#historical danmei

[aworldforastage]

Just finished: 三嫁咸鱼/Thrice Married to Salted Fish by 比卡比

Okay, not gonna lie, I'm a bit disappointed -- not to say the novel wasn't good, but my expectations might have been a bit too high due to its immense popularity, especially in the English-speaking fandom.

The story has some very interesting and refreshing ideas:

A transmigration novel told from the POV of an in-universe character rather than the transmigrator

Three separate transmigrations into the same universe

Main characters who unabashedly prioritizes their own interests

And it includes many popular tropes:

A genre-savvy transmigrator intentionally hijacks the plot from the original protagonist

A "feel-good" novel that mercilessly destroys the bad guys and other people standing in the main couple's way

Main characters are very smart and competent (if a bit OP)

The plot is action-packed and tightly-paced

The main couple has believable development and compatible personalities

But on the other hand [unmarked spoilers ahead]

I don't really like with the way the relationship arc has been handled. The gong transmigrates into three different bodies; even though it's the same spirit/personality that Lin Qingyu falls in love with, their dynamic is a bit different in each body and identity. A big part of Lin Qingyu's relationship with Lu Wancheng is them grappling with his declining health and inevitable death, and his relationship with Gu Fuzhou has a period of familiarizing with this new body. They are so distinct that I can't see it like one single relationship.

It is especially jarring to see Lin Qingyu "moving on" literally the night after Gu Fuzhou dies. Because he has been through this before, and this is meant to be Jiang Xing's "true body", there seems to be barely any adjustment. Qingyu becomes intimate with the new body before he is done processing Gu Fuzhou's death, and I feel like it was too abrupt given how deeply he has bonded with Jiang Xing-as-Gu Fuzhou.

The plot also feels more and more implausible as time goes on. The schemes Lin Qingyu and Lu Wancheng pull off in the Lu Household can be explained away by them being ballsy and smart, but as the scope of the story expands, their egregious interference of imperial politics just seems downright ridiculous. I really enjoyed the first part of the novel, where Lu Wancheng's poor health and Lin Qingyu's awkward political position give them more of an underdog-against-the-power kind of vibe. However, as they gain more political power and the "protagonist halo" , their progress becomes so smooth it can't even be called a conflict anymore.

Overall

I would summarize my impression of novel as "did not live up to the hype". It has many refreshing and enjoyable tropes, a sweet romantic arc and a feel-good kind of plot. It also has good and effective writing -- I was in tears reading about Lu Wancheng's death. Ironically, it starts in a way I really enjoyed, but shifts to a direction I enjoy less towards the end. Not a bad story, but I just hoped for something a bit more spectacular, or at least a bit different.

However, the song from the audiodrama is a bop ~

#三嫁咸鱼 #thrice married to salted fish #sjxy #danmei novels #my reading #historical danmei #political danmei #transmigration danmei

[lizonkanovels]

Xiao Jiu Update

My translation of Xiao Jiu is complete, but I plan to release a semi-localized edition. Looking back at my Xiao Jiu tl, I noticed that I used too much pinyin, disrupting the flow of the story to some readers.

Currently, I am considering which terms I should localize and which to keep in pinyin. [Simply deciding turned out to be harder than I thought…]

This semi-localized edition will be published separately from the original version. So to the readers who don’t mind the sprinkling of pinyin all over the original, no need to worry. You can still read it as is.

#xiao jiu #小九 #xu banxian #许半仙 #danmei #historical danmei #danmei translations #miyamiwu.tl #updates #miyamiwu.src

[twistedappletree]

jin ling dramatically flips his ponytail over his shoulder before he rocks someone’s absolute shit and you can’t convince me this isn’t canon

#historical danmei version of taking out your earrings 💅 #mdzs #jin ling #baby boy #apple babble 🍎 #flying ponytail ​is the last thing you see before you die #he’s so ✨tresemmé✨

[czikpisia]

1920s Wei Ying is the ultimate flapper in my head ok

#my art #dress history #fashion history #vintage #historical fashion #historical wlw #lgbt art #1920s fashion #circa 1920 #1920s #flapper #great gatsby #danmei #fem wei wuxian #wei ying #wei wuxian #mxtx mdzs #mdzs fanart #mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #魔道祖师 #danmei fanart #queer artist #queer #mxtx fandom #historical fanart #my fanart #1920s au

[hunxi-after-hours]

hey, big fan of your blog! read some of your qianqiu metas, and was thinking lately about the presentation of the statist consolidation of power and framing of political unification as an unproblematic moral good in a lot of the wuxia/xianxia I've engaged with. having grown up with these genres, I know that censorship and sociopolitical circumstances are big influences on the message that gets put out. (1/3)

but also as an anti-authoritarian looking to art and literature for countercultural inspiration, I guess I've found a lot of wuxia lacking in a vision for a radical future. this certainly isn't to say that art needs to be radical to have value, or that wuxia spaces haven't created avenues of self-expression and joy for oppressed groups in an airtight society where there are dire risks attached to political activity. (2/3)

wuxia/xianxia are my favorite genres, but many aspects of its narratives seem to uphold structures of oppression (i.e. ableism, colorism, xenophobia, misogyny, etc). but hey, 嫌货人才是买货人, no such thing as perfect, best thing to do, I suppose, is to engage with art with a critical eye. thanks for your time! (3/3)

an anon after my own heart, hello! you're definitely getting at certain themes, assumptions, and values that in a way were built in to the wuxia genre as it has evolved today. whether you’re reading classic authors like 金庸 Jin Yong or remixers like 梦溪石 Meng Xishi, I’ve definitely noticed that wuxia as a genre has, well, complicated relationships with the structures of oppression that you brought up

(I'm leaving xianxia out of the discussion atm as I’m less familiar with it as a whole, but also I don't think it has the same concerns of nationalism and historicism that wuxia does)

in many ways, the modern wuxia genre is a heavily compensatory genre, which I mean specifically in a “hey, compensating much?” kind of way. it took me a very long time to realize and process this, diaspora kid that I am, but so much of contemporary Chinese culture is still profoundly affected by the events of the past 200-250 years. I mean, when you think about it, the imperial dynastic system wasn’t all that long ago; in many ways, Chinese society is still reeling from the century of humiliation, the breakneck industrialization, the mass deaths of the 20th century in war and famine and revolution and government abuse (there is also the matter of the government deliberately evoking public memory of past atrocities to fan nationalistic sentiment for its convenience, which not only keeps historical national humiliations top-of-mind but also disrupts processes of collective memory and collective grieving).

Stephen Teo, in Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition, tracks the origins of wuxia as a genre, and from the beginning wuxia has been bound up with anxieties over masculinity and national agency, which in literature can often be one and the same. Teo, in tracing early forerunners of wuxia and the historical context of its emergence, notes that "[i]ntellectuals initially regarded the warrior tradition in the genre as one of the elements that could provide a positive counterweight to China's image as the 'sick man of Asia'" (Teo 37).

Given the repeated incursions and invasions onto Chinese soil and China’s status as a semicolony for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, it’s almost too obvious how the wuxia genre provides a balm for those exact anxieties: the martial warrior tradition (the 武 wu in 武侠 wuxia, if you will) directly addresses fears regarding the emasculation of Chinese men; the historical settings of wuxia novels often set during or against a backdrop of past imperial Chinese glories; the featuring of military triumphs over “foreign barbarians” who sought to invade or occupy imperial land, or even better — the protagonist, raised among the “wolfish barbarians,” is uniquely positioned to combine the “raw, savage strength” of “barbarian” culture with the “cultured civility” of Han Chinese culture; the strong emphasis on tradition(al aesthetics) and traditional Confucian ethics of morality and righteousness as contrast and counterpoint to the rapid modernization and Westernization of 20th/21st century Chinese culture... you get the idea

Teo’s book surveys the wuxia genre over the past century, particularly through film, and he discusses how wuxia in the 21st century begins “to manifest as made-in-China historicist blockbusters mixing the epic form with wuxia" — which is to say, wuxia has increasingly become intertwined with the genres of period dramas and historical epics:

"Having been grafted onto the period epic, wuxia becomes a showcase of Chinese history, seeking to be universally accepted while at the same time locating itself within the historicist confines of the nation-state." (168)

wuxia’s increasing hybridization/conflation with historical epics (particularly in Zhang Yimou’s 2002 film 《英雄》 Hero, John Woo’s 2008 - 2009 《赤壁》 Red Cliff duology) increasingly politicizes the genre, and that politicization thereby links wuxia to national issues of structural oppression, like the ones you mentioned: the statist consolidation of power and framing of political unification as an unproblematic moral good, ableism, colorism, xenophobia, misogyny... any one of these could carry a research paper on their own, and I don’t presume to be able to solve or explain away any of them in a tumblr post, but I do think there are many ways in which the wuxia genre’s (often uncritical) support of structures of oppression are directly linked to the origins of wuxia as a genre that was in many ways wish-fulfillment for a 20th/21st century Chinese culture wracked with political turmoil, economic disaster, and cultural uncertainties

I particularly like Teo’s discussion here:

"...The grand historicist self-fashioning of the genre in a film like Hero and its offshoots Curse of the Golden Flower, The Banquet, The Warlords [...and] Red Cliff demonstrate the kind of nationalistic self-aggrandisement that critics find so disturbing, particularly so when the nature of the regime is authoritarian and autocratic, ever ready to invoke militaristic power as the means to their end of a unitary nation state.

“However, if we see the wuxia genre as a mirror of the nation, it shows China in perpetual crisis, torn apart by internal strife and the urge to cohere as a unitary state." (186)

the framing of political unification as an unproblematic moral good is something I find particularly interesting, because a lot of that has to do with Chinese history. the famous opening line of 《三国演义》 / Romance of the Three Kingdoms references this directly: 天下大势，分久必合，合久必分 / “All great movements under heaven [follow this rule]: that which has fallen apart for a long time must come together, and that which has been together for a long time must fall apart.” The entire cyclical narrative of imperial China has been this: a dynasty rises, a dynasty falls, the land fractures into squabbling kingdoms, out of which a single dynasty eventually rises, to eventually fall, to eventually fracture again. and so, a dynasty’s collapse and the subsequent societal fracturing into warring territories is naturally paired with the crisis and violence that ensues with the fall of a state. simply put, there just isn’t a period of Chinese history (or if there is, I don’t know of it) where political fragmentation has not been associated with civil unrest; therefore political unification must be an unproblematic good as it eliminates domestic warfare and returns order to the central plains. handily, this supports the current regime’s nationalistic and authoritarian agenda, and so we see this particular moral value reflected in much of wuxia fiction

not to simply brush aside ableism, colorism, xenophobia, and misogyny all with a wave of a hand, but I do think that much of this has to do with contemporary Chinese society’s current attitudes towards these issues. when a society privileges pale complexions in its beauty standards (see: the triptych of 白富美, the omnipresence of beauty products that advertise skin tone lightening, the entire entertainment/idol industry), colorism is a natural (and shitty) result. government-spurred nationalism, historical racism, and Han chauvinism all contribute to the rampant xenophobia of much of Chinese media, especially when it comes to depictions of non-Chinese Asia (Central Asia, Japan, SE Asia in particular). when wuxia needs a faceless enemy, it reaches for the barbarians on the border. ableism and misogyny are issues that contemporary Chinese society struggle with now; the issue of ableism in particular feels stifled in the cutthroat nature of the current job market (the flipside of China’s massive labor force is the knowledge that every person is fundamentally replaceable), and the depths to which cultural misogyny runs in China is growing steadily more and more evident as the gender gap widens

and when it comes to fiction, when it comes to literature, widespread change often doesn’t occur until there is a societal call for it. I’m thinking of the U.S. science fiction and fantasy scene, which went through its own reckoning with diversity and genre-reified prejudice over the past decade and a half. and now we have brilliantly diverse authors and searingly postcolonial works, queer characters on the regular, Tor Books itself advertising to us soft sad queer freaks on tumblr. the journey wasn’t easy though, nor is the journey remotely close to over, but the fact remains — there was, in a sense, a collective cultural awakening about the ways in which more classic SF/F often utilized and reified racism, prejudice, misogyny, ableism; and subsequently, there was a conscious effort towards holding the genre(s) and its creators accountable, towards writing and supporting and amplifying voices previously shunned and silenced

and, well, to be fully honest, I don’t think that cultural moment has arrived yet for wuxia. this is not to say that there are no wuxia creators out there trying to decolonize the genre, but that we haven’t reached the turning point where decolonizing the genre and examining its history of misogyny, xenophobia, ableism, and colorism is expected, accepted, even celebrated, and I don’t think we’ll get there until contemporary Chinese society goes through a cultural reckoning with these same issues

I also think it’s worth mentioning that whatever that collective cultural awakening/reckoning looks like, it must be and will be distinctively Chinese. Chinese culture maintains different moral values from Western (Euroamerican) culture; contemporary China faces different social issues and political problems than contemporary Euroamerica. whatever this journey looks like, I don’t think it will look like or should look the same as what the U.S. went through/is going through. decolonizing/deimperializing East Asia is inherently different from decolonizing/deimperializing the West, so I would like to stop short of making prescriptive statements on what that cultural turning point should look like

that being said: if anyone’s run into some good postcolonial wuxia lately, I’d be VERY interested to hear more about it

#ack this got long #please take my armchair political/social theory with a Costco container of garlic salt #both Teo and this great article about 英雄 get into the whole political messiness of tianxiaism which is FASCINATING but also TOO MUCH #I do think a major reason why I didn't enjoy 'saving your kingdom while burnt out' much is because of the rampant nationalism #which I think is absolutely fascinating on a theoretical level — the Ni Zhange article dissects it thoroughly #like the absolute galaxy-brain daring of priest to rewrite an alternate historical steampunk version of the century of humiliation #but at the same time......... #moof I didn't really talk about danmei or gender but I ONLY HAVE THE ONE THINKY TAG #hunxi thinks about danmei and gender #心怀杂念 字数无量

[dolores-slay]

Can't wait to make Shadowheart's stupid half elven ass bend down to kiss my dwarf or halfling PC I hope she grumbles a bit about it too 😌

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #shadowheart #jury's still out on whether I'll romance her or Wyll but you give me a companion with shadow in their name and I'm like hiiiii #also they gave her the hairpiece like she's a character in chinese historical fantasy drama the untamed #shadowheart danmei hair mod WHEN???

[yioh]

i wanna find more books like little mushroom but whenever i google for recommendations similiar to it, google just gives me more danmei LIKE no the only thing most of these books have in common is they’re all gay and are chinese novels ….. i want post apocalyptic poetic storytelling with existentialism threaded through the pages giving me a slow aching feeling that i can’t forget about 😭😭😭

#like i don’t even rly care abt if it’s romance centred or if it’s gay or whatever i just want something as immersive arkcbfskzbxjdbdnd #yknow when you read something so good that everything else is so flat in comparison #also i feel like Most danmei is either historical or wuxia/xianxia type of setting and that’s just not for me honestly … or they’re VERY #politics heavy and that would be interesting if most of the pages were old men idk abt talking abt god knows what 😭 like idk ….. #weren’t old men* lol #the writing style is just so hard for me to immerse myself into #and i think this applies to most books because i keep trying to read stuff and i can’t get into it #but little mushroom GOSH it read like a whole ass movie i could see everything just play before my eyes idk how the author did it but from #the first page from the first sentence i was HYPNOTISED ….. #the most perfect book i’ve ever read

[wangjibff]

A quick presentation on why you should read Dinghai Fusheng Records by Feitian Yexiang !

#danmei #dinghai fusheng records #mlm books #novel recommendation #fantasy novel #action novel #historical novel #romancenovel

[uniguinflutist]

Sometimes on occasion you'll come across a scene in a wuxia, xianxia or historical novel and realize how much life sucked in the past.

Like this guy in A Thousand Autumns sent a message out on December 25th and they still haven't gotten it despite being at least February. WTF.

#ooc #wuxia #xianxia #historical #novel #the past sucked #a thousand autumns #qian qiu #1000 autumns #danmei

[dreams-of-fate]

        strange how CERTAIN the journey .   time unfolds the PETALS for our eyes to see .

         strange how this journey’s HURTING .   in ways we accept as part of FATE’S decree .

                                         multimuse ft. lian.song of eternal.love, written and loved by lins.

         (c.) 

#cdrama rp #cnovel rp #kdrama rp #xianxia rp #wuxia rp #historical rp #mdzs rp #danmei rp #oc rp #(sobs at how pretty this is) #(also that should be enough tags)

[aworldforastage]

spoiler-free recap: 论和太子谈恋爱的风险和收益 by k君

a free novel on Changpei that you can probably finish in a single afternoon. The title roughly translates to "On the risks and rewards of falling in love with the Crown Prince".

optimistic-street-smart prostitute gong x hardworking-but-sheltered crown prince shou

Synopsis

[Warning: dubcon, sex work, age-gap (22 vs 16)]

Protagonist Zhao Tang is the son of a prostitute, a prostitute himself, and a cage fighter on the side -- a man from the bottom tiers of society who needs to sell every part of his body to earn a livelihood. One day, he saves runaway young master Ruirui from some scoundrels on the street, and eventually gets Ruirui into his bed.

Ruirui turns out to be Crown Prince Liu Rui, nominally the nephew of the Emperor, but is in reality the product of the Emperor raping his sister-in-law. He is in a very awkward and delicate political position, and can spare little attention (and protection) for Zhao Tang except some gold for his "hospitality." Nonetheless, Zhao Tang still runs into the Prince in the capital from time to time, and wants to try pursue a relationship.

After an assassination attempt, Liu Rui has a dream that sees into the future, and sees the collapse of his empire and death of Zhao Tang. He starts taking actions to try to avert that future, but things still spiral out of his control. And despite Liu Rui insisting they can't be together, he can't help but return to find Zhao Tang again and again ...

What I like about the story

Rebirth with a twist. Their story across two lifetimes touches on themes related to love, self-worth, class difference, social change, and chance. It's the love interest Liu Rui, not the POV character, who has knowledge of a past life. He struggles to handle the situation, especially as events begin to diverge from the original timeline. Even as the audience, we don't find out the full truth until the very end, but his decisions and attitudes make more sense in retrospect, and he has made significant improvements (e.g. avoided the collapse of his empire!) given the limited information and resources -- and the horrendous emotional baggage -- that he has.

Angst-y love story. Zhao Tang loves a prince far beyond him in social standings, and has nothing to offer him. Liu Rui loves Zhao Tang, but is held back by his responsibilities as a prince and his anxieties over their devastating BE in the previous life. The story takes their class difference very seriously. Neither of them believes their relationship can (or should) last, and that insecurity builds up over time and morphs into resentment, and it wrecks them, even as they love each other ...

Wonderfully flawed characters. Zhao Tang is optimistic, smart, and strong, but also a bit vain and insecure and just a liiiiitttle resentful of the world general. Liu Rui tries very hard to do right by everyone and his own values, but isn't honest with himself about his own desires and biases. They are always trying and maturing, but they also make mistakes, fail, and lash out from time to time, just like normal people.

Side characters! This novel is only 100K words long and still manages to craft memorable side characters. Loyal and capable Ji Huai'an. Lovesick but honorable Yun Qi. Liu Zhenzhen with her knife-mouth, tofu-heart, and piercing realism. And wow I did not see that plot twist coming from [spoiler] of all people ...

On the other hand....

This story is not "pretty" like your typical danmei. The details of poverty and exploitation and even sex can be raw and ugly and unpleasant to dwell on. They ate tree barks and less pleasant things to try to survive while the country fall into chaos, and Liu Rui still comes close to starving to death several times. The characters make mistakes with serious consequences -- and this is already the better version of events compared to the previous lifetime.

Zhao Tang's experiences as a common prostitute is very different from those of the high-ranking "courtesans" we see a lot in danmei. He does not have a glamorous lifestyle or reputation; he has no special gifts and talents that he can sell instead of his body; he does not feel liberated or empowered making a living this way. He ends up internalizing the prejudice against sex workers which he has endured his whole life, just because that is his reality.

Liu Rui also subverts the trope of the noble prince. He is popular, but mostly because the bar is on the ground with the current Emperor. He doesn't have much power politically, isn't particularly talented or beautiful, and really struggles with the hard decisions his positions requires of him. In the previous life, he mishandled things so badly that his dynasty is overthrown, and despite his best efforts, it's still an uphill battle the second time around.

Overall

This story is a "looking for candies among glass shards" kind of situation. It's HE in the end, but I went through a significant quantity of tissues in the process.

But the love really shines through in a story like this -- because it is the best thing -- sometimes it's the only good thing -- these have going on for them.

#tztla #论和太子谈恋爱的风险和收益 #my reading #historical danmei #political danmei #rebirth danmei

[ladzwriting]

Danmei Review: THE SCUM VILLAIN'S SELF-SAVING SYSTEM Vol 2 by Mo Xiang Tong Xio (illust. Xiao Tong Kong (Velinxi)) (2022)

Genre: Transmigration Fantasy DanmeiYear Release in English: 2022Source: BOOK☆WALKER ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Review of Volume 1 here. Light spoilers abound Content warnings: Injury, demons, body horror The characters in this piece of gay media continue to be so over the top as a disgruntled web novel reader continues navigating the stallion novel he so desperately wants to fix. Shen Qingqiu…

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#danmei #fantasy #historical #Light Novel #Mo Xiang Tong Xio #supernatural #SVSSS #The Scum Villain&039;s Self-Serving System #transmigration #Vofan #Xiao Tong Kong (Velinxi)

[1braincell4rent]

Well, today´s THE DAY.

I was a bit hesitant to announce it here (I still am), but what the hell. I need to eat somehow.

So, welcome mortals to the publication of (not) my first LGBTQ+ historical comedy!

This story is a parody set in Victorian times, with frankly a lot more humor than romance (though then again, what did you expect? This is only the first of three books) that I´ve been working on for... 4 years now? Yeah, I think so.

Anyway, the summary goes as it follows:

"Oscar has spent a great deal of time reading romance books in order to be able to criticize them on his website. Everything seems to be going well for him, since he´s got a large number of followers who support him, make reading recommendations and are delighted with his way of attacking unoriginal works. But what would happen if Oscar suddenly transmigrated into one of those novels he criticized? What if he landed right into the worst of them all? No, more than that... What would happen if he was reincarnated as the cannon fodder destined to die by the hands of the villain?"

As you can see, it is slightly based on Asian transmigration and light novels... but brought to Europe and with a twist (no toxic behaviour on the main character´s relationship, I assure you).

So, would you give it a go?

#books #books and reading #bookblr #kindle #kindle unlimited #books & libraries #goodreads #lgbtq story #lgbtqia #queer #transmigration #danmei #historical #comedy

[czikpisia]

I'm experiencing major femwangxian 1920s au brainrot. Wip

#my art #fashion history #vintage #dress history #historical fashion #historical wlw #lgbt art #danmei #mdzs #mdzs fanart #mxtx mdzs #1920s au #1920sdress #1920s fashion #1920s #1920swangxian #wei wuxian #wei ying #fem wei wuxian #mxtx fanart #mo dao zu shi #魔道祖师 #art wip #wip #current wip

[hunxi-after-hours]

yooo you should totally make the handshake chain an actual chain.

1. character A 🤝 character B

2. character B 🤝 character C

3. character C 🤝 character D...

i wonder how much of the casts you could include in it lmaoo

ahahaha anon I think I need to read a few more priest novels before I feel qualified to do that but I can offer you this handshake instead

#I'm working on a Master Theorem of How to Write a Priest Danmei Novel (TM) so reading 《残次品》 will be a proof of concept for me lol #spine chickens and war crimes #guess who walked into and out of the abyss while y'all weren't looking #saving your kingdom while burnt out: the imperial intrigue steampunk wuxia light mecha alternate historical novel

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi) Vol. 5 Author: Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Genre/s: danmei, xianxia, historical, horror, fantasy, queer romance, romance Content/Trigger Warnings: physical and emotional abuse, rape (mentioned), body horror, death, violence Summary (from publisher’s website): Foes, allies, and one reassembled fierce corpse converge on the Guanyin Temple for a climactic showdown. With decades-long schemes finally unveiled, and dark secrets unearthed, the events of this rain-battered night will decide not just the fate of the entire cultivation world–but also that of a love story two lifetimes in the making. Also included are eight short stories that focus on the future and the past. From magical incense burners to tense banquets, to lotus-pod hunting and nighttime expeditions with the juniors, these stories span from dawn to dusk and so much more! Buy Here: https://sevenseasentertainment.com/books/grandmaster-of-demonic-cultivation-mo-dao-zu-shi-novel-vol-5/ Spoiler-Free Review: So I’ve had this last volume for a while now, but it took me some time to get to it because life and work and blah blah blah. But now I’m finished reading it, and WHOO BOY WAS IT A RIDE! First of all, it was nice to read how everything was finally, FINALLY wrapped up - not always happily or tidily, but in a way that made sense, given everything that had already happened in the previous four volumes. I will admit that the final unraveling of the villain’s schemes and motivations was a bit info-dumpy, given how it was all set up, but at the same time I don’t really know how else all of that could have been revealed in a more subtle way without doing so in another four or five chapters, so all in all it’s not so bad. But what this volume focuses on is a theme that tracks across the entire series: the cyclical nature of vengeance. While that cycle is now closed (or is it?) for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, the ending shows that the cycle can potentially continue. I can’t really talk about the details because it would be a MASSIVE spoiler to do so, but regardless: I find it interesting that it’s mostly Wei Wuxian who notices what’s going on with the character in question, and it is his musings that point all of this out to the reader. After all, he was a major contributor to the momentous events that led to this ending: events that, when you really get down to it, sprang from someone, somewhere, wanting to avenge themselves on a person, or people, or the entire world. I also find the inconclusiveness of the cycle’s perpetuation in the form of a certain character to be very interesting too. I know some people might find this annoying or frustrating, but I’m not the sort of reader who expects every single plot thread to be tied up in a nice bow, so I’m honestly fine with the way this particular thread has been left up to the reader’s imagination. Will that character go on to perpetuate tragedy in the same way the series’ primary villain did? Or will they take a different path? Will that path be more or less wicked, more or less tragic? No one can say, because the author’s declined to write that story, and it’s up to the readers to decide whether or not this character will turn out for better, or for worse - though I’m sure there are fanfic writers who’ve got ideas of their own, and are probably churning out epics as I write this. Speaking of extra writing, the Extras included in this volume were lovely to read. Now that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji FINALLY know how they feel for each other (after the intervention of OTHER CHARACTERS, it must be noted), the Extras show what life’s like for them in the wake of everything that’s gone before. The tone taken is mostly bittersweet, but there’s plenty of spice there too. If the one spicy scene in Volume 4 was just a little taste of what could happen between these two characters, then the Extras in this volume show ALL THE OTHER THINGS they get up to after the main story’s ending. But the Extras aren’t all just smutty scenes (though there are those too). In fact, my favorite stories are the ones where the plot is built around a Night Hunt, and Wei Wuxian and/or Lan Wangji and/or the Lan juniors try to get to the bottom of it. I’m very fond of mysteries, and even more fond of those with supernatural/urban fantasy leanings, and these specific Extras really hit the right notes for me in that regard. It was also an interesting bit of worldbuilding, in that the reader gets insight into how “regular” Night Hunts work, as compared to the very grand and dangerous ones that were featured in the main story. Overall, this volume was a great wrap-up for this epic and emotional series. The current cycle of vengeance has come to an end for most of the characters involved, but whether or not it’s ended for good is up in the air, given what happens with a certain character during this volume. But in the space between the ending of this cycle and the beginning of the next, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji get to have the best fate of all: time to build a life with each other and their loved ones. After everything that’s happened to them, I can’t think of a better ending for them both. Rating: four lotus pods

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