to them—you guessed it—falling in love.

It’s Not That I Want to Wear Women’s Clothing:

Our main character is hired to crossdress to help this CEO get over his gynophobia (fear of touching women) without him knowing. Naturally, this leads to an awkward romantic journey of both identities of our main character getting close to this CEO…who at first glance seems like the typical cold and aloof CEO type, except he’s actually quite a sweetheart.

Salt Friend:

A slice-of-life high school story about the “school bully” named Tong Yang who’s actually a crybaby and the aloof person named Xiao Zhen who discovers him crying. While the two don’t seem like they’d get along at first glance, this quickly becomes a friends-to-lovers story that navigates family drama alongside the romance.

How’d I Get a Heroine’s Script?:

A transmigration story with a twist. Chao Yi is wheelchair-bound but finds himself eventually as a young lord in what is basically a palace drama (court politics, intrigue, family drama, all that good stuff). His System, Qin Que, tasks him with wooing the difficult 7th prince, Gu Yunheng, who smiles on the surface but is quite cold in actuality.

Despite the two getting off on the wrong foot—mostly because Gu Yunheng is really hard to get close to—they soon end up as unlikely allies…especially since there’s a lot of secrets, such as regarding the death of the body Chao Yi’s occupying, the scheming princes, and even Gu Yunheng himself.

See You My King:

Zhang Li, a student interested in what is basically ancient Egypt, goes on an expedition to the ruined civilization and nearly loses his life. Except at the same time, he discovers an ancient tomb with a statue that actually comes to life and saves him…

And this statue even follows him home. This statue is sweet and loving despite its inability to speak, and Zhang Li grows attached to it (or him)… But then the statue falls apart and Zhang Li is devastated.

In wishing for a miracle to bring them back together, the statue’s stone heart sends Zhang Li back in time…to when this ancient civilization is still present. And that’s how he discovers his stone statue is the “tyrant king” of this region, and as cruel as he seems at first glance, both this king and Zhang Li eventually grow close and unfold the different sides to one another that makes them inseparable in the face of all kinds of threats.

Trapping the Foxy Doctor:

A doctor and a psychiatrist meet…except it doesn’t seem like a perfect love story at first glance. Not because the doctor is traditionally foxy (seductive and/or cunning), but because he’s so silly and on-the-nose that he initially kind of rubs the psychiatrist the wrong way. Except, of course, with the kind of sunny sincerity displayed by our doctor Zhi Banyi, you can’t resist him for long…

And the psychiatrist, Lin Li, is himself quite a polite soul despite his complex upbringing. As such, the two end up together through a series of cases where they have to collaborate and help clients, with a lot of shenanigans sprinkled in between (including the fact Lin Li has a side-job live-streaming as a woman—and “she” just so happens to be Zhi Banyi’s favourite streamer lol).

Pirouette Into My Heart aka Salad Days:

You know the “he was a skater boy and she did ballet” kind of set-up? Well here we have a boxer and a ballet dancer…and hey, “can I make it any more obvious”?

This one is basically a feel-good story of the century. It’s childhood friends to lovers, and it’s soft and cuddly and encouraging, as we follow the main character, Jiang Shen, in achieving his ballet dreams. And on every step of the way, he’s accompanied by the boxer Bai Jinyi, who’s also chasing his own dreams.

The draw of this one is that while there’s obviously conflict to drive the plot along, it’s ultimately a comforting story, so you get all warm and squishy inside reading it. Bai Jinyi and Jiang Shen are very supportive of one another, as is everyone around them.

There’s even extras at the very end that swap the classes of the two main characters, which makes for a similarly compelling AU. 🤭

Beryl and Sapphire:

Not always BL but often is. What do I mean by that? Well it’s a story that can switch to any universe even as the characters stay the same, and some worlds are just one-off gags while some are whole story arcs. The original manhua features stick figures, so if you really want to experience this one, I’d recommend the donghua. The first season also cleverly shows the main characters as actors in the OP, which explains all the world-switching pretty easily haha.

Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends from the Trash Bin:

Unfortunately I’m not sure the manhua for this one is still ongoing, but the original novel (all about transmigration and hopping multiple worlds) 100% features a green flag top.

The Guy Inside Me:

I know the title sounds sexual lol but it’s actually a joke about how it’s a body-swap story. 😆

The original Chinese title is “This Question Is Too Difficult”) and of course, the author also wrote Fake Slackers, which has two very smart students act like terrible ones due to not wanting trouble.

Falling to Where I Belong:

The thing about this one is that the top is 100% a total green flag... It's the main character that's more of a red flag, in the sense he at first only asks the top out to humiliate him due to a misunderstanding.

But it's still a heartfelt story filled with regret and growth, and I did really like the portrayal of Cheng Feichi. Personally I think the manhua humanizes him a bit more than the novel since we didn't really get his POV in the novel that often, but I did hope for even more emotion in the ending... Still, it was a satisfying read, and while I would like to comfort the main character, Zhen Yeming, over his regrets, I really want to just give all the good things to Cheng Feichi, who definitely deserves it after everything he went through.

More Than Brothers:

For the "non-freaks" out there, they're not actual brothers, don’t worry; not adopted brothers either. Just a guy who saw his younger friend as his bro…until this friend disappeared from his life and apparently got into a bad crowd… Except in reality he is being harassed and is struggling to leave his abusive family.

The Protagonist Just Wants to Fall in Love:

Kind of a classic in the transmigration genre, except now we get multiple worlds in multiple arcs. Our protagonists are Systems on their final mission, aiming to become human by the end of it, and their task is to guide their protagonists away from the path of "darkening" (essentially corruption).

And each and every one of these systems do so by getting their protagonist to fall in love with them lol.

Unsurprisingly, my favourite arc so far—in the manhua at least!—is the historical one between the advisor and the emperor, but the third—and currently ongoing as the time of me writing this—world between two university students who started getting close during military training and by playing games is also quite cute.

And okay, man I could really keep going, especially with the manhua that are based on novels, but this post is already really long asjakfl. It was, in fact, so fucking long YouTube wouldn't even let me post it at first until I cut it down AMFKGSJDFGS.

But I still want to at least give a shout out to some of the manhua with pretty healthy, green flag tops/gongs!:

Like Han Yuan, despite the characters not getting along at first and Yu Han being rather aloof to the spoiled Luo Linyuan, is still quite sweet at its core. Lovely Allergen is as well, even with their "brotherly" relationship being the forefront of the conflict between Song Yu and Yue Zishi.

Another kind I wanted to bring up is the ones where their worlds or stories are dark, but the characters aren't necessarily. Like The Film Emperor, He Insisted on Being My Patron has a very green flag gong (he's such a puppy!), but he and the main character are up against the reddest of red flags of a villain LMDFKGSJFD.

It's also not a manhua I think people who want green flag leads would necessarily enjoy, given that beyond being "darker," it also goes into the territory of fan service-y and "problematic" nsfw content, but again, the male lead is really quite sweet to the main character despite the shitty situation they're in.

And I thought of Bu Chonghua from Tunhai aka Swallowing the Seas (another one based on a novel), since the main character there, Wu Yu, comes to see Bu Chonghua as so good and just that he pushes him away because he feels like he can't dirty such a man with his own darkness, both in his past and personality. It's a trope I really enjoy.

I'll briefly mention some ⚠️ spoilers ⚠️but the reason I wanted to highlight it is because: the latest chapter of the manhua has Bu Chonghua overhear Wu Yu saying he likes Bu Chonghua, and this is after Wu Yu disappeared and Bu Chonghua is worried he skipped town for good. He follows Wu Yu, all while wondering if the like Wu Yu holds for him is the same as his liking of Wu Yu, and when Wu Yu is about to be gravely injured in an underground fighting ring, Bu Chonghua steps in to save him... The chapter ends with Wu Yu holding him back pleading with him to stop because it's not worth dirtying his hands with such a man as his opponent, and that's such a delicious flavour of angst because like...Wu Yu thinks it's fine for he himself to fight against such a person, but he doesn't want Bu Chonghua to. ;-;

Oops. I didn't mean for this to become a deeper ramble of Tunhai KMSGFKGHSJ. It's just interesting to me since Tunhai and its prequel, Poyun aka Breaking Through the Clouds, may not have what the people who prefer green flag tops want in terms of content, but its tops are technically not that much of a red flag either.

Which also get us to the kind of stories where plot can also sort of outweigh whether a top/gong is a green flag or not. Like No Arguing With Mr. Mo has two characters who struggle greatly in their relationship, with the question of "are they in love?" being an overarching issue for them, meaning it's not exactly healthy, and prevents them from being fully either green or red flags.

I also didn't bring up a lot of historical/xianxia manhua, which I'm sure some people may disagree with... Like the leads in Tianbao Fuyao Lu are arguably quite good, and while I haven't read Dinghai Fusheng Lu yet, I assume it's in a similar boat as something set in the same world.

And then there's the ones that develop into green flags... Like Mo Ran starts off awful, yes, but he does become much better later on!! But I don't think that's what those people after green flags want to hear lol. Plus I'd argue Erha is best experienced in novel (or audio drama) form over the manhua anyway—the manhua feels more like something made for established fans in my opinion.

Regardless, I hope this shows that with so many listed above, many manhua actually feature male leads who really do care for their love interests in a healthy, respectful way, whether they're 100% green flags or they develop into green flags or they're not even complete green flags. ^^

Edit: Oh I forgot to link my full list of danmei/baihe manhua recs HMSKFJSKS. I currently don’t have any summaries, tags, or content warnings in this list though, but there’s quite the range of stories!:

[kukuandkookie]

My brain immediately went to a bunch of Chinese artists, and while some of them are big in China, they’re still pretty underrated in the west asjakfl.

I do have a list documenting names and links here:

But I admittedly haven't updated this list in like a year because it's much harder for me to track music than it is for me to track donghua/manhua or danmei/baihe manhua or cdramas. Both because songs are completely aural and because way more songs get released everyday than shows/manhua. Plus Chinese music can sometimes be on even more region-locked platforms (QQ Music, Netease, etc) than some other Chinese media. 😅

Which does kind of suck since there’s new bands and artists I've discovered since last year that I may enjoy, but I might forget the names of because I didn't write them down!! That's actually part of why I loop songs a lot on YouTube—it forces the algorithm to re-recommend them to me and recommend me related songs.

So on that front, here's some of the ones I randomly stumbled across in the past couple weeks and which I've been looping a lot lately, most of which seem pretty underrated (like I definitely doubt most of these are on Spotify—but then again I wouldn't know because I don't actually use Spotify asjakfl):

*Note: if these songs share a pattern, it’s that most of them are quite bouncy—even when they may have depressing lyrics! This is because I’ve been looping energetic songs lately to get myself through the day. I also know of a lot of slower, indie Chinese music or gufeng (ancient-style) music that’s similarly slower, and those are absolutely lovely too, but they seem to get more attention than these faster-paced songs. And sometimes upbeat Chinese songs are harder to find for me, so I think they deserve love too!

^ Me with the above songs: Who are these by? Where did they come from? Sometimes I have no idea! I just listen to and watch so many Chinese media things on YouTube it basically forces my YouTube to recommend me the most random things JSKFJAKDJS.

Bonuses because I love these songs and the vomic/manhua/audio drama they come from (in fact, I would recommend many Chinese media songs! Whether they’re from audio dramas, donghua, or vomics, there’s some really lovely ones out there):

From the vomic adaptation of the manhua, Kiss the Abyss (which used to be available officially on the English Bilibili manhua app, but now that that's shut down, you can find the manhua unofficially here)! The vomic goes by the name 《我的怪物》 on MaoEr FM. It has another name that's 《亲吻深渊》, which is closer to the English title, but 《我的怪物》 seems to be more commonly used now!

From the audio drama adaptation of I Became a God in a Horror Game (《我在无限游戏里封神》) on MaoEr FM! As for the novel, you can find more information here.

From the 《秉性下等》 (Bing Xing Xia Deng) audio drama on MaoEr FM! Official English name is The Selfish Gene, but the novel it adapts is commonly translated by fans as Inferior by Nature. The title The Selfish Gene is used by fans as a title for a different book by the same author.

But as for some of my own personal favourite overall artists/bands who I do think are underrated, at least internationally:

- ONER (they make music individually too! The members are Yueyue, Ling Chao, and Mu Ziyang) (My personal favourite song from them is actually "Attack," but the version I like comes from when they had four members. They later rereleased it with the lines by the fourth member—who left the group—redone, but I still prefer the old version, so that's why I'm linking two songs by them haha) (Another reason I like them is because although other cpop groups that started around their time may have stopped being as active, these guys still keep releasing music no matter how long the gap is in between songs. Some of it just comes out pretty quietly, and I get pleasantly surprised when I search them up on YouTube again and find another new song by them. It actually happened again while writing this post: this song is from, as of the time of me writing this, from just 5 days ago! Plus, they release a new funky, playful song for almost every Chinese New Year, such as this one for the Year of the Dragon!)

- CORSAK (a few of his songs have blown up—specifically one of them called "Reverse" which also got featured on an idol competition show, but I also enjoy a lot of his other songs that don't get as much attention!)

- 小鬼 (Li’l Ghost) (originally part of the boy band that formed after Idol Producer, he now does his own stuff that I guess is mostly like...rap and punk? I like a lot of his stuff and two of his songs, "Don't Call Me Da Vinci" and "Good Night" also technically went decently viral, but he could still use more attention overall!)

- Mao Buyi, Zhou Shen, Li Ronghao, and other such individual artists that I already featured on my list (all actually really famous tbh, but I'm adding them here because well...again, they could still get more love internationally. Plus Mao Buyi's songs are great if you want to feel soft or emo; Zhou Shen sounds like an angel; and Li Ronghao I always feel a soft spot for due to where he comes from lol)

- Ice Paper (another one where one of their songs tripped into the international conscious of a few folks, so not super unknown, but still!)

- Tangram (an example of an obscure cpop group—and one of the ones that are sadly no longer active)

- ChicChili (I liked the couple songs they released and I’m sad they don’t seem to be a thing anymore :c )

- 福禄寿FloruitShow (their songs are quite lovely! But also this is what I mean by if I don't keep track of something, it's easy for me to forget them, because I totally forgot this band's name and was trying soooo hard to remember for the past week (I kept thinking of the Chinese make-up brand Florasis instead)!! Thankfully, compiling this post helped me remember, because one of the translation channels that have shared a bunch of their songs also did a translation for Mao Buyi, and I recognized the channel as soon as I saw it)

- 白鲨JAWS (not like...super obscure since they have made songs for the donghua Link Click, which led to them making more songs for other donghua, such as here, and for Chinese animation in general, and they've gotten to the point they can host international shows, but I still think some of their other songs besides the ones for Link Click could totally use more love!)

- MANTA (virtual boy group; you may know of them if you use the popular Chinese audio drama app, MaoEr FM! More info here, and someone also has a MANTA and LASER playlist here)

- LASER (virtual boy group; you may know of them if you use the popular Chinese audio drama app, MaoEr FM! More info here, and someone also has a MANTA and LASER playlist here)

- Kaleido (virtual boy group from the danmei novel Fanservice Paradox)

- 188男团 (from what I can tell, they have two songs... The other one is here. Funnily enough, one song is by the gongs of the series, and the other is by the shous) (I'm including this one primarily because of my brain rot over them right now; they’re made up of characters from the 188男团 danmei novels series, which is known for dog blood (angst) and crematorium wife-chasing 😆) (Bonus: like some popular stories—say, Erha, for example—these guys also have some fan songs, and I'd like to link one cute one that showcases a bunch of the novels in the series and their ships!)

- VSingers (Chinese Vocaloids; more underrated/unknown in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, at least!)

And many more…! Especially since many of the ones I've chosen to showcase actually have some presence in English-speaking fandoms, no matter how minuscule… The reason I did that is because I think it makes them more accessible. Like it'd be much easier to search for songs of or information on the VSingers, such as Luo Tianyi, especially on the Western side of the Internet (so if you want to look for these guys on YouTube or Spotify, sometimes you can!)—whereas the random songs I linked in the beginning of this post are the ones that are like. So obscure that sometimes even I struggle to know who they are if I don't do proper research HMGKSHDSJ.

enough about taylor swift already. reblog and tag the smallest, least known artist you listen to

[kukuandkookie]

YO CONGRATS TO LINK CLICK FOR REACHING #6 ON TRENDING HERE!!!! 🥳

It’s genuinely pretty rare for Chinese media to trend on Tumblr (others I’ve seen include MDZS, The Untamed, 19 Days, and TGCF), so I’m really proud of Link Click!! It’s really done well for a donghua!

[kukuandkookie]

Crying at the irony of “queen Elizabeth” trending with “Ao3” as a related tag, and then going into the tag only to see people asking why “Ao3” is trending with “queen Elizabeth” as a related tag (like it got so popular with people constantly asking that the trending tags reversed?? Lmao).

Genuinely baffling, but after a bit of peeking I think I found the culprit. Honestly impressive because from what I can gather it was a single person who did it. 😂

[kukuandkookie]

Saw someone who apparently really really hated the new direction Link Click season 2 took, to the point they felt like it ruined season 1 in a way that hurt and so on, and I am not here to attack a solely subjective opinion nor to say that Link Click is perfect. But this belief that season 2 was too different from season 1 did get me thinking, because...

Huh. The biggest criticism people had for season 1 was that the main characters outside of Cheng Xiaoshi (Lu Guang and Qiao Ling) were underdeveloped and/or the origins of their powers were unexplained. People freaking out over season 2 means people care more about these characters now. So it's just interesting in that regard. :ooo

I can't comment on this narratively yet, although I have seen people disagree that this goes against the themes of the show (I actually think it could lead to a really intriguing thematic breakdown, since Lu Guang seems so on top of things in season 1, but he isn't in season 2).

Basically, it already leads to a conversation about grief and regret and letting go. Season 1 very explicitly tells you to do these things, to the point of spelling them out repeatedly. Season 2 and beyond will likely implicitly explore these things, even if they directly state something else.

Contradictory themes can still be meaningful; the world is contradictory, so if we see a series challenge itself with a seemingly different set of themes (at first glance), it doesn't automatically mean it's a bad thing. I can see how it may feel like a sellout, but Link Click explores such complex ideas that there's still lots of themes we can enjoy even in the new direction the show is taking—especially when looking at things about moving on and letting go and being human (which we now know Lu Guang is. He isn't the more "perfect" time diver we saw in season 1). And this does begin to unravel the mysteries set up by season 1, and based on the fandom growth, a lot of fans do like it—which, again, I think this indicates an interesting turn of events.

Because the fact is that before season 2, Link Click has always been praised for its narrative but not really its characters. Now, despite the criticism against season 2, it's being praised for both. If nothing else…

We can see more to these characters now, beyond just Cheng Xiaoshi's pain. Now we see Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi's childhood, Lu Guang's pain, Cheng Xiaoshi's growth, and how they're not only just a group of friends, but a family.

And given the trend of episodic shows turning more narrative-driven, from Gravity Falls to Steven Universe to SVtFoE to Amphibia and more (even in donghua, we have Scissor Seven and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and even God Troubles Me basically doing this too)… I think a lot of people do want to tell deep, emotionally-connected stories, and if fandom has proven anything, it's that connecting to the characters are crucial. So at the very least, season 2 has achieved that!

[kukuandkookie]

Oh thanks to danmei I have learned I am indeed “into that shit” lmao. 😆

I was originally just going to reblog this normally, as in, I only wanted to add tags of some character examples, but then I thought of my (current) favourite examples of this and exploded into hearts HNSKFHSS—and the thing is, sharing why I love them so much wouldn’t be conveyed well enough with only tags. And what I mean by that is I need to add images to fully convey my point, so now I’m reblogging this with actual text (sorry haha).

So here’s Yu Fengcheng, who has become a blorbo of mine:

He’s a bit of a “hooligan” in terms of being one of those self-assured assholes who can tease you to hell and back if he wanted to, but really he’s a stoic badass military man who takes his job very, very seriously. So seriously that despite seeming like an independent soldier, he can even take on a rather nurturing role.

And in text, compared to some of my other favourite examples of this trope (like say…Bing-ge versus Bing-mei from SVSSS or the more comedic content of arrogant Taxian-jun or Shao Qun begging for their partners’ attention), Yu Fengcheng is rarely shown crying like a poor little puppy dog even when he is sad.

Which is why! This official chibi!! From the tarot card merch collection!!! Is so important to me!!!!:

LOOK AT HIM. HE’S SO PRECIOUS,,,, SO SMOL AND SAD AND WEEPY AND CUTE HUEHUEHUE. 🥹🥹🥹

Every time I see this chibi and I remember his actual persona of “intimidating and arrogant but fairly stoic military man,” I just burst into tiny little hearts because I love how adorable and sad he looks here (which sounds slightly sadistic but don’t feel too bad for him; he’s part of the 188男团 so even if he’s not “that bad” by 188男团 gong standards, he’s still a bit of an ass) SKGNSKDHS.

But it’s also because you just know he’s crying for his wifey Bai Xinyu and it’s just so ahhhhhhh I love him and I’m so happy we got at least one official art of him crying like a little baby. 🥰

And well, again, he’s not completely serious all the time, so we do get scenes of him acting cute occasionally, which only endear him to me further ahaha:

Now that I have him out of the way, before I get to what I think is my other favourite example but also the one who most fully embodies both “stoic and serious” but also “satisfyingly cute when he cries” in my opinion, here’s some bonuses just because I can:

They’re not exactly stoic but I did mention Taxian-jun and Shao Qun…

Shao Qun is extra fun because his sobbing can feel like karmic retribution lol:

Similarly to Shao Qun in terms of being an arrogant bastard who can be a crybaby (although design-wise he shares more similarities to Yu Fengcheng), we have Yuan Yang… And well, the manhua adaptation really ups his puppy dog side, which I think softens him a lot!:

Also, Yuan Yang is a dog-coded character, and I do like my puppy dog characters, who are also whimper-y babies (see Gu Yiliang from I Ship My Rival x Me and Liao Yuan from Protect My Star). 😆

Besides Taxian-jun, the examples I’ve listed are all from the 188男团, a series that forces some stoic (but mostly arrogant) men to end up in sadness and regret and tears so gratifyingly that we even have fan compilations of them crying and/or near crying in regret via (mostly fan) audio drama clips (they’ve all been slowly getting adapted into official audio dramas, but this compilation was made before most of the official ones hehe):

Now, I have “cheated” a little bit since my examples aren’t the most stoic or solemn out there (Yu Fengcheng is the closest and even he’s not serious 100% of the time), as actual stoic characters in danmei would be like…Lan Wangji, Chu Wanning, the original Lu Tao from Application for Divorce, Shen Wei, Song Yu from Lovely Allergen, and so on.

But their crying scenes would also be quite serious and angsty, and while they still work perfectly and I do like myself some proper angst as well, my favourite examples of this are stoic in terms of being “traditionally masculine,” which makes their breakdown all the more fun because it turns your expectations for these “masculine” men around—and is thus also all the more cute!—like with Yu Fengcheng.

You can still get cute with someone like Lan Wangji (such as when he’s drunk lol), but seeing that kind of stoic character break down usually lacks the comedic edge of more bastard stoic characters breaking down—and when a bastard stoic character does it, you know they kind of deserve to be crying because of their bastard side, which I think adds to the fun.

Which is why!! I think the best example of all of this is Li Yu from Shabi, after he learns how to sajiao post-canon. 🥰

Sadly the official manhua for Shabi isn’t at these scenes of him crying yet since we only just entered the arc of this stoic, serious, almost uppity person beginning to let himself cry—and it’s still before he’s fully learned the theme of having to embrace his immaturity in order to finally be as mature as he always thought he was…

But we still have the scenes themselves, which is already pretty great (and like the Bing-mei version of Luo Binghe, it can come with a “manipulative” twinge after he’s learned how to use his tears to his advantage~):

But fans take it even further, which I appreciate ahaha:

I’ve actually subbed the above video into English, but I can’t share it from my files since you can’t include a video in a reblog unless it’s a link to a YouTube video. 😔

To explain what he’s saying, he’s just crying at Shao Qun to not let his partner, Jian Suiying, stay out too late and drink too much (and then Shao Qun expresses confusion over how they both refer to each other as “wife” when they’re both men lol) KAFNSKDH.

There’s also a great scene of his crybaby side in episode 3 of the fan-made audio drama, Paradox of Love, which itself adapts a really good Shabi fanfic… But I evidently can’t share the actual audio clip beyond just linking the episode, so if you don’t click into the link and you don’t know Chinese, you’ll just have to take my word for it NDNFKSHS.

Then there’s Luo Yi, who doesn’t really ever sob and whimper (and he’s not stoic in a solemn sense so much as he is an…“I mask my apathy with gentleness” sense), but there are still scenes where he’s sadder in Additional Inheritance and it does feel satisfying—and one of them is done in the audio drama with a puppy dog energy to it where they made him go 🥺 while literally playing a puppy barking twice in the background to emphasize that energy, which makes it match how Li Yu’s tears show a solemn person crying in a fun, cute, and deserved way (unfortunately, I can only link the audio drama again and it again doesn’t have English subs).

So to summarize:

Stoic characters crying? Great. Amazing. Iconic. But stoic in a more “traditionally masculine” sense with a hint of bastard who ends up breaking down in tears in a very “un-(traditionally)masculine way? So much fun.

And based on that, the most accurate example that, in my opinion, embodies the “best of both worlds”?: Li Yu from Shabi aka Yet You’re in Love With an Idiot, because he is stoic and serious but also he took himself so seriously he became a bastard and thus when he does (canonically!!) become a crying, whimpering mess, it feels all the more deserved…and eventually becomes all the more cute. 😤

you know what? Fuck you. *turns your strong and stoic and serious character into a crying, traumatized, whimpering, curled up mess in the floor*

[kukuandkookie]

Saw someone say they wouldn’t watch a new cute donghua unless it got an English dub, but they were also a fan of an anime with a similar genre/premise that wasn’t fully dubbed so, since they had a way you could send them anon asks, I kind of pettily—but gently!—asked them about it.

I did point out they watch the anime they’re a fan of subbed SLFJSKDJ. Plus if you want a dub, donghua usually needs some actual fan support in order for a dub to even exist (unless it was a collab with another country like Incredible Ant), as most donghua aren’t targeting viewers outside of China—and plus the donghua they were talking about is even getting fan-subs now, so if they’re worried about not understanding it, they already have an avenue for it. But other than that, I simply asked if Chinese was really that bad in their opinion, and I didn’t do it accusingly.

I just hope some people can maybe reevaluate how they discuss the Chinese language—a whole language that actual people speak. Like if my question can get them to pause and go, “Huh. Yeah, why do I refuse to try a Chinese show in Chinese? I didn’t mean to be sinophobic, but it is a bit unfair to not give this language a chance when I let myself get used to Japanese, so maybe I should give it a shot after all,” that’d be neat. And well, if they turn out to be a sinophobe instead… Then well, I guess they turn out to be a sinophobe.

In that case, either they get called out by my question even if they ignore it and are reminded their sinophobia is obvious and can be called out, or they answer the question and reveal their sinophobia and thus other people may see they are sinophobic while realizing they shouldn’t be that way too. :P

[kukuandkookie]

I don’t feel like making a huge post about it right now since it would require me to write and compile images and I just screamed about it at my friends BUT…

If you’re a fan of Black Butler I recommend you check out 《玷染》 (Dianran) aka Taint 👀

And yeah okay I know the English name is a little awkward considering what “taint” means in English slang, but tbh…considering how horny this manhua is, it’s actually a pretty fitting name. 😂

But yes here’s why:

^ …Yeah I could just leave it at “read it for the hot characters” but actually I will add some more context below hahahaha:

It’s got demons, tentacles, sexualization of the church, mysteries involving dark/demonic entities in a European-inspired setting, and a bit of (not a lot just yet but still seems to be gearing up for more!) commentary on the gaps between classes.

We’ve also gotten a few clues to both main characters’ pasts, and they seemingly involve torture, experimentation, demons, deaths, amnesia, and more suffering.

It’s actually really interesting given we’re still early on in the story and we’ve gotten a few big crumbs so far, but they are still crumbs. I’m quite curious as to how all the parts of the backstory revealed so far tie together and led to our protagonists meeting the way they did today. 👀

Also the demon, Cross or Kurose, who has tentacles and is super attached to Eli, a member of the church, is very flirtatious and touchy-feely and even gets tortured and leashed and muzzled…

So you know. If you’re into that stuff, this manhua has a lot of it, even with censorship being in place. I’m genuinely surprised by how much it got away with; like in the most recent chapter (chapter 13 as of the time I’m writing this post), Cross rips off Eli’s underwear. 😂

I hope some people join me in this fandom eventually LGNSKFJSKS. So far it feels like I’ve been bursting to get my friends to read it and share it but I don’t want to be annoying to them haha.

Like if you enjoy Black Butler and I Have to Be a Great Villain and Kiss the Abyss and series like those, this could be up your alley!!

(Of course, do be aware that like those series, this one also contains “dark” content! Specifically violence with blood and all that, some less than consensual sexually tense encounters, and even body horror!)

Although I will say that hell, Cross isn’t that “toxic” or “violently possessive” of a love interest so far. He’s just clearly got his own goals which occasionally clashes with Eli’s, but it’s clear he really really likes Eli and doesn’t actually want him to come to harm, to the point of protecting him. And even when Eli is harsh with him in his distrust, Cross doesn’t mind. It makes for a fun dynamic. 👀

There is an English “fan” translation out there, but the original is on the QQ manhua app!

[kukuandkookie]

Happiness is opening your copy of the Kiss the Abyss manhua vol 1 hehehe ♥️

[kukuandkookie]

NEW SEE YOU MY KING CHAPTER HAS ME SCREAMING REALLY GIDDILY LIKE I CHUGGED A LITRE OF CAFFEINE OMG SOFHWIDHAKDHSIDHAJDNSKBS

THEY’RE JUST SO CUTE I’M GOING TO CRY 😭😭😭😭

ALSO THIS IS LIKE…ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TROPES…

Where Character A sort of experiences seeing Character B get injured (whether due to being inside someone’s memory or here because they look alike) so when Character B shows up, Character A feels the need to hug them and confirm they’re actually okay and safe in front of them.

Zhang Li: Let me hold you for a moment. Just for a moment…

He saw Sute’s puppet brother being torn to shreds by the trap’s thread and immediately thought of Lunkhead falling apart, so he wanted to hug Mimi.

AND WHAT IF I SCREAM…

He’s taking note of how Mimi’s body is trembling and how his heartbeat is strong, meaning he’s still alive and it’s okay. 🥹

This body is trembling… His heartbeat is strong… He’s still alive… Perfectly alive…

He needs the reassurance,,, that he’s okay,,,, 😭😭😭😭

Also speaking of Sute…

He’s pretty terrifying LDGJKSHDSJ. I love insane green tea bitches like him, and it’s really cool to see who he is now that his mask is off. 👀

Zhang Li asked him if his neck still hurt (from when he was grazed by Zhang Li’s arrow), and Sute tackles and strangled him, demanding, “Little guard, does your neck hurt?”

He’s definitely holding a grudge against Zhang Li and has now completely adopted his ragtag corpse puppet as his true beloved, protective brother, with him telling him he’ll get him new hands—and a proper heart—in the future.

Ever since Erha and other similar stories, I do find these kinds of characters—especially with their twisted interpretations of love—really fascinating. He came close to killing Zhang Li today but couldn’t, so I’m excited to see what else Sute gets up to to get back at them.

In comparison to his brother though…

MIMI IS SO PRECIOUS!!

Even Zhang Li now is realizing how much like Lunkhead Mimi is, and he’s wondering when it started or if it’s always been like this… But he also thought about how Mimi is acting like this now because he’s pretending to be his guard.

Something something about their classes and ranks being different and Mimi having to play the part of a tyrant king/pharaoh and all the sad connotations that come with that…

But God, before we get into any of the potential sadder things the author would intend to explore with this couple, I just appreciate them for being them. They’re so adorable. Mimi especially!

In the panel below, he’s asking Zhang Li not to recklessly put himself at risk with no regard for his own life again. Excuse me as I go sob. 🤧

ALSO MIMI YOU’RE SO BAD AT YOUR JOB (those bandages are atrocious) AND I LOVE YOU FOR IT 🥹

He held back his temper at Zhang Li since he’s injured (and because he loves him *cough cough*) but he yelled at Xiao Wei for it. Poor Xiao Wei ahahaha. He had to save Zhang Li and then he gets fed dog food by the PDA of these two and then he gets yelled at by his boss even though he’s injured too lol.

But okay final note because I’ve hit the Tumblr post image limit:

Holy fuck Zhang Li you’re such a boss. You’re one of the most capable protagonists I have ever read about…

Not only did he manage to get back the hands on Sute’s puppet brother for Kaba, he even poisoned Sute. 👁️👁️

So they’re at an advantage now!! I can’t wait to see what happens next!

[aggressiveguitarnoises]

gonna end my A level art course in a psychward i swear

[indihome-suck]

does lintang or friends of lintangcore has super powers. in AU perhaps?

YEAH I HAVE AN AU FOR THAT but the idea is still half baked except for Lintang, since i Made him first.

Lintang's the ability to relive memories, his own or others, from their perspective complete with every sense and emotion they felt. (I'm conflicted between calling it Burning Memory or Remembrance for the Omori reference)

Senja's gravity manipulation, she has a sun motif and sun, as a star, have a lot of gravity lol.

Ratih has the ability to see someone's "true" emotion in their reflection, haven't figured this one fully yet but i think the visual disparity would look real cool.

Hana is umbrakinesis, because i think it's cool as hell.

[kukuandkookie]

Lmfao help I totally forgot I scheduled my last post where I rambled about Jian Suiying in the tags (I probably scheduled it to seem more normal or something because I didn’t want to flood my feed 😂).

The reason I find it extra funny is because I literally feel like I’m going feral right now and I did just draft another Twitter thread ramble before coming on here and immediately seeing my scheduled post with those tags LADNSKDNS.

My Twitter is still on hiatus until further notice—aka when I am more comfortable interacting and sharing things socially—but over the past few weeks, my drafts have become very full of thoughts on LiJian (Li Yu and Jian Suiying) and YuBai (Yu Fengcheng and Bai Xinyu).

And the main reason I feel so feral right now—as in right this minute—is because of the author of this really good fic (which I found thanks to the fan audio drama adaptation on MaoEr FM) that’s multi-chaptered where the premise is that a younger Li Yu ends up in the present day in Li Yu and Jian Suiying’s house. Li Yu is obviously very upset by this because he hates his younger self for how he treated Jian Suiying, and the story is about helping him heal from that past.

And well anyways this post isn’t about that fic specifically, although it’s a really good fic and I went crazy over it a while ago as well: since it’s told entirely in screenshots on Weibo at least, I actually captured every image of text until I had everything and then I MTL’d them using Google Translate and then I severely edited them on-and-off based on my own Chinese knowledge—so this included grammar and pronouns but also less obvious stuff where I had to check line by line or turn it into audio to listen to. 😂

It’s a really fucking good fic though. So worth it.

And well the author has done other versions; one is where a younger Yu Fengcheng gets transported into current Yu Fengcheng and Bai Xinyu’s life, and I’ve already collected every part of that one (it’s still incomplete).

Except it referenced a case where there were two Jian Suiying’s, a fic the author said they were planning to write back when they released the two Li Yu’s fic, which obviously made me a little feral.

I struggled to find it until I finally did (yay!!) alongside a masterlist of their fics in general (yay!!!), and I really really want to translate and read it right now.

But part of me also wants to save it—because I like saving things I like—to the end, since the author has other fics I can translate first, including one where Li Yu gets amnesia, which will definitely also be quite interesting.

And yet. I cannot get over the concept of there being two Jian Suiying’s and how that might resemble or reflect or differ from the fic where there were two Li Yu’s (especially since the two Li Yu’s one is just very thematically perfect).

I might just translate it first because I can barely resist??? I already translated the second half of the first part just to tease myself, and it has me screaming because like:

(The above screenshots are from this fanfic here by 丧心病狂de凌子 on Weibo!)

The image of Li Yu dragging whom he assumes is his spouse (and he is; just from a different time period) back home only to come face-to-face with his actual spouse (of this time period) being all cute in his soft cozy home clothes with a little mug instead of having gone out drinking (which the Jian Suiying from a different time period in his arms had been doing—as all the fics so far have had the person from the past end up in the present after getting blackout drunk) which was a thing about Jian Suiying that Li Yu used to worry about…

(The above screenshot is canon and from the original novel!)

Yeah do you see what I mean???

I’m just so excited because you’ll get the chaos of two time periods intersecting, but also because Jian Suiying used to go out to such places and it upset Li Yu a lot since he knows Jian Suiying’s past life and their relationship took so long to get to a good place that he’s afraid Jian Suiying will discard him again when out partying—so seeing Jian Suiying here, at home on time, patiently waiting for his husband to come home from his business trip…

*sigh* They’re pretty cute even after all the craziness of their original novel lmao. 🥹

And yeah. Typing all this out…I think I’ll translate this first out of all of the author’s fics. I’m going to go insane otherwise SLFNKSDJSKS.

[darabeatha]

[swelling-feeling]

▽△ 18+ Only △▽

▽△ Minors and Proshippers DNI △▽

△▽ Despite my "Intrigue" being pretty tame, it's better to be safe than sorry ❖ If you know me, i beg thee; pretend you do not ▽△

Welcome to my secret yet not so secret side blog, where you may expect Selfship Shenanigans related to my Kinks, which for the sake of not unmaking myself i shall refer to as my "Intrigues"; the main one of which being Belly inflation

Since im Asexual, i wouldnt bother looking for anything truly super horny here, just scenarios mostly consisting of wholesome, if not lightly spicy shenanigans - mostly romantic fluff, teasing, soft affection, that kind of thing

Two (or technically Three?) of my F/O's will be mainly present for the aforementioned shenanigans;

💞Romantic F/O💞

Spinel (S.U. the Movie / S.U. : F.)

✨Platonic F/O✨

The Witch / The Thorn (S.T.P.)

There's also AUs!

Ghoulx2 - Ghost Band AU; Ink, an Eldritch Entity masquarading as a Ghoul, actually finds that he enjoys this new life, and even falls in love with one of the ghoulehs; Spinel - the two quickly become mates, and what's more, She finds out that he can have her interests come to life - even better still, he shares the same interests as well... Shenanigans ensue. With this God's powers, Reality is Optional.

PromParade - Monster Prom AU; Trifecta and Susie Stiles, The Eldritch Nerd and The Punk Doll; Classmates at Spooky High, and soon enough, partners; ones who share a particular intrigue, and by using Trifecta's many Eldritch powers, have plenty of fun with it. (addition; inky&kuku - Monster Prom AU; Selfship with a character made by my sis, @/astral-riddles, known as Courage - simmilar shitck to the normal Monster Prom AU, but now with the Embodiment of Courage as Trifecta's partner and beloved!)

Vamp'n'Fae - WoW: Shadowlands AU; Zbigneiv, a Venthyr of Revendreth, and Spiderlily, a Night Fae of Ardenweald; Two diffirent beings from two diffirent Afterlives, and yet ones that still met in unusual circumstances, in an unsual place - a loving relationship quickly blossoming between the two, as well as a certain interest...

[kukuandkookie]

Including a couple from China because it’s EXTRA rare and impossible—especially now!!

And some personal notes just because!:

The first one comes from Beryl and Sapphire. It’s based on a manhua that features stick figures, and practically anything is possible—as in, the author cleverly allows the stick figures to morph into whatever story she wants to tell while maintaining the general personalities of the characters.

The donghua cleverly adapts this in its first season by showcasing the main characters, the titular Beryl and Sapphire, as actors:

Some stories are silly one-offs, some are overarching plots that pop up every now and then to move said plot along…

And the thing is…this series is queer as fuck. 🔥

In some episodes, Beryl and/or Sapphire may be girls; there’s that aforementioned rare instance of kissing in a donghua; one of the ongoing arcs is literally about Sapphire having a big fat crush on Beryl; there’s multiple storylines that involve them confessing to each other; etc etc.

Please go watch it—I highly recommend it! 🙏

It even came back recently with new seasons despite the donghua going quiet for like 5-ish years, and the new seasons focus more on carrying out full arcs, which is also very exciting!

Hell, watch it just for that one kiss that challenges the fuck out of censors. 😉

As for how they got away with it…: they released a director’s cut (uncensored) and survival cut (censored) for a couple of the more explicitly gay episodes, so you know they were dedicated.

Similarly, Soul Contract aka Spirit Pact, is said to have been able to depict kisses because it was released early on but also because the studio behind it had a Japanese branch. So some theorize they got away with it via use of the Japanese branch as an excuse.

The uncensored version does exist in the Chinese version because again, Spirit Pact was released early on so regulations were more lax, but it’s possible the existence of the Japanese branch did make production and dissemination of the gay stuff easier!

And yes, it does have a Japanese dub that most anime fans choose instead of the Chinese original NSNFKSHSJ.

But this one is also nice because it features multiple kisses, which is really daring!

Unfortunately I don’t think this one will really ever get another season as a result of tighter censorship (although some other danmei donghua can still get away with quite some queer vibes, such as Jie Yao—or even suggested NSFW for “furries” in You Shou Yan (the characters are more like ferals tbh NFJDJSHS)), but also because I’m not so sure there’s a demand for it anymore.

But that may also be all the more reason to check it out—including the original manhua it’s based on!

MLM kisses in animation