No One: 

Luo Shaochuan: We will make sure justice prevail and light shines down on all of us and they will know our names-

Situ Yan: Errrrmmm are you sure we’re legal

Zhang Yunlong Studio Update | 28.02.2023

What are y'all's opinions on Checkmate? I need motivation to watch it

Daomubiji is the gayest "not written to be intentionally gay" I've ran into in the cwebnovel world. Like. In English? Yeah plenty of fuckers especially pre 2015 would make a story gay but never intend it to be read that way and yell at people who did (and some who didnt get mad but also didnt want to embrace that potentiality). Occasionally making something intensely gay. Nowadays most English stuff either is aware of how gay it wrote shit and therefore okay with itself as that, or is so unintentional it's just a baffling situation

Meanwhile in cwebnovels it's a pretty established genre to just put out gay content so usually if it's gay it's already fully aware it's writing in such a way (now cdramas are another story since it's the foggy land of some gay stuff being adapted to "bromance" meanwhile some purposely friendship stuff trying it's hardest to slide toward "bromance" to capitalize on that angle without actually being gay, then the ones in the middle happy to capitalize on the gay and playing hard and loose and not really confirming what their intent truly is -dmbj shows are Now Here-, and then original script "bromances" fully intending to be gay the way Xena was like Killer and Healer which I applaud for wanting to do gay in an impossible environment with no book to lean on as the reason it was made gay as it was - mriad also toed this, that tan jianci show recently did etc). So like usually if it's Not overtly gay as a novel I assume no intention was purposeful, at least not much. (Though to be fair maybe there are authors utilizing subtext and a bit scared to go overt gay cause of how that may affect them/sales/their future etc, which may be going on but I am not aware enough of everything in non-gay novel land to comment. Fair enough though that was certainly going on in Hayes code America in the film industry, with some people making gay threesome art films sliding past the radar on purpose, others making metaphor as literal wasn't alloved, others accidentally making subtext rather than on purpose, and I'd say to some degree novel wise that would have been going on as well. I didn't read many us novels from 70s-2000 but iwtv made gay implied and the sequel a decent time later made gay overt and I'd assume some bigger safety in writing gay characters was felt by authors later in the century).

Anyway, my point. Of the small amount ive read, dmbj is sure the gayest "not in the gay genre" cnovel I've found. There's The Kings Avatar, that's big, can anyone tell me if it's gay? There's Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, which has a gay side couple but that's not quite the same. There's LiuLi (Love and Redemptions novel), but a main character who's multiple genders and a bi love interest is just... not common in general anywhere so that's more of a one off thing (I'd love for it to be more common though). Mostly the big stuff that comes out that people interpret as gay out of cnovel land... IS purposefully fully intended as gay.

Meanwhile dmbj show wise, is at the point where scenes adapted from its own novel get cut for being too gay (oh wu xie u bastard cat ur too into xiaoge for censors to bear). Dmbj show wise, for a while, for baffling reasons post The Lost Tomb (because if you squint HARD there's non gay reasons to put in all the gay scenes as a speed run implied instant Platonic fondness/connection that's just using romance action tropes to speed it up to communicate to audience since it only has like 10 episodes... again, if you squint I can see an oblivious straight person somehow thinking it was straight). But then by The Lost Tomb 2 you've got the saving him in a tux in his arms shit, Ultimate Note you've got scenes Being cut for being "too gay" wu xie, in Reboot you've got the whole cast well aware of ships and nanpai Sandshu also WELL aware by that point so if there's any "bromance" now towing the line of gay it's at least likely on purpose and self aware they're on the line.

But then there's. The fucking novels. Wu Xie my dude. Iron triangle my guys. How did all this accidentally happen? Is this the beautiful outcome of npss starting fanfic with no idea where it would end? You genderbend a love interest, make the guy embody ur idea of cool so u have to have ur viewpoint character wu xie notice how Cool said Cool Guy is, and the gender ambiguous premise leads to romantic interest slanting framing of such character, leads to that entire structure continuing long after u decided emo boy is a dude, wu xie is into men now and ur in way too deep now to backtrack so pangzis commenting, now ur cool emo got Emotionally Attached to one person in this whole world and it's ur viewpoint dude, now he's sacrificing for him, now they're at Minimum as gay as Kirk and Spock and quickly hurtling to Xena/Gabrielle levels. And I'm googling pingxie having heard of dmbj, having never seen an episode, ans finding its one of the biggest Ships TM. Thinking it's some fan ship with no Canon basis like idk captain america/iron man, then I watch The Lost Tomb and no these fuxkers as gay as Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan to my assumption. Then I look up the books and it's. Odd. They're definitely soulmates, they don't date others, they retire together, xiaoge sees wu xie as The Person for his ass TM, and it's uh. It is what it is. They're life partners for sure anyway. So it's a kirk/spock situation at minimum. But, if you watch the shows it's treading on "this Bromance is so close to/possibly Is Romance that we are being assumed as actual bl" line. Which I guess in show form is Xena/Gabrielle. Cause most censored bl dramas are xena/gabrielle level (lovers but you gotta be Just vague enough about it to be allowed to air). And thus is established, the gayest pair of "are they gay" I've run into in chinese media. (To be compared with the youtube series Are You Gay of Kirk/Spock, a question for the ages).

I'm just. They're so gay. They're whatever they are in canon, and why. Its fun to think of why (before the shows slid them pretty firmly into "is might as well be bl territory so assume it is" with the way the show teams handle it). Like. Is it all just a happy accident of npss, a fanfic turned original universe that of course includes anything and everything (comets from space, giant snakes, emo immortals, hair monsters) so why wouldn't it also include gay chosen soulmate fuckers in the center. Is dmbj an interesting example of what fiction can grow and turn into of its own accord, as it evolves over years and becomes its own entity of development? It's interesting. It's interesting what else may eventually develop and shift. (Take what I said with heaps of salt though, I still need to read a Lot more of the books, I'm a newbie with them and still happy to fall into many more of them)

If you could create a show of your own,

who will be part of the cast?

what is the show about? will it be a drama series or movie?

what would be the genre?

happy ending or sad? or bittersweet?

what would it focus on? relationships? or the genre? (cases for detective, or forensics)

which female roles would you add? any byn-type ones to piss ppl off? or Chu Ran-type ones only?

if no censorship, what would you add in there? (assuming its cn dramas)

what else would you add and/or leave out that's not asked here?

Oh...oh my sweet baby fucking jesus this is going to be fun (I'm also very picky about what I want so...*sucks in air between teeth* y'all've been warned)

1. who will be part of the cast?

Okay so the Killer and Healer cast but do what Checkmate fucking did and give them new roles. Mao Zijun and Ian are the leads obvi (and we can even have Chen Yu Cheng and Quan Pei Lun play the second couple)

2. what is the show about? will it be a drama series or movie?

I'd say drama series. You can put more stuff into dramas than you can movies and you can flesh things out a little bit more. But the series wouldn't be too overly drawn out...no ridiculous number of episodes. Between 24-40 episodes is good. I think personally that's the right amount. If you can't fit it between that many episodes, you gotta cut the unimportant shit (but still have some filler because filler is good and if the show gets too plot heavy, we need a break to let our brains breathe)

3. what would be the genre?

Genre would probably be either wuxia or detective/mystery/investigation, since that's what I'm typically drawn to. Hell, even mafia. I'd take that.

But if it's detective/mystery/investigation, we gotta do shit 👏🏻 by 👏🏻 the 👏🏻 book 👏🏻 (like, follow quality assurance guidelines and shit so that people don't fucking comment and say that's not how you do shit.  Like, we will get fucking EXPERTS/I will step in so that shit is as accurate as possible. If medical dramas can do that, so can fucking detective dramas).  Also, if we’re doing detective/mystery/investigation, the cases can’t be too complicated/the science can’t be too complicated because we want viewers to be interested, not overwhelmed.  (But we also don’t want to have to explain everything to them like it’s a science class, you know?)

And if it's Wuxia, we need to have 1) good fucking wigs and 2) pretty fucking clothing/costumes. Oh, and believable fight scenes. I want good fucking fight scenes

4. happy ending or sad? or bittersweet?

Happy ending. Angst with a happy ending. That's my perfect ending. I don't/can't do sad endings (thanks K&H) and bittersweet endings are not particularly my cup of tea. Hopeful endings aren't bad but also not really a fan of that. No cliff hangers either, unless we're planning on making a season 2 but if I've told the story I wanted to tell, we end on a happy ending. And no bullshit endings either. Don't waste my fucking time (I’m looking at you MRIAD)

5. what would it focus on? relationships? or the genre? (cases for detective, or forensics)

I'd want the drama to focus on both. Sure just focusing on one over the other is fine but there needs to be a balance. If you focus too much on the cases over the relationships, shit gets boring real fast and all of the characters feel boring and one dimensional. And if you focus on the relationships over the cases, it's like what's the fucking point of having a detective/case drama if you're not going to focus on it

6. which female roles would you add? any byn-type ones to piss ppl off? or Chu Ran-type ones only?

Only Chu Ran-like roles, please. She needs to have purpose and not just be there to be a pretty face or to be the love interest (not saying that it's bad if she is one but I don't particularly care for those types of damsel-in-distress characters). I need sustenance from my female characters please. We'll have characters like Chu Ran, Ma Han, Jiang Ling, Zhong Yiren. Like they can still be feminine but for the love of god give them a brain. Hell, I'd even let some of them be villains because we need more female villains, thanks

7. if no censorship, what would you add in there? (assuming its cn dramas)

If no censorship...handholding, forehead touches, face cupping/neck cupping, neck caress (yes, the Jiang Yuelou neck caress has me in a fucking chokehold)...I don't particularly think there needs to be any kissing as long as the audience can see that the two leads are fucking in love with each other (and with Zijun and Ian as the leads, there's not gonna be a problem there)

8. what else would you add and/or leave out that's not asked here?

I don't think I have anything else to add...I said what I needed to be said

Thanks for asking this jiejie, this was fun!

Hu Yitian ❀

Checkmate (2022) | When you badmouth a stranger over his profession who turns out to be your lifesaving person whose profession you really need to clear your name only three episodes later 

CHECKMATE IS AIRING AUGUST 10 ON IQIYI!!!!!!

One of the cases is Luo Shaochuan (Zhang Yunlong) being a murder suspect omg it’s a total reversal from MRIAD’s very first case!!! AND THEY ARE SOLVING CASES TOGETHER LEGIT I AM CRYING

Checkmate 民国大侦探 Ep. 16 | Luo Shaochuan saying that Situ Yan and he are of the same family

EP. 24 | A really, really good farewell hug.

Checkmate 民国大侦探 | Episode 1: “We’re friends now.”

Checkmate Eps. 1-8 | Luo Shaochuan + Situ Yan Outfits

Checkmate Ep. 7 | “We know each other so well already.”

Checkmate 民国大侦探 Trailer 1 | Airing August 10

Rickshaw buddies on first sight

Situ Yan asking Auntie Shen to make dinner for four the previous night because he expected Luo Shaochuan to turn up so he could make it up to him but he didn’t and Situ Yan ended up eating his portion