tinny

Because those rainbows really work best when viewed as a set, here's my submission for the fourth special round at lgbtrainbow:

I didn't watch many lgbtq+ things that I liked last year, but Heated Rivalry exceeded all my expectations. \o/



( 3 alts )

The current round at retro_icontest is the Icon Crossing round from somein30. I had been working on sets for 2023 and 2024 already, but never finished them. I'm using this round to post those icons I made then, along with the new ones. I also randomized new pairs for 2025 and made new crossover icons for those. As suspected, this was so much fun, and I made a lot more icons than expected. In fact, I don't think I've ever made this many icons for a contest in one month before. Some of them are hilarious crack! :D Luckily, retro_icontest has no upper limit, so here you go:

Enjoy!

05.
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31.
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32.
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( 40+6 icons!! - Lots of Wu Lei PLUS 2 Heated Rivalry, 3 DMBJ, 2 Zhu Yilong, 1 Guardian, and 1 Bai Yu )

Comments are love - and concrit, too. <3 Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. Texture and brush makers: here in my resource post.


Previous icon posts:

I was way more tired after the holiday vacation than I had hoped. But I had time and energy to watch a few things:

TV finished

Nothing, lol.

TV new (ongoing)

The first eight eps of The Company (8/30), a cdrama about a time-traveler from the future (his tardis is an antique shop, but otherwise... even his face reminds me of David Tennant). It looked fun from the trailer, and even though the first episode threw me off a little with weird pacing and repetitive humor, it also sets the two male leads up as eternal lovers, and I still can't shake that feeling even after eight eps. I think both pacing and humor improved from there, and I think I've figured out the structure of the show, and for now it's one I like? I don't think this is spoilery at all, because I'm not far in, but I will cut it anyway.

what i think this show is about

It seems to be a string of romance-of-the-week cases that all more or less echo the ML's life (and partnership with the other ML). It's quite neatly done, the fact that he caused all those disruptions in the timestream with his obsession over the death of his lover friend, and now all those artefacts are in the hands of other loving couples and he has to fix them, all the while knowing that he would do (and has done) the exact opposite of what he's now supposed to do. For love. I do like the relationship between the two male leads, too. One of them pretends to be all high and mighty but really is the biggest fool for love, as evidenced by the whole artefact mess, and the other is playful and openly romantic, and the combination is just very cute. I love me some unreliable narrators when it's all about feelings, and Bi Zhi is peak unreliable. He finally, in ep 6, got the idea to use his all-knowing time machine to find out the other's origins once and for all, i.e. whether he's his long-lost lover or not, and he said he's not emotionally ready. Heeee. I buy that!

Anyway, I liked all the artefact cases so far, there was finally some timey-wimey-ness, and I will continue watching. It's on viki.



Someone on c_ent mentioned the Cross-Dressed Union, and it drew me in almost exclusively for a while. It's a costume drama about a man who's disguised as a woman who has to marry a woman disguised as a man. It's a new enough take on an old idea that I found it intriguing. The quality is middling, especially the sound is full of background noises sometimes, but the subs are decent (except for the gender shenanigans, they get those only about 50/50 right). There are 24 half-hour episodes, and I'm now on ep 18 and adore both leads. They get the secrets out of the way fast (like by ep 4), and from then on they seem to be smitten with each other. I just enjoy the way they smile at each other. So cute. (I skip all the politics, and so far have not regretted it.) It got a bit too sappy for me in the middle, and I lost interest what with the grasslands tribes sidequest. But as long as the leads are in the same scene together I'm happy (sappiness or not), and I'll likely watch the rest of it soon. It's on youtube.



Bridgerton Season 4! It's been two years since season 3, so this goes under "new". :D Watchalong-ing that one. I hope they'll manage to make it more interesting than the book was. It's Benedict's book, and I'm never a fan of Cinderella retellings. So far I've seen one episode and am planning on keeping a one-a-week schedule for the first half-season. That first ep was very sumptuous, the ball room looked much better than it had any right to :D, very much like a fairy tale, which fits the theme I guess. My favorite parts were the Queen being unreasonable as always, Eloise, and Penelope in her excellent pirate costume. (Note that neither Benedict nor Sophie make my list. Sophie is too new, I think. I don't dislike her like I do Benedict.) Fwiw, I did like what they let Benedict do before he came to the ball. Better a little fanservice than no fanservice. On Netflix.

TV continued

Still The Long Ballad (47/49), and I still don't want it to end. I watched exactly one ep in very small parts throughout the month and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Love on the Turquoise Land (28/32) - I watched eleven eps of that this month O_O, and I'm not even skipping anything, the pacing is all good. Once I got over my "omg these vampires are so illogical" reaction, I really started enjoying it, and am just cackling at them by this point. The small moments are still what make this show for me, the lead couple are great together.

mildly spoilery details

She goes to a sword fight with a waterproof (blood-repellent?) sacrificial robe omg! :DD The subterfuge in those middle eps is amazing. They meet in a restaurant, carrying on two completely unrelated conversations! Something I haven't seen done since the old 1960s British crime capers. There was a torture scene I really could have done without, but I enjoyed the kidnapping plot line quite a lot, and I warmed up to the doctor and sister characters. The vampire hunters are now moving towards the final confrontation, and that part is a bit... um... ridiculous again. Weird riddles that apparently none of the hunters bothered to memorize, long treks through the woods, a living mountain which is really icky (but cool!), and the vampires being as overdramatic as ever. The romance made a tiny little step forward, and I really like their relationship, but I had expected a bit more sexytimes than I got (which is none).

I am looking forward to the ending, I really enjoy the show despite its ridiculousness. It's on viki.

Our Times (03/38), the 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama with Wu Lei and Hou Minghao. I lied apparently misremembered last month when I said I was on episode 3. I only watched that episode yesterday. Oh, well. I enjoyed it, the retro vibe is wonderful, and old computers are an interest of mine, so that's also a point in its favor. Wu Lei plays an overconfident idiot, I'm here for that, too. And the bromance between him and Hou Minghao's character is strong. It's on wetv and youtube.

TV (dropped)

I'd really been planning on finishing A Moment But Forever, let's see if that's still happening. I made it to ep 27 in November and nothing since.

I started The Demon-Hunters Romance and watched five episodes. While I like the idea of it, and the demons were both good and bad and extremely different in size and shape, the character details put me off. Too many identical demon fights (the same demon is fought more than once too), relatively one-note secondary characters (her cousin and his nemesis, the policeman), both leads have stupid sidekicks, and both leads love to not speak up when asked (even when they were clamoring for attention a second earlier), instead they just pout and make the other run after them. So annoying! I gave up. It's on youtube with French hardsubs (and English softsubs).

Another mention from c_ent: Angry Wind, a modern cdrama with some kind of time-skip. I tried only the first ep, so I didn't quite understand what it's about. The quality reminds me of early 80s Hong Kong action movies, and the sound is really bad. It has a long-haired ML, but he's so much not my type that even the long hair isn't helping. The first eps are on youtube, but I'm not sure how many are (there is no playlist), and the rest is on wetv.

Not quite dropped, but also not really picked up: I started both Shine on Me and Riverside Code at QingMing, about 20 minutes each, and did not get the appeal of either. I will likely try a bit more of both before I give up, though.

Movies

On maggie33's repeated rec, I finally managed to find the movie Upcoming Summer with Wu Lei and Zhang Zifeng (it's on Netflix), and fell in love. With Wu Lei. Again. :D What a wonderful movie. It's a coming-of-age movie, and as such fleeting and bittersweet. The leads are crying *a lot*. I loved it. The ending is a bit abrupt, some things I would have loved to know more about, but most things are explained, and you know that this was just a glimpse into their lives and an important step in their journey of growing up. It does get its message across beautifully, so I don't mind the ending too much. There's one big reveal very near the end that is easy to miss and very unexpected, and it made me rewatch almost the whole movie again the next day, and I'm still not quite free of it even now. I'll likely write up a review.

Rewatches/Watchalongs

The Nothing But You watchalong is now on ep 15 (*sobs*). They are so adorable, even this early on. This watchalong is so much fun. <3

We're going to split our time between that and Bridgerton for the next four weeks, though. I haven't seen the new season yet, and it's unusual for me to do a watchalong for something I haven't seen. But we'll see how it goes.

The When A Snail Falls in Love watchalong is almost done, only two eps left. Omg those last eps really drop the ball on the logic big time. Much better than Parallel World, we both agree, but I think we'll be happy once it's done.

Because I haven't finished any more Wu Lei dramas yet, and like looking at my ~800 pics of Wu Lei a lot, I'm starting another type of Wu Lei picspam, featuring different looks of his. This first one: all pics in which he looks ethereal, tall and thin.

Other Wu Lei picspams so far: Nothing But You, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love

All 53 pics separately downloadable in full size from this gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/696GW6J

or in one zip file here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/yfdnfrt9a350nwq/wulei_picspam_elf.zip

Enjoy!



( 52 more )

I've made 19 icons from these (or ones from the same photoshoots) so far:

( 15 more )

This set took me much longer than it should have, considering this is my fave pairing right now. But once I sat down to finish it, I had fun again! It's for round 04 at ships20in20.

Enjoy!

Teasers:


( 20+3 icons of Ashile Sun and Li Changge from The Long Ballad )

Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.

Previous icon posts:

Heated Rivalry dominated December:

TV finished

Heated Rivalry! It was so good! It's on HBO Max and Crave. I really liked the first two episodes, there was a ton of sex, and other people much more eloquently explained why that's not a bad thing: the sex is the plot!
I hated ep three, depriving me of the main pairing I love, but I see how it's necessary as context for later episodes. Since I knew that going in, I waited until I was ready for it and just treated it like a different show. That worked for me. I loved the last three episodes again, there was a ton of romance. *A lot* of thought went into the show, and it's all intentional, and that's such a change from the things I usually watch where I rant at the writing all the time. Here, there's almost nothing to rant at. Plus, it's pretty much exactly what I'm most looking for in a tv show: m/m sex and m/m romance. \o/ I will probably read some of the books this year, and likely write up a review for the show if I find the time.

For now, let me direct you to

* my friend machinistm's heated rivalry tag
* the heated rivalry comm gamechangerhr
* the hockey podcast "What Chaos!" reacting to every single episode with genuine enthusiasm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us7Pok5nDRc

TV new (ongoing)

Love on the Turquoise Land (17/32) - a modern fantasy/horror cdrama with Dilraba Dilmurat as a mystical sword fighter. I started watching for her, and by now probably would still be watching even if she wasn't on it. It's ... not good, exactly, but I love it anyway? I got over halfway through it in a few weeks. The horror aspect is not my thing at all, but it was only strong in the first episodes, and after that it started focusing more on vampire rituals and a general good vs evil fight and the horror took a backseat. I'm happy with that! I am very much enjoying Dilraba's actual voice (yay! she doesn't usually get to dub herself! This is cool!) and seeing her fight monsters. I am ranting at how illogical all the vampire lore is (they're called Earth Fiends but everything screams vampire to me), but fwiw once you disengage your science brain, it's fine. Giving the vastly overpowered FL a damsel-in-distress moment made me grit my teeth, but it did lead to the ML taking care of her for three eps straight, and I am not complaining about that at all. The character interactions are really good! I love the fighting, bantering, h/c, and budding romance between the ML and FL. The central mystery sounds interesting, and even though I don't trust the book author (who also wrote Parallel World) to plot herself out of a wet paper bag, the plot seems to hold together so far. Since Heated Rivalry has finished, this is the show I'm most motivated to watch right now. It's on viki.


Our Times (03/38), a 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama with Wu Lei and Hou Minghao. The costumes are amazing (bell bottom jeans and corduroy jackets galore), and I really am enjoying the retroness of it all, especially the way the cut scenes are interspersed with actual old footage from Chinese cities, e.g. the construction of the tower in Shanghai. I immediately imprinted on Wu Lei's character (who is a bit of an arrogant asshole but gets beaten up twice in the first episode woah, see another cap). I only watched three eps so far, but liked those a lot. The only downside is that the show triggers my embarrassment squick (they are so incompetent as computer salesmen omg!), so I have to go through it slowly with many breaks. We'll see. It's on wetv and youtube.

TV continued

Still The Long Ballad (43/48), I don't want it to end. omg why do I love this show so much? I haven't loved a historical cdrama this much since Lost You Forever. Whenever Ashile Sun is on screen I go awwwwww. I'll enjoy the rest of the drama at a slow pace, while it continues to give me life. <3

I haven't dropped A Moment But Forever yet, but also haven't watched a whole ep this month.

TV (dropped)

I got halfway through Love at Night, and once the leads got together, which always makes me happy and is the main reason I watch anything, I immediately lost my motivation to continue, lol. I guess it just wasn't otherwise good enough. I might pick it up again, once I'm done with Turquoise Land? Maybe? I'm not holding my breath, though.

I realized that To My Shore is airing now, a Chinese BL (one of those sneaky international China-Thailand co-productions), and I watched half an ep, but I think it's too dark for me. For whatever reason, they keep picking the non-con ones to produce. *sigh* I prefer my romance consensual.

Extraordinary, a shorty cdrama with 20 15-min episodes about a computer nerd who transmigrates into a playboy in the past and basically transforms his family into the richest family around using his modern knowledge of business and weaponry. There's a cross-dressing FL (who he immediately sees through, lol), but otherwise it's mostly comedy of the type I'm not too fond of, and I dropped it again after a few eps.

Rewatches/Watchalongs

The HPI watchalong finished season 5. Unfortunately, there are no subs (yet) except French ones. We tried auto-translated English ones *once* and then decided that French will have to do. We enjoyed it very much but now it's over. *sob*

We started Nothing But You after that. Now on episode 6 already, we're going through it fast because we don't want to spend a year on it. So far looking good in the *show everyone how good this cdrama is* department. \o/

Still watchalong-ing When A Snail Falls in Love with my other friend, and will move on to Nothing But You after that as well.

I had expected the first Snowflake Challenge to be "update your intro", so I did that. :D It wasn't quite that, though. The first part of the challenge was "introduce yourself", so I guess close enough. :D Snapshot of my current dw profile page:



I only updated the icon comms and changed a few icons in the color bars. Nothing much new, really.


The second part was "why do you do the challenge and what you you hope to gain from it"? Idk? I'll just see which challenges speak to me and then I do them. I did this in previous years as well, and it suits me fine. I usually just pick a few challenges that I like, no more than five, usually, and then I do those.

Here's my post from 2025: challenges 2-6 challenges 14+ and my own

Here's my post from 2024: only challenge 5, the icon scavenger hunt

Here's my post from 2023: challenges 5-10, 12 and 13

Lets see what this year brings, shall we? :D



What I'll also do this year is try and think about my creative process, and there's a new comm for that:


cultivativity

I'm looking forward to this, too!

Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovich
Rivers of London #07

Peter uncovers clues that the Faceless Man Martin Chorley is executing the final stages of a long-term plan rooted in London's two thousand bloody years of history.

thoughts - slightly spoilery

* I still like Peter's POV, although in some scenes he's still a little bit too naive considering all the things he's seen.

* What I liked a lot is that he doesn't always react ideally in tense/dangerous situations. I found that very realistic.

* I'm not quite sure what to think about the psychological stuff, the colleague who needed counseling after working with Peter, etc. I guess it's a good thing to be mentioned seven installments into a series, but Peter is still being very cavalier about it.

* I really liked how he went back to talk to the river, by making a sacrifice to the Mother, which he (not quite but mostly) knew how to do, which makes sense because he really knows a lot about the rivers by now. She accepted it because she knows and likes him and knows it was given in the right spirit. He still gets important parts wrong and almost suffocates in the process, angering the sewer authority friend he persuaded to let him go into the sewers alone, against regulations. All of this was just hilarious.

* I very much liked all the conflicts he had with Leslie in this book. Her motives are discussed, and they very uncomfortably reminded me of typical reactionary views. Which is kind of a pity, because Peter is often wrong with his quick judgements, and it would have been fitting to have him be wrong about Leslie, but I don't think he was.

* I also very much liked the fairy he found in his cell, and that she's related to Molly. That was so heartwarming and cute!

* There wasn't all that much about his immediate family (neither his parents nor Beverly), but what there was was cute, too. And some of it thought-provoking, because he apparently had never thought about the fact that Beverly is very very old and he is not, and what consequences that will have on a relationship. The Old Man and his wife were setting an interesting example there (and an option for the god to make his lover somewhat immortal).

* I'm not sure what happened with Mr. Punch in the end, and why it even worked. So I guess the main plotline of the book somewhat escaped me. Oops.

4 stars - very quick read as usual, and some things I really liked and hadn't expected



Because I forgot to take this draft with me on vacation, I'm posting it after the reviews for books 8 and 9, so this is the last post for my 2025 Mount TBR challenge. I failed it by three books. /o\ I blame work for this, and I hope that will be less stressful in 2026.

I was trying to catch up at the end, and got to "almost two" - if those had been the last two, I would have made an effort to finish them both. As it was, even that would not have helped, so I wasn't motivated to do that. Those will be the first books of 2026, then, since I've already started both of them.

1 - 5 stars - Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Final Architecture #1 [DW link]
2 - 2 stars - Miss Merkel: Mord auf dem Friedhof by David Safier Miss Merkel #2 [DW link]
3 - 4 stars - Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire Toby Daye #10 [DW link]
4 - 1 star - Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin [DW link]
5 - 5 stars - Murderbot Diaries 1-4 by Martha Wells [DW link]
6 - 4 stars - Die Neuerfindung der Diktatur/We Have Been Harmonized by Kai Strittmatter [DW link]
7 - 4 stars - Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovich Rivers of London #07 [DW link]
8 - 3 stars - Der Markisenmann by Jan Weiler [DW link]
9 - 3 stars - The Village Teacher by Liu Cixin [Graphic Novel by Zhang Xiaoyu] [DW link]

In order of obsession, best first. Rec posts linked from the show titles:

HPI (Haut Potentiel Intellectuel) 2x07 - 5x08 ✔ 💖💖💖 - OMG I fell so hard for this show in January. I love Morgane, highly intelligent and very chaotic mother of three (now four). And I love Commandant Karadec, who can't help falling in love with her, despite her constantly turning his world upside down. Season five - the last season - aired in May and September and I watched it as it aired. It was wonderful! I want more hearts. :D I created a comm for it with all my icons: hpi_tv

Nothing But You 38 episodes ✔ 💖💖💖 - this is a noona romance cdrama set in the world of sports: between a professional badminton player who later switches to tennis (Wu Lei - you might know him from Nirvana in Fire, or maybe from Sand Sea) and a sports company sales person/executive assistant (Zhou Yutong). He's 22, she's 32, and basically the whole obstacle to their relationship is that she thinks he's too young for her. That sustains the tension for a very long time indeed. :D I personally find both of them very cute (and I say that as someone who was indifferent to Wu Lei's looks before). You can watch it on Viki (or youtube but the viki subs are much better). This show surprised me a lot and made me fannish in ways I'd not been before - certainly not for a cdrama or actor since Guardian (in 2018). Wow.

Heated Rivalry season 1 (8 eps) ✔ 💖💖💖 - OMG the Internet was right for once: this show is nigh perfect. It's a gay romance between two hockey players, based on the first two books of a romance novel series. The first four eps have all the sex, and all the plot/relationship development is told through sex, and it's so well done omg even my bubble - who are experts on romance and how to write it well - is all head over heels with how well done it is, and the last two eps have all the romantic payoff.

The Long Ballad 44 of 49 eps 💖💖 - The next Wu Lei costume drama, from 2021, starring him as a young general from the grasslands, and Dilraba Dilmurat as the titular Changge. OMG why did nobody tell me that this has a) a cross-dressing FL and b) Wu Lei in "barbarian" braids? I am smitten. The storytelling is quite good, too, the characters are all flawed in different ways, and the action isn't quite as ott tropey as on other shows. Still plenty, the ML has to save the FL again and again, all the usual tropes are there, but she also has agency and gets stuff done on her own. Once I got over the fact that it's obviously cast with only young idol actors who are too young for their roles (especially Wu Lei omg - he was 20!), I enjoyed it immensely. It's more of a growing-up tale for both leads than a torrid romance at first, but the romance really steps up towards the end, and I loved it. This drama unfortunately has no kisses between the leads (I blame Wu Lei's contract), but their love is so pure I didn't mind too much. I also grew fond of the second FL (played by Zhao Lusi). It's free on youtube or on viki.

Amidst a Snowstorm of Love 30 eps ✔ 💖💖 - a 2024 cdrama starring Wu Lei and Zhao Jinmai as successful (i.e. impossibly competent) billiard players. It's on viki. It was filmed in Finland, replete with lots of night scenes and snow everywhere. It's based on a webnovel by MBFB, the same author who wrote Love Me Love My Voice, which was so low on drama it verged on boring, but I sat through the whole thing last year. Wu Lei's subtle expressions held my attention here too (and he's soooo pretty), but his character is the older one in the relationship, and he's very stoic, which just isn't Wu Lei. (Which is funny because the leads are the same age and they both said that this made the shoot easy for them because they got along very well, and oh god the bts are so cute, they are so playful with each other!) There are some tropes I don't like and recognize as typical for the author, which dampened my enjoyment of the drama somewhat. Overall, I'm in two minds about the drama, because I always somehow expected more from it than it gave me, but otoh it wasn't *bad*. The romance was very sweet most of the time, and I liked the many kisses especially.

North of North season 1 (8 eps) ✔ 💖💖 - a very female comedy series, most of the characters and all producers are women, a series made by Inuk people about Inuk people, filmed on location *very far North*. I love all the characters, the humor is wonderful, and even the embarrassing foot-in-mouth moments are played with so much love and charm that they don't feel squicky. On Netflix now.

So those were the OMG ones. Here's the rest:

Doctor Odyssey 1x09 - 1x18 ✔ 💖💖
The Pitt season 1 ✔ 💖💖
Murderbot season 1 ✔ 💖💖
Love on the Turquoise Land 1-15 of 32 💖
We are Lady Parts 2x04 💖
A Moment But Forever 1-27 of 36 eps 💖
Mann/Frau 2 seasons (40 eps) ✔ 💖
Tout Va Bien all 8 episodes ✔ 💖
When it rains, it pours 7 episodes ✔ 💖
Will Love in Spring 21 episodes ✔ 💖
Phineas and Ferb 5x01 - 5x13 of 25 💖
Somebody Somewhere 2x04 - 2x08 💖
High Potential 1x05 - 1x12 ✔
Severance 1x01 - 1x04
Under the Skin 2x01 - 2x02
Saint Pierre 1-10 (season 1) ✔
A Dream Within a Dream 1-5 of 40
Couples season 1 ✔
Love at Night 1-16 of 30 eps

these in more detail under here

Doctor Odyssey 1x09 - 1x18 ✔ 💖💖 - Shark Attack! Throuple Show! Ryan Murphy Go! Go! Go! At first, I was happy that they solved the pregnancy storyline in the to me most palatable way, but the ending just ripped all my happiness about the show from me. Everyone in the fandom suspects network interference. Boo. Sorry, Ryan Murphy. You deserve better.

The Pitt season 1 ✔ 💖💖 - Noah Wyle in another very realistic ER show! \o/ The setup with the whole season only covering one single day isn't quite my cup of tea, but 100/100 for nostalgic Noah Wyle love. The camerawork makes me nauseous, and they gave themselves a little artistic license when it came to how much time they had to give most cases closure, but otherwise everything was hyper realistic and I thought it rocked. The last few episodes were so tense and action-packed, I was vibrating out of my skin watching them.

Murderbot season 1 ✔ 💖💖 - I really like the adaptation, except for two kinda major things: 1) Murderbot in my mind is not a white male. 2) Murderbot specifically and explicitly says that it doesn't like sex/romance and they added more sex/romance to the show than there was in the books why exactly? To piss off Murderbot more? Apart from that, it's really well done, the special effects are great, it had great character development, good novel-divergent choices in service of telling us more about Murderbot's character, and they really stuck the landing. You can watch it on Apple or where I live it's on Disney+.

Love on the Turquoise Land 1-15 of 32 💖 - cdrama with Dilraba Dilmurat and Chen Xingxu fighting evil creatures in a modern fantasy drama, written by the same author as Parallel World. I am ranting at how illogical all the vampire lore is (they're called Earth Fiends but everything screams vampire to me), and the setup of the two competing groups (vampires and hunters) is also riddled with logic holes. It starts out as horror, but later tones down on that in favor of weird rituals and ...romance! The character interactions are really good! I love the bantering (and fighting) between the ML and FL. The little moments really are what make this show for me, and I'm going to stick with it for the romance.

We are Lady Parts 2x04 💖 - especially loved Bisma's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. Awesome.

A Moment But Forever 1-25 of 36 eps 💖 - a period xianxia cdrama that AvenueX recced. It's so over-the-top magical, with lots of very esoteric locations and sparkly visual effects that I am honestly charmed. I can't say I like the ML's looks much (he's played by Liu Xueyi), but he has a nice and natural laugh. The humor is mostly subtle and underplayed, which I generally like. It bored me a bit in the middle there (eps 8-13), but then the ML slowly starts to a) clue in to the FL's actual identity (she's a goddess but is forbidden from telling him) and b) fall for her, so it got a bit more interesting again. The humor devolved into more ridiculousness, but still watchable. I really liked the arc where she has to walk through his subconscious: lots of dream sequences and magic fights, and finally the ML gets a bit of face acting to do (he has to be mostly stoic otherwise). I'm enjoying it for the magic and beautiful scenery/creatures, so I don't mind that the romance is glacially slow so far. I'm enjoying it for the romance, the silly xianxia magic, and the steampunk craftsmanship. It's only on iqiyi.

Mann/Frau 2 seasons (40 eps) ✔ 💖 - a German production from 2014, made by Christian Ulmen, who either must like Mehdi Nebbou's acting or is simply friends with him (because this whole thing is cast with Ulmen's friends and family). A very funny series of five-minute episodes, alternating between a man and a woman and their relationship stories. Fun and quirky and often indecent. They're here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW1jZkw2X40Gl3IlZp_3c5bTfRp07Qi45 . I like it better than Couples.

Tout Va Bien all 8 episodes ✔ 💖 - a show I would not have watched if it hadn't had Mehdi Nebbou in it - but it deserves watching! It's much too serious subject matter for me - a family deals with the leukemia of their child - but it is so extremely well done omg. I did not like the last episode, it deprived us of a very much needed katharsis. But I do recommend the first seven eps for when you feel up to looking at how people deal with terrible situations. Despite all the pain, Mehdi Nebbou is very cute in it (and dead sexy).

When it rains, it pours 7 episodes ✔ 💖 - a Japanese BL on Viki - Hagiwara lives in a frustrating sexless relationship with his girlfriend, while his colleague Sei lives with his best friend from childhood on whom he has an unrequited crush. They connect via a wrongly addressed email, and start confessing their problems to each other. There's a lot of talk about sex, which surprised me - it's very blunt and honest for a Japanese drama. There's also actual sex, and I really enjoyed the sex-first-romance-later plot here. Both characters are interesting, and I found the actor who played Hagiwara, Muto Jun, especially good/attractive. CW for rape and infidelity.

Will Love in Spring 21 episodes ✔ 💖 - a romance cdrama from 2024, starring Li Xian and Zhou Yutong (who was in Nothing But You, and I'm now going through her back catalogue). He's an embalmer who tries to see everything in life with equanimity and calm after getting into lots of fights in his youth and feeling responsible for his best friend's death. She's a successful sales person and workaholic who was in a car accident when she was 12, where her father died and she lost a leg. The story is very sweetly told, with lots of flashbacks and non-linear cuts. I liked it overall, although the miscommunication between the leads got on my nerves, as well as the sometimes preachy dialogue about life and death from all characters. CW for death, since that's the theme of the show and some important people die. Last but not least: it gets extra points for having an actually hot sex scene - that's probably a first for a het cdrama. There are very many happy/cuddly/kiss scenes, too.

Phineas and Ferb 5x01 - 5x13 of 25 💖 - a new season after a break of 13 years(!). I'd never watched this in English before (only ever dubbed on TV), but I got used to it. I still really enjoy it, they kept it fresh, the humor doesn't get old.

Somebody Somewhere 2x04 - 2x08 💖 - I thought they glossed over the conflict between Joel and Sam a bit too quickly, but I really loved Tricia this season.

High Potential 1x05 - 1x12 ✔ - Residual fannishness because I love HPI so much, and this somehow feels like a viable ersatz drug. I grew to like the characters, and especially, unexpectedly, the chief, Selena Soto. I passed on season 2, though.

Severance 1x01 - 1x04 - Psychological thriller and dystopic bureaucracy, oi! I found it a little too scary in places, but otherwise really well done, with very laconic humor.

Under the Skin season 2 2x01-2x02 - the second season of the imho best police procedural cdrama, Under The Skin, starring Tan Jianci and Jin Shijia. It was too dark/tense for me this year with work sapping all of my energy. So I couldn't watch it, but it's still on my list.

Saint Pierre 1-10 (season 1) ✔ - Another attempt at more French, but there's barely any. :D A Newfoundland police detective has to lay low after a media scandal, and the farthest thing his boss can come up with is the French overseas territory of Saint Pierre et Michelon (which is right next to Newfoundland - which I did not know). They do speak French there, but the show has no more than half a dozen sentences of French per ep, everything else is English. I didn't know Allan Hawco before, who came up with, wrote, and produced the show, and also stars in it, but apparently this is not the first time he's done something like this (see Republic of Doyle below) - and he's good at it. :D Although I didn't like the way they explained the plot for dummies in some of the episodes. I guess I'm a bit spoiled by HPI, idk? It got on my nerves. Apart from that, the characters are interesting, a lot of them are black/minorities, and the acting is good, too. I also like that they're less trigger-happy than their US equivalents. Weirdly, even though it didn't grip me at the time (I blame the lack of romance?), this show has been on my mind a lot even months after I've watched it. I am looking forward to season 2. Oh, and there was a guest appearance by David Hewlett in ep 4, if anyone cares.

A Dream Within a Dream 1-3 of ?? - a funny costume cdrama parody, where an actress transmigrates into the script of the show she's about to film. She's trying to live the good life while the script forces her into impossible situations time and again. A lot of these are 1:1 persiflages of scenes from popular cdramas, and they're hilarious. Finally a cdrama whose humor I like. I haven't seen enough of it to really judge it, but so far I like it a lot.

Couples season 1 ✔ - a German Arte production that takes a humorous look at couples, and it's set up like conversations with a therapist. Each couple only gets five minutes or so, and there are only ten couples in the first season, so it's a very short watch. Some of them are... ehhh questionable, but I liked them overall. You can watch them all on youtube (in German): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjqdif7wT03ds2d06O0JnIIXgjrsBiNRZ

Love at Night 1-16 of 30 eps - on viki, because I wanted to see if Liu Xueyi (the ML in A Moment But Forever) is any good at modern drama, but the drama itself is... mediocre. He's... also mediocre so far? Zhang Yuxi is his FL, and I really like her acting. His is... well. His mannerisms are pretty natural? I liked that about him in AMBF as well, but I'm not sure it's enough. But the story OMG the story is so bad. I was delighted to see an actress (Zhao Yuanyuan) from When A Snail Falls in Love as the 2FL, and in true cdrama fashion she looks not a day older than she did in 2016. I am still watching this (now on ep 16 of 30) and still finding it preposterous. But my brain is gone (I blame work), so silly things are all I can watch right now. Oh, and I learned that Liu Xueyi played Xiao Hua in TLT2 (which I haven't seen).

Things I only looked at for a bit and might come back to later (in alphabetical order):

Bon appetit your majesty
Dark Winds
Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent)
Glass Heart
Go Ahead
Kaamelott
Maxton Hall
Melancholia
Our Times
Remembrance of Things Past

details for these things I will hopefully continue in the future

Bon appetit your majesty - I got through ep one, typical kdrama length of over an hour, so that's not as little as it sounds. So far hasn't gripped me, but I'm willing to try.

Dark Winds 1x02 - I loved John Hillerman's novels, and I loved this, too. I really want to continue this sometime.

Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) 1-4 of 24(?) - In my attempt to immerse myself in more French, I started this Netflix show about a Parisian talent agency. I was fully expecting not to know a single one of the French actors who star as themselves (a different one each episode), but then Audrey Fleurot turns up in ep 4! LOL! I like it so far - the characters are all distinctive, if not all eminently likeable. But likeable enough for now. I'll keep watching.

I started Glass Heart on Netflix, the Japanese "drummer girl joins a band" thing which friends have recced to me as nice romance and found family. So far I think it's nice, the FL is interesting, and the music is great, and there's lots of rain with beautiful imagery, and a genius composer who I'm not quite sure about whether I like him or not yet. I've only seen a little over half an ep (of 10). I'm too stressed (back at work after my vacation) to have a long attention span :( but I'll definitely try to continue that show.

Go Ahead - a cdrama with Tu Songyan, who played Song Sanchuan's father in Nothing But You. Looks a little too high school for me? But a friend recced it, so I might watch it at some point.

Kaamelott 1-15 of (many many) - notorious French show from the early 00s that permeates French pop culture. It reminds me a little of Little Britain or of Monty Python's Holy Grail. The humor is a little flat for me (or maybe it's just that I'm not French and watching it with subs loses a lot too), but maybe I haven't gotten into it far enough yet. There's *a lot* of it. Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXzt21wguxoJGo7TFBXNRgw

Maxton Hall season 2 came out in November, but I'm a bit hesitant because the lead actor said that it was pretty dark and he had a hard time filming it. I actually made it about ten minutes in before it got too tense for my current state. Maybe later.

Melancholia 1 ep - noona kdrama with a maths genius student and his teacher (apparently the romance only starts after he's no longer her student but I didn't get very far in). Looks interesting.

Our Times 1-3 of 32 episodes - Wu Lei (and Hou Minghao) in a 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama. The costumes are amazing (bell bottom jeans and corduroy jackets galore), and I have immediately imprinted on Wu Lei's character (who is a bit of an arrogant asshole but gets beaten up twice in the first episode woah). I really am enjoying the retroness of it all, especially the way the cut scenes are interspersed with actual old footage from Chinese cities, e.g. the construction of the tower in Shanghai. The only downside is that the show triggers my embarrassment squick (they are so incompetent as computer salesmen omg!), so I have to go through it slowly with many breaks.

Remembrance of Things Past - a short cdrama with Zhou Yutong, there's a suicide right in the beginning of the first episode, which I didn't feel up to this year. Maybe later.

...Last and very much least (also in alphabetical order):

Things I did not like/tired of

Etoile 2 eps - A show about two ballet theatres, one in New York and one in Paris. I love the pervasive bilingual setup, almost all the characters speak English and French and code-switch a lot. But that's the only positive thing I have to say about that. I hated pretty much all the characters on sight.

Everlasting Longing 1-11 of ?? - Another random period cdrama, starring Angelababy crossdressing as a merchant son, and Song Weilong as a foreign prince and her love interest. It promises to be terrible, but omg they're all wearing those beautiful hair ornaments. Not the usual metal Ming things, but beads and animal teeth and feathers. I assume their goal was to make them look "Barbarian", and I did not expect to love that look so much! I don't need another terrible cdrama. /o\

Filter 1-5 of ?? - Tan Jianci's current modern romance show, about a girl who gets a magic bracelet that can change her appearance, and of course her crush falls in love with the beautiful version of her and hates the regular one. I really really wanted to like this, especially because it stars Tan Jianci, but... uuuugh.

I started Love's Ambition mostly despite myself. It's also a relatively tense modern romance drama starring William Chen and Zhao Lusi - her last one to date. Who knows if she'll make any more dramas. The first episode sets her up as something of a con artist, faking her way into a marriage with the man of her dreams. I'm thinking what could save it would be if he'll turn out to be just as fake as she is, but it's way too early to tell. I only watched two eps and then stopped, because it wasn't gripping me. I don't think I want to invest my time into 30+ eps (unless I develop a Zhao Lusi craving).

Love Like The Galaxy 56 eps! ✔ - Wu Lei and Zhao Lusi in a very popular costume cdrama. This one is very hard to quantify, because I *hated* it but I was so obsessed with Wu Lei when I watched it that I actually made it through the whole thing in a month. I don't regret watching it, at the same time I was ranting to all my friends about how terrible it is, all while it managed to inspire me more than a lot of other things on this list. It's all very weird. The comic relief characters were annoying, the enemies were mean for the sake of being mean, the main characters were also mean more often than I'd like, the damsel in distress moments were repetitive and visible from miles away, the main romance was so tragic the ending felt fake. The last thing I want to do is rec this, so please do yourself a favor and don't watch it.

Love Scout 1-4 of ?? - an office romance kdrama. I hated the first episode, but liked the second. I liked the genderswapped setup with her being the workaholic boss and him being the doting father and secretary, but found eps 3 and 4 very meh, especially the secondary characters (and contenders for affection of the leads), so I stopped watching.

My Youth 1-5 of 12 - a kdrama with typical long episodes, so the 12 eps are making it sound shorter than it is. It stars Song Joong Ki, who I've liked in Sungkyunkwan Scandal and Vincenzo. He's good in this, too, but... eh. I thought it was a romance (because it is advertised as such!), but... mostly it kept foreshadowing tragedy. If you like your romances tragic, go for it. I didn't wait around to find out. It's well done and beautifully filmed, very slow, glowy, and emotional.

Parallel World 20-38 of 38 eps ✔ - Also called "West of Yumen", this tomb-robbing adventure starring Bai Yu and Ni Ni started out very promisingly and has a kick-ass female main character. After the first third, the story slowly started to unravel, and not in a good way. The worldbuilding devolved into weird unconnected monster-of-the-week appearances, the main relationship made me cringe. I still really like the female lead, but I lost all motivation to continue it. The watchalong made me finish it, but we ranted at it for the whole second half, it was so illogical.

Republic of Doyle 2 eps - I started this because I came to like Allan Hawco who wrote, produced, and starred in both this show and St Pierre (see above). Here he's a bumbling private detective who constantly gets picked on by his mother and his ex-cop father. It has a very retro 80s vibe. Unfortunately, I could not stand the main character's completely unwarranted self-confidence and his inappropriate behavior towards his love interest starting from the first time he even sees her.

Starlit Bloom is a short noona romance cdrama - 24 eps of about 12 minutes pure running time (without intro/trailer). It's cheaply made compared to the things I usually watch but not as cheap as some old Z1L stuff (*cough*). The acting is so-so, the dubbing is meh, and the story is one long trope. But it's short, so... who cares. It's about a young second-generation rich guy who falls in love with a female entrepreneur. I like the noona aspects, and I hate all the tropes, the usual. It's nothing special, but the worst thing is the ending: they simply stopped in the middle of the final confrontation, so there is no actual ending. wtf. It's on viki and youtube.

To My Shore - a Chinese BL (one of those sneaky international China-Thailand co-productions), and I watched half an ep, but I think it's too dark for me right now. For whatever reason, they keep picking the non-con ones to produce. *sigh* I prefer my romance consensual.

OMG I was so sure I had already posted this - I assembled it in November. /o\ All the icons I made for challenge communities in September and October:



( 63 icons - about half of Wu-Lei-related things )

Concrit welcome! Comments adored! Credit appreciated! Take and use as many icons as you like. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.

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