#subtext is in dmbj shows

[profiterole-reads]

2022 Favourites

In no particular order. This is content I've read and watched in 2022, not necessarily content released in 2022.

Books

1. A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland: m/m heroic fantasy + non-binary characters. This was one of my most expected novels of the year and I was fully satisfied with the result. One of the protagonists suffers from severe anxiety.

2. [French] L’Héritage des Rois-Passeurs by Manon Fargetton: portal fantasy with a lesbian protagonist. The French language in the secondary world is different, but I don't know if the author invented the variations or based them on something real.

3. Sword Dance by AJ Demas: m/nb historical fantasy. This trilogy takes place in a fictional world based on Ancient Greece. It's a delightful mix of intrigue and domesticity shenanigans.

4. The Hollow Star Saga by Ashley Shuttleworth: f/f and m/m urban fantasy (YA). This series about the fae also includes a touch of Greek mythology. I care a lot about all the characters.

5. Youngblood by Sasha Laurens: f/f urban fantasy (YA). This is my favourite queer vampire novel. It's an excellent mix of vampire lore, romance and mystery.

6. The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt: m/m magical realism. The characters have superpowers, but it's not superhero fiction. It's a fun bi4bi romance.

7. One Verse Multi by Sander Santiago: m/m/m science fiction with a trans male protagonist. This is my favourite read of the year. I loved the science in this story and how the author played with the Mandela effect (false memories shared by many people).

8. Safe and Sound by EM Lindsey: m/m romance. This is a very moving hurt & comfort novel. This author always does a great job with the intersectionality of queerness and disability, deafness and vertigo in this case.

9. If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So: f/f romance. This novel is about identity (queer, but also British and Cantonese) and fandom.

10. [Spanish] Anne sin Filtros by Iria Parente and Selene Pascual: f/f/m romance with a trans male protagonist (YA). This novel is also about queerness and fandom. I've read several books by these authors and this is my fave.

 TV shows

1. Ancient Detective: murder mystery/wuxia with BL vibes + a non-binary character in the last few episodes. While this c-drama is mostly m/f, I appreciated the queer touches, as well as the complex plot.

2. Legend of Yunze: GL wuxia. This c-drama is a quick watch, with episodes that are only a few minutes long. What's nice is that the f/f is not very censored for a Chinese show.

3. The Lost Tomb/DMBJ franchise: adventure/fantasy with BL vibes. This c-drama franchise kept me busy for a good part of the year and I estimate that I've seen about half of it. It covers a genre that is relatively rare in Western shows.

4. Bulgasal: urban fantasy with a queer-coded villain. Sure, queer-coded villains aren't the best form of representation, but the one in this k-drama is very well-written. The reincarnation plot is fascinating as well.

5. Vampire Academy: urban fantasy with some f/f and some m/m (YA). I loved the movie way back and I'm glad that they've added queer representation to the show, even though it would have been even better if they had made the Lissa/Rose subtext canon.

6. Wednesday: murder mystery/urban fantasy with a probably a-spec protagonist (YA). This is a delightful adaptation of the Addams Family, true to the old movies.

7. Love in the Air: BL romance. This addictive Thai drama is my favourite show of the year. Payu/Rain are my fave couple, they're so playful and loving. For Prapai/Sky, there's a lot of hurt & comfort, which gave me so many feels.

8. Semantic Error: BL romance. This k-drama's protagonist is on the autism spectrum. It's enemies-to-lovers, or rather annoyances-to-lovers.

9. She Makes My Heart Flutter: GL romance. This k-drama is a quick watch. I love that it mostly focuses on sapphic friendships.

10. Heartstopper: m/m romance with some f/f and a trans girl (YA). I love the webcomic and the adaptation is really well done. It's such a sweet story.

[lunanoc]

Fic Stats Game

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most bookmarks, fourth most comments, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words.

tagged by both @spinecorset and @tat-ch sorry it's taken me this long to actually do this, thank you for tagging! ironically i have less published fics than there are slots for this game and all of these entries are dmbj, specifically pingxie fics (shocking i know)

first most hits and fourth most comments : in a landscape of having to repeat i have mixed feelings about this one mostly because it's the first thing i wrote after over a decade of not writing anything (and i was a teenager then) and is also the first piece of personal writing i ever finished period. so a lot of it was experimental and trying to get a feel for writing again in general. i tend to view it as the weaker fic of the ones i've written so far because of that among other things (like it being written at a time i was still largely unfamiliar with the books and i feel it shows in some details), but on the flipside, it's also probably one of if not my most self-indulgent one since it's a timeloop fic and i love that trope a lot. i also wrote it for a good friend (you know who you are <3) so for that it's also special

second most kudos: alight and tempered coincidentally also written for aforementioned good friend (<3). i'm tentative to say this mostly because i tend to be hypercritical of anything i make more often than not (i guess that comes with being your own beta), but i think this one might be my favorite of the things i've written so far. it's got iron triangle shenanigans, xiaoge pov, wu xie pov, and i like to think it has a nice amount of variety going on from comic beats to more serious parts and is overall fluff because i'm a sap. idk i just like exploring the unspoken elements of pingxie's relationship since so much of what they say to each other is in subtext between them anyway so this is just one attempt at it

third most bookmarks: and there will be time this one is 100% self-indulgent, case in point i impulse wrote it for wu xie's birthday week since i saw practically no one doing anything for it so i took matters into my own hands lol. i tagged it "gonna give him all the things" "xiaoge is too" and tbh that's it that's the fic. it's pingxie spending a quiet day together with no fanfare, not much else.

fifth most words and least words: my hand was the one you reached for another one also written for another good friend (you know who you are too <3) i swear practically everything i write ends up as prompted or unprompted gifts for other people lol. the entire premise of this was "hey wu xie studied architecture and in the books is mentioned as sketching a fair amount, what if instead of journaling during the sha hai period as he usually does because it was so harrowing he had a sketchbook of xiaoge doodles he carried around" followed by "what if xiaoge found the sketchbook later though" and that's it that's the fic. i'm not 100% sure about the characterization for this one to be completely honest but like everything else i'm just gonna leave it there because it's there anyway

bonus because considering i only have one other fic i get to shamelessly plug for once ok: the cruelest month and again written for another good friend (this is a pattern and yes you also know who you are <3) this one is very different from the other ones and was definitely the hardest to write for a number of reasons. the pingxie is mostly background in that xiaoge isn't there for a majority of the fic because this is essentially a detailed character study of wu xie throughout the entirety of sha hai and what leads up to it. which is very daunting. and i'm not convinced i did the complexity it deserves justice. so it tries to be an exploration of his mindset, of how that plays into his relationships with other characters, and how that ultimately plays into his gradual realization of his feelings for xiaoge while xiaoge is behind the gate. with a "what if the snake pheromones gave him the latent ability to perceive intent and emotion from the people around him too" twist. it's about 8 different things in a trenchcoat but well

tagging @shaish, @kelly42fox, @child-of-the-fairy-folk, @difeisheng, and anyone else who feels up to it!

[mejomonster]

IM SCREAMING

So anyway I Love new Louis

Gonna go on a ramble for a moment now. I also Love that the show is dropping some of Lestats backstory (from his book) clearly much earlier. And how Louis is framing it as they actually became close friends first, before him suddenly finding out about the vampire thing and getting changed. As he says, he was seduced over time, and I enjoy watching it.

I think the change to a slow seduction of human BEFORE turning Louis fits well in the modern world of post human/vampire romance galore we are currently in, as there's more desire for that slow exploration in some ways. In another way, I think this initial relationship presentation screams the kind of tension of characters like Aziraphale/Crowley had in Good Omens. Oh the line "we are very good friends." In some show of the past, 10 or 20 years ago, that might be subtext but. Here it's absolutely loaded with meaning. Louis is narrating to make it clear he likes men, that he liked Lestat and felt seduced, and of course Louis's sister asking to meet Lestat mirrors her bringing her fiance to dinner the same night. These are all significantly large changes from the book, and yet I am enjoying that it aims to hit the sweet spot of mortal/immortal romance, of friends to lovers High tension (that so many 10 year ago shows capitalized on as subtext only but this show so thickly intensely is using for overt romance). So of course, it changes the feeling of their dynamic to very romance heavy (which like yeah it was but in the book Louis is initially grieving and depressed and that outweighs any other main feeling). As I've mentioned, I'm seeing this as an AU take where things may vastly diverge. And so i can see and appreciate this particular diversion, which appeals to a lot of more modern vampire genre trends then twists them back into the densely rich relationship Louis and Lestat originally had. So it adds this layer I think modern vampire romance often lacks of slow build tension, and very heavy tension as this is adults with many responsibilities and pains weighing on them - no longer teenagers in first love (but which Buffy did a bit, and which pingxie in dmbj actually appeals to me for similar reason).

And then also. The show brings some aspects or Louis from the book into deeper highlight than the old movie (even though of course some of Louis's backstory and initial time period are hugely changed). His close relationship wirh his sister is HERE, which I loved in the book and how he cared for her and stayed close to her even as a vampire (which may be the case in the show moving forward). How Paul was so important to Louis and someone Louis feels personally responsible for and intensely close to (which the old movie skipped). I also noticed the Freniere name drop with the sisters fiance! So one may expect at somr point Freniere is going to do something stupid, he may well have a sister Babette who Louis gets to know, and Freniere may well do something "cruel" which Lestat wants to hunt and kill him for. (While the old movie had Lestat as evil killer, its learned in later books he likes to kill humans who are killers, so given this show is mentioning some of Lestats family childhood and parents, it may well let the audience know this preference of Lestat with hunting much earlier than the books).

And then just. An interesting choice to me to keep Louis in the dark about Lestat being a vampire for a while. Just an interesting change to watch. So far I enjoy seeing all the unique sort of alternate ways these characters are being used. It does feel very much alternate universe, with a certain care to retain some portion of their core traits while seeing how changed setting/time period affects others.

Also the "I was going to St Louis, but it seems I was meant to go to the person not the place." Is sappy as all fuck but I kind of loved it

Anyway sjjsj as promised will be live blogging lol. I'm only 37 minutes in so do not spoil me ToT

[mejomonster]

unrelated but dmbj is THE show to watch that is not bl that happens to just. be more overt then half the cdrama bl’s i’ve ever seen to the point it is simply. not even distinguishable from them

so is My Roommate Is A Detective but more in a casual way, idk how to describe. its like if u want the concept of bbc sherlock but subtext to be more overt, never insult the audience or invalidated, and also want nicer detective and character writing. lovely lil show

meanwhile Love and Redemption is out here existing as an actual bi romance and it comes off as straightbaiting until ur in too deep then its obvious Sifeng is bi and ok he’s confessing his love to a man in front of the whole dang world and u wonder how it was allowed to exist and cry its so good agh (also u be cryin for a lot of other good reasons)

there is also Bureau of Transformers out here existing as an actual bi romance, but that is apparent from the get go and it feels as explicit and forward thinking as In The Flesh or other quite progressive shows from anywhere in the world so. only shock is how it got made since its a treasure

[mejomonster]

Daomubiji is the gayest "not written to be intentionally gay" I've ran into in the cwebnovel world. Like. In English? Yeah plenty of fuckers especially pre 2015 would make a story gay but never intend it to be read that way and yell at people who did (and some who didnt get mad but also didnt want to embrace that potentiality). Occasionally making something intensely gay. Nowadays most English stuff either is aware of how gay it wrote shit and therefore okay with itself as that, or is so unintentional it's just a baffling situation

Meanwhile in cwebnovels it's a pretty established genre to just put out gay content so usually if it's gay it's already fully aware it's writing in such a way (now cdramas are another story since it's the foggy land of some gay stuff being adapted to "bromance" meanwhile some purposely friendship stuff trying it's hardest to slide toward "bromance" to capitalize on that angle without actually being gay, then the ones in the middle happy to capitalize on the gay and playing hard and loose and not really confirming what their intent truly is -dmbj shows are Now Here-, and then original script "bromances" fully intending to be gay the way Xena was like Killer and Healer which I applaud for wanting to do gay in an impossible environment with no book to lean on as the reason it was made gay as it was - mriad also toed this, that tan jianci show recently did etc). So like usually if it's Not overtly gay as a novel I assume no intention was purposeful, at least not much. (Though to be fair maybe there are authors utilizing subtext and a bit scared to go overt gay cause of how that may affect them/sales/their future etc, which may be going on but I am not aware enough of everything in non-gay novel land to comment. Fair enough though that was certainly going on in Hayes code America in the film industry, with some people making gay threesome art films sliding past the radar on purpose, others making metaphor as literal wasn't alloved, others accidentally making subtext rather than on purpose, and I'd say to some degree novel wise that would have been going on as well. I didn't read many us novels from 70s-2000 but iwtv made gay implied and the sequel a decent time later made gay overt and I'd assume some bigger safety in writing gay characters was felt by authors later in the century).

Anyway, my point. Of the small amount ive read, dmbj is sure the gayest "not in the gay genre" cnovel I've found. There's The Kings Avatar, that's big, can anyone tell me if it's gay? There's Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, which has a gay side couple but that's not quite the same. There's LiuLi (Love and Redemptions novel), but a main character who's multiple genders and a bi love interest is just... not common in general anywhere so that's more of a one off thing (I'd love for it to be more common though). Mostly the big stuff that comes out that people interpret as gay out of cnovel land... IS purposefully fully intended as gay.

Meanwhile dmbj show wise, is at the point where scenes adapted from its own novel get cut for being too gay (oh wu xie u bastard cat ur too into xiaoge for censors to bear). Dmbj show wise, for a while, for baffling reasons post The Lost Tomb (because if you squint HARD there's non gay reasons to put in all the gay scenes as a speed run implied instant Platonic fondness/connection that's just using romance action tropes to speed it up to communicate to audience since it only has like 10 episodes... again, if you squint I can see an oblivious straight person somehow thinking it was straight). But then by The Lost Tomb 2 you've got the saving him in a tux in his arms shit, Ultimate Note you've got scenes Being cut for being "too gay" wu xie, in Reboot you've got the whole cast well aware of ships and nanpai Sandshu also WELL aware by that point so if there's any "bromance" now towing the line of gay it's at least likely on purpose and self aware they're on the line.

But then there's. The fucking novels. Wu Xie my dude. Iron triangle my guys. How did all this accidentally happen? Is this the beautiful outcome of npss starting fanfic with no idea where it would end? You genderbend a love interest, make the guy embody ur idea of cool so u have to have ur viewpoint character wu xie notice how Cool said Cool Guy is, and the gender ambiguous premise leads to romantic interest slanting framing of such character, leads to that entire structure continuing long after u decided emo boy is a dude, wu xie is into men now and ur in way too deep now to backtrack so pangzis commenting, now ur cool emo got Emotionally Attached to one person in this whole world and it's ur viewpoint dude, now he's sacrificing for him, now they're at Minimum as gay as Kirk and Spock and quickly hurtling to Xena/Gabrielle levels. And I'm googling pingxie having heard of dmbj, having never seen an episode, ans finding its one of the biggest Ships TM. Thinking it's some fan ship with no Canon basis like idk captain america/iron man, then I watch The Lost Tomb and no these fuxkers as gay as Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan to my assumption. Then I look up the books and it's. Odd. They're definitely soulmates, they don't date others, they retire together, xiaoge sees wu xie as The Person for his ass TM, and it's uh. It is what it is. They're life partners for sure anyway. So it's a kirk/spock situation at minimum. But, if you watch the shows it's treading on "this Bromance is so close to/possibly Is Romance that we are being assumed as actual bl" line. Which I guess in show form is Xena/Gabrielle. Cause most censored bl dramas are xena/gabrielle level (lovers but you gotta be Just vague enough about it to be allowed to air). And thus is established, the gayest pair of "are they gay" I've run into in chinese media. (To be compared with the youtube series Are You Gay of Kirk/Spock, a question for the ages).

I'm just. They're so gay. They're whatever they are in canon, and why. Its fun to think of why (before the shows slid them pretty firmly into "is might as well be bl territory so assume it is" with the way the show teams handle it). Like. Is it all just a happy accident of npss, a fanfic turned original universe that of course includes anything and everything (comets from space, giant snakes, emo immortals, hair monsters) so why wouldn't it also include gay chosen soulmate fuckers in the center. Is dmbj an interesting example of what fiction can grow and turn into of its own accord, as it evolves over years and becomes its own entity of development? It's interesting. It's interesting what else may eventually develop and shift. (Take what I said with heaps of salt though, I still need to read a Lot more of the books, I'm a newbie with them and still happy to fall into many more of them)