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dangermousie · 3 years

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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.

#asks #cdrama #cnovel

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dreamy-heichou · 5 years

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Hello dear!! Congrats for 500 followers! 😁😁 Can I ask for 39 and 36? A little angsty but very fluffy in the end? The list is amazing btw, lots of good ideas especially for extreme angst but I'm not brave enough to ask for those XD

Aww thank you!! ♥♥ I’m really glad you like the list, I was so excited to make/post it!! :D I tried to make a diversified list, but that doesn’t mean I want to write big angst too, our boys deserve a happy ending! :’) (though someone requested pure angst, and I will write it, but i’m not ready for it tbh D’:)

Anyway, here are your requested prompts combined together! I hope you’ll like it! :)

Send me a prompt

36: “Shh. You’re okay now. It’s over.”

39: “I never got to tell you how I felt back then.”

WARNING: Manga spoilers ahead!!

************

Eren’s eyes are heavy. He can feel himself slowly getting out of the deep sleep he was in, gradually regaining consciousness. For a moment, he is confused about where he is and what time it is, then he sees the red digits coming from a radio alarm indicating 3 a.m. and he remembers.

Last night, he stayed at Levi’s place for the first time. The raven always found excuses for them not to spend the night together, even though they started dating a few months ago, and Eren never tried to push his luck. He agrees with Levi to go slowly with their relationship, to not rush anything and get reacquainted with each other first.

Even if they both remember their past lives, both remember the feelings they both shared then, now is a different time and they have different lives. They ended up dating quite rapidly though, but being in a relationship didn’t change the pace they had agreed on. Levi is a very secret person and Eren respects that. He is too, or at least he doesn’t know how to express what he feels well, even though he is better at it than Levi.

However, last night was different. They ended up going to Levi’s apartment and the man didn’t say anything when it should have been time for Eren to go back home. Instead, he led him to his bedroom for them to sleep.

A small smile cracks on Eren’s face at the memory of their previous night together, and he closes his eyes once again. He is about to go back to sleep when suddenly he hears heavy breathing next to him, wondering how he didn’t hear it earlier, and turns to look at Levi. Worry overtakes his sense and his stomach drops once he is face to face with the man.

He is sitting on the bed, head in his hands, his eyes wide open but looking at nothing in particular. His breathing is extremely quick and heavy, and he also looks like he is sweating a lot. Eren approaches a tentative hand towards the raven’s arm, not really sure of what to do in this situation. Is he having a panic attack?

“Levi?”

The moment his hand touches his pale skin, Levi flinches and slaps Eren’s hand away, his eyes looking frantic and frightened, a small whimper of distress coming out of his lips. Eren immediately backs away, putting both of his hands next to his head to show him he means no harm. He feels like a knife just went through his heart.

He has never seen Levi in such a state, and thus has no idea what to do to calm him down. It doesn’t even look like Levi recognized him, still trapped in whatever illusions his brain created to the point of rendering him like this, and he has to try really hard not to get too close to his frightened boyfriend.

“Levi, it’s me! Eren! Do you hear me?”

The man seems to register his words, or maybe his tone, that Eren tried to make as soft and gentle as he could, and looks at him with eyes wide open, his body shaking uncontrollably.

“E-Eren?” His voice is weak and so low that Eren almost didn’t hear it, but he understood what he said by the movement of his lips.

“Yes. It’s Eren. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Before he has time to comprehend what is happening, Eren can feel Levi’s arms encircling his chest, his head hiding inside the croak of his neck. The sudden movement takes his breath away for a second, before he can regain his composure and focus on the man wrapped around his body. He can feel more than see Levi’s body shaking now, and he restrain himself from touching his lover, not yet sure if he can without scaring him like earlier.

“E-Eren…”

A small sob escapes his lips at the same time as his name, and the brunet’s heart shatters at the sound. Never has he seen nor heard Levi cry before, and seeing how fragile he is in that moment makes his eyes start to sting. They are the same person they used to be but at the same time they aren’t, Eren tries to remember. Levi’s armor isn’t as thick as it used to be. He is more vulnerable than before.

A surge of love and tenderness overwhelms him and he finally acts on his pulsion, wrapping his arms around Levi’s shaking figure, a hand slowly petting his hair to comfort him while he whispers sweet nothings and reassurances in his ears. Levi’s grip only grows tighter at Eren’s actions, and the brunet takes it as a sign he can go on, putting all of his feelings inside the soft kisses he puts on the crown of his hair and the affectionate caresses on his back.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Eren rocks him back and forth, in relative silence, waiting for Levi’s shaking to stop or for him to say something. He thinks he knows what actually happened, but he won’t ask nor force the man to say anything.

Eventually, Levi relaxes in his arms but doesn’t come out of his hiding place on Eren’s shoulder. His breathing is calmer, slower, but still Eren waits for the man to take the first step.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this.” Levi says weakly, his voice hoarse from his crying.

“That’s why we never spent the night together before?” Levi slowly nods against his neck but says nothing, and once again Eren waits for him to break the silence.

“I… I have nightmares every night. It’s the same one over and over again. And I- I can’t…”

“I have nightmares too. You know I won’t judge you on this.”

Levi weakly nods once again, his hand coming to cover the one Eren is using to prevent them from falling backwards. He caresses it slowly, softly stroking his knuckles in a calming way. Eren knows how much Levi struggles to express himself sometimes, knows he’s probably trying to clear the mess in his head.

“I hate being this… weak. I hate the fact that this memory is haunting me every night. But I can’t- I can’t control it. And I’m so so tired, Eren.”

The brunet continues drawing circles on Levi’s back, showing the man he is there with him, for him. He has seen the bags under his eyes, noticed them a while ago, but he didn’t ask. He knows Levi wouldn’t have answered, knows Levi is telling him this now because he witnessed his breakdown, but he also agreed to Eren staying the night, so surely it means he was ready to talk about it anyway. Eren would hate for Levi to tell him all of this only because he feels cornered and forced to tell him everything. He knows it’s false, but it still crosses his mind.

A few minutes of silence after, Levi slowly starts to tell Eren all about what is haunting him. It is a memory the brunet wasn’t even aware of, something that happened while he was busy somewhere else. The explanation behind Zeke arriving to Shiganshina despite Levi being with him before. He knew it meant somehow that something might have happened to Levi, but he had other things to think about then.

However, this… What Levi went through… It breaks his heart and a wave of guilt washes over him. He is partially to blame for this. He is partially responsible for Zeke trying to get away from Levi in order to join him in Shiganshina, to the point of making the lightning spear Levi had put inside of him explode. It’s partially his fault Levi has nightmares every night now, seeing the moment of the explosion, feeling all the emotions that he experienced then.

Surprise. Shock. Fear. Pain. Agony.

Levi starts shaking again while telling Eren everything about his nightmare and the brunet can only bring him closer to him. At some point, Levi starts scratching the right side of his face and pulling at his fingers on his right hand, and Eren immediately stops him. He takes Levi’s right hand, holding it tightly, while caressing his face affectionately.

“Shh. You’re okay now. It’s over.” He kisses his face, first on his right eye, then down his cheek while stroking the other one with his thumb. “You’re not hurt anywhere. It’s just a memory.”

Eren keeps on showering Levi’s face in soft kisses until he can feel him relax under his touch, his shaking gone. He can feel Levi gripping his hand back, a little bit too strongly, but he doesn’t mind it. It shows how much Levi is in pain, and letting him grip his hand in a tight crush is the only thing he can do for him, besides being here for him.

Eventually they lie down on the bed, facing each other, their hands still linked between their two bodies, Eren’s other hand stroking Levi’s side slowly. The raven closes his eyes for a few minutes, enjoying the contact on his skin, squeezing Eren’s hand from time to time, showing him he’s not asleep.

Levi is the first one to break the silence, bringing a hand towards Eren’s head and stroking his long hair which isn’t tied up like usual. He puts a few brown locks behind his ear carefully, clearing his boyfriend’s face to see him more clearly, and Eren smiles fondly at him.

“What are your nightmares about?” His voice is very low, careful.

Eren studies his face to understand the sudden question, until he can feel Levi’s thumb caressing his hand again. Levi isn’t good when talking about his feelings, or feelings in general, but he still tries from time to time. Eren has noticed his body would show sign of his unease in those moments, since Levi talks more with actions than with words, and this is one of them. The raven doesn’t like being under the spotlight and would rather listen to someone else -Eren- talk than talk himself.

Eren tells him all about his nightmares. They are never the same, unlike Levi, but they are enough to wake him up at night, drenched in sweat, his heartbeat alarmingly fast. Sometimes they are about the day the Colossal Titan appeared, breaking the walls, resulting in his mother’s doom. Sometimes they are just about Titans in general, devouring people, sometimes he can recognize those people and see the despair on his former comrades’ faces. He also dreams about his time in Marley, the battle in Liberio, and also the one in Shiganshina later on. Levi listens to him intensely, still running his hand in his hair, his grey eyes never leaving his teal ones.

Eventually, their conversation strays from nightmares to their past memories, and from bad memories to good ones. They talk about their days in the Survey Corps, of the friends they haven’t seen in a while, of the moments they spent together. There had been very few towards the end, and Eren bits his lip in front of the nostalgia on Levi’s face. There were so many unspoken things between them back then, so many missed occasions for them to be together.

Eren bring his hand to Levi’s jaw, cupping his face while looking intensely in his eyes, a tender and wistful smile on his lips.

“I never got to tell you how I felt back then.” He softly whispers.

It started as a hero crush, but as he got to really know the man hidden behind the mask, he realized how alike they were and how they understood each other perfectly. Levi helped him grow and become a better person, more assured, and along the way his feelings towards the man became more intense and less innocent. However, Eren had been too preoccupied with freeing Paradis and his people. He had too much on his shoulder to take time to settle and listen to his desires. He had to protect everyone from their fates, Levi included.

It had been bad timing for them.

Now they have a chance to start all over again, to make things right and follow their heart’s desires instead of their soldier’s duties. They can be what they couldn’t be before, say what they couldn’t say. They can be together without endangering anyone, not even each other. They can be selfish for once and stop thinking about others. They had accomplished their duties. They deserved some rest.

Levi smiles softly at Eren’s words, bringing the brunet closer to him, kissing his forehead delicately before pressing his own against his. They look at each other for a while, without saying anything, letting the silence envelop them like a warm blanket. Their hands are still leisurely stroking the other’s face, or squeezing the other’s hand.

“Stay with me.” Levi whispers after a few minutes looking fondly at each other. Eren is first surprised by the sudden request, but his features relax at the look of pure adoration on the raven’s face. “Not just tonight.”

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t feel the need to when he can bring Levi even closer to him and kiss him deeply, passionately, putting all his feelings inside the movement of his lips against his. Levi seems eager to reply with his own kisses, showing his lover he means every word he said and even more, the ones he cannot say but which Eren can understand with his touches and body language.

They are inside a bubble of silence and tenderness, relishing the other’s presence and their closeness. It’s like time itself has stopped around them, and they savor this sensation by kissing, touching, conveying everything that they feel. The moon is the only witness of this very private and intimate exchange between the two men, bathing their bodies in its surreal light and illuminating their skins with a silver glow.

Eventually their eyes close, the face of their significant other burnt behind their eyelids with promises of a peaceful night and pleasant dreams. Their hearts are full, appeased by the warmth of their bodies flushed against each other, their breathing meddling with one another. And in that instant, they both make the same wish, born from the same corner of their minds and souls.

I don’t want to spend another night without you by my side.

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