#no matter how many danmeis i read

[shijiujun]

San Lang, who exactly are you?

(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )

HE'S YOUR MOST DEVOTED FOLLOWER AND WORSHIPPER

[asksythe]

Hi! I was looking into some stuff and came across a post talking about WWX’s arrogance. It was about WWX’s character and how the fandom insists that his arrogance was one of his main flaws when that’s not true and so on. Then I saw some people saying that arrogance is not inherently bad in Chinese novels and that I might have to do with the way the novel was translated.

I was just wondering if you had some insight on this. Thanks!

On some level, it can be considered a translation issue. But the real reason why WWX's characters, as well as countless other details in MDZS specifically (and Chinese novels broadly speaking), tend to be misunderstood on such a massive scale is... cross-cultural value mismatch.

Consider this:

1/ There is a tendency in the international fanbase to judge WWX (and other characters) on a modern Western moral standard. I don't have to tell you how illogical this is. Imagine if you come into the world of Game of Thrones and start spouting 21st-century judgment. You are likely to become human shishkebabs in less than five minutes. Most people who watch Game of Thrones or read the book understand that's not something you do unless you are a moron or looking to start shit. But for some reason, this is not the case for the MDZS fandom (and many other Chinese media fandoms out there). I'm not sure why this is the case. It might be because of the cultural distance making people not really realize they are coming into an entirely different world, and then they forget to check their modern expectations at the door. Like how tourists become obnoxious when they come to a foreign country, expecting the foreign country to cater to their whims.

I've once seen someone made an addition on TV Tropes saying WWX is a mass murderer that never got punished for his crime. I... I don't know what to say to that really. My expectation is that the person who wrote that is someone under 30, never left America, and never served in the military. For somebody who has never had this kind of experience, no amount of words will explain to them that for major parts of the world and for the vast majority of mankind's history, you have to be able to kill to survive. In fact, for most of our history, killers are our heroes. War is a reality that we live in. The ones who survive are the ones who win wars, the really accomplished killers.

2/ MDZS was not written for an international audience. That is to say, it's written with the expectation that it doesn't have to explain its intricacies and tropes to its intended readers. Because its readers already know. MDZS is xianxia danmei. Danmei has only had about 2 decades of modern history. But xianxia as a genre has stretched back millennia. Its tropes are very set. Chinese (and Sinosphere) readers don't need an explanation because we grow up consuming this kind of stories.

We don't need to be told in plain words to know WWX's only crime is to be possession of the Yin Tiger Tally, and the Jin's scheme is the real reason behind his tragedy. Because it's such a standard trope in our culture that there are millennia-old proverbs about it.

匹夫无罪，怀璧其罪 - pǐ fū wú zuì，huái bì qí zuì. Lit. The commoner is innocent, but his possession of treasure is a sin.

We don't need to be told that it doesn't matter if WWX goes along with the cultivation world's ceaseless demands (keep Suibian with him, consult more with Jiang Cheng before he does things) to know that none of that matters. Because none of those are actual rules, just trivial bullshit made up and used to socially isolate WWX and manipulate the public opinion against him. WWX's true crime is that he is alone. He is an orphan. No one will stand up for him. And unlike his big mouth, he's a real softie. Because if he wasn't then all of them would be dead ten times over with the kind of martial power WWX possess. Only WWX's good heart holds him back from really using his ability. Therefore, you can spit on him, you can cut him, you can trample on him without fearing retaliations.

Nie Mingjue has no sword. Ain't nobody try to lip him about it. Yu Furen has no sword. She uses a whip. Ain't nobody lip her about it.

WWX's undead cultivation is also not really the problem. That kind of cultivation is vanilla as girl scout's cookies. It's only made out that way because it's a method of cultivation that is very easy to learn and does not require enormous resources (i.e. caste issue, not class, caste) to cultivate. Which means it's a method that can be practiced far and wide by poor commoners. Which means it's an infringement on the cultivator House's power and financial base. That's its real crime. Not all that justice bullshit.

For many international fans out there, MDZS is their introduction to danmei (and xianxia). So they come in not knowing these things. They don't see the caste issues, the tragedy, the difference of philosophies and choices between WWX and JC. Their conclusion is built on ignorance and misunderstanding.

It doesn't help that most know little to nothing about Chinese culture which is a high-context culture, the polar opposite of most Western cultures (low-context culture). Something that may seem small and insignificant for a Western reader base can be a really big deal for the Chinese reader base, because it's inbuilt in five thousand years of history and culture. Like why Jin Guangyao buried his mother's corpse in the Guanyin temple and why he needed to reclaim it and take it with him when he tried to flee to Japan.

So it's no surprise there is such a massive divide in fandom opinion.

[baiwu-jinji]

I think your comparisons of Ximang to Hualian/Wangxian are so interesting. When I first started reading 2ha, I felt like it was a much grimmer take svss (mostly bc I didn’t realize how big of a genre uh…”shizun-fucking” was at the time) so much that I felt like svsss and 2ha were two works in conversation with each other. Each felt like a parody of the other. Yuwu also reminded of Wangxian. Gu Mang and Wei Wuxian have many similarities. Their mischievous and laid back natures, their impressive genius, their lower-class status (although wwx doesn’t face discrimination on the scale that Gu Mang does), and obviously their eventual fall from grace. Mo Xi actually feels like a mixture of Lan Wangi and Jiang Cheng to me. He posses that cold countenance but also that terrible temper. His regret that he didn’t stay by Gu Mang’s when he was suffering but also his intense hatred at his betrayal. All this is to say, at times meatbun’s novels feel much more realistic and tragic compared to mxtx’s but they often share similar themes and it’s interesting how their two of the most popular danmei authors (at least in the western fandom). I never thought comparing Ximang to Hualian though, and it’s very interesting. Compared to Mo Xi and Lan Wangi, Hua Cheng is less concerned with certain societal and moral viewpoints, so he’s able to devote himself to Xie Lian entirely not matter what path Xie Lian walks. Obviously, the fact that they didn’t support the one they love in their time of need is something that Mo Xi and Lan Wangi both regret later on…but I think that Mo Xi and Lan Wangi’s upper class status compared to Hua Cheng’s lower class status plays a role in how they react to their beloved, for lack of a better term, going ape-shit.

Hi! :) Thank you for sharing you thoughts, and you certainly formed some interesting connections between novels and characters that I never thought of. It never occurred to me to compare 2ha with svsss because of their entirely different tones, like the former is all about shoving the depth and magnitude of the sufferings in your face while the latter is about hiding the tears and blood with irreverent humour.

As for Mo Xi, I keep thinking about him in comparison with Chu Wanning - not least because they both have a temper, and that's because they don't know how to express their emotions so every emotion comes out in the form of anger. But Chu Wanning has led a much more sheltered life than Mo Xi because of his extraordinary talent, which secured for him an untouchable position in the cultivation sect so he can just focus on his geeky inventions. Whereas Mo Xi had to fight through his family's downfall, start from the bottom, and survive the cut-throat palace intrigues etc.

The comparison between Ximang and Hualian that anon mentioned refers to this post I wrote - and I agree that with the romance side of things, meatbun's couples feel more realistic and tragic compared to mxtx’s. I think mxtx's strength is in exploring broader moral questions and philosophical themes, and she could do it in a natural, nuanced, and engaging way. Meatbun's attempts in this regard feels somewhat forced and meagre in comparison.

[olderthannetfic]

You know since I see this constantly brought up when anyone talks about Chinese novels, especially danmei and the tropes used, and one of the asks brought this back to the forefront again.

It's great that some of you have read MXTX's works, but you do realize that you're allowed to read danmei novels from other Chinese authors. And you're also allowed to talk about them. Just because MXTX's novels have the biggest fandoms out there in the West, doesn't mean that literally every vague mention of Chinese tropes or any mention of danmei is by default and exclusively about MXTX.

I love MXTX's novels as well, I enjoy rereading them, but I've also read and am reading novels from other Chinese danmei authors. Recently I'm reading the official Priest and Meatbun translations, and it's getting ridiculous with how many people take any vague mention of a danmei novel, or even just a mention of Chinese novels and common tropes in general and with full conviction claim it must be about MXTX instead of some of the hundreds of fan translated danmei or some of the tens of officially translated novels you can find. Especially when trying to avoid spoilers by being a bit vague.

There are actually small fandoms for these other novels as well, yeah maybe there are only a few hundred or thousand fics for them instead of like 100k+ combined, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

I completely get that if you mention something that also happened in MXTX's work that most people will probably immediately point towards her works. But that doesn't mean that her works are 100% the answer just because in the West she has the biggest following. MXTX's works also have several common tropes that you can find in the works of other authors, that doesn't mean every time one of those tropes is mentioned it's about her works, or at least not JUST about her works. I think the main reason this irks me so much is because people start building a huge strawman because they've convinced themselves that it must be MXTX no matter what you say and there's just no way that it could be anything but MXTX, because they just don't read anything else. Don't get me started on show-series only people, they often don't even seem to realize that other Chinese danmei authors and stories exist period.

Spoilers used as an example: If I say "Shizun fucker pining after his dead Shizun." Of course people are gonna point at SVSSS first because it's a bigger fandom. Well but maybe this was about Mo Ran and Chu Wanning from Husky and his white cat Shizun instead, a smaller but still comparatively big fandom. But you have even smaller fandoms around novels with that premise. You'd actually be surprised about how many Shizun fuckers pining for their dead Shizun novels there are out there tbh. You can do the exact same thing for transmigration btw.

--

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Honestly it may not be your intention or of other people in the conversation but some comments around the sqq light eyes post have really rubbed me off the wrong way. I'm saying this with all the respect in the world and acknowledging your post about how you don't condemn harassment, but even before with the curly haired binghe and overall in danmei fandom it feels overly judgey towards westerners. Like these physical characteristics being a result of "whitewashing" when there's examples of official art or asian artists (the ZeldaCW art you linked) being some of the earliest examples. Most of us don't know Chinese, many don't even speak english and have to rely on MTL. I really appreciate this work you're doing and going to the original source, but I'm not into the gatekeeping tone some people are taking. Like, AHA! I knew this and actually all the people who don't are stupid for regurgitating fanon like it's canon. I'll be honest, there's plenty of fanon I don't like nor agree with, and I also make dumb mistakes myself (it's me, I'm one of the people who'd forgotten the hand scar came from jin lan woops). Sorry if this is too long or overly rambly, also feel free to ignore it. I mostly wanted to share this as a PSA that tone matters, be kind to others, and that preserving canon is not justification to regard people who go with fanon with a high brow. Regards, a non white non asian ESL 3rd world country svsss fan that's been in the fandom for a couple years (I point that out because I've seen way too many times any criticism be attributed to butt hurt white americans).

Thank you for your message!

When I make my posts here, I try my best for a neutral, informative tone, but between neurodivergence and linguistic issues, I’m not always certain exactly how it comes across. Perhaps a bit too blunt, perhaps the academic or formal tone I often use may seem stuck-up… really, I don’t have the best sense of it, though I do try quite hard.

I want to provide information here. This is to provide information for a few types of people: those who wish to maintain canon accuracy, and those who wish to know where an idea might have originated whether or not they care about canon accuracy in their own works.

Some people will hold canon as the most important. Others don’t particularly care. Some prefer fanon. How one interacts with fandom is entirely their own decision. My blog here isn’t trying to tell people they’re wrong. Or tell people that I’m better than they are, or that those who didn’t know something was fanon, or who enjoy fanon, are stupid or otherwise less than those who follow canon.

Fandom is supposed to be fun. I do this because I like analyzing things. Because it might be nice to have a record of details to see where trends came from. Even some things, I haven’t been sure about myself until doing the research, and some I’ve been mistaken on too!

Things can get muddled up. Especially when the wiki is updated with fanon information. It’s not hard for something to be thought of as canon when it isn’t, especially if trying to quickly reference something without reading the book again. No one is better than anyone else for what they do and don’t know about a fictional book.

And when it comes to design choices, there’s no need to jump right to whitewashing. A knee-jerk reaction is common in fandom spaces to anything that may be “problematic,” but sometimes a design is just a design. I only went into more detail on the post regarding LBH’s hair texture because that’s something i have experience with, and it’s not something widely known about that there are differences.

At any rate, there’s no reason to be unkind to others. People should be having fun in fandom. Those who wish to stick to canon should respect those who don’t care to, even if it’s not for you.

My posts are not meant to create a moral judgement against anyone.

If you’re using it for anything but information, then you’re using it the wrong way.

I don’t have the best eye for tone, but I will continue to do my best to maintain neutrality, and informativeness. Everyone who makes conversation on my posts, just because you knew something and others didn’t doesn’t make you better than them. It just means you knew something. Just because you didn’t know something, that doesn’t make you worse— it just means you didn’t know.

Let’s not moralize this sort of thing.

Enjoy the novel, enjoy the adaptations and interpretations that you like.

[lansplaining]

Protagonist-centric readers will do anything but admit that their MCs did lie and impact other characters' decisions. It's not the side-characters fault that they did not know the whole truth because *drum roll* they weren't told anything and/or was deliberately lied to.

LQQ being hated bc he impaled XL in a coffin for a long time but like... XL admitted to killing the King of Yong'an and committing the bloody massacre so what was LQQ supposed to do? Sit down and ask his Guoshi for the truth when we know damn well XL will just continue to admit to it? XL didn't want to tell LQQ the truth to protect LQQ and the two groups of people, and that's completely admirable, but what LQQ saw was his Guoshi stabbing a sword through his father's chest and admitting to everything so him reacting the way he did was completely valid. The single act of killing the king was treason 100x already, and as the son of the king, LQQ's reaction was not out of the ordinary. we don't want XL to suffer and be even more traumatized, but XL already knew that the consequences wouldn't be pretty and lied anyway. idk why fans can't grasp that.

Or for JC's case, HE IS LITERALLY THE ONE PERSON ALIVE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO ACTUALLY DESERVES SOME KIND OF EXPLANATION FROM WWX HIMSELF, THE MAN WHO ACCIDENTALLY CAUSED WN TO KILL JXZ AND INDIRECTLY KILLED JYL DESPITE CLAIMING THAT HE HAD EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL. These two aren't strangers to JC at all; they're his sister and his brother-in-law, or more importantly, his sister's beloved husband and father of his nephew. He deserves to be angry and bitter at the one person who did all that, and there is no time limit for how long he should remain bitter and angry about it. The GCT was a whole mess and they both made HUGE sacrifices out of love but the only one whose sacrifice is made invalid is JC because one, it was short-lived and two, they already didn't like JC so no matter what he does for WWX, it will be seen as something negative.

I don't even want to get into the hell-hole regarding LXC but... damn...

the revelations after a character found out the truth should be "oh man, so that's what really happened" not "this character was a dick because they didn't know about the major sacrifice the MC made for them that would only be revealed many years later, and it's not even voluntary because someone else told the truth, not the MC themself"

I'm not the first nor am I the last person to say this but a protagonist is just a character we see, mainly, from their POV or the character that we follow the story through. That's all there is to it. I feel like a lot of danmei readers have yet to read a variety of stories about an MC that's completely shit but serves to tell a story just as important and interesting.

okay, first of all-- people hate LQQ?? The sweetest, most violent himbo of all????????????? even Xie Lian doesn't hate him for what he did??????

i have nothing to say to such people

i'll be honest, it is really only relatively recently that i've fully come to realise how completely Jiang Cheng deserves an explanation or even just acknowledgement of any kind from Wei Wuxian, and how cowardly and selfish it is that Wei Wuxian refuses to give it. and I say this with a heart full of love for WWX-- he is dealing with Some Trauma (tm) but that doesn't mean his refusal to even speak to JC isn't hurtful and unfair, even if it's what he needs... but man everyone in fandom and fanworks is focused on WWX taking what he needs in this situation and not even remotely considering that just maybe he also justifiably owes something to someone he harmed and who he supposedly (formerly?) cared about (i think he still cares)

the lan xichen thing is literally inexplicable to me and i will never understand it

[ultfreakme]

Danmei ask, what are your top 5 (or top 7) favorite moments from MDZS? Also, can I ask why you love those 3 (JC, WWX , XXC)?

(Riki, I'm so glad when found out you also love Jiang Cheng. You must know how many haters on his character in tumblr and twitter. Like, I was blocked 4 times by MDZS lover blog, when they knew I love Jiang Cheng.)

I love reading your MDZS/ SVSSS crossover, they're so in character.....And yes, SQQ must love Sukuna and Jogo if he ever read JJK...

Thanks for the ask Anon!!

Top 7 moments:

When we find out the Jiang Cheng sacrificed himself to the Wens to save Wei Wuxian. It was dropped so casually and I had to backtrack and go "wait, wait, WAIT! DISCUSS IT PLEASE!!"

The juniors in the Yi City arc, they were so adorable, I loved reading them putting on a brave face and investigating.

Wei Wuxian murdering the crap out of Wen Chao with his sexy undead ladies. Him and Jiang Cheng together torturing him while Lan Wangji was sent out and it's like, LWJ is confused, shocked, and horrified.

The scene where Wei Wuxian's roasting Jin Guangshan at the conference post-war and everyone's scandalized. I love it when Wei Wuxian gets bitchy.

Jiang Cheng's intro scene in the donghua where he emerges from the shadows of that tree, pushing aside the leaves. That's so hot of him.

Wei Wuxian covered in blood in the second siege of Burial Mounds and Lan Wangji is defending him. That scene's so cool and romantic in all its iterations. The donghua went above and beyond and made it seem like a wedding.

Jiang Cheng giving Zidian to Jin Ling ;_; It hurts me. It's so much worse knowing that MXTX was planning on killing Jin Ling soon after to really hurt Jiang Cheng.

Reasons I like:

Jiang Cheng-

He's so complicated! You can't immediately look at him and say he's the good guy or the bad guy. I personally think he leans more towards the good guy category.

He's the perfect opposite of Wei Wuxian, he's not a genius cultivator like wwx, he had to work for every bit of progress he made. He started off simply wanting to keep his family together and at peace, but the war happened and his priorities shifted. He's duty-bound, he's always fighting and scraping to be recognized but no one ever does. He wanted so bad to help wwx, but duty made it so that he was forced to pick between his sect and wwx. Forever chained, closed off.

He's jealous and vicious and so, so angry. I get it, I understand the worst parts of him and relate to it.

Wei Wuxian-

Again, super complicated as a person. Wronged at every turn. He wanted to do good and protect people, and for that he kept sacrificing himself over and over again with little value given to himself as a person. He's got his sharp edges and cruelty too, and I feel like people often forget that Wei Wuxian's traumas and his lack of self-appreciation and value on himself show in ugly and vicious ways.

His story obviously shows a key message of MDZS, which is that when people sacrifice themselves thinking that they're protecting their loved one, they only hurt them in another way. I understood his desire to do good, protect people, but there's no one to stand at his side. The loneliness and fear that comes with fucking up so bad that no one even tries to hear you out, no one's listening no matter how loud you shout.

Xiao Xingchen:

He's like Wei Wuxian but 100% times worse and more self-sacrificial. Too trusting, too good, and everyone kept taking advantage of that without bothering to guide him or be honest with him. Like legit, no one told him what they were truly thinking.

I love that xxc wants to be a good person, i hate that he was ruined for it. God I really wanted him to have a happy ending because he's just, he's so NICE. In a world filled with betrayal and deceit, xxc wanted to spread goodness. And yet.

AAHHHHHH

I think these characters made me see the point of MDZS in a very clear way, or in a way that impacted me most. So they're my faves.

Being a Jiang Cheng liker is a struggle! I was getting into MDZS even before the donghua started airing, like around 2018 and back then Jiang Cheng hate was so bad. I kept waiting year after year for the hate to go down but it just got worse the more popular MDZS got. The misunderstandings built up too. I got black and got into a million arguments too ;_; We have to stick together!!!

i have so many thoughts about Jiang Cheng specifically because, okay I read and watched everything about 3 years ago, so I don't remember much other than my fav, so I'm always thinking about everything he did.

nbsdhfb SQQ's monster-loving ass would go gaga for Sukuna. Four armed man wrecking people??? Yes sir! (side note; big tall powerful man who is called king who is only nice to his close servant and confidante???? SQH come get your boy!)

[shysublimecoffee]

Tsuna Sawada will always be a loser and even towards the end of the manga he still is one and I will always love him for not changing. Face it all those reunion fics I used to read back in the day really be enjoying giving every person who bullied or were mean to him give everyone face slaps as if i'm reading a chinese revenge dogblood danmei novel lol. This is pre-2017 I belive when I binged a lot of fics in the previous years of that particular KHR era lol. So take it in mind my knowledge was from back then.

Hell this shit is even applied to his parents especially Nana like maybe I can go more indepth if I have time in another post but like this women certainly loves her child. I know the infamous chapter really got me heated not gonna lie I don't think the way she treats her kid is fine but damn sometimes I feel she be villainzed too much. From the way I see their relationship it's one of love but I don't think Tsuna could rely on his mom when it comes to emotions and feelings hell he avoid it together it's kinda why he was a little shit if I remember correctly in the beginning of the manga but what 13 year old isn't. Like their relationship is more she wants her child to be like his manly father and hopes he can grow out of his ugly ducking dame tsuna phase but he can't because it's more than that the dude whole school normalizes calling him dame tsuna instead of his actual birth name and the way the faculty treat him and his peers who go back and forth in their treatment of him if he surpasss their expectations they acknowledge him if he doesn't he goes back to being just lame old tsuna. So tsuna gives right up at the start then even try because he's afraid at the attempt he'll just fail. Iemitsu I get 100% because he prioritzes work over family and expects his son to be like his mother and be fine he shows up out of nowhere. I'd be pissed too. Ironic he's the 1 shounen protagnsit with 2 parents that just aren't that great as role models or when it comes to teaching him but they do love him certainly. It's why when it comes to the basis of how their characters are written yes there are defintlly problametic things going on because of how dysfuncitional they are as a family but they do love each other so I really dislike it a lot back in the past since a lot of the times writers really try to up and take it to a 100 to make both of them more hurtful or cruel in fics than they are in canon just to really give them faceslaps X double. And the result is Tsuna being a depressed sucidal kid to really get it and the fic writer just blackening the parents even more lol. Like please a little nuance would be appreatied in their family dynamic would be nice.

Tsuna no matter what anyone says is a strong kid. He really doesn't get bothered like I don't recall him talking shit about the students in his school who bully him like yamamato and him are straight parells in their treatment because I'm damn sure yamamato has to be aware of others treatment of Tsuna because it's a refelection of how he could end up if he becomes a failure too. One tries their hardest to be the best and tries to jump because he can't handle it no more. But Tsuna the other isn't even bother by his mistreatment wtf he's just Tsuna he's normalized it but he isn't a sucidal depressed mess he's just accepts he can't do it and says welp whatever and he's fine. My boi is strong.

I know some can't accept how the ending is. But, You're reading KHR so many weird things are in the manga that make 0 logical sense and I just go through with the motions accepting it. A baby for a tutor, oh Mukuro went through literal hell, oh what do you mean fucking time travel is involved. You really expect me to care that much how the ending went lol. KHR is a legit a parody telling of a shonen manga, which evolved into a real shonen later on.

I get the appeal but Tsuna is Tsuna. I think he's a normal boy who doesn't fit the shounen mold and himnot fiting the package kinda fit the bill because he doesn't suit the audience fantasy on how they want their MC's to be. They want him to be a Naruto how everyone who hurt him apologize or acknwledge his awesomeness but nah Akira Amano really just sticked to this dude core character from start to finish. Tsuna grew when it comes to areas he lacked but he never changed about his personhood because that sorta what makes him define the story. Tsuna being himself got him allies and people who rely and look towards him and what made Reborn impressed with his student. He defines the genre he's like is a Deku from BNHA reversed when it comes to their development.

[yonemurishiroku]

Do you think that the solangelo contains more of a forceful representation, and if so, what is your advice to authors who are trying to make lgbtq+ representation seem more a part of the story/flow with the story then the opposing option?

May 22nd. I'm so sorry, my mind has been going off track for a while. I'm really sorry for the delay. 😭😭

So, regarding Solangelo as a representation, well this is gonna be hard to say lol. This has been circling the fandom since the day of its emergence, and this is certainly not a good time but eh penny for my thought ig.

Now. I suppose I have a very varying definition of representation, but let's not dwell on that. As for now, I can say that I do consider Solangelo somewhat forcefully developed. As in, the term of writing, plot-wise, etc...

It's quite difficult to say. I have no problem with Solangelo as a couple - or their dynamic - per se. Rather, it's the pacing that throws me off. This has been addressed in many posts - Solangelo has a quite... abrupt (?) takeoff. I just felt like Rick did not mean to make them a thing but just a spur of a moment - something small and... promising that you left hanging at the end of the series for reader's interpretation, for whatever reason (This actually lines up with Boo's time of releash I think? The LGBTQ+ literature being unpopular I mean).

In fact, Solangelo's whole developing process happened behind the curtains - as in, we're told, not shown. Imagine. In BOO, their friendship just barely sprouts, and the next time we see them again in TOA, they're already a couple. For the longest time possible, it was left to the reader/fanfic writers to deduce wth happen for them to become a couple in like idk 6 months? (A pretty fast process for someone like Nico imo. but that's just me).

Something like that is bound to raise some doubts.

The full picture itself is only revealed - partly, and through second reminiscence, mind you - in TSATS. It's also the reason TSATS feels kinda off to me, ig - the fact that some parts actually misalign with the established canon events, or appear like a patch to cover a hole in the piece of fabric. And some others just straight up fall into the what-the-f-was-in-your-mind-rick category. I doubt it was even Rick's initial plan to come up with TSATS in the first place.

However, it's also worth acknowledging that, whilst it would certainly help, Rick hardly has the capacity to fully-build another 5-book romance for Solangelo. That's as far as it can go (I usually think this to placate myself at the thought of the ship being undeveloped). Nico is not the franchise's protagonist (more like deuteragonist I guess), no matter how far this story goes and how widely loved he is, let alone Will.

On to the advice part.

Please keep in mind that I am, in no way, a professional or good writer, nor do I study sexual orientation and/or identity theory (I barely know the flags). I've also grown up and received education in an Estern (somewhat conserative?) country, so please take whatever I say with a grant of salt.

Now. When it comes to "make it seem more a part of the story", I... actually don't know how to say this...

Just look at the all the BL mangas (Japanese comics) and danmeis (Chinese BL literature) and BL manhwas (Korean comics). I have been reading BoyLove longggg before I even came to PJO, you know? The Eastern fandoms have surprisingly extensive LGBT content for a conservative culture, anw they have been telling and/or drawing stotries upon stories about same-sex couples since the dawn of internet. They don't even need to try. They have the image of a love, a story in their mind and just... go along with it.

You don't make it a part of the story. The story is either about it (much or little), or just nothing at all.

I'm saying making a story about it - rather than trying to incorporate it into the story. Give it background and enough development, it'd progress itself. You don't give it anything, of course it'd feel flat. This goes with any type of romance, not just LGBTQ+.

The problem with Solangelo itself, imo, is not the nature of their relationship (tho I do admit somtimes Rick makes me go wtf), but rather how they're portrayed. And furthermore, said portray in proportion to people's expectation. Solangelo, by all means, is a side-story at best (unless Rick manages to come up with a trilogy about their journey from start to finish idk 🤷‍♀️). People like it, so they tend to expect more from it, but the author's just a human.

I think this is everything... My thoughts are kinda in a jumble as I'm writing this, so feel free to ask if something doesn't make sense... This is also just my personal view lol don't take it too seriously if it differs from yours too much.

Lastly, I know my advice would probably not do much, however I hope for you to find your way to tell your stories the best you can!

[drpanda99]

Reflections on AAPI May and Fandom Racism

I started this entry when I was still feeling really hurt and angry from some stuff that happened early in the month. I’ve since cooled down and have read the beautiful reflections written by the mods of MXTX Diaspora May, so I plan to write about my experience as a creator instead.

Cut for length!

The What

MXTX Diaspora May was started in 2021 to celebrate Chinese diaspora creators and to elevate own-voice works after a number of fandom racism incidents happened. I wasn’t around MDZS fandom at the time of the initial creation of the collection, but I found some of the works when I was lurking on AO3 and reading.

After reading one of the fics, I felt like I was coming home for the first time. Up until that moment, I had not experienced seeing my own experiences and struggles mirrored in fic at all. Many of the works dealt with the idea of feeling “not enough” to be any of our identities - not Chinese enough, not North American enough, not anything enough. I had never felt as seen as I had reading those fic. In days, I read through as much of the collection as I could and I managed to find the Danmei Diaspora Creatives collection and the discord server. Up until then, I felt like I was a single lurker awash in the vast ocean of fandom - there were so many fics and so many creators of such talent that I felt like I my own voice wouldn’t make a difference or perhaps, that it wouldn’t matter. I was someone who spent years being in love with writing, but never feeling like I could ever be good enough - I had felt like a lost a part of my creativity and my mind felt empty of fiction. That’s part of why I started with podfic - it felt better reading someone else’s words rather than my own.

I lurked around the Diaspora discord for quite a while before I felt comfortable talking. But once I did, I realized that there was a whole group of people out there who were like me - normal people with normal lives who had lived through the experience of being forever tied to our motherland through our appearance despite being separated for years or even generations. The Diaspora collection means so much to me because it was a chance to see people like me in the works I consume, something that was incredibly rare and entirely absent as I was growing up.

The Why

I can’t really reflect about fandom without talking about my own life and how I got here.

I found fandom initially when I was very young and feeling very isolated. I was a visibly Chinese kid in a school full of white kids and I had only been in North America for about 3 years. My English was bad and I didn’t have many friends except the other Asian kids, partially because that was expected of me. I think I was pretty quiet and internally focused - I was really struggling with family stuff, but I never had the words to tell anyone else. In the end, I turned to fandom as an escape when I was feeling the most lost and alone. I remember spending many days and many nights reading through as much as I could find voraciously so I could feel and be someone else. Fiction became a magical place that could transport me into any life or any story in an instant. The endless nature of fan fiction kept me coming back for more; some days, the only thing that kept me going was knowing that the fic I was reading wasn’t finished, that I would never know the conclusion to some stories that I loved.

I was probably unhealthily hyper focused on fanfic, but I got through that bit and, as I became more well-adjusted, I had less space in my life for fandom.

Then, in 2021, I got into a pretty serious car accident that derailed my entire life. I became unable to work in the career that I spent over 10 years training to do. With Covid restrictions at its most limiting, I became a recluse at home who could hardly do anything. I became extremely depressed as I started to wonder if my life could ever get back to how it once was. Up until that point, 110% of my energy and focus had gone into my career and it was suddenly gone. Luckily, I had watched CQL and started reading fic just before the accident. Soon, it became the only thing that helped me pass the time.

I don’t know how much I read, but I know that for many days, all I did was lie in bed and read fic in small bursts. Without the ability to do much else (and with limited ability to read at all), it felt like my life was falling apart and I was becoming a useless person.

Fandom helped to pull me out. I started to make podfic because I wanted to make things more accessible (since I also had lots of trouble reading). I was thrown by some of the pronunciation in some podfic since it was so different than what I had heard in the show. There were certainly lots of people who tried their best and I appreciated it each time. I finally had the confidence to add my voice to the mix and the rest is history.

Fandom became the focus of what limited energies I had, whether it was consuming works or making podfic. At some point, as I started to recover, I was able to write again and I started penning some of my first fanfic. For the months that I was completely off work, and the months where I was starting to increase my hours, fandom became an escape and a purpose. My life was uncertain, but I had fic to write and pods to do and each thing I made was another accomplishment.

I’ve been lucky that fandom found me in some of the toughest times in my life and I’ll always love fandom for that.

The How

I participated in Diaspora May 2022 by contributing some podfic. It was all I could manage at the time, but I felt so lucky to be able to participate with a group of people who touched me so much with their fic. I was still nervous to be around fandom spaces since I’d never participated in the community before, but everyone was lovely and welcoming. I had a great time and I received a beautiful gift fic from @dragongirlG. I produced my longest podfic. I read lots of incredible stories in the collection.

This year, I chose to produce podfic instead of writing fic again. I chose to pod works of other diaspora creators so that every work I created would help to make more own-voice stories accessible. I would’ve loved to do a lot more, but time didn’t always allow for it. I’m just a single creator, so I know I don’t make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, but I told myself that if I helped a meaningful story to reach even a few more people, I would’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

At a time where conversations around racism in fandom are flying around, it’s even more important for us to highlight the own-voices stories. I would love for these works to reach the other people out there, lurkers like the Panda of 2021 who needed to hear them. I’ve really struggled with some of the conversations around racism lately, partially because some of the most oft-cited voices about fandom have considered Asians to “not count” as POC because of the model minority myth. dragongirlG’s essay addresses it much better than I can. I was also hurt when I saw that creators enthusiastically involving themselves with anti-racism work also posted fic that perpetuated unconscious cultural erasure of the Chineseness of the characters. The worst part is knowing that none of that is on purpose - people really do mean their best. Seeing it happen time and time again is exhausting and trying to correct those assumptions is sometimes a thankless task. I’m grateful whenever I have positive interactions around these topics, but my exhaustion is a big part of why I don’t really do much sensitivity reader work.

The Now

At the end of the day, I hope we can highlight the works of creators of colour in fandom. I also hope that fandom will slowly move to improving inclusiveness. I don’t pretend to be a saint or faultless in any of this - I know that I have held and do hold racially biased assumptions based on cultural stereotypes and my upbringing. I want to constantly challenge myself on these assumptions, but I often flounder and make mistakes. I try to learn from them, but I’ll never be a blank slate of perfect anti-racism because stereotypes and assumptions are impossible to disentangle from my upbringing. I think I’ll feel satisfied as long as I keep trying to learn.

Having seen some of the dialogue around racism and being anti-racist of late, I worry that calling out and shunning of people who are considered “racists” will only make those people become more entrenched in their ideology. LIke the spitefic that people have mentioned in MDZS, calling people racists and kicking them out of the group can result in more hurt rather than solving the issue. The more divisive fandom becomes, the more difficult it is to reach the people on the extremes. LIke with research on the radicalization of youth, the more isolated people become, the more vulnerable they will be to extreme views. If we keep kicking out the “racists” in fandom, they’ll look for community elsewhere - the only places these people will be accepted is with the other “racists,” the people we’ve kicked out of the group. I worry this will result in more of the aforementioned spitefic if not outright harassment or worse.

My personal approach is that people need to be allowed to have the opportunity to change and I don’t have to forgive them for hurting me. I’ve struggled for a long time about how to care for people who have hurt others; some may say this is mental gymnastics, but it’s what I need to do. Part of my real life work is specifically with people who have been incarcerated, sometimes for extremely violent crimes. Despite the things they have done, they still deserve a chance to be rehabilitated into the community. At the end of the day, I still need to be there to help them to change if it means preventing them from hurting others in the future; I’m very proud of that. Isolating them more and giving these people fewer choices only makes them return to things that society does not want them doing. I know fandom is not an equivalent comparison, but I believe the same applies - we need to give people the opportunity and space to change even if the people they hurt do not forgive them. And that’s okay.

So where do my ramblings leave us?

-Isolation and shunning only breeds extremism/radicalization

-Racism sucks and still happens in fandom

-Because of upbringing and culture, I hold racist views and so do you

-Combatting them requires constantly challenging yourself to change

-People who are hurt do not have to forgive those that hurt them

-We still need to keep space in fandom for people who have done racist actions if we want to change their views

This is only semi-coherent rambling, but I hope those take homes are meaningful. I’m definitely feeling less hurt and more proud about the Diaspora May collection. I’m grateful to fandom and fandom is also a source of great angst, often because of cultural erasure or racist actions. But I’ll still be here and I’ll still keep trudging on because of the wonderful and kind friends I’ve made. If I can somehow resonate with even a single person out there, then what I’ve created will have meaning.

[kukuandkookie]

wip titles meme

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Tagged by @crimsonrainseekingflower! 💕💕💕

Thank you for the welcome surprise—another one I finally discovered once I looked at my notifications and stuff! Fortunately this time I’m remembering to make my own post haha. 😆

I hope you don’t mind if I also divide by fandom, and these only vaguely include a couple art wips!:

SVSSS:

Grave Matters

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time AU!?

Just a Dream (is this unfortunately a lame-ass title 😔)

Haunting You

Singles’ Day

TLJ/ZZL/LBH/SXY ADDAMS FAMILY AU??????????

Bingqiu White Snake (animated movie) AU

Waiting for the Tree Branches to Bloom Again

Safe from the Storm

I See in Both Your Eyes (Something Indigo)

AU: The Lion King II??

Family Meal Goes “Wrong”

TLJ’s Lament

LBH²

狗哥狗哥，你真了不得 (Gou-ge, Gou-ge…)

Slavic Vampires…

CNY Dumplings Competition

Enchanted (because we’re doing this now, I guess)

Limb Regeneration What If?? 🤔

Of Costumes and Candies (Something Orange)

Something Old, Something New, and… (Something Blue)

SV OTGW AU

I Ship My Rival x Me AU

I Have to be a Great Villain AU

Happiness Just Out of Reach

Lost and Found

Words to Heart

Breathing Smoke Into the Lungs

HORRIBLE NEW IDEA: Maybe title: Just Enough. Just Enough for Me

Love Letters (that’s all I got so far *insert deepfried emote here*)

Daycare AU???

Hmmm. Prince x Princess AU?

Xi Yang Yang AU

Gongzhu

Followers Milestone Celebration

Teacup scene

I Think My Uncle Ships Us Help

Unattainable

I’d Like to Try Staying Awake (for You)

Breaking the System (aka Fuck the System? Literally or—jk jk lmfao)

Bonuses include the latest chapters for I’d Rather Spend My Whole Life Asleep (With You) and To Tame a Beast, except the former doesn’t have a wip title. The latter does in the sense that the chapter title is Pixiu!

Erha:

Putting the Musing in Amusement Park

This Venerable One Will Not Be Outdone

What You Left Behind/Do You Also Miss Me?

[The] Romance of Wolf/Husky and Haitang

Ghost Bride (Corpse Bride but Chinese?? And Reincarnation)

Reconciliation

Fifteen Growing Up Flirty

Out of the Closet (and Into Your Arms)?

The Prince and the Pauper (but based on The Princess and the Pauper because I’m a criminal who hasn’t read the original 😂)

Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng but with an Erha Twist

TW WARNING FOR THIS ONE but Passive suicide ideation fic

IDK WHAT TO WRITE FOR CWN’S BDAY… GOD SOMEONE SEND HELP GFGKDFHGKSDFHG (this one has a more polished but still wip version titled CWN Birthday Fic: Past, Present, or Future, I Want to Celebrate With You 😆)

Jiaoren CWN

Priest CWN & demon MR…hehehe (now a Dianran AU?)

More Than Just Puppy Love

Flower Shop…Redemption…Thingy?

From Wanton Wants to Wonton Wonders

A Taste of What Could Have Been

Screwdriver

First Bow to Heaven and Earth

Hidden Love AU

Mo Ran pulls a Bing-ge

Mind(-Reading) Games

Stone Lion

Swallowed Flowers

Confessions (Role-Swap AU)

TXJ Week (help we’re way past that now 😔): De-Aged Fic

A Tear in My Heart aka Read You Like an Open Book aka To Leave a Piece/Page of Me in the Nooks and Crannies of You?

Shi Mei Jiaoren Fic: [I’m] Afraid to Live Without Breathing

I also have a lot of Erha and SVSSS fic ideas that are unfortunately just blurbs in my ideas document right now and not full-on wips so they don’t have any titles I can share. 😔

Misc:

First Times, Second Chances, and Third Time’s the Charm…s (?) (Link Click)

Missing a You of Another Time (Link Click)

Danmei, xianxia-esque story (Link Click)

Suriel/Sariel

Call of the Wolves (specifically chapter 78)

Chuju the Chou

Papillon and Akuma’s Story

Papillon and Akuma Role Reversal AU Story

Circinus and Pyxis

Smoke & Mirrors

Dimension Hoppers

Take Me Back to Hell (All Saints Street)

I’ll Love You Until All the Stars Fall from the Sky (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei?)

Fengxi like Shade in Firewing (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Mafia AU Xuanli x Laojun (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Continuation of Falling for You (White Cat Legend)

How Could I Ever Ask You to Love Me? (White Cat Legend)

My Shadow It Follows Me

The Us of the Present Could Perhaps Be Just as Tender as the Us of the Past (Scissor Seven)

A Conversation With a Dead Man (MDZS)

Magical Girl AU (MDZS)

Xue Yang’s Regrets (MDZS)

Ao Bing and Nezha in a shoujo high school AU… That’s it. That’s the whole idea (Nezha 2019)

Surprising the Un-Surprise-Able (I Have to be a Great Villain)

Xianxia AU (Kiss the Abyss)

Breathing New Life (Kiss the Abyss)

I Will Chase You to the Ends of Time and Space (Kiss the Abyss)

A Family Outing (Beryl and Sapphire)

Just Some Gay Little Dudes (Beryl and Sapphire)

Steven Universe AU (Beryl and Sapphire)

Something as Sweet as You (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

A Present to be Cherished (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

I Ship My Adversary x Me and 严禁造谣 Crossover? AU Swap?

Additional misc wips I haven’t touched in forever are the latest chapters for The World Doesn’t Deserve You (MDZS) and Frostbite (All Saints Street). 😅

And as a bonus, these aren’t at all “official” yet but the more I read for some manhua the more I’m tempted to write fics for them… For example, a fic for Blemishing the Contaminated or My Lovely Troublemaker season 2 would be so cute, even if I don’t exactly have any clear or obvious ideas for them. 🥺

Phew, wow. I had way more wips than I expected AKFJSKFHSJS. Some are honestly just super half-baked documents tucked away in a folder with only a title and outline, but I hope something here was of interest to you guys. 😆💖

As for tagging…

I also don’t think I’m capable of tagging as many people as I have wips otl. So I hope you guys don’t mind if I tag just a few of you!

@ezrathesplit @levia-kun @yumichanhamano @softdekus @rongzhi @azunshi

(Of course, if you would rather not, feel free not to do this!)

[bloomingapricots]

Dreams of Divergent

AKA Give Zhuzhi-lang a cultivator too

Updated here first at AO3

The reader is called Dúzhě (读者) which means “reader”

Make it more dramatic by making this Duzhe related to Su Xiyan

Reader is called Su Duzhe

To be clear, this Duzhe is blood related to Su Xiyan and even though Duzhe calls her Jiejie, Duzhe is not Su Xiyan’s blood sister. It would be weird, to me, that an uncle and nephew pair after marrying a pair of sisters then become brother-in-laws.

This Duzhe will be female as this work is even more self-indulgent

You do not remember much of your previous life in the modern world because you are a bit of a daydreamer. Even now, you hazily went through life in a daze, lost in your imagination reading and writing. Making your only blood relative, Su Xiyan, who is also your caretaker, worried.

You slightly recognized her name from a Danmei you read, even more when you learned the name of her Scet, Huan Hua Palace. You reincarnated into Scum Villain Self-Saving System, probably, as Luo Binghe’s only other maternal blood relative that you are pretty sure did not exist in the lore. But it does not matter to you currently as you are living in pre-canon time. Specifically, right before your sister's assignment of getting close to Luo Binghe’s father.

“Duzhe-meimei!” Your sister called. You looked up from your writing as you make a living as a writer, unlike your sister. Though she did buy this house for you to live in as she did not feel comfortable with you living with her in the Huan Hua Palace, not that she sleeps there, because even she knows that the Old Palace Master is not looking at her like a master should. She worried that when she goes on night-hunts or business trips that the Old Palace Master would do something to you even though she was the one who taught you cultivation.

“Jiejie, you're here,” you greeted as she sat across from you.

“How is my Meimei?” She asked.

“Fine, I recently published Heats of One and Heats of Many,” You mentioned, your sister couldn't help but snort as she remembers the draft of that story. It shamelessly was an omegaverse story. “It became quite popular.” It indeed did. After all, this world after all was originally a smut novel.

“How shameless,” she teased.

“Money is money,” you retorted.

“Anyway, I have to go seduce a heavenly demon,” she mentioned. “Don’t get kidnapped… again,”

“Please, I got returned immediately,” you jokingly huffed, which caused your sister to laugh.

“Still, you wander too far in your head, which means your feet will also wander too far,” she said.

“I… cannot refute that” You do indeed walk too far when you daydream, you once wandered all the way to another village. But in the end, you reassure your sister that you will be fine. You may not go on night-hunts often, but you are a cultivator in your own right. She left after a week, double checking that the Old Palace Master does not know where you live, to go find Tianlang-jun.

[Host, what will you do? Allow destiny’s design or will you thread their fate yourself?] Your system asked. A cute red panda floating in slow circles around your head after you waved your sister as she rode off. Your system, unlike Shen Yuan’s and Shang Qinghua’s, is not restrictive, allowing you freedom to fuck things up. Your system acts more like a familiar than a system, it is because your system is on the younger side and grows as you grow.

“Well, since we are in SVSSS and not PIDW, I like that Yuan made the harem protagonist gay for him,” you giggled. “But I don’t know how it will develop, as there are many scenarios to consider.” You slowly walked back to your home. Luckily, people cannot see you talking to your system. “I do know my sister will not stand Shen Jiu mistreating her son, much less Tianlang-jun, I think, in the case that I made sure Binghe has them in his life. Actually, will Binghe even be called Luo Binghe?” You asked mostly to yourself. “I could influence my sister to call him Binghe but he will definitely be called Su Binghe,“ You shrugged, “That’s not too bad, oh but his demon heritage, how will Tianlang-jun feel about sealing his heritage,” You continue to mumble your thoughts and worries to your system who patiently listens.

[sinterblackwell]

kay's favorite reads of 2023

and with that, my 2023 reading year has finally come to a close 🙏🏾

i haven't talked as much about books this year as i did in 2022, but i really did have a good time (with some tears.....)!! i discovered a whole new batch of books in the danmei genre that made my year and completely transformed my tastes; or just feels like it had :')

i read 76 books, all the way up to the last day, and it ended on a very high note, which i'm glad. i had fun writing this, as much as i could.

just something for me to look back on!!

if there's something i'm very consistent with, it's how much i write, so....there's the annual warning. but this is a passion project!! so that's all that matters.

honorable mentions:

lor (monstrous, #7) - lily mayne

--. what originally was meant to be a novella turned into a 600-page novel that is the longest of the entire series to date. i became a huge fan of lily mayne since 2022 because of this series, and i was absolutely delighted to get to continue it in the beginning of this year. at first, the story did read as a novella because of how contained it was, as if lor & jugs were living in this bubble. many clues, however, hinted that that bubble would break eventually-- political turmoil due to lor's position as the Moric and the fact that jug's human world has not yet fell into an apocalyptic state since this book is set in the 80s.

i genuinely became obsessed with the story once the plot kicked in around the middle, but i also admired how much the author put into the worldbuilding of this monster realm that our earlier monstrous characters had only been referencing up to this point. and it was absolutely amazing, but with a ton of faults that showed no world, even without any humans, is exempt from some messy politics. the fact that lor was so avoidant in his position causes a lot of upheaval, but his character arc in this story was very well-done, and it made for a very emotional read with all the events near the end. the author clearly got to have a lot of fun with this story in its setting and i look forward to seeing what will come when these characters meet with our earlier cast in the next book.

translations - brian friel

--. this was something i read for my irish literature course in the spring, and i ate it up in less than 2 hours at most. i don't read many plays and don't anticipate myself changing that fact in the future, but i had such a pleasant time with this one!! i think what made it so profound was having the text written out in front of me and yet i could visualize it so clearly as if i was following the script all along while the characters were performing on a stage.

this story is about the start of the end for the irish language, set in a small, rural town known as baile beag. having this play written entirely in english when these characters were majorly speaking irish is a connection that will stick with me for a long time, and it made the story so much more bleak because these characters weren't aware of what was to come.

my professor is so passionate about irish history, and felt just the same with this play. i got to take part in some very interesting discussions of the story while in class, and so now, a dream of mine would be to get to see this play in person someday :')

how to say i do - tal bauer

--. we cannot have a 2023 reading wrap-up without a tal bauer mention. despite not reading as much from him this year (mainly because i already read most of everything he wrote in 2022.....), i was glad to have this title to come back to more than once every couple of months. wyatt & noël are my most favorite tal bauer couple, next to sasha & sergey from the executive saga, and i just found them so sweet.

wyatt is one of the purest characters i have ever read; you can find no fault with him and his sweetheart persona. i loved how the author explored his own personal arc in the story due to the grief he held for his murdered father that he lost some time ago. he moved through that grief by taking care of his younger brother and working his ass off on the winery business he worked on together with his dad, and also the fields that this wine comes from. this land he grew up in is his home, and noël becomes a part of it as well.

this is a story about healing and finding peace with the people who care for you, and i adored it so much.

qiāng jìn jiǔ - tang jiuqing

--. there are no rules that can tell me i am not allowed to include this story here when i got through over 50% of it, and it is over 2,000 pages long. yes, i may not have gotten to finish it by this point, but i still consider it one of my greatest reading achievements. the story has such a huge cast of characters and very in-depth world politics, full with schemes and court intrigue, as well as betrayal and yearning.

it holds a very strong place in my heart because of the experience i have with it since i could only get to start reading it by surfing through a Chinese website and doing some rough translations. i was very determined to get started on it and actually paid some money that was ensured to go towards the author just so i could gain access to the fan translation. it is one of the best translations i ever had the fortune to read, and i got to pull a lot of my favorite quotes from it while gushing about the story with a friend.

that same friend did a very meaningful thing and found an epub of this translation before it got taken down since seven seas publishing has officially licensed it recently. i am very happy to see what it will look like in that version set to come in its first volume in june 2024, but i'm even more ecstatic to have this epub to finish the fan translation first. i hope to be done by this in the new year, so we'll see.

my summer of you - nagisa furuya

--. this is a comfort series for me, and i will always love that i got to read the first two volumes during the summer when the story was set. i couldn't get to read the third volume until early december, but the spirit of the season still shined through and i had such a nice time with these characters. the art was very neat and brought a smile to my face because of how adorable these characters looked, especially wataru as in the third volume, he ends up just looking more & more like an angry kitten.

i loved that even though there's no discernible plot to each volume, i still get to see this development in the established relationship between chiharu and wataru. their mutual love for film is what brought them together as close friends, and it's what nurtures the romantic feelings they grow for the other that are depicted in very soft panels. i'm not quite sure if there's more volumes to come, but for the ones that we have now, i'll cherish them for being something comforting to come back to when i need something light.

+ the art of cruelty - butchgoth (gremlingirl)

--. cue more self-indulgence!! because yes!! this is fanfiction!! beefleaf fanfiction in particular, inspired from mxtx's heaven official's blessing, but now set in an alternate universe where these characters live today. it was over 300,000 words, which effectively made it roughly over 500 pages, single-spaced; and for that, i will count it as part of my reading goal, so technically.....i've read 77 books this year <3

i just feel sentimental about this fic since it was the first one i read from the tgcf fandom. i discovered it on ao3 immediately after catching all the way up to vol.5 (which was the most recent volume published by seven seas at the time i picked up the series in january). it had all the drama of the canon series, but instead of ghosts & heavenly officals, we had these characters part of the mafia. a lot happened, and these characters' morality felt even more muddled than they were in canon (because duh.....the fucking mafia).

i think what my most favorite thing that i got from it was seeing the brotherhood relationship between hua cheng & he xuan. in the actual series, there isn't much depiction of any closeness in their dynamic, but the tgcf fandom took the bare minimum and expanded on it greatly; this fic is one of the biggest examples of that.

i came to this title for he xuan & shi qingxuan, and it absolutely delivered, but i also got to get attached to some of the other relationships as well (again, he xuan & hua cheng; i'm a sucker for sibling relationships, so i wasn't surprised when this happened).

and now for my top 10 favorite reads of the year!!

. . .

10. given (vol.5) - natsuki kizu

i had been wanting to read this series for a long time, actually. what always stopped me was the fact i had never gotten into manga and had a bit of trouble reading any graphic novels. i was someone who felt more comfortable with regular novels as i found myself feeling distant from the few graphic novels i read before this year.

what ultimately broke this pattern was my reading of our dining table in june, which became the first manga i ever read & completed. it was a contemporary romance that was very light & sweet, and involved a small family who were brought together through the love of homecooked meals. the art was one of the most striking things from the story for me; the little child, tane, having some of the most adorable illustrations i've ever seen.

after reading this manga, i started dipping my toes a little more into the genre, until i ultimately got to the given series, whose art is some of my most favorites of all manga, next to old-fashioned cupcake. what always got to me was how this is a story about music, and how much it means differently for the characters we meet here. my favorite thing about it was how the art made this music these characters were playing feel even more alive, as if i could actually hear it. the art was very expressive and the music resonated so deeply, i loved it so much.

volume 5 ended up connecting to me way more than i expected, and it was just all because a side character, ugetsu murata. we get to meet him in a previous volume, but learn even more about him here and it was all a very emotional read.

his relationship with akihiko hurt me a lot because i had met them when they were already nearing the end, and there was so much pain and resentment that lied deeply in this relationship, that i found myself grieving for what they had in the beginning (even though i wasn't even there to actually witness it??). you could sense the significance of their relationship despite that though, and their goodbye scene ultimately broke me due to (and no surprise here) the incredible artwork.

finding out ugetsu has garnered some mixed feelings from the given fandom was no surprise to me, but it made me love him more because i really did see a connection in him. his personal attachment to music as a renowned violin player is a story i would love to see more about, but he's not necessarily the main character, so...

the good part is his dynamic with mafuyu, who is one of the main characters. i love seeing them when they're together and i like to think that they do become close friends.

9. heaven official's blessing (vol.6) - mò xiāng tóng xiù

this volume was where we finally got to the white-clothed calamity arc, the most painful arc of the entire series that the tgcf fandom was absolutely dreading. it had all the trauma and heartbreak and grief and more, and it was the best arc i read from this series.

we got to see xie lian at his lowest after the fall of Xianle, and i just think one of the most striking things was how hua cheng played a role during this time. this was a point where xie lian & hua cheng weren't familiar to each other in the way they were now at the present timeline of the story, but they still had crossed paths in some shape and literal form very early on. hua cheng, or otherwise, wu ming, in this arc played a very pivotal role in his witness of xie lian's darkest point. to see him absolutely inconsolable because there was no way for him to reach out and protect the person he already loved with his whole being was painful to read. there had always been this quote that the fandom always loves to reference from hua cheng himself, and it all hurt so much more deeply when i saw what he was talking about.

"To watch with your own eyes your beloved be trampled and ridiculed, yet be unable to do anything, that's the worst suffering in the world."

ah so yeah, this volume is my most favorite of the series :') i have very fond feelings for the entire story because it was my first introduction to the world of danmei, and i am way too sentimental for my own good, so of course it had to be on this list.

8. peach blossom debt - da feng gua guo

at this point, i read quite a bit of danmei, and this one happened to be one of the few that didn't come from word of mouth but simple coincidence. this is a story from an author who's not as well-known as mxtx or priest, and i feel very disheartened about that because this danmei was something else (positive).

there's some stories you know you'll love immediately, while others you're not as sure of at first. this was the case of the latter, as the writing style seemed worlds apart from what i had become familiar with in most danmei i had read, and i found the first-person pov to be a very interesting way to handle the narrative. what first started out as a comedic and very ridiculous tale turned into a tragic character arc where song yao, the mc, seemed to have been cursed to repeat this cycle of loneliness that he's had to endure since before he even ascended. i found the twist that happened around the last quarter of the story to be somewhat convoluted in execution, but still overwhelmingly moving looking at the fact that i ended up sending a teary voice message to a friend.

in hindsight, that reaction was very dramatic of me, but all feelings were sincere. this is because the plot twist just absolutely changed everything that i thought i had grasped well from the story up to that point. i had gotten invested in the friendship between song yao and hengwen, the latter being the first & only person who alleviated that feeling of isolation that song yao had become so used to. he was someone who made song yao's ascension feel less overwhelming and brought his own humor & light to their dynamic, which made me ship them hard. when this twist came, it didn't ruin that dynamic, but in an even more ironic heartbreak, it made it seem more forbidden. the romance just became something so much more, and seeing everything that followed after the twist felt like a dream that made me love the story more than i expected i would.

if there's one meme i'd love to float around, it's the popular "would you love me if i was a worm?"; because as this story shows, the answer from one character to another is yes :') and i am obsessed with them for that.

7. stars of chaos (vol.1) - priest

the worldbuilding. the worldbuilding absolutely plays a strong part in this steampunk fantasy, and the main couple did, too <3

i think among all historical danmei, this, thousand autumns, and qiāng jìn jiǔ are much more a grounded visualization of ancient China and its events as it was studied in the books. my favorite thing about stars of chaos is that it still had this touch of innovation and magic that made it a thousand times more compelling than it would've been without. i found the idea of violet gold being seen as the center of all the machinery that exists in this time period such an interesting hook for the story, and chang geng's pov felt absolutely perfect for telling it, in a case of secret identities and and cursed ambitions.

his dynamic with another character, who we come to know as gu yun, is some of my most favorite of all danmei. as of recently, thanks to a couple ao3 fics, i feel even more like i'm bursting with love for them both.

i'm only really at the beginning with this story since we only have this first volume at the time i'm writing this. however, the second one is due to come in early january 2024 and i am so hyped for it. again, the story is really innovative and there's some action & mystery that pulled me in deeply. i'm really excited to get more to the root of it as each volume comes out and the tension grows even stronger.

6. lip and sword (vol.2) - jin shisi chai

because this is just the kind of person that i am, of course one of my top favorite reads of 2023 would be of a series that i finished on the last day of the year :')

there's so much i've already talked about regarding this volume on goodreads (x), but i really consider this series to be a precious gem to me because of how severely underrated it is (and i also mean that literally....the third volume only has 32 ratings on gr, including mine). of course, this series might be receiving much more pleasant feedback in other circles, as goodreads isn't the center of everything. however, there's no fandom to speak of that i have been able to access, and so it's made for a very lonely reading experience.

what made up for it, though, was how truly genius the story was. it's one of the very few modern danmei i've read, and it circles around the world of Chinese journalism, uncovering news stories that end up shaking the narrative in such a brilliant way. the author is so smart, and i got to meet one of my most favorite fictional characters of the year, xing ming. he's cold, logical, and on the edge of frustrating when it comes to how little he cares for the consideration of his colleagues, which makes him cross lines that shake up the story even more.

the romance between him & yu zhongye was....absolutely perfect; i feel gobsmacked at how perfect this series was to me in all its flawed characters and a fractured society fueled by the media. so much of it felt really intense and the translation, even with the few grammatical errors it had, did a really good job sharing the author's intent with the volumes. i really loved this...

--. note: this is where the list gets a little blurry, as these next 4 are practically interchangeable. the #1 spot is the most solid. i'm obsessed with them all, and having them on this list is all that really matters .--

5. the scum villain's self-saving system (vol.2) - mò xiāng tóng xiù

thanks to the absolutely chaotic svsss fandom, i got even more attached to this series in the months after i had finished it. i feel very fond for this community of readers who were just as obsessed with mxtx's debut as i was, and with this volume, i hold it even more dearly.

it was very chaotic. despite only being in shen qingqiu's pov, i loved how the author managed to convey everyone else's emotions in the series of events that occur. i already said this in the mid-year freakout tag, but it made things so laughable yet also so fucking sad for sqq to see himself apart from everyone else as he comes from the "real world". those like luo binghe are only capable of following the script from the original story and so in all the times lbh chases after his shizun, it only inspires more fear & sadness in sqq knowing what happens in the story they're following.

to be fair for him, honestly, lbh doesn't make it any easy to think differently because of some of his stalking behavior, but again, the author was able to convey lbh's heartbreak so clearly in their interactions. i am a sucker for angst and so to see two characters who are basically having two different conversations without realizing it, it made this volume a standout for me.

also, svsss is my favorite mxtx novel, by the way.

4. king of death (folk, #3) - lily mayne

ash in his self-destruction era :')

his pov is what really turned the story for me because i had been with him since the first book, mortal skin. he had been through so much deception after already reeling over the grief of the parents that raised him.

he was tortured to the point of death in efforts to shed his human skin and make him become full fae. he was led to believe that the love of his life, lonan, had been the one to deal the killing blow to said parents. he loses his arm as he was fighting to run somewhere safe away from the unseelie realm due to the evil plans of lonan's mother. he finally met his birth mother, who turned out to be a just as sickening as she saw him as a curse from the moment of conception; she wanted nothing more than to sap all his power away that she saw as rightfully hers.

he's forced to kill an innocent to conceal his identity in a public affair. he recovers all his lost memories of lonan and is left reeling over all the interactions they shared where he couldn't even remember him. he's thrust with the title of king of seelie and all its obligations in the face of those who dealt with centuries of tyrannical rule under his birth mother.

and then now we get to this book!! where he clutches so badly to the one good & normal thing he has left in his life....lonan. it was like they existed in this bubble where it was just them two as it was in mortal skin, and it was exactly when ash started falling in love with him. reliving this feeling, of course ash would want to have them stick together; but lonan had his own obligations.

it got to the point where ash had all these excuses ready for why lonan should stay with him, so readily able to ignore signs that say otherwise, that the forests that serve as the bridge between the seelie & unseelie folk was rotting away. what once was something really light and a force of good with them staying together ended up almost becoming a thing of the past.

it was such a long road with this story, and so heartbreaking. i just loved how the author was so consistent in the development of ash's character journey, and there was almost a point where it felt like he was so close to falling off the edge, but his brother, nua, is who pulls him back. i will always be so thankful for nua's presence in this book; it did everything.

and i'm also just glad that at the end of all this angst and hardship, ash & lonan do make it through. it was a hard-won fought :')

my reading experience with this series started over a year and i'm just really happy to have loved this finale as much as i did. it feels like i've giving it a proper send-off.

---. i've unfortunately reached the stage where my energy is starting to dwindle. but now we've gotten to the top 3 and just to say, i'm glad that i found these stories and everything that was listed before.

3. the husky & his white cat shizun (vol.3) - rou bao bu chi rou

taxian-jun was really the star for me in this one. that's all.

”Mo Ran, wake up already. Wake up…”

“I am awake! I’m perfectly fucking awake! You’re the one who’s asleep! Are you blind?! Are you blind, Chu Wanning! …

“As far as you’re concerned, his life is a life, but mine counts for nothing. Is that it?!” In his fury, Mo Ran grabbed Chu Wanning’s hand and pressed it to his bloody wound.

“Didn’t you want to stop me? Here’s your chance; go on then, dig out my heart! Chu Wanning, why don’t you just dig out my fucking heart?!”

2ha, my beloved <3

2. remnants of filth (vol.2) - rou bao bu chi rou

here's a series of quotes that broke my heart:

Mo Xi thought, if only he could see straight in. If only he could cruelly tear this man apart, pierce him through--if only he could get a good look at the secrets in his bones, the currents in his blood, the filth in his soul. If he could see how dirty the man kneeling before him was, perhaps he'd let go of this persistent attachment.

.

Give me your hand. No matter how dirty you are, I will embrace you. No matter how much it hurts, I will stay with you. No matter how far it is, I will bring you home.

.

So much hatred, so much love, and so much agony. An agony worse than death.

i really look forward to volume three; it can't come soon enough. the story of mo xi and gu mang hurts a lot :')

1. the missing piece - kun yi wei lou

Their eyes met, and the world was silent. The start of spring had just passed. The weather was especially good that day, with no clouds in the sky for miles. But Ji Mingxuan seemed to feel that only now did the rain that had lingered in his heart truly stop.

(x).

[bipirate]

chinese-american here, and like 2.5 generations in as well, so my perspective is primarily informed by the reading I've done on gender and sexuality throughout chinese history -- I feel like the question of whether wwx (or mxy, for that matter) is textually gnc is a question that lives within a specifically western perspective. it's hard to consider this question and not think about how westerners have always projected femininity onto asian men, because masculine gender expressions in china have not necessarily corresponded to masculine gender expectations in the west throughout history. like, even mxy's interest in makeup has correspondences to opera singers' use of makeup, which was and I think still is well within conventionally understood gender roles (there's also some overlap with the gender expressions of male sex workers, which is a whole other thing, but during various periods in imperial china not necessarily outside the bounds of mainstream society). I think even regular-ass courtiers and noblemen powdered their faces in the tang period. idk this question is also thorny because we're talking about a fantasy world that mashes up various historical traditions and was created under modern conditions and sensibilities which are yknow much different (and, in many ways, heavily influenced by competition with and imitation of the west), and I have much less perspective on that since my family hasn't lived in china since the 30s and so I don't have a lot of context for current mainland cultural expectations. wwx is definitely a subversive character bc I think most danmei protagonists are there to challenge and subvert confucian patriarchal values, and gender's a part of that, but idk not in a specifically gnc way, or not the way like modern queer people in the west understand that term as an identity. if anything it's more like, every queer person is seen as gnc by a strictly heteronormative society anyway. (and/but, homosexuality was a variously acceptable thing for centuries throughout chinese history! and within that, there have been subsets of gender roles that are also reflected in wwx and mxy's characterization. also his joke about birthing a-yuan from his own womb is like a joke I have heard every one of my cis gay friends make at least once.)

anyway this is also not to say that nobody should be projecting transness onto fictional characters, lord knows I do it all the time! sorry for the single paragraph ramble and no need to respond to this if you've already let go of the topic, and ty for specifically asking chinese people what they think. I'd def be interested to hear what folks with more direct experience/context have to say as well

this is super interesting and insightful, thank you so much for this! i don't want to add that much to this because of my limited western understanding of the topic but i think you're very right in that the question of wwx being 'canonically gnc' is itself a very western one, and on reflection definitely one i've been thinking about from that limited perspective.

[sonderwrit]

C112: There's a kitty!

I Have to Be a Great Villain - Masterpost

Child!Wang Yi is a menace to my heartstrings in the cultivation world...

S-0: The protagonist shou in Defying the Gods is an extremely "unlucky" person.

S-0: Ever since he was born, he was disliked by his poor family for his meager talents.

S-0: Fortunately, with the guidance of a passerby immortal, he ascended the immortal mountain and passed the trial.

S-0: His cultivation path thus begun.

S-0: He wanted to take the passerby immortal as his master, but "unluckily" discovered—

S-0: That the immortal sovereign already had a direct disciple.

S-0: Moreover, because of his excellent background and spirit roots, this disciple was extremely domineering.

Disciple: You want to be a direct disciple with skills like that?

S-0: And [the disciple] always targeted him.

S-0: Luckily—

???: From this day forward,

???: You will be my direct disciple.

S-0: Because of his down-to-earth, hard-working, and kind nature, he was accepted as a disciple by the young new sect leader.

S-0: And was also "unlucky" enough to get in trouble with the demon lord when gaining experience outside.

Demon Lord: Very good, you've caught the interest of this seat.*

*this seat 本座 - literal translation, basically a formal way of referring to oneself, like the royal We or "this exalted one"

S-0: Thus he was entangled—

Wang Yi: WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT!! What are you saying!

WY: Although I'm generally clear on my role as a villain, is this protagonist actually unlucky? (Why do all his encounters sound so fortuitous? He always gets what he wants?)

S-0: Aish~ it's just the settings.

S-0: After all, this is a thrilling danmei novel with a high-level of NP, so there's always tropes like these.

*high-level of NP (NP高嗨) - NP = numerous pairings = numerous couples

WY: (AHHHHHhhHHHHhhHHHHHH)

WY: N what….? High what….?

S-0: All right already, even if you memorize the plot, Host will forget it soon enough. Don't panic.

S-0: Since a cultivation world contains many special rules and abilities, Host needs to transmigrate in advance as a child to get used to the settings, or else it'll be hard for you to use your cultivation skills smoothly.

S-0: The longer you stay in this world, the higher your probability of meeting Mr. Qin. To prevent mind-reading abilities from ruining the plot, S-0 will completely seal your memories.

S-0: For a couple of decades, you'll believe that you're really (the character) [Silkpants Senior Brother - Immortal Wan Yi].*

纨绔师兄 - 万亿仙君 - a silkpants is literally a dandy/fop, and instead of Wang Yi this time they went to Wan Yi which literally means "trillion" hahahha

S-0: Once "it" leaves, your memories will be unsealed so nothing gets delayed.

[Specification: Using the time to cultivate immortality, have the Main System observe the two people with amnesia and restore their memories after it leaves the Main Quest.]

WY: Childhood stage…

WY: Then do you know who Qin will transmigrate into?

S-0: Uncertain.

S-0: Host may need to explore the rest—on your own.

—

[Yunshan Sect]

Redhead Disciple: Hey guys, look.

Redhead: That's Sword Saint Qin's new disciple, right?

Redhead: I heard he's a genius with a special spiritual root.

Redhead: But it seems like…

Redhead: His brains aren't all that great.

Girl: Shhh—stop talking!

Girl: Yunshan Sect's elders think the Sword Saint has the best chance at ascension. He's only taken this one disciple after thousands of years.

Bun Disicple: It doesn't matter, everyone knows Sword Saint Qin's ice cold heart only cares about the Way.

Girl: Even this disciple seems to have been pushed onto him by the sect leader out of worry for his lack of successors.

Girl: He definitely won't teach him seriously.

Redhead: Oh? So it's like that.

Girl: Sigh, pity the child who has to stay with a giant iceberg like the Sword Saint, no wonder he doesn't know how to smile…

Redhead: *shock* AHHHHHhhhHHHh WHAT IS HE DOING!

Redhead: STOP—!

—

Wan Yi: Kitty? Just then kitty was right here…

Bun: HEY, LITTLE JUNIOR BROTHER, DON'T MOVE!

Bun: (This child is too young, he only has spiritual roots but isn't old enough to practice incantations/spells/magic. He'll be a goner if he falls.)

WY: ?

*SLIP*

WY: !

3 Disciples: (AHHHhhHHHHHH! ! ! ! IT'S OVER!)

*rustling sound*

Disciples: (This is…Lotus Blooming Steps?)

Disciples: (There's only one person in the world who can change the air currents into such a shape with his steps—)

Disciple: (The Sword Saint, Qin Xian*)

*Qin Xian (秦献) - this time the Xian is the 4th tone [haha, for the 4th world?] and means "offer/present/dedicate

—

WY: ?

QX: What, are you doing? *coldly*

WY: ….! Kitty…

QX: Master, there was a kitty…

QX: ?

QX: So you wanted to jump down just to see a cat?

WY: (How could that be.)

Disciples: (Ahhhh sorry! It was us who startled him!)

WY: ………

Disciples: (Sorry, sorry, sorry)

WY: Mhm.

WY: It was a kitty I'd never seen before.

QX: …….

Disciples: (UWWWAHHHHH)

Bun: That um, senior Sword Saint, the truth of the matter is…

*WHOOOOSH*

Disciples: ?!

Disciples: …..

Redhead: W, what now?

Redhead: The Sword Saint is really scary, he must have been annoyed by little junior brother, right….? Will there be punishment?

Bun: That's not something we can determine. Let's go, it's not like we'll die.

Girl: I plea for the ascended immortal to protect little junior brother.

—

[Sword Peak]

[Specification: The main hall of Yunshan Sect is located on the main peak, while the various elders live on their own personal peaks.]

[Currently, the little junior brother that everyone's worried about—]

*sniiiiiiiiffffffff*

*sniff* *sniff*

WY: ?

WY: (Kitty…nuzzling?)*

*吸猫 - it's not literally sniffing or nuzzling, it's just a literal term to express one's love of cats, such as kissing or hugging them. 

—

Mini-Theater

#The S-0 who's in the cliffside cave#

S-0: (Help! So this is what Host is like as a child!) [Isn't he too easy to trick?]

—

[aroacehanzawa]

What are kaleidescope of death and global examination? You've piqued my interest after your liveblogging lol (as in, I'm very curious to know what makes one so terrible and the other so good, and what they're about)

Heyy! They are both danmei webnovels of the unlimited flow genre, with basically levelled survival games where if you die in the "game" you die in real life. Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu (147 chapters, info carrd) is horror-focused, where characters who are close to death must pass 12 doors that are kind of like elaborate escape rooms filled with ghosts and monsters typically from urban legends. Global Examination by Mu Su Li (166 chapters, info carrd) is similar but less focused on horror and follows characters who have been pulled into a mysterious system where they have to solve exam-style questions except the questions are actually dangerous scenarios where it's easy to die. And there's romance in both of them <3

GE is brilliant in the way that both the MC and ML are well-written with fleshed-out backstories and they are both incredibly smart and complement each other's skills perfectly. The exam system is really cleverly laid out and the way the characters solve each level is presented in a very logical way, so that the way they are smart doesn't feel forced and instead reads very natural! The world inside the system is also consistent and we get to find out more and more about it at a good pace, and the recurring characters all turn out to be very important not only to the plot but also to our protagonists.

To me the plot never felt like it was dragging on, because on top of solving each exam level there is a greater narrative connecting everything, so that eventually all the plot points come together in a very satisfying way at the end! The leads also have great chemistry even without knowing their backstories, which makes it even more emotional and romantic after you learn everything about them. It's genuinely one of my favourite webnovels!!

In comparison, KOD just falls flat despite the amount of 5 star reviews and the hype i keep seeing by people who recommend it as a similar novel to GE. I didn't think the horror part was scary at all, at least for me, because it relied mainly on stuff like grotesque ways to die and mutilated body parts, which i thought were just gross instead of actually scary. But the main problem i have with this novel is that the main characters are presented as 'smart' but the way they solved each door relied too much on luck and coincidences or them somehow coming to 'obvious' conclusions that seem like they just came out of nowhere. It was like the author just kept telling us that 'oh here is this random item or situation so clearly it must be like this' without any intermediate steps, and most of the time they never would've even escaped the door if the ML or MC hadn't ~somehow~ stumbled on a key item or hint.

There is also a ridiculous amount of plot armor for the main characters, which i could suspend disbelief for, if the rest of the story wasn't also written in this hand-wavy style of 'anyway so this is how they solved the problem' and 'anyway so this is how they got out the door'. The world of the doors is never clearly explained or given any more meaningful treatment than if they were levels in some random video game, and the climax felt like a poor attempt at bringing it all together but just ended up with basically 'then so-and-so many days passed and they survived'.

The characters were not very fleshed-out*, especially the MC who seemed like he was only given basic traits like 'exceptionally calm' and 'cat-lover' - and even the cat-lover part was forgotten for most of the story and feels like when you make an OC and give them random traits that are only ever mentioned in the character sheet... The way the leads got together felt abrupt and superficial, and after that it's like no other characters mattered, which i suppose is a romance trope of its own, but when you apply it to shallowly-written characters like this, it just feels forced.

*) My biggest gripe was the author deciding to put key plot twists about the main characters in the first extra chapter after the ending (like ?!?!?), that changed the whole perspective of the story but didn't actually add anything of value to the plot itself and just makes everything more convoluted and plain worse if you think about it. The side characters who were actually interesting were either used as plot devices or plain forgotten about. And the ML who starts off relatively interesting in comparison to the others, is practically reduced to a caricature of himself by the end.

Anyway. Sorry this got so long i really had to rant about KOD to get it out of my system. Basically GE did everything that KOD tried to do but wayyyy better, and if you're looking for a well-written infinite flow novel with an ingenious plot and well-written characters with outstanding chemistry, look no further than Global Examination!!