#the lotus casebook

[danmeigirl]

donno who is more cute Li lianhua or fox spirit 😚🥺

[kdram-chjh]

Cdrama: Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

［成毅］ 李莲花小表情合集 😗 【莲花楼｜MysteriousLotusCasebook】#chengyi #莲花楼

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LryJ-g_VYtg

[evanescelf]

🎥 Upcoming Chinese Drama: Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023) | Adapted from the novel “Auspicious Pattern Lotus House” by Teng Ping

[hils79]

I am generally a one drama at a time person (with the exception of whatever dramas my various group watches are watching) but *quivers in Lotus Casebook*

[my-otp-list]

[POTENTIAL BROMANCE ALERT - Bonus: If you’re a DMBJ drama fan, you’re probably gonna like this]

So I finally live till the day I get to see a Xiao Ge and an Wu Xie (from two different DMBJ adaptations) team up in a drama. Better yet: This is a duo male lead, investigation drama adapted from a relatively famous novel *chef’s kiss* You know what that means, yes, bromance galore. (I’ve read parts of the novel, so I can tell you if the adaptation goes along with the original story, the bromance is definitely guaranteed 😉.)

Introducing you: The Lotus Casebook (莲花楼), featuring Cheng Yi (aka Xiao Ge of The Lost Tomb 2) as male lead Li Lianhua and Joseph Zeng (aka Wu Xie of Ultimate Note) as second male lead Fang Duobing.

Probably fair to say, it’s another bonus that these two are such pleasant treats to the eyes *drool* This is certainly something worth looking forward to ( ˘ ³˘).

[timotey]

The making of The Lotus Casebook. Wow, seeing Cheng Yi swing his sword, like him really doing it top speed, he's ah-mazing! No wonder he loves doing xianxia.

[heymeowmao]

莲花楼 | The Lotus Casebook (2023)

[remo-ny]

[dangermousie]

I like these a lot! Prefer ZYX’s styling in Heroes but other than that, A+!

[mejomonster]

Anon I will respond soon. In the meantime, I looked up The Lotus Casebook and 1. I’m delighted to say it was a drama I’ve been waiting for already, its got cheng yi and joseph zeng as leads so yay dmbj bros in a show together!

2. i’m shocked by the number of “wow i hope its not bl/censored bl/bromance, i’m so sick of those” comments on mydramalist on it’s page. First of all because like, what has gay stuff ever done to them (especially in cdrama’s case where bromance still means there can be a straight romance, and even if you absolutely hated queer stories at best any gay romance would be censored and therefore not as ‘bothering’ to you). 

Secondly because it reeks of people being pro-what-china’s-been-getting-rid of and i’m not particularly happy to see anyone celebrating “getting rid of” the kinds of works made by authors i support. i didn’t expect or need The Lotus Casebook to be bl or bromance-y at all, but with all those comments now I hope it IS at least to the extent of stuff like Checkmate or MRIAD because i’m annoyed to see people celebrating seeing less open-to-optional-queer-reading stuff. Not even gay stuff, just not totally anti gay stuff... not loving people hoping for full on “destroy any gay possible interpretation” kind of things -.- (In contrast to say Secret of the Three Kingdoms which is made and intended to be straight romances, is PHENOMENAL in its straight romance writing, and still is queer positive in that it mentions men can like men in a lighthearted way in the script as one off stuff, or Eternal Love which likewise left open the implication people could be bi or gay even as its main relationships are all straight - and in my opinion, as a queer person, its fucking nice to see Any shows that attempt to be open minded in such a way when they didn’t have to be). 

3. Not about The Lotus Casebook, but related to potential censored bl coming out of china: despite the crackdown last year post Word of Honor, I know Joseph Zeng was in the middle of shooting a bl book to drama adaptation in late 2021 - I can’t find the drama on mydramalist now, but it was there in 2021. So there were bls in production/shooting in china post ban, i am assuming the companies are operating under the belief they’ll be able to air eventually and make money. Meanwhile my boy Chen Xingxu (from Goodbye My Princess) finished shooting spring 2022 of an adaptation of a bl priest novel (Guardians of the Lands). Since it was shooting THIS year, and likely getting finished up now (or already finished and just waiting to be allowed to air - like 2ha and Sha Po Lang right now), again I’m assuming despite everything... companies assume they’ll still eventually get to air their shows and make money. So again I guess to hammer myself home: really annoyed to see anti-bl comments on mydramalist, when so much stuff is NOT queer its easy as fuck to simply avoid it. Meanwhile, the most that can even occur in a cdrama is a possibly close friendship, so people getting “worried a cdrama will be bl and therefore ‘unwatchable’” is so fucking stupid to me.

4. An actual genuine concern? Will the female characters be written well. But I’ve seen tons of straight romances for which female characters are written awful, and tons of bl where female characters are written well. So the only way for good writing is... good writing. And that’s ultimately going to depend on the individual show’s writers, not on if something’s bl or not.  

[extraordinarilyextreme]

devotion not as worship. but as recognition. as "i want to stand with you, and beside you." as learning. as understanding. as "i want to know you." as "i am making the choice to get to know you." as persistence. as care. as "you are knowable." as "you are lovable." devotion not as idolatry. but devotion as mortality. as a reflection. "you and i, together. equals. partners." devotion as accompaniment. devotion as humanity.

[danmeigirl]

Never knew he was this cute, (bts) 🥺 animal whisperer ❤

[kdram-chjh]

Cdrama: Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

Lý Tương Di trở về rồi? 🥺 #成毅 #chengyi #thanhnghi

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rCLTzo-egv4

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

every polycule must have: the baby girl, the guy that's dying, and the mass murderer

[kingsandbastardz]

So for basically my whole life I'd grown up with and was resigned to accept that the chinese concept of formal/nice clothing of my and the previous generation has been western clothes. So at any awards ceremonies or performances, entertainers would show up mostly in western suits/dresses and maaaaaybe you'll spot the occasional cheongsam if they're going for a Wong Fei Hong vibe. Which, you know, kinda sucks if you have any concept of western cultural imperialism in asia.

So when the hanfu revivalist movement started, I was waiting to see when it would enter the mainstream -- my hope was for fashion designers to integrate traditional/dynastic elements into their work and make it common place enough that I can buy this shit online for ME. Because I WANT.

Though some of the designs can be a bit hit or miss, I am LOVING what various stars and entertainers are wearing out and about now.

Anyway - here's a collection of Xiao Shunyao's modern hanfu inspired/hybridized stage outfits from the last couple years. For his MLC performances, his stylists seem to be borrowing inspiration from his Di Feisheng and possibly other character costume silhouettes.

I'd been seeing a few comments about how his outfits play with gender - and some of his outfits do! But I think the interesting thing to discuss is from which standard is he playing with gender? Because from a western perspective, the things he does with his western suit tops, belting on top of the jacket for a tightly cinched waist, and the addition of a trailing skirt = femme. But if you're talking from a hanfu-hybridized pov, that's just a modern take on hanfu and having any of those elements is not inherently femme and would often read masc to me.

So these things aren't necessarily gendered because they exist traditionally in chinese men's clothing or costume designs (ie video games, comics, historical fiction illustrations and film, etc, so therefore in the modern lexicon of masculine/acceptable for men):

presence or lack of a skirt

silky, velvety, gauzy or sparkly material choice, esp in formal or stage clothing

short or long length of skirt

embroidery

flowers/floral/bird designs

folding fans

certain styles of makeup

beading, gold, tassels, jewels

non-chunky jewelry

headbands

widely flowing silhouettes

What XSY's stylists are doing with some western clothing items are interesting. I'm convinced there have been one or two western jacket tops made of thinner material that they're folding over the front, and belting down instead of buttoning (which then matches with his other outfits that are designed specifically to do this). Then they're adding a skirt, cloak or bracer element to it.

The western portions often bring a military minimalist feel which they balance with a more gauzy material in the skirt or cloak portions.

Things I think are playing with gender:

row 1 - image 1: red di feisheng-inspired outfit

The lace-up girdle is there to match the bracers in both material and style. And it's positioned to be similar to the heavy belt that Di Feisheng wears. HOWEVER. That style of girdle/corset-like clothing item can't be divorced from the modern idea of sexy leather corsets. So imo, this waist piece on that outfit was a choice. Especially when paired with his allergic-to-collars-higher-than-his-sternum necklines. And if you take into context how masculine yet female coded his character is in the drama, the whole look evokes that.

row 2, image 1: black western suit with belt on top, hat, cloak, black boots and not-visible but also a black tassel fringe skirt

Hat and cloak moves the intention of the outfit from western toward a more Asian slant, because alone, it looks like a western black suit with western heeled boots, cinched waist with a lady's belt (seated photoshoot) and western style tassel skirt. The suit top consists of a vest and a shrug-like sleeve portion that appears masculine at first glance. But take the shrug and pair it with the tassel skirt (I can't find the red carpet photos but here is a better view of the skirt when seated), and I think you got a look that's both intentionally edging toward the femme in a western sense but also confusing matters by hiding within the parameters of both western and chinese traditional male styling.

row 2 - image 2 : white asymetrical western jacket styled in a front fold-over style, gauze skirt, trailing pearl embellishments

The more traditional leaning version of this is the white outfit in row 3 that he wears to the Hi6 Hello Saturday variety show -- the skirt portion on that outfit is one I'd consider non-gendered. Row 1, images 2 and 3 are examples of masculine/neutral uses of gauze that plays with flow of form but isn't inherently femme. This stage outfit is very western-appearing masculine suiting, until you hit the skirt which is giving me long ballerina tie-on skirt with the additional swan/mermaid pearl strings. Imo, another example of deliberately using traditional masculine styling but switching it up with the combination of material choice and make that is feminine.

row 2, image 3: black space military boots, black suiting, black -silver ombre sequin trailing skirt and white gauzy shawl with black floral design

The over all design is going for a masculine military-feel. (think this outfit for shen langhun) But instead of a thicker military cloak, it's replaced with a woman's gauze shawl and a skirt that trails behind him very much like the back of a woman's formal fish-tail gown when he moves around. If you take into context Wang Herun's outfit is a white-silver sequined dress cut in a way to also give a space-military-queen vibe, imo they both coordinated their outfits to balance out with both femme and masc qualities.

Thoughts? I'm curious what others think about this.

While I wait for the CNY photoshoot for XSY's red and black look, here's him with his stage collaborators with a nice range of skirt lengths, period influences and material choices. The woman in the center is the one with the most military-fighter design out of the bunch. The dudes are all in variations of formal-wear-with-good-kicking-boots (and lots of crotch space).

[timotey]

The Lotus Casebook promo pics

(Cr. dramapotatoe)