The wellness break is here! Hoho. I've been waiting for this, and this week I intended to distance myself from academics (but not entirely because the submission of our journal article is also this week).

What I did during these precious days was to read Chinese danmei (indulging in beauty) xianxia (cultivation world) novels which are Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) and Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven's Official Blessing).

Danmei is broad term but in general it is a genre from China where homosexual relationships (boys' love) are put in the narrative of beauty, positivity, and romance. I like this genre because it is different from how other mainstream fiction depicts homosexual relationships (boys' love) as strange, aggressive, and overly sexualized.

This genre is about positivity towards the homosexual relationship and opens the idea that their relationships are no different from others and should be depicted as normal and normalized rather than extreme and peculiar.

However, this genre is  about the male leads being too handsome, and really targets the heterosexual female audience.

Aside from the danmei, I also love the xianxia genre wherein the world is about cultivation and martial arts.

MDZS and TGCF are famous in mainland China and globally because of their well-written plot, lovable characters, amazing setting, and life lessons that it have a lot of different versions. 

These two novels are different from others because it does not focus on the male leads' romance, but also contains discrimination, political power, morality, justice, and ideology which I love the most.