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dangermousie · 21 days

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A danmei lover's biased and incomplete het web novel rec list

@mercipourleslivres thanks for inspiring me!

When it comes to Chinese web novels, I mainly read danmei. I tend not to care too much for OP heroine with a hero who dotes on her for no reason as she fights with 14 year olds narratives, nor inner courtyard fights. BUT!!! There are some het web novels I like and so here is my biased and incomplete rec list. Most of these don't have OP heroines, and very little to none courtyard fights.

Before I start, my favorite het web novel authors are: Gong Xinwen, Mo Shu Bai, Peng Lai Ke, and Jiu Lu Fei Xiang. I have yet to read anything bad by them.

Anyway, rec list:

1000 Miles of Bright Moonlight - one of my ultimate favorites, this would make such an epic drama! A smart as hell heroine, a hero who is a monk and a warrior (but also terminally?) ill and such a vivid world and amazing secondary characters (heroine’s brother is possibly my favorite supporting character of all time) and so much angst and happy ending. This has an amazing romance but it’s not romance-centric if it makes sense - ML doesn’t appear for a while. But once he does, it’s worth it!

Accompanying the Phoenix - the one that just got adapted into The Legend of Shen Li, this is high adventure and cottage core and funny and tragic and powerful ML being putty in the hands of capable FL and just EVERYTHING.

Apocalypse Arrival - Gong Xinwen’s novels are made just for me. Her heroines are always powerful as fuck and rescue abused MLs. In this novel, our heroine who lives in the post-apocalyptic world, wakes up right before that apocalypse happens. She forms a survival crew and also rescues ML who has miraculous blood and has been drained of it and is now hunted after the rescue for it. SO GOOD!!!

Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script - so fucked up, so good, with monster hero who learns to love and be human and heroine who learns to love and be human (but from the other side, her tower of perfection.) Much better than the drama which I did enjoy.

The Blue Whisper - the drama was so-so, but the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love.

Counterattack of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero and @mercipourleslivres telling me to be patient. She was right, by the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

Dandere General and His Lord - hi there, Gong Xinwen! God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slave-holding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

Demon King's Repayment - another delicious Gong Xinwen tale with a powerful ML dedicated to capable FL. This one is a great fantasy plot (I keep imagining it as an animated series) and a sprawling cast of amazing secondaries (and secondary OTPs - there is, I swear, an OTP that is Dong Hua x Feng Jiu done thru GXW lens) to boot.

Doomed to Be Cannon Fodder - I hesitated to put this one on the list because by the end I was not keen on how misogynistic novel got to original female lead but it was one of my earliest novels and I loved it for 90% and it’s fucking hilarious at times. Heroine transmigrates as bit villainess into a novel, all she wants is not to die, but her new attitude of “pls stay away” catches the attention of her terrifying general husband. Honestly, imo still worth it.

Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir - my n1 novel on this list, smart and fierce and don’t really read this for romance because it does not start until really late, but ice cold heroine x ice cold hero both of equal brains and ruthlessness is everything. I went from loathing the ML to finding him fascinating to adoring him (and yet he softened around the edges only for FL, he never became “nice”) and loved FL throughout; secondaries are epic. If you read only one non-danmei web novel, make it this one.

The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl - my n2 novel on this list. Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death…and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

Futu Tower - the drama (Unchained Love) was a mess but the novel is such a lovely, dark exploration of coming back to life, for the ML from his dark revenge-strewn path and for heroine from not being allowed wishes of her own. She is a tribute bride, he’s a (fake) eunuch, they are both servants who use themselves to achieve goals and find peace and happiness together.

The Grand Princess - a tale where both members of the OTP reincarnate as their younger selves after killing each other in their 50s, and get a new start, this is smart and slow and so good in portraying old souls in young bodies. Their rediscovery of not just each other but themselves and their passion for living is just AAAAAA!

Heroine Saves Gentleman - Gong Xinwen novel so we have a tough martial artist lady saving a very upper class scholar and it goes from there. If elegant gorgeous ML being saved and protected (and lovingly dommed) by awesome FL is your bag, pls come right in.

Husband Be a Gentleman - schemer meet schemer. He’s an idle prince she’s perfect daughter, in reality both are wolves out for blood. Mmmm. Very OTP gets together early and is us against the world.

I’ll Be the Male Lead’s Sister in Law - one of my all time favorite novels. Heroine is made to marry a disabled nephew of the emperor. He used to be a victorious god of war but went mad and now is basically locked away and kept as a beast. GOD I LOVE THIS NOVEL SO MUCHHHHH! So much hurt/comfort and awesome OTP and after he eventually recovers, all he wants to do is to fight and murder things and dote on wifey. MMM. He’s honestly one of my fave MLs.

I Married a Disabled Tyrant After Transmigrating - if you have a Florence Nightingale complex, this is for you. Heroine wakes up as tribute bride to an almost dead dragon lord and slowly nurses him back to life as his rivals try to murder him. They are both utter adorable babies!

Let the Villain Go - another Gong Xinwen novel, this and Apocalypse Arrivals are AUs of each other. Heroine is surviving in the apocalypse, ML is the “bugbear” of the world but in reality just reacting to all abuse and torture and after she accidentally saves him, devotes himself. Fun fun fun!

Long Wind Crossing - Amazing ML and FL who grow together, clever plot, arranged marriage to love etc etc. Oh, and one point he feeds her his blood to keep her alive, what’s not to love? (Adapted into Chang Feng Du/Destined)

Lost You Forever - this is a short but delicately wistful tale of trauma and loss and love, wrapped in a high fantasy setting but so relatable despite it.

Love In Another Life: My Gentle Tyrant - so so fucked up in the best way! ML cannot live with OR without heroine. It opens on them banging in jail night before her execution (ordered by him) with corpses of men he killed for trying to defile her cooling nearby. If you want healthy relationships with respectful boundaries, gentle and considerate male leads who are modern men in period clothes, OP heroines who have everyone help them and are OP to the max, fluff and wholesomeness, that is about the worst book for you.If you want complexity, dysfunction, darkness, pain and an absolutely lyrical even if fucked up story, come right IN!!!!I am so fucking in love with the melancholy heroine, with ruthless psycho hero and the endless regret and devotion and paaaaain!

The Marquis Is Innocent - our heroine is a beautiful woman married to a warlord who hates her family. (Yes, this was gonna be The Prisoner of Beauty until SZE tax scandal.) Except she's a transmigrator from the future who knows how it ended last time around and has no interest to end up this tragically. This is in my top 5 - FL is smart but believably so (and doesn't have super battle powers) and ML is a believable period warlord. The way their relationship develops so gradually and the way his character changes so gradually as well (and the way they slowly fall in love, her slower than him) is just amazing. It is such a smart, nuanced, gorgeous slow burn. With some gonzo sex scenes :P

Mulberry Song - you like tragic endings? Come right IN! This is short and heartbreaking and wistful and very what-if.

Nightfall (Ever Night) - so long but also so smart and unusual and bloody and tho it’s not primarily a romance, you will never see another ML who loves his FL as much as Ning Que does his Sang Sang.

Offering Salted Fish to Master - in some ways, this novel is a mess, but I am recommending it because this is a rare example of "nope he's 100% a villain and murderdude and odd, but he does love the heroine" that the author commits to.

Pihanjin - yet another awesome PLK novel, this is once again, like with Marquis, a ruthless man and a beautiful woman getting a second chance on a second go-around. FL is a lot more wounded this time around though. If you LOVE watching ML grovel and slowly, gradually win FL over, this one is for you.

Princess Agents - a dark tale with an incredibly competent and militarily powerful/ruthless heroine and two terrifying men who love her (but neither is as terrifying as she is.) There is an OTP switch halfway through that shockingly makes sense and it's just SO SO GOOOOOOOD

Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage - this is probably the one “typical” novel on this list, heroine is reborn as her youngest self and gets revenge on those who wronged her last time around. It is really really well-written and heroine is competent, hero is doting and powerful etc. It’s not a trope I tend to love but I do when it’s done THIS well.

Rebirth of the Tyrant’s Pet: Regent Prince is Too Fierce: Borgias cnovel style! Our heroine was empress in last life and put her husband on the throne tho he did not love her. However, he had her executed and had his half-brother carry out the orders and heroine died horrifically. She opens her eyes and she’s a little girl again. The OTP this time around is heroine and half-brother executioner. Why do I love it? Heroine is smart and tough but also this is a rare rebirth novel where heroine does NOT decide to seek revenge for past life wrongs because they haven’t happened yet! In fact, she sees ML abused and stands up for him because he’s a kid and no kid should be mistreated and this go around he hasn’t done anything wrong. She also gets and likes her former life husband. Anyway, this is fakecest galore because she’s supposed to be their half-sister and while she knows (from past life) she is not, they do not and fall for her anyway. ML is especially gonzo, at one point carving chunks of his flesh to save her. He’s feral and unhinged and she’s the one person he worships because she protected him and like - it’s all awesome. (I love secondary ML too.)

Reborn to Love Lord Qiansui - yes, this is a eunuch novel! If you like gender tropes reversals, this one is for you. Heroine is a tough martial artist, hero is a smart as hell and powerful eunuch. A real eunuch. Heroine finds out she owes him her life and decides to protect him. This is a total delight and an awesome love story between two really scarred people. And yes, there is sex - heroine literally reads manuals on pegging :P

Return of the Swallow - so freaking long! But really good. Heroine is neither transmigrator nor reincarnator, just a smart period woman. She is a lost family daughter taken back in. Her father is a minister in a dying empire (father-daughter relationship is one of the best things in this novel), her OTP is enemy general, and the smartness and the awesomeness of this all knows no bounds.

Seven Unfortunate Lifetimes - probably the wackiest JLFX novel I read, this is quite different from Love You Seven Times drama that was adapted from it. Our deity protagonists go through a bunch of lives figuring out they fancy each other. It's light like a souffle but just as delicious.

To Be a Virtuous Wife - some people prefer 8 treasures trousseau but I never warmed up to that one. This one is so good, with smart people (who actually enjoy sex, a ratity) and a perfect mix of plot and romance.

Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - my very first web novel. A lot lighter than a lot of the ones on this list but a total delight. Heroine transmigrates into a novel as the heroine; she has no interest in drama or chasing true love, she just wants to live a nice life with her nice husband. Too bad for her, her husband has reincarnated into his younger self and remembers how she betrayed him, so is not interested. This one is funny and light and romance doesn’t start till late on but a total delight!

Wishing You Eternal Happiness - this is tied with Dreamer as my favorite het web novel ever though it couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach.

Jliafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

When she wakes up as still a young woman, all she wants is to escape the same fate. There are no plans for power or revenge, only a desire for survival. And so she latches on asking for help from Pei Youan, the only man in her past go-around who showed any consideration and desire and ability to protect her, though he barely knew her. Pei Youan is probably my favorite het web novel ML. Despite his brains and ability, he drifts through life. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. One of the biggest, best joys of the novel is watching these two very good, very quiet, very wounded people discover happiness and love with each other. I sort of want to cry just thinking about it, tbh.

The Yandere Came During the Night - a bit of fluff that’s oddly delightful. Heroine is reborn as a (fake) sister of ML, she hurts her legs saving him and the “siblings” form a bond that ends up in fakecest delight. They are both smart and efficient and he becomes a sexy marquis etc.

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macksartblock · 5 months

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=> fight (your husband)

#dungeons and daddies #dndads #normal oak #taylor swift dndads #normal oak swallows garcia #dndads spoilers #dndads s2 #who's ready to return to our roots (unfortunate child fight rings)#i for one am scared lol #i'm a firm believer in clerics kicking ass but i'm sooo concerned #my artwork

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azertyrobaz · 1 year

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#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #star wars #the book of boba fett #tbobf #din djarin #pedro pascal #the armorer #emily swallow #grogu #baby yoda #beskar #the sin #the return of the mandalorian #the apostate #parallels #I love that grogu is now there #after being shown by what he represented #my edits

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heytinskatin · 6 months

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eaten up inside (the mascot suit)

#dndaddies #dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndads s2 #normal oak swallows garcia #normal oak #dndads season 2 #teeny the teen #art #artists on tumblr #my art #norm is my little friend.. my bestie..... my pal... my fav....#excited by return of teeny the teen suit #just bc he's kind of fun 2 draw #i hope 2 see more normal angsting i was distracted 4 a sec

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guestiguess · 2 months

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Mentally I'm still HERE.

Unrelated (Kind of?! Anyways), i read THIS FIC between the last pic and this one uh uhhh still thinking about it. A little bit of hurt never hurts. Right? Right!

#star wars #sw fanart #thrawn #eli vanto #hurt/no comfort #bob the moth #it was fun #the guilt that Eli has to experience #Not only that his love will not be returned #It's also his fault that Thrawn is literally swallowed up by his love #damn #Thrawn: sorry that I couldn't love you...#Liebe essen Seele auf #sw fic rec #thranto

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loganlostitall · 7 months

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The BVB army is eating SO fucking well because holy shit do these pics make me want to unhinge my jaw like my ball pythons and just swallow him whole AGH HELP

©️ rachel.winchester.19 on Instagram

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h3xactinellida · 1 year

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HELP FIREFLY FACE SCRUNCHES

#EVERYBODY LOOK #i need the earth to swallow me. i need to disappear #gerard way #mcr #mcrfirefly #my chemical romance #mcr return #help

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sneckoil · 8 hours

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hugh laurie is very good at making this stare only when he faces wilson that makes it seem like house is thinking "god, i really wanna kiss him"

#known unknowns is a good episode #house really didnt expect anything in return for what he did for wilson #and wilson thanking him at the end... house looks at him with reverence #he'll swallow any reciprocation wilson offers with wide arms #shioshpam

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rawliverandgoronspice · 10 months

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I can kind of see why Hyrule reads as imperialistic to you in totk, but why do they read white? Sonia is brown and rauru is a black goat. What makes the difference between them and Ganondorf so bad?

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So... I have an answer, and it's kind of in layers. So I hope it's fine if I kind of go on Journey TM where I figure out my own feelings on the topic alongside you, the person reading! It's long! Kind of meandery! Sorry!!

Also, I had written a great version of this reply to this ask that Tumblr fucking ate and I'm furious about it, so this version is slightly more annoyed as a baseline because of Tumblr and not the ask itself. But I got stubborn and decided I would rewrite the whole thing tonight. So.

Here we go.

Layer One: My Basic and Unfiltered Gut Reaction

My first, potentially unwarranted gut-level reaction would be: I kind of think it's a stretch to consider them POC-coded. Sonia gives me more tanned Ariana Grande vibes than anything else, but that's... I mean, I'm aware that there are brown people with lushious blonde hair and blue eyes out there, that race as USA-infused Internet understands it is Complicated (I'm half-brazilian, and even though I'm very very white and don't consider myself biracial but bicultural, I had people discussing my ethnicity to my face a non-zero amounts of time, including quite recently, including in my own family! so I super get that it's more complicated than what I make it out to be here). But given vibes don't count as an argument, I completely get + accept if that reading on her ethicity is therefore dismissed. She could very well be brown. Fine by me.

(so, I feel like I have to add this borderline-conspiratory reason why I'm suspicious of her skin color being considered a factor here, which can 100% be dismissed but I still want to bring it to the table: I've been to several meetings and heard about many instances where "diverse traits" are being handed over to characters with the explicit purpose of using that diversity as shields against deeper criticisms of core aspects of the storytelling instead of fixing the storytelling itself, and honestly it could very well be the case here. I really hope it's just the team thinking Sonia would be prettier with a darker skin tone, because her design is genuinely lovely and I really like it, wish she didn't die like immediately and had a character arc of her own, but. Imagine the kneeling scene with two very white ladies and everything else, etc. It might be overly paranoid of me, but I can't help but squint a little bit in this specific instance, especially since the biracial trait here is so toned-down that it's barely there and barely committed to anything. Which would also make a good argument against this suspicion too tbh! Anyway. Just wanted to bring that up so you get the whole picture of where my brain is at.)

Rauru... Okay. Here's the thing: I can't unsee The Rauru. The original one I mean (and his Skyward Sword Gaebora counterpart), aka: the White Patriarch of all times.

(this has nothing to do with anything but Link's little recoil animation here is so funny to me, like he looks so shocked and his nose is so pointy)

I do think that removing the origins of this character from his DNA for TotK is kind of overly convenient when discussing this iteration, especially when his role in this game is basically a mixture of OoT Rauru and the Unnamed King of Hyrule (and every king of Hyrule that came after). I mean, okay sure maybe the Unnamed, Unseen King of Hyrule wasn't white but... it's obviously not true, right? And while I understand this is a different iteration of that character, many characters in the series maintain their base ethnicity across different reimaginings (even Blue Pig Ganon remains a gerudo at heart post OoT, at least in the way we keep on understanding him). And beyond this, given the fact that Rauru retains this energy of a Founding Father (in the largest possible sense), I feel that, at the very least, that patriarchal energy is extremely important to his character to a core degree.

But even so, yes. Rauru is now indeed a Goat Man. Not only is he a Goat Man, but he dresses in ways that are very inspired by mesoamerican cultures; undeniably so. So that would make him at least mesoamerican-coded, right?

I mean... I guess? I guess. Sure. But. I have now to introduce the Layer 2 of my argumentation, which is that...

Layer Two: Zonai Culture is Hylian Coded

So. Pretty bold claim I know. Let me explain.

Now I certainly do not want to say that mesoamerican civilizations are not *everywhere* in the aesthetic inspiration for the zonai culture in Tears of the Kingdom; I'm sure these real life references are overflooding the moodboards, from the color palet to the symbols to the artstyle, the costumes and the buildings. It's the main way the game communicates zonai-ness to us the player. And it's great! I wish they had went even harder in that direction (I think there's even pretty dramatic differences between the zonai ruins on the surface, much more interesting imo, than what was done with the actual zonai architecture at its peak).

But now, I will ask a question that I asked myself often while playing. What is zonai culture, beyond the feathers and the indented patterns and the swirls and the dangly bits? What characterizes it? I would say that zonai civilization is primarily interested in automation, technology, mining to develop said technology, and things that float in the sky. Beyond this, and from the limited perspective the game gives us through Rauru and Mineru, we see a society ruled by a patriarch (neutral term, it is just patriarchal in nature), married to a woman who is a priestess and doesn't seem to hold an equal amount of power (she doesn't speak as much, seems content to handle the religious side of things), who values collaboration and engineering prowesses, has an army, servants, robot servants, administrates other races through, to be docile and go the game's way, collaborativeness... It's Hyrule. It's just Hyrule, except older and with a different paintjob; but at heart, the style of society upheld by Rauru is very (eerily?) similar to what we get to know in the TotK/BotW era. Actually, this version of Hyrule seems extraordinarily similar to the Hyrule we get to see in BotW pre-Calamity: replace the zonai technology with the sheikah's, and what's the difference --except that this later version of Hyrule isn't trying to pass itself off as perfect? Zelda doesn't experience any kind of culture shock. Even the language seems to be basically the same. It is Hyrule, because it is. It's the origins of the kingdom. This is the whole point of the zonais: being that familiar thing that we know and love, except more pristine and more glorious and more mysterious so we can be sad when it gets destroyed.

So is it aesthetically inspired by mesoamerican cultures? Yes. Does it evoke specific details about said culture? The way politics and religion interconnect perhaps (unless we consider Rauru coming from the gods as such, but it's nooot super specific and not really elaborated upon)? What that culture valued, or what we assume it once valued? Cultural shortcuts we tend to make with these cultures, for better or for worse? I may be extremely uncultured here, and if that's the case I apologize, but I never really saw any of the aspects highlighted as the core pillars of the zonais commonly associated with either mesoamerican ancient civilizations, or current living native decendants of these civilizations. The biggest connexion or shortcut I see is the "mysterious ancient advanced civilization", which is pretty vague and was honestly more convincing in BotW.

Then of course, it doesn't invalidate that connection. But now, as a point of comparaison, to see what happens when Zelda takes active steps in coding one of their fantasy races... Let's take a look at the gerudos, shall we?

(Urbosa appreciation break. She's just so freakin cool look at her goooo!!! okay now we can keep going.)

I have said my whole spiel about the gerudos about a bajillion times now so I will try to make it quick. My tl;dr is: gerudos were always meant to be culturally disruptive. It's their whole point in the Zelda series. I won't rehash the whole thing about the crescent moon, the orientalism etc, but I think it's important to remember that they are meant to be considered foreign in a way no other Zelda race ever is. What I mean by this is, if we return to OoT: they are the only race hostile to Hyrule enough to not only consider and carry out an invasion, but to forbid entrance to their territory if you are not one of them. They have a different (apparenly evil-looking) god and their ears are rounded when everyone else is some sort of elf, their script is different, their cultural values are different, it's a weird semi-matriarchy where the man-king's occasional patriarchy has a very different social role than the king of Hyrule even if we don't get to see all the details... Won't return on the thievery and the 90s islamophobic kick of that time period, but the gerudos were very obviously crafted to be culturally deviant to the Hylian norm; their difference so great that getting accepted by them is an actual fighting and infiltration challenge. And even though they are much friendlier in TotK/BotW, they are still, by far the most innaccessible and different race out of all the rooster of, and it's worth mentioning, fish-people, bird-people and rock-people. They are the only one with their own language, their own strict rules that oppose your freedom as a player, a series of side-quests that directly address the subject of culture clash and differences; and, even then, they still parallel the real life western fantasy about the Orient TM (even more-so in TotK I would say, which I didn't love): the locked-in harem foreign men are forbidden to enter. This core idea is so entrenched that it becomes gameplay.

When it comes to Ganondorf, the parallel remains, more present than ever: in that game he gets to embody the foreign, cruel, brutal, cunning, manipulative, uncomfortably feminine at times, envious, physically intimidating, oppressive Man of the Desert in a long tradition of Men from the Desert and the rich legacy of literature and movies that portray them. It's not new to TotK, to be very clear: but TotK did double-down on the trope at the cost of Ganondorf's specificity as a character instead of questioning the trope that birthed him the way the series had tried to do in the past (even TP wasn't that bad, doing away with a lot of the baggage altogether --for better and for worse).

So to me... saying that zonais are mesoamerican-coded, in a world where we simply do not actively interact with these cultures all that much anymore (not at all to minimize the very real oppression of their descendants and the extreme and sickening violence their ancestors were met with to be extremely clear --I'm just saying that the violence wouldn't have worldwide cultural resonance in the same way and I don't think would have much reality in Japan unless, again, I'm saying dumb things and in that case please do correct me), or the extremely mild and non-invested way Zelda handled these cultures (to me it's much more costume than coding), positively too (good!), and comparing them to the active coding of the gerudos (and especially Ganondorf) as a means to equalize them as "basically the same thing" feels... a little off to me.

But! Now we're getting to the last layer!!

(you have no idea how long I searched for this gif, I typed "Ganondorf kneeling" in the gif search, like a fool, and parsed through much, much horniness to finally find my little dude anyway layer 3!!!)

Layer Three: It Isn't What Actually Matters Now Is It (at least according to me, the person writing this post)

Honestly, I don't really care whether Rauru and Sonia are white-coded or not. They could be, they could not be, cool by me either way. I don't really care if the zonai culture is meant to stand-in for mesoamerican cultures for Real for Sure or not, and heavily doubt it was done to increase diversity (otherwise Rauru wouldn't be, like, a Goat-Man but just a brown man). I do appreciate the visual diversity of the cast of NPCs, that hylians can look like a whole number of people and it's really cool Hyrule is moving into that direction instead of being very typecast into a sort of Japanese-ish representation of western middle ages/fantasy/fairy tale thing.

But at heart, what bothers me between this whole dynamic has less to do with whom is coded as whom than the fact that this game twisted itself into knots to tell a very suspiciously clean story about its complicated world and complicated history, and I feel like it's completely fine to ask for more than the bare minimum of visual representation and question the way these characters get to interact with each other and how their real life struggles are meaningfully talked about in the worlds Nintendo spend millions crafting? Sometimes, what they do is already great! Sometimes it's half-great! Most of the time, it could be so much better --especially when some of these subjects have been talked about to death for over 25 years (sorry to beat that dead horse one more time btw)

At the end of the day, the story itself is strange for many reasons. The power dynamic between the characters is attempting to be several things at once; maybe it's not on purpose, but either way, the world TotK paints is a strange one that only holds itself together if we accept to take it at face value. Which we don't have to.

And to me, TotK felt particularly shallow in that specific department of representation due to the whole... Imperialist Vibes thing (the other ask about this is queue'd, it's coming!), which nullified a lot of these efforts for me. It's not only about who's represented, but how they are represented as well, and, very importantly, why.

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hanzajesthanza · 20 days

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i just know she looked downright adorable like this. of course, i would not tell her that. but that does not make it less true

#and again i return to that 'ANOTHER long fireside conversation' line too many times to be healthy #c: milva #excerpt #book: tower of the swallow #the witcher books #milva barring

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bogkeep · 1 year

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untangling my neurodivergence is such a trip like

- first time they tested me for autism i got a negative which is so funny in hindsight considering how Very Obviously Neurodivergent i was as a kid, so i had to return like OK I KNOW YOU SAID I DIDN'T AUTISM BUT CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY I AM IN CONSTANT SENSORY HELL LIKE I'VE BEEN TOLD BY RELIABLE SOURCES WEARING CLOTHES IS NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL THIS AWFUL ALL THE TIME and on second try i got an "hmmm ok you TECHNICALLY qualify but it's SO mild you are VERY high functioning like it's very vague. barely there. but you can have the diagnosis juuust in case you want accomodations someday" <- definitely didn't carry this assessment with me for years, no sirree, definitely didn't let other people's perception of "i'm not THAT autistic" color the way i viewed and treated myself well into adulthood,,

- the odd disparity between "but i'm so helpless i don't think it's possible for me to live on my own, i don't know how to do anything, i'm going to be a child forever" and "HUH living on my own is SO nice and easy?? i'm handling adulthood so much better than i ever thought i would????" because it turns out having control over my own environment frees up so much space in my brain

- the autism nerf becomes very apparent the moment i Return Home and suddenly the old brick walls in the brain are back. suddenly somehting as easy as making a little cheese toastie, a food that i've been eating almost every day for most of my life, becomes a strenuous task because i have to navigate a now unfamiliar territory, just choosing a cheese is hard enough because some of these belong to someone else and are off limits, if i open a new cheese when there was another one already open i will be berated for it, if i use the wrong cheese that is too fatty and melty i will be berated for picking the wrong cheese, and the fridge is very full and confusing and maybe i'm just missing the most obvious cheese, i'll just ask, and of course i can always ask, i am not afraid of asking for help but i'm always so tired of being made to feel stupid and clueless for needing to ask, but if i just assume i will always make the wrong assumption, and IS IT ANY WONDER SO MANY OF US DEVELOP ANXIETY

- anyway yes i'm absolutely THAT Autistic.

#i say autistic but on paper i've got aspergers because norway uses outdated diagnoses :)#im just. mh. i know all this already but it's helpful to articulate it out #to put words to the ways i struggle instead of swallowing it down constantly #i want to do things but my brain is full of brick walls!!!!!!! it's a labyrinth up in here!!!#the thread here is that it's 'easy' to mask in a place you're familiar with #but then having the freedom to unmask - the return is always revealing

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dangermousie · 1 year

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My favorite non-danmei web novels

Since some of you were interested, I decided to make this list. It’s in an alphabetical order since to figure out which I like more than the other is too hard. I have either finished all of these or enough to have an opinion.

The Blue Whisper - the drama was so-so, but the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love.

Chang’an’s Greatest Beauty - a starkly realistic look at what happens to a beautiful period woman with no options. She becomes an outside mistress of a powerful aristocrat who she loathes. The delight is when ML, who barely thinks of others as human, falls in love with her and realizes she does not care about him and descends into regret and despair.

Chang Feng Du - reading it right now. Amazing ML and FL who grow together, clever plot, arranged marriage to love etc etc. Oh, and one point he feeds her his blood to keep her alive, what’s not to love?

Dandere General and His Lord - hi there, Gong Xinwen! God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slaveholding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl - my n2 novel on this list. Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death...and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

Futu Tower - the drama was terrible but the novel is such a lovely, dark exploration of coming back to life, for the ML from his dark revenge-strewn path and for heroine from not being allowed wishes of her own. She is a tribute bride, he’s a (fake) eunuch, they are both servants who use themselves to achieve goals and find peace and happiness together.

Heroine Saves a Gentleman - Gong Xinwen novel so we have a tough martial artist lady saving a very upper class scholar and it goes from there.

Husband Be a Gentleman - schemer meet schemer. He’s an idle prince she’s perfect daughter, in reality both are wolves out for blood. Mmmm.

Joy of Life - there is NO romance in this one (ML is polygamous) but this is such a smart, snarky delight.

Princess Agents - dark as fuck, with the best slow burn and heroine who kicks metric tons of ass.

The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage - this is probably the one “typical” novel on this list, heroine is reborn as her youngest self and gets revenge on those who wronged her last time around. It is really really well-written and heroine is competent, hero is doting and powerful etc. It’s not a trope I tend to love but I do when it’s done THIS well.

Revenge of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero and @mercipourleslivres telling me to be patient. She was right, by the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

#cnovel #the yandere came during the night #to be a virtuous wife #transmigrator meets reincarnator #so I married a disabled tyrant after transmigrating #chang feng du #the emperor's beloved ugly girl #ever night #nightfall #joy of life #Revenge of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid #Reborn to Love Lord Qiansui #return of the swallow #doomed to be cannon fodder #i'll be the male lead's sister in law #Rebirth of the Tyrant’s Pet: Regent Prince is Too Fierce #The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage #princess agents #Love In Another Life: My Gentle Tyrant #let the villain go #apocalypse arrival #husband be a gentleman #heroine saves a gentleman #futu tower #Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir #dangere general and his lord #Chang’an’s Greatest Beauty #black moonlight holds the be script #the blue whisper #1000 miles of bright moonlight

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