alias_sqbr

This is mostly prompt art, thanks to everyone who gave a prompt! Making this post made me realise I forgot to link some earlier works, one of which got TRANSLATED :D

Everything is fanart unless stated otherwise, and has an image description.

My Vow To My Liege, Interviews with Monster Girls, Original Work, What We Do In The Shadows (TV), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Guardian (TV), Horizon: Zero Dawn and Doraemon: Story of Seasons crossover
( Read more... )

Two bits of news about fantasy m/m novels I woke up to this morning:

All three MXTX novels have been licensed in English! That's Scum Villain's Self Saving System, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (upon which The Untamed is based), and Heaven Official's Blessing.

On the plus side this means we'll be getting better translations and can support the author. On the downside it's going to be harder to read any of them in English for the next 3 years until the official translations fully come out. I already have a copy of Heaven Official's Blessing and apparently there's PDFs of the others...around.

‘Valdemar Universe’ Fantasy Book Series In The Works For TV From Kit Williamson, Brittany Cavallaro & Radar Pictures I must admit I didn't really click with the series when I read it but I know a bunch of you are fans, and it will still be pretty cool to see an overtly gay fantasy story on tv.

Fannish links relating to the novels and adaptations of MXTX: MDZS/The Grandmaster of Cultivation/The Untamed, Scum Villain's Self Saving System, TGCF/Heaven Offical's Blessing

The MXTX Tavern: A discord for discussion of all the novels, as well as all the adaptations, for people over 18. So far people are pretty friendly and fun to chat to, and while still leaning young it's less overwhelmingly Actual Teens than the last MXTX-related discord I tried. The MDZS discussion (each book has it's own opt-in channels) has a lot of Untamed content but isn't just about The Untamed, which works for me.

mxtx_bargainbin An exchange where people finish each other's stalled fanfic WIPs based on the novels of MXTX. Run by the MXTX Tavern folk.

MDZS Audiodrama | Drunk Lan Wangji Bathtub Scene Animation using the subtitled audio drama for the dialogue, of the scene where Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's building UST ends in drunken makeouts. Well drawn, romantic, hot, and slightly less overtly dubconny than the novel version.

Youtube then recced me this video of the scene where they actually declare their feelings but it's basically just the audio with subtitles. Which is a pity because I would LOVE to see a version with everyone else's YOU ARE DECLARING YOUR FEELINGS NOW?? faces. I'm not sure how well it works without the rest of the romantic context,

Except, it seems, for MXTX fic where someone motivated by grief/trauma makes the clear, cold-eyed choice to murder or destroy the life of someone they care about. That is apparently my jam?

Previous examples include what's in a name (Heaven's Official's Blessing, He Xuan/Shi Qingxuan) and Love in a Nightless Garden (MDZS, Wen RuoHan/Meng Yao).

The latest example is the final cut (The Untamed, Mo Xuanyu/Nie Huaisang), which worked fine for me as MDZS fic since the relevant plot points are basically the same.
( Read more... )

Since it can get confusing. I've only really read the book, and don't know Chinese, so take everything with a grain of salt.

So!

魔道祖师/Mo Dao Zu Shi is a Chinese fantasy m/m webnovel that came out in 2016. The title is translated as either The Founder of Diabolism or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and a lot of people in English-speaking fandom just call it MDZS.

It has a bunch of adaptations into comics/animation/audio, which generally use the same name. The very popular live action version is called The Untamed.

I personally like the book best, and thanks to censorship it's the only explicitly queer version available in English. But they're all good, and starting one of the visual media, at least for a while, often helps people get their heads around all the characters and sects. Here's a character guide.

That's the basics! But there's more...
( Read more... )

DeviantArt have changed their setup and I can't find the preview images, if they're even still a thing. I'm too lazy to make my own, so it's just text links today!

One fic for Interviews with Monster Girls, original art, and fanart for Labyrinth, Heaven Official's Blessing and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
( Read more... )

Some rambling thoughts, spoilers up to Chapter 71 of the novel and Episode 13 of the animated version. I am quite enjoying both, and finding the contrasts interesting!
( Read more... )

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Founder of Diabolism is a Chinese supernatural m/m wuxia novel (with animated and comic adaptions) The translation is about halfway through and I loved it and waiting for the remaining SIXTY CHAPTERS is going to KILL ME.

It's a VERY slow burn romance between Lan Wangji, a serious minded jedi cultivator/magician, and Wei Wuxian, his frenemy who got kicked out of magic training and accidentally invented being a sith necromancer(*).

Wei Wuxian is completely oblivious to his own attraction to Lan Wangji as well as Lan Wangji's repressed pining and inner monologue of "but why him". The plot is complex and exciting, with lots of fights and plots and supernatural shenanigans, and afaict the adaptations turned the romance into Very Shippy Friendship leading to dudes recommending them with "Ok yes it's originally gay but IT'S REALLY COOL TRUST ME".

It's in the yaoi/slash tradition with a number of the typical character tropes, and the only character who identifies as queer (by ancient Chinese standards) dies tragically before the story starts. There's some sympathetic but tragically dead disabled characters too. The few female characters are mostly treated ok. It manages to barely squeak past my zombie squicks but there's a lot of blood and reanimated corpses.

On the upside the uke is a universally feared necromancer which shakes up the dynamic a little :D Here's his (CORPSE FILLED) introduction.

I am not familiar enough with wuxia to say how it compares to other stuff in that genre but I found it more accessible than others I've tried, possibly because it's a semi-original setting so the politics is simpler than real Chinese history and more is explained.
( More detail, mentions of homophobia and ableism )