Free-For-All Friday

[geraineon]

Time for free for all Friday, a day for random chit-chat!

Do you want to talk about the other novels you are reading or find a read-along partner? Practice your Chinese? Request for fics? Ask for beta readers? Just talk about your day?

Go right ahead!

Comments

[geraineon]

I'm not reading novels but reading *about* novels, I guess! Went down the meandering path of going back to JP BL, and then got mildly annoyed at some comments online (didn't know some people think danmei is purer/less messed up therefore better than JP BL, lmao, seriously what's with people and purity nowadays), and then started looking into pre-2010s danmei (related to this, but not about danmei, I found this: https://learnnatively.com/list/a0da679a5d/), and also skimming old BL audio dramas to try to refresh my memory of their stories, and well, I guess I added a bunch of novels to my TBR.

Edited to add: Please share thoughts/observations of how themes/stories evolved (bl/gl/bg) if you're aware of it!

[aurumcalendula]

I'm definitely curious about how themes/stories eveolved over time!

When I went and checked the dates, a lot of baihe and danmei stuff I've read is from within the last decade or so, which kinda surprised me.

I'm pretty sure the oldest ones I've read (that were originally posted as webnovels) are Beijing Comrades and Peach Blossom Debt.

[geraineon]

llonkrebboj shared some insights in a reply below!

I'm gonna try to read a few titles pre-2010s to compare XD

Peach Blossom Debt and Beijing Comrades count (and I'm adding Beijing Comrades to my tbr list)!

[llonkrebboj]

So! I have no idea if it's because of the Great Culling, reading subgenres within subgenres, selection bias from using rec lists, website sources over the decade or anything else xD but what's popular within the sickly bottom trope - both read/recced and written - does seem to have gone from the melodramatic dogsblood 虐恋情深 (painful and very very problematic passionate love, often with a side helping of domestic abuse and noncon) to HC, saving each other and/or power couple tropes. Quite often now, I also see the 虐恋情深 parts being set as a 'previous life' and the protagonist actually gets a second chance to redo it all OR they're a transmigrator into a novel, trying to avoid a painful BE or ridiculous forced HE. Oh! Also... my impression is that while the bottom/whumpee generally trended towards being physically, mentally and financially (xD) weaker in modern settings of the past, in more of them now, they're industry or academic circle big-names who find out they have potentially fatal illnesses and have to deal with that.

Initially from 2015 - 2017/18, I was reading on very 🏴‍☠️ sites like my285, sto.cc, quanben and blnovel (the links are still in my bookmarks even if they lead nowhere now). From 2018/19 - 2020 it was mainly jjjjxs, dmxs and various other txt download sites. And due to a very painful accidental deletion of over half my txt novels stash, from 2021 onwards I was basically using a mix of jjwxc and lofter (with changpei only very occasionally).

Here's a sampling of the sickly bottom rec lists I used in the earlier days to find novels and authors to read. Mostly finished or at least made a valiant effort to read them all because... hungry xD
(1) https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/328510783
(2) https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/936851295895397092
(3) https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2076508560089039388

Many others have been lost to website purges. (There was a perfect AMAZING one that sorted by illness/disability/injury and listed what it was in detail T_T) But I'm glad for those that survived ~

This is one for novels published in more recent years, with slightly older ones further down the list. Also have read the majority of them and would recommend!
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/583441187

[geraineon]

虐恋情深 describes exactly what I am looking for when I am in the mood for such stories XD

Yeah, I see what you mean. A lot of the abuse is not true abuse, it's not them, or something else (sometimes, I just want them to commit fully into being wholly understandable scums who are actually terrible people, preferably with obsessive love that goes both ways either in the same obsessive love way or in different flavours of obsessive).

in more of them now, they're industry or academic circle big-names who find out they have potentially fatal illnesses and have to deal with that.

now that you mentioned it yeah, it's usually some ceo x ceo, or they are all some fuerdai or whatever (but I have also read some entertainment industry type stories where the MC is backed by rich ML, and MC doesn't have as much power... I should check the year these were written >.>).

Hm, actually I find that I read very little of characters who are at the bottom rung of society.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[douqi]

One very specific but possibly interesting example — the baihe showbiz romance Miss Gu and Miss Qu, first published in 2013, has a load of manipulation/dubcon. It was adapted into a manhua in the last couple of years and mainland readers were quite critical of those elements, often suggesting that they might have been acceptable then but are less acceptable now.

I'm also not always sure whether some changes are due to shifting literary tastes or censorship, but e.g. Da Ying's earlier novels (2008 to 2013) have a lot of quite perverse sex scenes (sex as obvious power play, hatefucking, transactional sex), and then she shifted to writing mostly unproblematic femme women resolving their problems in a decorous way. It's probably not a coincidence that most of her works from 2013 and earlier have been locked by JJWXC (bar a couple of short stories).

I'm still working this out, but there may also be a bit of a theme shift in terms of what contemporary-setting baihe titles deal with. The current dominant trend in contemporary-setting baihe is slightly to very escapist romance, but the well-known earlier titles I've come across seem to have a more 'realist' slant.

[geraineon]

That tracks with BL and danmei, from what I've read (danmei) and personal experience reading (JP BL). JP BL had a lot more of the type of relationships that are definitely unhealthy and headed towards mutual destruction in the older days but then the stories and relationships trended towards healthier over the years (you can still find the messy ones - e.g., some authors who were active back then are still active now but the ratio of dark vs. light has changed).

Meanwhile, some danmei reading friends mentioned that older works were a lot messier/more willing to have truly unrepentant scum gongs and scum shous (also seems to have more reversible pairs? and more sleeping with people who are not their endgame CP). That makes sense because during the earlier times, there was a lot of influence/crossover from JP BL (popular authors and works were translated and read by early danmei authors). Nowadays, it feels like it's more the couple against the world (even though they might initially have issues with each other). The reason why I pinpointed 2010 as the cut-off is because I read a post somewhere that talked about "pre-culling 2010 and before" so I wonder if this change is less organic than JP (works being locked due to content and all that).

I can try to look into the JP GL side to see the trends and see how that aligns with baihe.

edited:

adding on, I've talked to some people (not a lot! so this is a small sample) and based on this small sample size I have, it does look like older readers (born 90s and later) who got into BL earlier are more tolerant of a lot of darker elements/trope, while younger friends (around 20s) tend to prefer less messy/dark stories (and some find the darker elements/tropes gratuitious. I don't know if that signals a change in taste generally... but maybe??

[douqi]

I'd place the baihe cut-off (insofar as there is one) slightly later, maybe 2013 to 2015. One of the most 'problematic' ones (and in a way that I do not think has any direct correspondence to BL — Highlight for spoilers!the main couple is a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law pair, and the mother-in-law feels so guilty about having stolen her son's wife that she drugs her girlfriend so that her son can sleep with her) started and finished serialising in late 2010.

[geraineon]

Wow, that's amazing... (I'd read that, but I do enjoy very, very messy fiction XD). Highlight for spoilers!* Hm, if this is transposed into problematic BL, I don't think guilt will play a part in this and it'll be mostly taboo smut, ahaha*

I tried crowdsourcing thoughts on themes over time for GL but hm, so far no responses. I guess it's time to dig into either academic articles or read through the years.

[forestofglory]

I finally got back to my non-fiction book about Tang Dynasty daoist priestess, but I'm skiming a bit.


Also I'm looking for recs of cnovels that focus on women and have completed human translations. I love stories about extraordinary young woman who is trying to succeed at a role historically preformed by men, and I feel like there bunch of dramas out their that are like that so there must be some webnovels, right? But I'm open to anything people want to rec!

[aurumcalendula]

Here's some baihe stuff that might fit what you're looking for:

The Beauty's Blade by Feng Ren Zuo Shu: chichi's translation  (there's an official translation to be published next November, but afaik it's not available to pre-order yet)

Jianghu by L Si X Xi Y: douqi's translation (short story)

Purely by Accident by Leng Qian Shan: douqi's translation

Clear and Muddy Loss of Love by Please Don't Laugh: melts' translation

Female General and Eldest Princess by Please Don't Laugh: melts' translation

Matrilocal Marriage by Please Don't Laugh: melts' translation

Who Moved My Ashes by Si Jing Qu: Pale Mirror's translation (novella)


I've also just started reading If I Could Mail You a Book by Yi Zhan Ye Deng (hazevi's translation) and am enjoying it so far!

[forestofglory]

Thank you so much!

[halfcactus]

Seconding Purely Be Accident because the translation is very human quality! I've only read the first few chapters, but the MC cross-dresses as a man and has a side career as a bandit leader, and gets roped into becoming the princess consort. (She is also a walking disaster.)

[forestofglory]

I've been holding off on Purely By Accident because douqi mentioned that she still wanted to do some editing and think it would be nice to read the finished version

[douqi]

Ning Yuan's court intrigue baihe At Her Mercy/At the World's Mercy is set in a world where women have just won the right to rule and hold high office, and fighting against the death gasp of patriarchy. Official translation coming from Rosmei... at some point.

Ning Yuan's historical cyberpunk baihe To Embers We Return is set in a world with seemingly no patriarchy. There's a female emperor, women hold many prominent political roles. It's also queernorm. I'm still translating it though so check back in another... four and a half years?

[forestofglory]

Thank you, I'll keep and eye out for both of those!

[aurumcalendula]

I'm enjoying Reading the Remnants / Wen Guan so much and can't wait for more chapters to be translated (Pale Mirror's translation is up to chapter 78)! The tomb raiding adventures are really hitting the spot and I'm very fond of Highlight for spoilers! *A Yin and A Luo's romance*!

Any idea if there's a comprehensive-ish list of baihe novels with complete non-mtl English translations around?

[geraineon]

douqi has one here but maybe needs an update: https://baihe-media.dreamwidth.org/1654.html, and I found one here (also out-dated and I'm not sure if any of these are MTL): https://completedbaihe.carrd.co/#menu

We could make a list there and here (crosspost or link or whatever)!

[aurumcalendula]

That baihe_media list is very helpful! It would be awesome to have an updated list here and there!

I really wish https://completedbaihe.carrd.co/ specified w/r/t MTL (Yuri Translations, Spicy Chicken Translations, and Iris Translations' about pages mentions using varying degrees of MTL - I think Fuffy Translations/ Riptide's stuff isn't MTL).

https://baihenovels.carrd.co/ and https://morebaihenovels.carrd.co/ do specify the translations they link to are non-mtl, but last I checked they're missing The Beauty's Blade, If I Could Mail You a Book, etc.

[douqi]

So as the person partially responsible for both the baihenovels and morebaihenovels carers, these are not meant to be comprehensive and up to date lists of completed translations. The latter is a list of recommendations, basically just things the compilers have liked. The former is an ongoing list based on notability in the mainland baihe scene, using availability of adaptations as a proxy. Neither The Beauty's Blade nor Mail You a Book have any adaptations released or announced at this point (and it's very unlikely for the former).

[aurumcalendula]

No worries! :D That makes a lot of sense w/r/t their scopes.

[douqi]

The novels intro post was never intended to be an up-to-date list of completed translations! Its function is to capture the field at a particular point in time and highlight notable novels existing at that point.

The completed baihe carrd is both out of date and contains MTL. The compiler was not very discerning or familiar with the field, IMO.

[geraineon]

Mm, I didn't look too closely, just tossed up what search found. Is there a good and current list somewhere right now? Otherwise, I'm thinking we can just make one

[douqi]

No good and current list that I know of at the moment — we're discussing crowdsourcing one at the baihe comm, though I'm thinking we'll have to be a bit mindful about the 'non-MTL' aspect and how to verify/do some light-touch due diligence on that.

[geraineon]

<3 thanks for linking to that!

hm, there are some tells (names switching, inconsistent naming), but that depends on how well edited the edited MTL is (if it's very well-edited, the usual tells might not help).

[douqi]

Yeah, and now people are using ChatGPT and similar tools more, and they produce a sort of superficially smooth prose that might look less obviously MTL'd at first glance. Maybe we'll have to hack it old school and go, do you know this person, do you know if they've ever spoken in a sensible way about their process (I sometimes have to think about policy-making around internet misinformation/disinformation for work, and this is functionally the same problem).

[geraineon]

Probably yeah. If website doesn't say anything and there's no obvious tells, we'll just have to do it old school. I don't have much connection to the translator side, but between all the people here and in the baihe comm, maybe we have enough coverage of connections!

also, fandom is big, but is actually pretty small too...

[halfcactus]

I basically stopped consuming cmedia for a few months and already I forgot how to pinyin HAHAHA

But w/r/t the last discussion about transmigration and how I complained about self-insert power-up fantasies - I was thinking of this and then I remembered that power-down fantasies (where the MC transmigrates into the body of frail / weak person) exist. I don't have recs, I just remembered that it's a subgenre. XD

[anne]

*cough*Mei Changsu*cough*cough*catches a chill*cough

[halfcactus]

A classic!!! He gets a different face and body out of it too...

[llonkrebboj]

Actually the novel from which Story of Minglan was adapted 知否？知否？应是绿肥红瘦 (with the awful English novel updates title of Legend of Concubine’s Daughter Minglan xD) is an example of a FL version of this. It's been many years since I last read in the FL romance genre though, and few of the novels from that era are translated xD

[halfcactus]

Wait, was Minglan originally a transmigration novel or is it just that the MC was sickly? :O

[llonkrebboj]

It's a transmigration novel!!!!

Here's a novel updates review that does my explaining for me xD

https://www.novelupdates.com/series/legend-of-concubines-daughter-minglan/#comment-64172

[geraineon]

power down fantasies, delicious meal for the hurt/comfort or hurt/hurt trope lovers XD

I'm having a brain fart moment where I cannot seem to pull out the titles of the novels I've read with that but I know I've read some!

[halfcactus]

YESSSS my main issue with power-up fantasy tropes really is the lack of pain and hurt/comfort hahaha

[llonkrebboj]

🤣 do you want a bunch of sickly danmei recs with that?

[geraineon]

I'm always game for sickly protags XD xiexie gamsia

[douqi]

Oh, the second world in In Love with a Substitute was a little bit that! The protagonist (who's quite physically healthy) transmigrates into the body of a sickly imperial princess (who has to pretend to be her twin brother the crown prince).

[hazevi]

I've vaguely recovered from my awful finals last week so that's a huge bonus in my book. I also realized that I have, at one point in time, promised a round of edits to the completed baihe novel translation I did, but I haven't really touched it except picking out some typos so I hopefully will get to that.

Also if memory serves me right the winter/summer solstice should be rolling around tomorrow (today?) so northeastern region Chinese diaspora insists that everyone eat dumplings (a joke hahaha.)

[geraineon]

yay, you're done with finals! hope you get to rest a bit for the rest of the year.

and yeah, I'm getting some tangyuan image spam on my family and extended family groupchats XD

happy solstice!

[douqi]

Maybe it's because I've been ill (and am still recovering, though hopefully over the worst of it now) but I'm finding Yu Shuang's contemporary slice of life romance A Difficult Woman weirdly readable. It demands very little of my brain so it's like a comforting bowl of mind porridge (that is, porridge for the mind, not porridge made of minds).

[geraineon]

hope you will feel 100% soon!

I don't think I'd mind trying a porridge made of minds but that just made me think of pig brain soup... (did you ever have to drink that? it was not great orz)

[douqi]

Thankfully no! I'm quite squeamish in an un-Chinese way when it comes to organ meats. My ancestors who survived famines are shaking their head at me from beyond the grave.