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veliseraptor · 3 years

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Hi, Lise......I can't help but want to ask (if you don't mind), what are your favorite (that you personally like) books or movies/ tv series that contains lesbias and gays? Thanks if you want to answer.....

wow I completely forgot this ask was sitting in my inbox and has been for a long while. and uhhhh the thing is here that I actually...feel like I don't have a separate category in my head, so much, for "media that has queer people in it" and "media that doesn't"? which like. feels weird to say, but when I get questions like this, or requests for recommendations, I always...struggle to parse these things out. and also to parse out, for instance, "books that read as having queer elements" from "books with explicitly queer characters."

but I guess if I'm gonna try...most of these are going to be books, with a few exceptions.

BOOKS

Doctrine of Labyrinths is a four book series that comes stamped with a whole list of content warnings (rape and child abuse chief among them, probably) but is also one of my favorite series of all time, so, you know.

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson also comes with a big "IT'S SAD. IT'S SAD AND DARK" warning, along with content warnings for serious societal homophobia, but is another one of my favorite series of all time. it's not that I hate happy queer stories or anything, I just tend to like stories that aren't happy

The Locked Tomb Trilogy by Tasmyn Muir which you've probably heard about by now, but honestly I think the common tagline of "lesbian necromancers in space" really doesn't...cover it? It's funny, it's weird, it's unique in terms of setting, story, and magic system, it's doing some very interesting things and I can't wait to find out where Muir is going with it. it's very much stylistically not something that's going to work for everyone, but I would recommend giving it a go and finding out if it works for you.

I loved the series by Lara Elena Donnelly that starts with Amberlough, but that one's definitely Rise of a Fascist State and therefore might not be everyone's cuppa right at the moment.

Oh, Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie is very queer, not in terms of, like, "these characters are explicitly gay" but more in terms of what she's doing with gender. I don't know that I'd say it's a central part of the book but it's an important enough piece of the worldbuilding at least that I'd put it here. I don't actually remember, textually, but Machineries of Empire also feels very queer to me in a similar sort of way. A queer theory sort of way, maybe? idk.

this one's a sort of...not for me exactly but it was cool rec, but The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon was very classic fantasy in a lot of ways, but gay, and with some fresh twists on old tropes.

COMICS

The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. look, it's just really good and not just for the queer. I need to do a reread from the top.

I am really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem actually, which I feel like people either aren't aware of or watch the first couple episodes and get turned off, but. one of the three main characters is lesbian, and sticks her hand down another girl's pants in like. the second episode? maybe even the first one, I don't remember.

Person of Interest doesn't introduce its gay until later in the series, but if you're anything like me as far as what you want in relationship dynamics you're in for a treat.

Yes, it is an animated children's show, but She-Ra and the Princesses of Power gave me such a gift it still makes me emotional because I'm going like. is this what it feels like to get what I want, canonically, in a piece of media? wow.

look, I'm putting The Untamed on here because (a) it is based on a gay webnovel and is pretty fucking gay considering the limits of censorship, everybody in the cast knows it and is playing it, and (b) some of the secondary relationships come off, I would argue, even gayer in the live action, probably because there are actor people putting them right in front of your face. (because the discourse is what it is: censorship isn't progressive, etc., but this is my list and I'm putting MDZS on here too.)

THOSE CHINESE WEBNOVELS I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT

like, seriously. I mean, look, they take some work getting into because reading works in translation that come from a culture that you (general Anglophone you) may or may not be familiar with on one level or another actually does come with having to learn some shit and get used to some new things about genre and style, and reading webnovels maybe even more so, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth it.

so far the ones I've read are (titles in English, with common abbreviation, mostly from the Chinese) Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS), The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (erha or 2HA), and (still finishing but at this point feel pretty comfy recommending) Clear and Muddy Loss of Love (JWQS).

there are several others on my list that I've had recommended and just haven't gotten to yet. my favorites personally are probably TGCF and 2HA, but I'm pending a reread of MDZS with a different translation to do my final assessment there and JWQS is giving me a lot of very good shit.

(I feel like I have to mention, because I'd be remiss if I didn't while I'm talking about ~personal preferences~, that the Coldfire Trilogy is astonishingly queer in my memory for one of the central relationships although it's been years since I read it, admittedly, and the Lymond Chronicles which is a series I love dearly is also incredibly queer, particularly for a series written in the 60s, and is like. juuuuust barely shy of having a canonically bisexual protagonist. and does have an explicitly lesbian secondary character, though fair warning, she, uh, does have it pretty rough.)

there's also some books that didn't make it on here even though they have queer characters because I felt like the queerness of those characters was not really key to the story, for instance the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, which is fantastic in its own right and I would recommend to everyone, but didn't quite feel like it fit this post.

I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff, but I did my best.

#sometimes i read things #god making recs lists is always sort of stressful #conversating #anonymous

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geges · 3 years

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its amazing what ppl will excuse as "ignorance" too like no... no ignorance explains choices like the banyue arc. ridiculous.

since you mentioned fgep, if youve read jwqs, I was wondering your opinion on that? I walked away from it thinking the author was occasionally/often fetishistic but she at least viewed the tribespeople as like, valid ppl on the same lvl as the wei ppl. aka, better than m*t* and some other cnovels ive read but still icky. if you dont wanna answer thats ok youve done 500% more work than you should ever have to, take care of yourself!!

i havent read jwqs myself yet, but it's on the list! i'm of the firm belief that i cannot criticise what i don't fully understand, so i can't make a judgement call at this moment. going off what i have heard from people around me that read it, the consensus was generally the same; undereducated, poorly researched, exotifying, and racist, but overall 300 times better than the classic hulking mindless evil barbarian stereotype. an effort was made, and i'll appreciate that! once i do read it, i'll write up a post about it since i've gotten this questions a couple times now, but i just started a new semester so it most likely won't be for a couple weeks :)

#the students this year....... im gonna get a bigger headache from them than i do from starember twt stannies 😭😭😭😭#thank u for the ask! i appreciate the concern you place into the issue #ask #anon #jazıp

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mejomonster · 3 years

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I was there was a GL version of the Untamed with 40+ episodes but predominantly female dramas don’t do that well unless the leads are well known (I would love to see two popular actresses be in a GL Wuxia or xianxia drama as the leads).

SAME I WANT THAT SO BADLY

below the cut is just. mm. musings and some novels i’ve found, although still looking for more.

i would absolutely love a gl wuxia or xianxia drama. my hope is sort of that since bl is getting some surge in adaptations, and there’s some tentative bigger gl* coming out this year, if they do well then they might be made more often as it will be seen as less of a risk maybe? since teams will have seen how well it does/what to expect. so ahh. i hope...

*(also this is just my optimism talking, but i sort of love the shaw eleven lang For All the Badass women, and the fact i very much ship the 2 main heroines - they have a guy they both like but also i just love how they interact. its sort of the opposite situation as My Roommate is a Detective or Detective L with a trio core, the women have chemistry together and just happen to have a 3rd party they’re romantic with. this is just me watching the first handful of eps tho but, definitely a tiny draw for me. also it really does not pull punches about women kicking ass, which was refreshing after Eternal Love that so often took the women out of fights. And Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain is an ensemble cast, with a m/w main couple, but both of them have intense bi energy and flirt with their respective same gender friends before their own romance together kicks off, which felt really nice to see so casually in a drama? i watched about half of that.)

which, not even just in cdramas but 2 female leads in general in shows isn’t as particularly common... or else we’d have more stuff like killing eve, and i can’t think of any female led period stuff except maybe kind of black sails - or gentleman jack or harlots which i plan to check out but haven’t. i can think of a lot of 2 male lead shows, and a fair number of ensemble cast shows, but not that many with 2 female leads which. mm i’d like more of.

i am also. constantly on the lookout for female lead cdramas. i just made the list of potential gl dramas but, tbh even just 2 female main leads could be nice (like dear missy). i can think of some good ensemble cast stuff but not many with 2 female leads.

even in cnovels, when i look for translations i’ve found FGEP (Female General and Eldest Princess) and JWQS (Clear and Muddy Loss of Love). but not many others.

Although I just did a search now and found Didn’t Know the General was Female being translated and completed by chichi. The Witch Nichang being translated by leirion. Princess Spare my life, and Eastward Flow. So I’m excited to see there’s more being actively translated now compared to the last time I checked!

I’ve been looking for sci fi gl novels and mystery ones (kind of in the vein of Silent Reading by Priest?) but when i look into larger rec lists on like cnovel sites with rankings its hard for me to figure out which ones are my kinda thing without reading a few chapters and. last time i did that i clicked a modern romance fluff one about college students which is 100% not my thing so i gave up looking that way for a while.

I am very much always open to hear about and gl drama recommendations or novel recommendations! If anyone has them please!

In that post I did I mentioned the ones I knew about. Also like - Pearl Next Door which aired recently, which while its not my kind of thing exactly i Loved how true to life it felt and grounded the characters were and the actors all did <3. And Legend of Yunqian which is short but <3

#replies #ask #anonymous #gl #gl dramas #gl cnovels #ok well. ive heard in the donghua community a lot of love for the fgep novel #and possible rumors it might get a donghua adaptation which #would be really nice i think #it already has a manhua #and i know ive found an audo drama although im not sure if it was fanmade #but theres definitely some vocal interest in some of these gl novels getting adapted #and i think if a few make it big like the untamed #that might push more willingness for teams to try to actually make those stories #although also like. thai dramas and taiwan are already making some #also a shout out to twdrama Bromance which is not a bl or a gl #but baron chen is in it and it handles gender in a very interesting way #its a take on the girl dressed as man except she's lived as a man her whole life #and its sort of like her wanting to identify as a woman? but also not minding continuing to identify as a man #but im only 20 eps in so im not sure how the journey is going yet #but its a nuanced show despite being so kindheartedly light. taiwan has some great dramas #also the cdrama Bureau of Transformer #which features 2 bi leads and one is nonbinary #and it was refreshing i guess seeing a lead i could relate to that way

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veliseraptor · 2 years

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💓, 👀, 👅

Ship that you didn’t expect to ship but now do: 💓

Man, the thing about me is that I'm so incredibly, embarrassingly predictable, including to myself, that I'm almost never surprised by my own ships. Generally speaking it's like. Yep, saw that one coming.

I feel like Mat/Tuon might be sort of an exception, actually? Would not necessarily have expected that one to come for me.

Oh! No, you know what, it is (a) legitimately surprising that Dorothy Dunnett tricked me into getting legitimately emotional about a canon heterosexual ship and (b) frankly incredible that MXTX convinced me to actually really care about a main romantic pairing that's not horrifically dysfunctional! more than once, even. Truly, How Did She Do That. (in fairness, I am more CQL!Wangxian than novel!Wangxian because the dynamic in the former just works for me a bit better, but still, I'm giving her credit anyway.)

I'm not surprised in the cases of JWQS and 2HA about this because those are much more front-facing Dysfunctional with a capital D, so.

Ship that you find most sexy: 👅

Are we talking "most sexy" as in "I find the dynamic most sexy, personally" or "most sexy" as in "I've read the best porn about" because those are sort of distinct in my head.

I feel like I might have to give Songxuexiao the prize on this one actually, because (a) there's a lot of quite good porn for it and (b) it has so many potential sexy dynamics where you can take it in different ways, many of which are very good for me personally.

But if you caught me when I'd been reading some very good Xuexiao or Songxue my answer might change.

I feel like "sexy" in the traditional sense is overall not the first thing I think of when I think of my ships, though, except in the way I'm like "betrayal and deceit and conflicted emotions are sexy" which I feel like is perhaps not in the spirit of this question.

Ship you’re curious about: 👀

Hmm. I'm thinking about this one as, like, ship I want someone to talk me into, and I'm actually having a bit of a hard time thinking of something I really currently don't ship that I'd like someone to get me excited about. Probably there are some and I'm just not thinking of them at the moment.

I guess there are more that it's more like "I have not ventured into reading fic about this and maybe I would like to, if I had more time and motivation to hunt through tags for things", though even those I'm kind of drawing a blank, other than making some kind of concerted search for some of those Jiang Cheng pairings I mentioned being intrigued by in the post the other day.

I'm trying to think of Wheel of Time ships that I might feel this way about, but I fear I may be too set in my ways on this. Although I guess I did come out of my last reread shipping Elan/Min/Rand which was new.

I feel like Moshang is another pairing that I have a very casual interest in but haven't really done a whole lot of concentrated thinking or reading about; maybe that one goes here.

I sort of wonder what's going on with Loki ships these days now that I'm not really paying attention to that fandom, but then again I suspect I don't want to know.

#nikita not nicola #conversating #lise memes

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