One of the things I love about the drama is that SW has many characteristics that fandom will use to say "this character must be the bottom" -- including being The Shorter Man -- but he's [novel-]canonically the top, at least in the present day. I loooove subverting cliched top/bottom expectations!
Firstly - I 100000% agree with this on my end. Zhu Yilong is very much an Asian BeautyTM and on the flipside westerners see those attributes (pale, slender, shorter, quieter) as Bottom Things, and this was very much subverted in the novel. I love how well the author played the audience - to the point that during chapter 75, a very staunch bottom!Shen Wei stan commented that they 'couldn't deny it' anymore. I giggled a bit.
I honestly don't remember the context which I said that, but mostly it's the intensity of their romance in novel - that borders on obsessive and creepy. It sometimes feels as if these kinds of attributes are celebrated as opposed to being shown as a bad thing. Some people have told me that it's less so towards the end, but I'm holding off judgement until everything's been translated....
Meanwhile in the show, Shen Wei's actions re: Yunlan's blindness causes a temporary rift between them, as well as his talking to Yunlan's father. I think for me, this makes the drama have an edge over the novel. Yunlan is less patient with Shen Wei regarding his autonomy and it leads/could have led to healthier relationships.
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Firstly - I 100000% agree with this on my end. Zhu Yilong is very much an Asian BeautyTM and on the flipside westerners see those attributes (pale, slender, shorter, quieter) as Bottom Things, and this was very much subverted in the novel. I love how well the author played the audience - to the point that during chapter 75, a very staunch bottom!Shen Wei stan commented that they 'couldn't deny it' anymore. I giggled a bit.
I honestly don't remember the context which I said that, but mostly it's the intensity of their romance in novel - that borders on obsessive and creepy. It sometimes feels as if these kinds of attributes are celebrated as opposed to being shown as a bad thing. Some people have told me that it's less so towards the end, but I'm holding off judgement until everything's been translated....
Meanwhile in the show, Shen Wei's actions re: Yunlan's blindness causes a temporary rift between them, as well as his talking to Yunlan's father. I think for me, this makes the drama have an edge over the novel. Yunlan is less patient with Shen Wei regarding his autonomy and it leads/could have led to healthier relationships.