#eleganttalecollective-blog

[amethystina]

I love to see when you post and I get great drama recommendations from you. I recently watched Black Knight and the Ying-Yang Master thanks to your posts and loved them!

I find C-Dramas often give the best dynamics between male characters for BLs because there's so much chemistry and great dynamics even after censorship. It also means that the stories are often better and, for me at least, more interesting, as they often can't just explore the relationship between the characters and instead frame it with the plot. I'm not sure whether you've seen it yet or heard about it, but the new show 'The Spirealm' is great! I wanted to recommend it to you after all the shows you've spoken of. There are so many interesting aspects and details that you can find even after multiple watches that I think you'd enjoy.

I'm so happy to hear that! I'm somewhat famous amongst my friends for pushing recommendations onto them, or at least ranting about the things I've watched in painful detail. My poor wife definitely gets the shortest end of that stick, since she sees me pretty much every day. So she's had to listen to me talk about a lot of dramas and movies she's got absolutely no interest in x'D

She really liked The Yin-Yang Master, though! So it's not all bad. Man, I love that movie so, so much.

While it's terrible that CDramas have to be censored the way they are, I agree that it pushes the creators to explore relationships in a very interesting way. They have to build it into the story in a way that more straightforward BLs can just skip, because they can rely on the physical chemistry to convey the budding relationship.

That said, I admit that CDramas often feel a bit... stilted to me? They're too perfectly choreographed, never a hair or detail out of place, to the point where the characters don't always feel like people to me. Like, they're so obviously characters, not real people, if that makes sense?

That's not to say that I don't enjoy them! Heck, The Untamed is still one of the best dramas I've ever watched, Guardian is one of my favourite dumpster fires, and The Yin-Yang Master movie is one of my go-to's when I need something to completely immerse myself into. But, on the whole, they don't intrigue me the way other dramas or movies might, since they're always so polished. Which means I can't connect with them on the same level as I do with many other pieces of media. I can definitely appreciate the plot, story, characters, aesthetics and so on, but it rarely goes deeper than the surface level. It kind of feels like they're keeping me at arm's length, somehow?

But that's definitely a me problem, since I think it has to do with that thing of mine where I want to analyse every tiny detail. And it's not as fun in CDramas because they make it so obvious that every detail is there for a reason. I mean, it always is in all shows and movies — everything on set is knowingly placed there — but the CDramas don't try to hide it? They even go out of their way to make everything as flawless as possible if they can. And something flawless isn't fun for me to analyse. Like, I can tell that they're putting on a show and that just makes me less interested in trying to find the secrets behind it, I guess?

But, again, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them! I often do, especially for the aesthetics and the sweeping, dramatic plotlines. But it tends to end up being pretty shallow in my case, since they rarely give me enough to really sink my teeth into. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that the CDrama I've been the closest to writing fanfics for (Guardian) is also one of the messiest, production wise. I like it when things feel more relaxed and real. Not gritty or anything, just... real.

Anyhow! The Spirealm looks interesting so I'll definitely put it on my list of things to watch! Thank you for the recommendation! :D

And I hope I'll be able to spread even more joy in the future!