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manchineel-mistress · 2 months

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Ok, so I'm a danmei girlie right, not surprising considering my reblogs.

But with the realization of the fact that the fish novel (as i call it)(the diabled tyrants beloved pet fish) is coming out in 2 (two!!) days, I sometimes let myself read of my other lesser known danmei novels being licensed.

The Amount Of Money I Would Drop for 14th Year of ChengHua. IF WE GOT THOUSAND AUTUMNS AND PEERLESS, WE CAN GET 14TH YEAR OF CHENGHUA RIGHT???

It's just a such a funny novel yall. My favorite Meng Xi Shi novel 🥹🥹🥹

The dynamic between the Tang Fan (mc) and Sui Zhou (ml) is great. Sometimes you just move in with a guy you met during a case that made you lose your house and suddenly he cooks for you every day and manages your finances and embroiders his surname into handkerchiefs for you to use because your sick but still need to go to morning court- And then all the other characters are great too and sometimes when I think about Tang Fan's relationship with his sister and nephew I just (clench fist)(single tear rolls down my cheek).

Wang Zhi is still my favorite though. My beloved baby boi, would kill me in an instant if he thought it was necessary. Ambushed Tang Fan when he was going back to visit his sister and forced him to paint something for him so Tang Fan could be unfired (he got fired for a bit).

Meng Xi Shi somehow just wrote one guy's political career and then made me read 100k+ words about willingly and with great enthusiasm.

Many thanks to Chi Chi for translating it. And linking all the Wikipedia articles for historical context.

#danmei #14th year of chenghua #meng xi shi #everyone please give it a try #its honestly so funny and sweet and the mystery is a great go #the dynamic between tang fan sui zhou and wang zhi is for the ages #its so different from the drama sleuth of the ming dynasty #warning for drama watchers #i will forever be a little salty that they made tang fan into ancient china bbc sherlock tho #my boi has social skills pls :sob:#its ok tho #adaptations be like that and its still a fun show

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lostdreamkeys · 19 days

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Wushuang. Chapter 154. Scram

He didn’t know whether it was his headache that caused the illusion, for someone was suddenly gently blowing air at the back of his neck.

Was it a ghost under such a sun and in blatant daylight?

Cui Buqu has no strength to turn around to look.

#drawing #artists on tumblr #sketch #drawthisinyourstyle #wushuang #无双 #cui buqu #feng xiao #chinese novel #fan art #art #sketchbook #Peerless #danmei #meng xi shi

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bellaroles · 3 months

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Watch the Sleuth of Ming dynasty yesterday. It’s not exactly like the book but I do enjoy watching it. At least the found family plot is still there and although the dynamics between Sui Zhou and Tang Fan has changed, it is still quite cute in its own way. Also I haven’t drawn anything from this before, now I have the show for reference so I draw them 😄

#the fourteenth year of chenghua #the sleuth of ming dynasty #meng xi shi #sui zhou #tang fan #sui guangchuan #tang runqing #haven’t drawn for a while lol i’m getting rusty

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toaster-fire-art · 1 year

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what if 😳 ...you were my enemy,,, 😳 and we were trapped in a cave together on the brink of death...and we were both boys 😳 😳

aka I finished Peerless like a month ago and I’m not over the ending

I had such a hard time actually getting into the book but the ending oml when the when he when

yeah

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thegreatxdf · 1 year

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Currently in the middle of reading The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua and I'm really loving how Wang Zhi acts like a mother hen towards Tang Fan 🤣🤣

#danmei #meng xi shi #the fourteenth year of chenghua #tang fan #sui zhou #wang zhi

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starcrossed591 · 5 months

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CDrama Year in Review 2023

I'm still very much a CDrama beginner--I just started watching them in the summer of 2022--but since this is the first year I got into them in earnest, I figured I might as well do a year in review a la @dangermousie (whose lists I have found incredibly helpful in deciding which CDramas I really, really need to go back and watch as part of my CDrama education--so thank you!). So, without further adieu, here is my ranking of 2023 CDramas, in order of least enjoyed to most enjoyed*.

(See also: KDrama Year in Review 2023)

*Disclaimer: *not* a measure of objective quality

10. Royal Rumours: This drama was not great? Meng Zi Yi and Jeremy Tsui were fun, but the story started out messy and got messier. For some reason I still finished it, I think because I had a lingering cold and it was all my brain could handle at the time *shrug*

9. Gone with the Rain: I actually really enjoyed this one! The pacing was inconsistent, but Zhang Nan was fun as the irreverent Mo Xi, and we love a grizzled general. Special shout to the teacher who was not actually evil, just a sad lesbian whose gf disappeared on her

8. Love You Seven Times: Intriguing concept, not a strong enough FL to carry it through. The reincarnation stuff really worked for me at first, especially in their first mortal tribulation (as people, not CGI animals), but I got tired of it pretty quickly. I admit, the gifs of Ding Yu Xi as a sexy cat demon *did* pull me back in, but not enough for me to actually finish the thing, alas

7. Destined/Chang Feng Du: Started out really strong, and then stalled out on me. I think I only got up to about episode 22 or so, after their epic desert crossing and new start in a new state--they lost all narrative momentum for me there. I stopped watching and then just...didn't start again. I do, however, remain a big Bai Jing Ting fan, and will be keeping on eye out for whatever he does next

6. Hidden Love: (Contemporary) Age gap romances are hit or miss for me, but Zhao Lu Si absolutely stole/carried the show for me in this one. Although more fun imo when the main couple are in the the will-they-won't-they phase than in the family melodrama after they get together, still the only contemporary CDrama to get me to give it a go this year--and I'm glad I did

5. My Journey to You: Featuring my favorite murder girlies Esther Yu as Yun Wei Shan and Lu Yu Xiao as Shanguan Qian! Gorgeous costumes and sets, sweeping cinematography, and plot that kept me on the edge of my seat. Full disclosure, I have not actually watched the last two episodes because I got busy and then saw weird chatter about them, so I have no comment on the allegedly weird ending

4. Till the End of the Moon: Look, I know the ending wasn't ideal, but for the majority of its run, this drama owned my entire soul. It also introduced me to Bai Lu as Li Su Su, who inspired my first actual tumblr post (that wasn't a reblog) because I was so obsessed with her. And everyone knows that Tantai Jin is the CDrama ML of the year. 10/10, no regrets at letting it take over my life (and the OST my Spotify) from April to May of this year

3. The Story of Kunning Palace: More Bai Lu is always a good thing, and she's extra fun here as the transmigrated former evil empress and totally-over-your-nonsense Xiang Xue Ning here. The reverse haremness of it all totally shows why Bai Lu is the chemistry queen, especially with the princess (Liu Xie Ning) and cranky, morally grey, would-fail-gym-class strategist Xie Wie (Zhang Ling He). So glad this drama made it out of the CDrama vault and didn't languish indefinitely in censorship hell

2. A Journey to Love: Finished this one two days ago as of this writing and am still not normal about it. Ren Ruyi (Liu Shi Shi) and Ning Yuan Zhou (Liu Yu Ning) lead an exceptionally strong ensemble cast in this wuxia that explores the complicated relationships between love, duty, loyalty, loneliness, and companionship. Ruyi and Yuan Zhou are far and away one of my fave OTPs of the year, but just as compelling are the relationships between friends/brothers/fellow assassins Yu Shisan, Yuan Lu (ugh my heart), Qian Zhou, and Sun Lang. This drama definitely has one of the strongest ensemble casts of the year. And the character growth of Yang Ying from little princess abandoned in the cold palace to who she becomes by the end will stick with me for a long time. Plus another 10/10 OST!

1. Lost You Forever S1: I'm not normally a reverse harem girl, but the longing, loss, and hard resolve portrayed to perfection by Yang Zi as Xiao Yao really did it for me here. This whole drama struck an emotional chord for me, and where TTEOTM consumed my soul, LYF took over my heart. Xiao Yao's relationships with her power hungry, overprotective cousin Cang Xuan; hot snake demon Xiang Liu/playboy archery shufu Feng Feng Bei; and perfectly devoted Tushan Jing are all equally compelling to me, and while I may know who she ends up with in the end, who I *think* she should be with changes based on who's on screen at any given time. And A'Nian, my favorite bratty princess who really just needs some strong parenting, holds a special place in my heart. I know we may never get S2, and even if we do, censorship means it probably won't be what the drama makers are capable of, but I'm so glad for this little piece of absolute perfection. And, again, a top notch OST!

Fave Drama: Lost You Forever, by just a hair over A Journey to Love. See above.

Least Fave Drama: Royal Rumours--truly why did I finish this, what was past me thinking

Biggest Disappointment: 2023 is also the year I read Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir, my very first CNovel! But then I didn't even bother checking out its adaptation, Romance of a Twin Flower, because it got rid of everything that made the novel such an addicting read, including a brilliant, strategic, ice cold FL and an ML who actually kind of sucked at the beginning, only to grow on you very, very slowly over time. I'm grateful that the chatter around the drama is what brought the novel to my attention, but other than that, hard pass.

Favorite Male Character: Lots of good ones this year, but I'm gonna go with Cang Xuan (Zhang Wan Yi) from Lost You Forever. The conflict he faces between getting enough power to protect the people he loves the most and that power making him incompatible with those loved ones is so compelling, and his yearning for Xiao Yao even when she's right in front of him is wrenching. Full disclosure, I also just really love the sound of his voice

Favorite Female Character: This could easily have gone to Li Susu (TTEOTM), Xiao Yao (LYF), or Ren Ruyi (AJTL), but I'm gonna go with Bai Lu's Xiang Xue Ning in The Story of Kunning Palace. Something I really loved about this character was just how jaded Xue Ning really was, even in her second go round at life. Yeah, she wants to make amends for the harm done in her previous rise to power, but that has hardly turned her into a good--or even pleasant--person. Instead, she's incredibly skeptical and still plays most things ice cold, especially with her family. As a bonus, we got plenty of Bai Lu's fantastic side eye as she basically had to do high school all over again when she gets called into the palace despite her very best efforts not to be.

Favorite Ship: Ren Ruyi and Yuan Zhao from A Journey to Love have got to be it. They balance each other out so well, and over the course of the drama, learn to communicate effectively with each other whenever they have a problem. They also recognize that not all problems can be solved by ~love~, which makes their relationship even more compelling when they decide to prioritize each other in a way that respects what the other wants from life.

Favorite Secondary Ship: Little princess Yang Ying and Yuan Lu absolutely broke stole my heart in A Journey to Love. Doomed love even more than the main OTP, these two's youthful romance was such much fun to watch, especially as they egged their respective mentors on in their own romance. Yang Ying's recognition that her first love did not have to be her only love is also something I always love to see, even as it broke my heart that (spoiler) she and Yuan Lu never really had a chance at an HEA. Their relationship really exemplified a key theme of this drama: that you should love the people you love while they're still with you because tomorrow is never promised.

Non-2023 Dramas that I Watched: Two non-2023 dramas I watched that deserve a special shout out are Love and Redemption and The Sword and the Brocade. Love and Redemption prepared me to really appreciate the big swings that Till the End of the Moon took, and The Sword and the Brocade went a little way to filling the Story of Ming Lan shaped hole in my heart. The Sword and the Brocade also had absolutely searing critique of the concubine system, even as it featured one of the most genuinely good-hearted FLs I've seen. Would recommend both!

Most Looking Forward To: Yes, I'm a sucker and the censors (not to mention the characters) will probably break my heart, but I'm still crossing my fingers that Lost You Forever S2 will live up to the promise of part one. See above: still a CDrama beginner, have not yet had all the optimism knocked out of me. Sue me.

#CDrama #year in review #Lost You Forever #A Journey to Love #The Story of Kunning Palace #My Journey to You #Hidden Love #Chang Feng Du #Destined CDrama #Till the End of the Moon #Love You Seven Times #Gone with the Rain #Ren Ruyi #Yang Ying #Yuan Lu #Bai Lu #Meta #CDrama Review

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veliseraptor · 4 months

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January Reading Recap

Thousand Autumns: vol. 3 by Meng Xi Shi. This book is - I don't want to say growing on me because it was never not one I was enjoying, but it certainly got interesting in a new way in this volume. The shift in the relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao feels like an important one, even if it doesn't last, and the glimpses at a background for Yan Wushi not elaborated upon certainly have me intrigued.

I have the whole epub of the fan translation for this one and might end up just reading it through to the end without waiting for the official translation volumes to come out (though I'll probably read those too, because I like reading more than one translation where I can).

Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracies Became a Health Threat by Derek Beres, Matthrew Remski, and Julian Walker. Sometimes you read a book on a really interesting subject and it just kind of makes you want to read a better book on that subject. Based on a podcast of the same name, this book was...fine? But it remained relatively shallow, and heavy on the examples rather than the analysis. It was more of a survey of instances where health and wellness/conspiracy thinking intersect than it felt like it was taking a deep look at where and why those intersections happen. It was interesting, and I learned some things, certainly, but it didn't quite dig as deep as I wanted to go.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. What a fascinating piece of work. I don't have a whole lot of coherent things to say, except that I don't read a lot of memoir and I'm glad I read this one. I think I liked it better than I liked Machado's short story collection - certainly it was doing very interesting things with form and style in a narrative built loosely on the skeleton of a memoir. It's funny, because I could see myself finding the conceit here irritating or pretentious, but for whatever reason I think the vulnerability of the project undercut that aspect for me.

Dead Country by Max Gladstone. Mostly this book reminded me that I really want to reread the Craft Sequence, so I started doing that. Calling this an intro to that world feels weird - it doesn't really feel like an entry-point to me, despite the fact that it's being marketed that way - but perhaps that's me with the benefit of having read the other books but slightly too long ago to clearly remember them. (Hence the reread.)

Based on my vague recollections I remember liking his other books better than this one, but that's me comparing some books I really liked to one that I enjoyed but wasn't blown away by. But I'm still coming back to read the next one in this series, so I can't speak too harshly of it.

Faraway Wanderers by Priest. I really enjoyed this one! I love the way that Priest writes banter/interplay between two characters, and she definitely has a thing for people who are equally fucked up being fucked up together that I appreciate. Another thing to appreciate about this one is how (relatively speaking) tight it is - there's not a whole lot of wandering, despite the title, and the plot keeps moving in a pretty linear direction from start to finish. I love my longass cnovels with multiple arcs, but it was a little refreshing to read one this contained. It's not in my upper echelons of danmei I've read so far, because it doesn't hit my favorite tropes quite as hard, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. Probably wins my favorite book I read last month challenge. The ending got a little deus ex machina for my taste, strictly speaking, but not so much that it ruined my experience - and I genuinely enjoyed the refreshing experience of reading a book that was digging into some messy shit in a way that I found satisfying. I felt like some of the character development could've used more breathing room/space, but maybe I'm just picky about that, and the propulsive pace did keep me reading this one so fast I think I finished it in two days.

This is really petty but I also appreciated the author's willingness to have the protagonist/narrator be not the picture of good progressive politics. It allowed room for the, you know, development, and in the current genre climate I don't take it for granted.

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman. I don't quite know what I feel about this one. The basic argument Guriev and Treisman are making is that dictators have changed strategies in the 21st century from what they call "dictatorships of fear" to "dictatorships of spin." I think the main critique I came out of it with has to do with the authors drawing too stark a line between their dictatorship "types" and not necessarily acknowledging that a leader can move between them, or use elements of more than one "type" in different places. Like any binary, it obscures fuzziness of categories and potential overlap in favor of trying to make clear distinctions. This is particularly visible in the way that their writing about Putin feels dated just from the initial 2022 publication date.

There were a couple other things that struck me as weird (I suspect the authors might be a bit to the right of me, and there's at least a whiff of classism about their characterization of "the informed" as a class of people); on the whole it felt worth reading but also like a book I want to talk to someone else about to help process my thoughts.

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I love Tchaikovsky's work, and this conclusion to the Final Architecture series is no exception to that. And that's all, she wrote.

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi. I wanted to like this book more than I did - not that I didn't like it, but there's so much interesting stuff going on that it felt like didn't quite add up to a greater whole. A solid three star read, though, in the sense of "I'm glad I read it, and if someone else mentioned they were reading it I would probably provide my favorable impression, but I'm not going to go out of my way to recommend it to others."

There's definitely sequel bait at the end, though, and I probably will read the sequel if/when it appears. I'm intrigued enough, and the setting/worldbuilding is different enough - to get me that far.

I'm currently rereading Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (Dead Country made me do it) but have We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker proximately on my list for a book club; I'm on a bit of a fiction kick looking at The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, and Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer as possible next-ups as well. I'll get back to my long, long nonfiction to-read list eventually. (in the meantime I've got my long, long, long fiction to-read list.)

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things

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spockandawe · 5 months

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I'm going to have full cohesive pitches for these books as individual experiences sometime soon, i swear, but since I 1) just finished rereading thousand autumns (first time where it wasn't a third mtl), 2) am rereading peerless for the first time in years, and 3) am reading sleuth of the ming dynasty for the first time ever, I've been thinking a LOT about meng xi shi as an author and trying to scrape together my thoughts. Because I think she's really stunningly good! She's one of those authors whose skill just SHINES through, even when a translation is weak, and that's always something so fascinating to me.

But at the same time, i have a harder time raving about her books than most of my other faves. Trying to pitch thousand autumns to friends was something I really struggled with! The other two are easier, by nature of their central dynamics, while yan wushi cranks this one up to nightmare difficulty mode. But I think that it also provides an example of what I might be having to recalibrate for.

Like, I'm an easy binch. If Hua Cheng is leaving a necklace for Xie Lian early on, or Luo Binghe is noticing Shen Qingqiu's leaves right at the beginning of their books, I'm hootin and hollerin, I'm drumming my heels on the floor. And Meng Xi Shi is NOT about that instant gratification lifestyle. We're not having dessert before dinner, and there is some INTRICATE plot shit happening in all these books that is not getting muscled aside for indulgent ship time.

I'm absolutely certain it's a conscious choice, and one i respect the hell out of, especially since all of these books have the characters woven in with actual historical figures, which always manages yo take me by surprise. I assume details like keeping a wholeass imperial prince secret until he's five are fictional embellishment, but... nope! Actual history! The SCOPE of these plots and the politics they all muck around with means that there are limits to how much an author could spend time on ship bait without trivializing the central conflict. As much as i enjoyed golden stage, i never cared about the politics. And not caring about the politics in meng xi shi's work would be jettisoning SO much nutritional content.

And, that's not to say that there's NOTHING indulgent for me in the earlier parts! Yan Wushi starts delightedly letting people assume he's plowing Shen Qiao as soon as they start traveling together, Feng Xiao spends the second mystery of Peerless totally disguised as Cui Buqu's wife and fighting with him as "this wife", and Sui Zhou and Tang Fan start straight-up cohabiting POSTHASTE. And then. Meng xi shi makes you wait for it.

This isn't bad! The delayed gratification is very GOOD! The tension is delectable. The feeling of 'oh come on now you're just dragging this out on purpose' is mitigated by having characters drag things out in character. Shen Qiao's sense of responsibility pulls him towards Yan Wushi, and then away from Yan Wushi (and yan wushi is also Helping sfhfgdf). Feng Xiao doesn't move THAT fast, but Cui Buqu will Literally Die before he'll admit he has tender feelings. And Tang Fan is textually scared to lose what he has platonically with Sui Zhou by stepping into unknown territory. I'm still howling OH COME ON, but it transmutes into something directed at the characters, not the author.

And the plots we're making space for like this are hefty bois. All of them have heavy political themes, where in my usual diet, i would reluctantly accept a little politics on the side in my ancient chinese fantasy meal. And each of these books has baited me further into caring about mundane politics 😂 In Thousand Autumns, it's very much a balance between lavishly described fantasy martial arts extravaganza and big politics enhanced by the martial arts extravaganza. Peerless, we're down one martial artist in the lead characters, so there's more non-fighting politics happening (and both characters are secret police commanders), but at least one of my boys floats around playing magic music on his guqin. Fourteenth Year Of Chenghua? Goddamn, I'm reading this thing and I'm in the THROES over ancient chinese imperial office politics, like oh noooo oh my god HOW COULD THEY DEMOTE HIM AT A TIME LIKE THIS, fffff, who can possibly intercede with the emepror now-- And i have NO idea how i reached this point, this is so funny to me.

I do think it says a lot for all three of these that they won me over so hard despite not being as tailored to my personal tastes as something like mxtx! I do love all them to pieces. But it's something like... Digging in at the earlier, slower stages of these books was a hell of a struggle. One that paid off, but i worry about people bouncing off them! Something I've said about thousand autumns (and will say again) is that it's a book that asks for a lot of trust from readers. Some of that is PURELY down to yan wushi, but the structure and pace doesn't make that easy. I do think that the trust is repaid by the end, at least in terms of my reading experience, but it makes me worry! I do want people to read these!

Actually that brings me to the last big strong point I want to mention before i get back to reading: the character writing. Because GODDAMN, the character writing. It both contributes to the slow start in these books, I think, but also MASSIVELY enriches the emotional payout as they progress.

Yan Wushi is one of the funniest, most obnoxious characters of all time! He's also cruel, demanding, and overbearing, and a strong, vivid personality like that takes real time and effort to develop. The beginning of the book looks like it could slip into misery porn + stockholm syndrome healing cock = i guess this is a healthy relationship now. And it doesn't! But it's hard to tell how it WILL go, and that makes it hard to commit to a tome like this. Feng Xiao is comparably obnoxious and hilarious, but Cui Buqu is closed up tight as a clam, and both of them deal in secrets professionally, it is HARD to start accessing any hints of emotional sincerity in either of them. And Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are both junior government officials, early in their careers in a volatile work environment, and they present in a pretty reserved, professional way at first, and the subtler/goofier character notes take time and intimacy to properly manifest. wang zhi on the other hand--

I recommend these books! I really recommend them! I don't want to be underwhelming people with 'oh, you won't like it at first, but JUST YOU WAIT.' Because I did like them at first. They didnt elevete me to the same flailing emotional THROES as some novels, but the quiet rich flavor of the relationships in these are FABULOUS. And the sheer scope of the plots she pulls off, I mean, holy shit. I'm not underwhelmed by these books at all, I'm more likely to get overwhelmed, there's a reason I've been savoring the latest reading experience. I like them a lot! I like meng xi shi as a lot! In the sliver of cnovels that I've sampled, her books are doing some really cool things i haven't seen anyone else pull off, especially with such aplomb. I didn't start out LOOKING for books like that, but I'm still really, really glad i found them, and I do highly recommend them, just in general. I'll figure out how to pitch them individually soon.

*holds probably over 1.5M words of meng xi shi tomes* I Just Think She's Neat

#thousand autumns #peerless #fourteenth year of chenghua #lies it's like the seventh year or something by now #meng xi shi #long post/#fengcui still in the lead for my all-time favorite cnovel ship though #they're both the worst i love them

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staydandy · 9 months

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Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (2020) - 成化十四年 - Whump List

List by StayDandy Synopsis : Set during the 14th year of Chenghua Emperor's reign, Tang Fan, a sixth rank official and Sui Zhou, an embroidered uniform guard, join hands to crush a conspiracy to maintain peace and order for the people. (MDL) AKA : The Story of Ming Dynasty | The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua

Whumpee : Tang Fan played by Darren Chen (center)

Country : 🇨🇳 China Genres : Historical, Mystery, Crime, Bromance, Censored Adaption, BL / Boys Love

Notes : This is a Partial List - I didn't list every bit of whump, just what caught my attention the most • Adapted from a novel of the same name by Meng Xi Shi • The novel was originally a BL novel. However, the main theme revolves around the crime solving and not the romance. The published version features the bromance between the characters. (I actually just learned this, I didn't know when I first watched - but it makes sense now)

Episodes on List : 3 Total Episodes : 48

*Spoilers below*

26 : Tang Fan purposefully poisons himself so as to help find an antidote for a friend

29 : … continued from previous ep. ...

44 : Sliced on his back with a sword

More Whump Lists for this show: whumpily-ever-after ghostly-whump

#whump #whump list #Asian whump #China #Sleuth of Ming Dynasty #成化十四年 #The Story of Ming Dynasty #The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua #Tang Fan #Darren Chen #poisoned #sick #cut #collapses

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danmei-in-polls · 11 months

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Ever went through all the trouble of getting your blorbo from danmei into a tournament, only to have them eliminated in the first round because the poll didn't reach enough danmei fans? This blog aims to help with that!

I'm keeping an eye on a number of brackets myself, but if you find a poll I missed, message me with a link, or just tag me in the poll's replies, and I'll reblog it asap. Similarly, if you find a tournament that's just perfect for danmei submissions, be those characters, ships, or novels themselves - send it my way!

Then, happy voting 🫶

- Navigation -

|| active polls || submissions open || propaganda || || org posts || waiting for polls || finished polls ||

important! blacklist #hot take warning if you don't want to see polls with controversial / negative takes at all; and "#[character] critical" if you want to avoid such takes about a particular character.

- by author / novel -

MXTX: SVSSS || MDZS / CQL || TGCF

priest: Qi Ye || Tian Ya Ke / Shan He Ling || Zhen Hun || Liu Yao

Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat: 2ha || Yuwu

Meng Xi Shi: The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua

Cyan Wings: DVAWTK

Yu Xiao Lan Shan: Tu Fei Gong Lue

#danmei #danmei novels #danmei polls #svsss #mdzs #tgcf #mxtx #<- tagging the currently most represented #org posts

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uwmspeccoll · 1 year

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Snow Day Thursday

We are being hit by Winter Storm Elliott, so we will be closed for the day and very probably tomorrow as well. To reflect the snowy clime, we present a Chinese scroll painting entitled Qi Dakui's picture of snow in the deep mountains (imitating the brushwork of Li Tang [Xi Gu]) - 祁大夔深山雪霽圖(仿李唐(晞古)筆意, from our Tse-Tsung Chow Collection of Chinese Scrolls and Fan Paintings.

Qi Dakui (1921-1982), known by the pseudonym Xiao Xi Ju Shi, was born in Beijing and specialized in landscape painting. His father, Qi Kun, was also a renowned landscape painter during the beginning of Republic of China. This ink-wash style of painting is known as Shuimo. Here, Qi is emulating the style of the noted 11th-century Chinese painter Li Tang (c. 1050 – 1130).

There are five Chinese seals or chops. They read: 1) 祁 - Qi; 2) 小西 - Xiaoxi; 3) 伯龍 - Bolong; 4) 周策縱 - Zhou Cezong (i.e., Tse Tsung Chow); 5) 晴窗一日幾回春 - Seeing spring scences several times a day from sunny windows.

View more posts from our Tse-Tsung Chow Collection.

#Snow day #Chinese scroll paintings #Chinese art #Qi Dakui #snow in the deep mountains #snow #Li Tang #Shuimo #ink wash painting #Tse-Tsung Chow Collection #Chinese seals #Winter Storm Elliott

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wlwcatalogue · 4 months

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Five Days of Yam-Pak Movies ～ Day 4: Xi Shi, The Eternal Beauty // 西施 (dir. Chu Kea / 珠璣, 1960) - starring Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)

Scene outline and more information below!

Outline Based on the folk tales surrounding Xi Shi, one of the Four Great Beauties (四大美女) of China. The Yue Kingdom has been conquered by the warmongering Wu Kingdom, and its king and queen have been taken hostage. In a bid to rescue the monarch and turn the tables, minister Fan Li (Yam Kim Fai) recruits the humble but politically-minded washerwoman Xi Shi (Pak Suet Sin) and trains her up to become the king of Wu’s concubine— in other words, their woman on the inside. Both fall for each other, but love their country too much to call off the mission, so Xi Shi enters the Wu Kingdom’s court as originally planned. And it turns out that she is naturally gifted as a saboteur: drawn in by her beauty and constantly turned around by her cleverness, the king of Wu soon becomes a puppet dancing to the tune of Yue’s liberation… Scene Summary Although Xi Shi is an excellent spy, that’s not to say that she does not face her own share of troubles. She is isolated, having no compatriots apart from another concubine sent with her from Yue Kingdom, and not knowing when she can see her love next; and of course, there is also a very high chance of her dying in the Wu Kingdom even if she succeeds in causing its ruin. In this scene, Xi Shi has spent some time at the Wu court and so is elated to see a visiting Fan Li – however, both are filled with mixed emotions, knowing that their reunion is only temporary and that they cannot allow their feelings to jeopardise the mission.

What’s great about Xi Shi, The Eternal Beauty is that it’s basically a spy movie in a period setting. Sure, Xi Shi is beautiful, but the emphasis is on her being hyper-competent and highly intelligent; even when the king of Wu and his advisors are suspicious of her, she’s able to run circles around them. And despite it being a honey trap, there’s no threat of sexual assault or sexual violence at all! Thanks to the censorship of the 1950’s, the king of Wu is reinterpreted as just someone who really likes watching (non-sexualised) dance performances. It’s a novel take on Xi Shi, as most tellings depict her as being a passive pawn, whether as a helpless woman whose body is exploited in the conflict between Yue and Wu, or as someone who manages to ruin a kingdom purely by dint of being so beautiful that the ruler cannot focus on his duties. Take a look the essay linked below, and marvel at how much better this movie is!

Links:

My post about Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin being queer icons

An English-language academic essay by HKU professor Olivia Milburn on the depictions on Xi Shi in early Chinese literature

Full movie on Youtube

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