- #1
Romance Fantasy/SF danmei with gong protagonistInteresting world. Mysteries ✔️ tent**les ✔️ s*x ❌ (see below) It's just the bit kinky with a non-human protagonist and all. Good or bad, human form does exist.Some things are a bit obvious, but there's not much to critique at all. Narration is good. But, there is one thing where the POV is somewhere between close third and omniscient third. It's a bit strange at times how you sometimes seem to know Yuan Ye's thoughts and sometimes it's a bit opaque. The POV mixup could use some improvement.But overall it seems well-written, as a genre piece, with balance between uniqueness and predictability.Would highly recommend.If there's anything to look out for I'll edit it but so far there's zero things you need to look out for as a gay man reading. You really feel the author being a woman though, but maybe I'm wrong.*edit: so here's things to look out for: (1) the word 'wife' (老婆) is used exuberantly, though by both people, (2) although it might be partly due to censorship considerations (it's on jjwxc), the author seems to be trying really hard to put off writing s*x scenes, though there is definitely smutty kinky tension—it's just not "all the way" (as in to R18 land, not necessarily to penetration, cause s*x isn't just penetration), but when it does arrive, it's... horrible imo, i.e. le*d lust, chaste sex, (3) "receiving" is sore walking strange, "giving" is well-rested, (4) the possessiveness or yandere factor is a bit too strong from the ML + he sometimes breaks his character by talking too much when it's him and his octopus who can talk (a man of few words became a man of many words just cause?), (5) the romance isn't really romancing well after the reveal and all... dynamics and conflicts and such seemed... not good when compared to when it were desires and such. Also, major points off for breaking setting: stamina consumption was high transforming into a human but later on it wasn't mentioned at all.Personally (1) I would make an editorial decision to replace its with the word 'husband' (there are very much sexist/heteronormative reasons why such words may or may not be used in China vs in the western world), (2) just allow the characters to be taken by passion/horniness more and change the genre tags from 'suggestive' to 'explicit', if that makes sense, (3) just remove that description. The rest has no cure, can only rewrite.---P.S.First time in forever I've seen a gong protagonist 🤤---Add.I think this piece sits squarely at a 4/5 'good' rating for me. There are visible areas of improvement and it isn't a 'flawless' rendition of a story by any means, much less a masterpiece. But I'm bumping the points cause gong protag + BL.The tent**les + touch-sensitive choices were just damn good. But what's up with fade-to-black in the middle of scenes and tent**les? The spice level doesn't match 😵 It's like watching a p*rno with camera avoiding all the dicks, showing half the b**bs, only body shots and facial expressions when you get the actual scenes. Just skip it else you will spit blood.
