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?
Still, very, very deep into LaDS but it has made me wonder about the character tropes that are popular in different cultural spaces (and the interaction of cultural background and character interpretation) because it's been fascinating watching the fandom for this game since it seems like it has the (mis)fortune(?) of being baby's first otome game x baby's first gacha x maybe people with less exposure to C/J/K type romance stories?
like it has the (mis)fortune(?) of being baby's first otome game x baby's first gacha Omg really? I thought there would be more overlap with the Mihoyo players... But I guess it makes sense that LaDS would appeal to a different demographic, since it feels more marketed to a "mainstream" audience even though the setting is in, idk, space? I do remember seeing some posts of men hating on its mainstream popularity (which is a different issue) lol
(Your posts are making me kind of want to check it out but I hate holding my phone AND I'm afraid my phone battery will belt when I play on it lol)
XD Well, if you end up checking it out, let me know!
Yeah, I've seen a lot of posts from people asking about the gacha system, the pity, etc. so it does feel a lot like "baby's first gacha" though there's definitely a proportion of players who came from other gacha.
And yep, there are a lot of reaction videos from men hating on it, though recently there's been some that are more reasonable. My youtube algo keeps pushing them at me even though I didn't wanna see them so I ended up checking some of them out.
yuerstruly and I put together this extremely short list of 'if you liked this danmei, you might like this baihe' comp titles. Feel free to comment with your own suggestions, or things you might like comps for!
I haven't read these baihe myself yet, but based on the comments and recommendations of friends, some potential comparisons:
Another Scum Villain comparison might be 无聊到底's new book 孽徒, which is the classic "transmigrated into the evil shizun" premise, with a yandere demon disciple.
Those might be common IF tropes, but if you liked QQGK/Global University Entrance Examination for the cold MC (who actually cares) and teasing LI, the system as the villain, Highlight for spoilers!*memory shenanigans, and a connection between the MC and the system,*, you might like 玩家请就位
Edited (Fixed mistake) Date: 2025-04-19 12:41 am (UTC)
What kind of baihe do you think you might like to try? I might be able to recommend some things (although as usual, there's a lack of fan translations that aren't MTL).
I can read Chinese, so a lack of fan translation isn't a problem. For now, Reading the Remnants is on my to-be-read list. I also like political intrigue, wuxia, mystery and xuanhuan, preferrably stories that take place in an earlier time rather than modern time.
w/r/t political intrigue, I'm really enjoying Seeking Immortality in Vain (枉求仙) by Jian Gen Qianbi (捡根铅笔) so far! I'm following the fan translation, but the ongoing novel is here.
After her uncle the emperor flees the capital and her father dies, Jiang Changbai is the last of the imperial family's descendents. She meets with the leader of the rebel army that's come to the capital, only to find that said leader is her former study companion Song Juguang. And she wants Jiang Changbai to be emperor.
There's a lot to choose from if you don't need a translation! The biggest court intrigue baihe of the last few years is At Her Mercy (我为鱼肉) by Ning Yuan (宁远), although as noted above, everyone is evil. I would also highly recommend her historical cyberpunk novel To Embers We Return (焚情). You can also check out the 'recs and reviews' tag on the baihe comm, our recommendations carrd and another carrd compiling novels with a certain level of recognition, sorted by subgenre.
I ran into the Chinese online term "crematorium" as a fiction genre the other day and had to look up the meaning. It made me wonder why it's called "crematorium", but after thinking it over for a bit, it does kind of make sense, I guess? What are some of the more unusual Chinese online terms you've run into in cnovels?
火葬場/crematorium did confuse me a bit when I first encountered the term in a cnovel context (and I'm a native speaker)!
For me one interesting internet term that often show up in cnovels is using "white moonlight" (白月光) to refer to a idealized figure of first love. I think I did get the reference—a famous passage from Eileen Chang—the first time I came across it, but only because I had seen that passage somewhere in some of my Chinese tests in middle school/high school.
Another term/trope that is often used to describe characters in cnovels is 綠茶/green tea (used to describe scheming/two-faced characters with a sweet front, usually women), and I had absolutely no idea what it meant when I first came upon it.
Green tea and white/black lotus (though the latter tends to be used incorrectly) have also made their way to the (Anglo) k-webtoon/-webnovel scene as character tropes, interestingly! They used to bemuse me lololol
Haha I was just thinking about that one because I was catching up on Justice in the Dark and all of a sudden the comment "真骨科?" started scrolling across the screen. It totally took me out of an otherwise serious/toyching scene aksd'afkaf
Omg I was watching a douyin video where a guy had transmigrated into the body of the main character in a novel who has a very handsome, very caring brother. 'Is this orthopedics??' gasps the System, and the main character starts feverishly researching the term online, to his growing horror.
Nothing much, just the brothers in the third case? spoilersThe younger one is Fei Du's artist friend (who dies protecting his brother) and the older one is half of a side ship. There's a scene in JitD where the younger brother holds his older brother's hand when he visits him in the hospital and that's where the orthopedics comment came in. XD
On the "practicing Chinese" front, I've been back to... studying Chinese by making vocabulary lists from stuff I recently read/watched/heard, after months of staying away from cmedia. I've also been giffing my way through Justice in the Dark which means it takes me around a week to finish a single episode and unable to do anything else in my free time haha.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 08:06 am (UTC)Omg really? I thought there would be more overlap with the Mihoyo players... But I guess it makes sense that LaDS would appeal to a different demographic, since it feels more marketed to a "mainstream" audience even though the setting is in, idk, space? I do remember seeing some posts of men hating on its mainstream popularity (which is a different issue) lol
(Your posts are making me kind of want to check it out but I hate holding my phone AND I'm afraid my phone battery will belt when I play on it lol)
no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 03:59 am (UTC)Yeah, I've seen a lot of posts from people asking about the gacha system, the pity, etc. so it does feel a lot like "baby's first gacha" though there's definitely a proportion of players who came from other gacha.
And yep, there are a lot of reaction videos from men hating on it, though recently there's been some that are more reasonable. My youtube algo keeps pushing them at me even though I didn't wanna see them so I ended up checking some of them out.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-19 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-21 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 10:28 pm (UTC)Thank you both for putting this together!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 11:44 pm (UTC)I haven't read these baihe myself yet, but based on the comments and recommendations of friends, some potential comparisons:
Another Scum Villain comparison might be 无聊到底's new book 孽徒, which is the classic "transmigrated into the evil shizun" premise, with a yandere demon disciple.
Those might be common IF tropes, but if you liked QQGK/Global University Entrance Examination for the cold MC (who actually cares) and teasing LI, the system as the villain, Highlight for spoilers!*memory shenanigans, and a connection between the MC and the system,*, you might like 玩家请就位
no subject
Date: 2025-04-19 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-19 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 02:26 pm (UTC)After her uncle the emperor flees the capital and her father dies, Jiang Changbai is the last of the imperial family's descendents. She meets with the leader of the rebel army that's come to the capital, only to find that said leader is her former study companion Song Juguang. And she wants Jiang Changbai to be emperor.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-18 10:29 pm (UTC)Nice! The joy of reading an ongoing work is when something updates~
no subject
Date: 2025-04-19 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-19 09:10 pm (UTC)火葬場/crematorium did confuse me a bit when I first encountered the term in a cnovel context (and I'm a native speaker)!
For me one interesting internet term that often show up in cnovels is using "white moonlight" (白月光) to refer to a idealized figure of first love. I think I did get the reference—a famous passage from Eileen Chang—the first time I came across it, but only because I had seen that passage somewhere in some of my Chinese tests in middle school/high school.
Another term/trope that is often used to describe characters in cnovels is 綠茶/green tea (used to describe scheming/two-faced characters with a sweet front, usually women), and I had absolutely no idea what it meant when I first came upon it.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 08:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 04:30 am (UTC)I thought it's quite amusing!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 04:04 am (UTC)wait, where does orthopedics come in for Justice in the Dark (why don't I remember it from the books...)
no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 06:13 am (UTC)spoilers
The younger one is Fei Du's artist friend (who dies protecting his brother) and the older one is half of a side ship. There's a scene in JitD where the younger brother holds his older brother's hand when he visits him in the hospital and that's where the orthopedics comment came in. XDno subject
Date: 2025-04-20 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 04:05 am (UTC)Thanks for all the beautiful gifs!