Lyson

Best non-official ship in a BL ever, especially since they HAVE a history in canon. A BL of them would defy the laws of BL gravity.

No one disagrees with you, not even the author of the original webnovel 😂

I don't know if they're gonna release a professional recording of the performance OST Last Day on Earth by Zhan Xuan for RL, from the fanmeet in Thailand, but so far this is the best quality fan recording I've seen: https://x.com/xiaoxindaily/status/1957042569617232204 (video 3)

More exposure, more fans/happy fans, more popularity, more opportunities for acting and sponsor work and so on. Fan service is 👎 imo, but they're doing something pretty surprising and they kept it lowkey from the clips I saw. Nothing cringe, mostly.

True story, for me, real money is reserved for novels from MXTX and I would pay for a boxset of RL.

I feel bad that Zhan Xuan and Liu Xuancheng had to do fanservice, but at the same time, I think it's very cash money of them to do it considering the bullshit China is on. Kudos, appreciation and respect to them.

That said, I got got to hear Zhan Xuan sing Last Night on Earth live, so that's a W.

Nah it was subtly done so it's confused people before. Due to censorship they couldn't actually make it obvious that crossdressing was involved, so they hinted at it indirectly until the end of Sako's Door where Lanzhu just admits it.

I hate rumours but I just saw one that suggested the production company is considering releasing a director's cut boxset of this (LIKE I WAS HOPING) and so I'm VERY on board with this rumor, naturally. Back to manifesting 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

Lanzhu is called Baijie because it's his disguise. He uses Baijie as an alias and crossdresses as her when he goes into some doors (not shown in the drama but referenced). But no one besides the members of Obsidian knows he is Baijie (that Baijie is a man in woman's clothes).

It's revealed at the end of Sako's Door.

It is a spoiler so I'll box it.

Oh yeah, that's common in C-dramas specifically. It's done for a few reasons:
1) the actors may be from different parts of China, China is huge, and accents from different areas are different, so when filming, if accents are clashing, it won't work, so they dub.
2) additionally, they don't do noise controlled sets in China, scenes are filmed as is, all crew and director speaking and background noise and so on and so the dubbing and post editing noise filler is standard
3) sometimes, for major characters, they feel the actors voices don't match the character, so they will choose a voice actor who has they 'right' voice to match characters. Sometimes the actors, if their voices are suitable, they are asked to do their own voice overs. For example in this show, Ziyu (Suowei) voiced himself.

Ah, yeah that makes sense then. If you were reading slash fiction in the LGBTQ genre previously, then yes, you'd find MUCH better and WAY more accurately written content. Same if you watch LGBTQ content, it's more accurate and there are way less tropes too.
BL and LGBTQ are NOT the same.

As for the show, your enjoyment will depend on your preferences and I think the tags here are vague because it's meant to not give spoilers, so a lot of people don't know exactly what to expect. Personally, I enjoyed everything about the show, flaws and all. I am a lover of dark, fucked up themes and characters though, so this was right up my alley lol. It won't be for everyone in the end, but that's fine imo, variety is the spice of life as they say >:D

Even if BDSM is actively practiced (toys and all) any pain after would only be the result of the safety/safeword system and what extent the M partner can take or wants to experience, according to that pre-negotiated safety system of the partners involved. In the webnovel, and also in the series to a much lesser extent, CC is not show to be a responsible BDSM user. CJD likely had little to no proper idea of how BDSM works, or she didn't care. I find the former more plausible. I imagine now she's more researched and learned on the topic, but back then she seemed to just be winging it.

In the series, I just headcannoned that CC and SW discussed kink and safewords 'off screen' or else it'd be hard to imagine how Suowei would have remained in a relationship with CC, if he had no masochistic inclination whatsoever. He'd probably just never enjoy sex.

Alas, most gay fiction in this genre (BL/danmei/etc) are written by women who have little idea of the logistics of gay sex, let alone BDSM in gay sex, and when they're young especially (like CJD when she wrote this) likely didn't even do much (if any) research on the subject, so it's all pieces of knowledge they learn from who knows where and guesswork. Also, ten to fifteen years ago, that which offends all and sundry now, did not offend most people back then. So, with the lack of understanding of gay sex, BDSM and the 'toxic' themes being a non-issue at the time, girlie writers wrote their unfiltered bad fiction ideas freely and stories like Counterattack (for one relevant example) were the result. It still happens in fanfiction, if you dare to look into 'one shots', the tags are sometimes eye rolling and the content, abysmal.

But in most modern BLs, the bottoms are mostly no longer portrayed that way, so then are you referring to the bottoms who are involved in BDSM being incorrectly portrayed as not getting any pleasure from sex?

In the novel it is way more, CC is a lowkey sex addict who's into BDSM (again, not properly negotiated) the novel is awful, bad fanfiction, even the author acknowledged it and asked viewers not to read it. CC in the series is much improved, but yes, he still likes BDSM, they mostly just hint at it in the show as opposed to portraying it. If you continue to watch, you'll see more hints.

If the sexual partner on the receiving end of sex irl is like the exaggerated way Suowei was portrayed being sore, and people are saying it's 'realistic for a first time', then they did it wrong (which is not surprising I guess for unresearched first time gay sex). Safe , comfortable and enjoyable anal sex requires lube, relaxation, comfort and more lube and patience and more lube and more lube. You cannot have enough lube. There may be mild discomfort, MILD, but not serious pain.

It's not that Suowei was not prepped lube wise, it's that CC is rough in bed. In the novel he is much more openly on the not properly negotiated side of BDSM, being the S himself. In the show he is toned down a lot, but he is still meant to like rough sex.

Edit: Personally, I took Suowei's (the actor Ziyu's) depiction of being in pain to be comedically exaggerated, he did quite a bit of comedic overacting in the series.

Episode one of this show flew by so fast way back when, that we never really talked about the terrible underlayer of padding that they used to try and make it appear as though Suowei was fat 😂 It was like they knew most of us would forget about it the second he 'lost weight' and then even more so after he ran into Chi Cheng for the first time 😂😂

This is my BL recc list if you want to check it out: https://kisskh.at/list/4Ko6OAK4
Many have already made some good reccs and you probably know some of these too, but maybe it'd be helpful. Revenged Love is DEFINATELY on my list lol

It's been so long since I watched it, I didn't even know it finally got an MDL page :D
Enjoyed this BL!