#dafeng guaguo

[angryteapott]

READ IMPERIAL UNCLE, FREE TRANSLATION MAPPED ABOVE!! I encountered this novel through a post in the league of nobleman tag describing it as an in universe webnovel where the emperor is gay for his uncle, but I promise there’s a lot more going on. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who liked a league of nobleman ((Zhang Ping cameos and it’s hilarious and perfectly in character)) or to anyone who likes a tragicomedies or unreliable narrators. Give it a shot!!! If you’re not convinced, my full review is under the cut.

First of all, calling our main character the emperor’s uncle is a bit unfair. Prince Huai is a royal cousin once removed, called “imperial uncle” as a vague slight from the empress dowager. His father once held immense military power and as such the world treats the MC as a credible threat to the throne despite the fact that his own political influence is just an illusion. Or is it? While love is discussed at length, this story isn’t really a one-true-love romance, and the many love interests mostly serve to illustrate how our MC’s internal world interacts with his treacherous reality.

The novel is deeply buried in Prince Huai’s version of events and uses that to meditate on perspective, love, and how motivations and circumstances can warp both. Our unreliable narrator tends to see things in extremes and himself as helpless- either his position makes everyone despise him entirely or everyone’s secretly in love, and he has little to no control over any of it. The truth, of course, is more complicated. The novel’s twists and turns aren’t always events or revelations from other characters- sometimes they’re simply our narrator letting slip a detail that casts his entire narrative in a different light. It’s the sort of story that makes you want to tilt and squint at it to see how the light hits it from different angles.

It’s also gloriously funny. Our MC’s haphazard and petty narration makes even the most tragic events seem a bit pedestrian and humorous, and he’s almost always cracking a self deprecating joke or responding to extreme situations in ways that fully take the wind out of them (LOL LAXATIVES FSKJLSJDMAFGH). This makes the truly sad bits really punch you in the gut, especially when our dauntless hero doesn’t quite manage to shake them off.

There are flaws, of course, and the first one is easily resolved: the extras add almost nothing to the story and take away from what makes it compelling. The themes they raise are interesting but different and under-explored. Skip them. The second issue I had was that a large and fairly important obstacle to our main character is resolved off screen between the two halves of the novel and in a way that could have happened earlier. Resolving it changes nothing other than making it seem it a bit pointless to include in the first place (knowing that it could easily be resolved, why did our MC angst about it?). That said, that’s more of a quibble than a real issue. Also, while I actually found that the sexism added historical verisimilitude and was punctuated by enough “women are human” moments that it wasn’t unbearable, our MC is sexist and occasionally racist. Treat with caution.

TLDR: I highly recommend!

[k1201a]

Da Feng Gua Guo did write a legit OT4 novel, it’s called Spring Once More. Mind you tho, the MC is a top, he has relationship with three bottoms at the same time. Da Feng Gua Guo in her early days was just wild. Her other novel Huang Shu (Royal Uncle) was set in the same timeline as A League of Nobleman. The MC also has a wife heh. Zhang Ping was briefly mentioned in the Royal Uncle, he held the position of prime minister for a short period of time. His shifu’s fortune telling in the drama was spot on.

[moononmyfloor]

My goodness tumblr driving me crazy, my alon posts don't show up sometimes

Please pardon if you see this again.

Edit 1: yeah that's it. Kill me now

Edit 2: Oh it shows up when I remove the League of Nobleman part from the original text. Lemme try again.

Edit 3: Oh then when you edit it the post will continue to show. Dear god.

Edit 4: I can't seem to post images either.

Alright so I was saying.

From the author's notes of Zhang Gong An chapter 81

"关于《张公案》晋江改为无CP的解释——【性向】这个华丽的栏里 面只有言情、纯爱、百合、女尊、无CP五个可选。《张公案》不 是纯粹讲爱啊。顶着纯爱两个字有点搞。然后另外三个,言情、女尊、百合就更不能选了。

我以前啥都没选,但是这次更新,系统给我发个对话框,非让我从 里面选一个,否则就没这没那,我只能选无CP了…………"

Further clarification according to Dramapanda:

Responding to Netizens who pointed out that her web novel has been marked as "no CP (couple)" in a literature website, the novel's author said "then... how do you think I should classify it? If I mark it as a danmei, will you say I'm taking advantage of the genre's popularity...?" She further adds how she has "always been puzzled as to why some people have always asked her to characterise "Zhang Gongan" as a romance. Although the writing might not look like it, I am really writing a detective novel...” Dafeng Guaguo said that whilst the novel's classification has always been under "suspense" or "mystery", because the literature website didn't have those classifications, she just marked it under "no CP".

So this is where the entire "The author said no CP" thing comes from.

Welp I suppose everyone then ran away with the No CP thing, which is just grossly out of context to the point the actual meaning was lost🥲

It just means there was no other option in the jjwxc website to label the novel under! It doesn't mean that this story is necessarily straight or that there's absolutely no queer undertones in it or all the polycule vibes in the drama were later additions! Like I've said in this post, the drama didn't add anything romance-vibe-wise the novel hadn't already!

Think of a non-BL/BG story that does not have an explicitly stated front line romance arc. As in, the focus is on the case solving and other stuff, while the characters may show a subtle attraction here and there, or have a relationship in the background, or in flashbacks. So one might argue the story does not technically fall under the romance category.

Same here.

It is not a BL in the sense that it is 99% focused on case solving. Zhang Ping and Lan Jue’s interactions are largely platonic/colleagues too.

But the third arc that deals with Shulin backstory gives the same (probably more) vibes like the drama did, and there are scenes of how Wang Yan came in between that entire entanglement. There is also the scene of Zhang Ping asking Chen Chou whether they are Zhijis.

Now, what label would you categorise a story like this under?

It's not a BL, it's not not a BL either. This story shares the same universe as the author's other novel Imperial Uncle which is very upfrontly queer, it is just not a focal point here. Like....handwaves~ gay people exist ok?

I have seen way too many comments of "You people are so fujoshi for reading gay undertones to this because the author said there's no CP!" like smh.

Honestly I think lots of people have been spoiled by the practice of dramas and novels declaring who their "CP" is beforehand, and once a CP is declared have gotten used to expect this couple to behave in XYZ ways for no reason other than that they are the CP, and if two people behave in a way that is even slightly queer, to panic "OMg this CaN't be because the author said no CP!"

Sigh. Once again I implore, it is OK to just enjoy a story as it is, yknow? That the characters in your story are written as very real human beings that have several crushes during the course of the story (like yknow, normal people do) is a good thing, a testament to the author's ability to write 3D characters.

I know, "one true pure love" is a charming concept that I also love and if it is in a story then great, but yknow... stop expecting that all stories MUST have it and the stories that don't are lesser than the other and also to not to automatically assume a story that is not screaming in neon letters that it has subtle romantic arcs doesn't necessarily have any.

Most importantly, to not think the "one true love" of a character is any less worthy because they fell in love multiple times with different people. Having read Imperial Uncle and now 3/4 of Zhang Gong An, looking at some comments I'm so confused. If you don't see the shipping potential then don't ship, let the people who do have their fun. Simple as that.

[danmeiconfessions]

I think I've found out the inspiration for MXTX's 3 tumors in TGCF. In Dafeng Guaguo's HuangShu, three high ranking officials in the imperial court are also called the 3 tumors. Aside the name of the group, and they're both the highest "government officials" in their respective universe, the characters are totally different from the the 3 tumor in TGCF though. I think MXTX named them 3 tumors as a nod to Dafeng Guagou.

.

[k1201a]

PingLan is only canon because the author Dafeng Guaguo said so. They never had their relationship confirmed in the novel, there weren’t explicit romantic interactions or gestures. I wouldn’t expect much from the cut scenes, because the source materials was not danmei until Dafeng Gauguo suddenly got triggered by the manhua adaptation and made a joke about Zhang Ping being a top. The Chinese name for the novel is 張公案 (Zhang Gong An). Zhang > Zhang Ping, Gong > Top.