Category: Manhua

It’s still June and still Pride and I remembered to post this, as promised in the last blog entry, so here we are! This is an older post from my Tumblr that has since been edited and copied and pasted onto my blog, but hey, it remains more than relevant haha.

Basically, the thing is…sometimes I forget people aren’t used to consuming Chinese media like I am so they expect any bl to be explicit.

A while ago, someone referred to Childe and Zhongli as potential “queerbaiting” to me and I had to pause for a moment and consider this. I always take things in stride when it comes to what is called “queerbaiting” in Chinese media because we don’t know how strict censors are (sometimes boys’ love seems mostly okay, sometimes it seems a little less okay, sometimes it seems okay as long as it’s not “anti-government”… Oh, and the topic of censorship is a whole ’nother complex discussion due to it happening because China rebuilt itself with all-new policies and was also westernized after suffering under colonization…).

This also isn’t the first time I’ve seen people call Chinese media featuring characters that can be viewed as gay queerbaiting, which is why the comment about Zhongli and Childe made me hesitate. Like I can’t objectively tell you if some of these series with boys’ love are queerbaiting, because in many ways…Chinese creators can’t even afford to queerbait, due to censorship. That’s why when these works contain potential gay subtext, is it really queerbaiting, when it arguably actually challenges censors by dropping hints that try to make potential queerness more visible and not less, the way actual queerbaiting does? And in many ways, a lot of Chinese media that drop these hints are inviting their audiences to take it as canon even if they can’t explicitly say it out loud—so again, is it really queerbaiting then?

Basically, with all this in mind, China does queer-coding, not queerbaiting.

Take Spirit Pact, for example, one of the other works I’ve seen get labelled as “queerbaiting.” The male leads kiss to give each other power or exchange vows, but the manhua’s creator said it’s “not necessarily because they’re in love.” There was debate this is queerbaiting, but could the creator just be avoiding trouble with censors? The very fact that the male leads kiss so much and care so much about one another suggests intent, despite the author’s comment.

Now what about Childe and Zhongli? Why were people suddenly discussing them and queerbaiting? Well, Genshin went ahead and did a thing and had Zhongli gift Childe fenghuang chopsticks. A Chinese game using a traditional Chinese theme for an object exchanged between two men that represents unity, harmony, and marriage? Some Chinese people have pointed out that that seems intentional, as symbolism is extremely important to Chinese culture. 😆

And I mean, we all remember The Untamed and how Wangxian exchanged loving glances, touched each other constantly, basically got married (through symbolism of the forehead ribbon and the exchanging of chickens), calling each other a term that could mean either “life-long confidant” or “soulmate” and so on.

We never got a canonical scene where they kissed or said “I love you,” but we can see the intent there. We know what they’re saying. The same applies for the Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua. The manhua is more obvious about it, but they do cut kiss and sex scenes… But since it appears it was nonetheless drawn, we can take that as it having still happened. And Mo Dao Zu Shi Q takes this further than the regular donghua too because the censors are more lax on them.

And yes. They are based on a danmei novel (Mo Dao Zu Shi, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), so it’s a little different from Genshin Impact, but even then, it’s not fair to label Chinese media as queerbaiting because whether it will ever be explicitly canon or not, Chinese creators including suggestions of queer relationships is more risky for them than if they didn’t. That’s why there’s quite a few Chinese works out there that feature “vibes” of gay ships, even if they will never be canon. And if you consume as much Chinese media as me, you can usually tell when a team/author is intentionally using symbolism to suggest a canon couple, often with a traditional Chinese theme. 👀

The animated movie Jiang Ziya used language that suggested Shen Gongbao and Jiang Ziya could be a couple, but it was never explicit. But hell, they basically adopt a daughter! I interpreted them as a couple but didn’t see it as fully intentional or canon until talking to a good friend of mine whose Chinese is better than mine. There were more hints and reasons to believe they cared about each other in that way, so we concluded it was way more obvious than we would’ve thought at first glance. And that’s kind of how China does it when the main focus of a story isn’t bl but there’s a potentially bl couple.

And even when there are censors, there have been a variety of ways Chinese media has skirted censors in the past. Like in Beryl and Sapphire, we get the “survivor’s cut” where things are censored and the “director’s cut” where things aren’t censored (so characters can hug, kiss, confess, cuddle, and so on). And Beryl and Sapphire, while originally designed by the author as two males, are designed so they can be in any story (bl or not) and were originally drawn in the comic as stick figures so you could imagine their gender as whatever you want (so they could even be girls’ love if you so desire!).

Now contrast that to Hualian from the Tian Guan Ci Fu donghua, where things are so obvious and it’s even gayer than the novel in some areas. People keep questioning how they got it past censors, and that makes me rethink how I view Chinese censors. However strict they truly are, Chinese media is very purposeful in how they depict boys’ love couples.

So I don’t really think about whether something is queerbaiting or explicitly canon in Chinese media. I basically see something that can be read as bl through symbolism/language/metaphor and I see that as intentional. The creators are letting you choose how you want to read it, and you may never get the kiss you want, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t “canon.” There’s often intent behind it, and because of varying levels of censorship, I take the idea of “queerbaiting” in Chinese media with a grain of salt.

For example, Kaeya and Diluc use a term in Chinese very similar to sworn brothers, which can be romantic in Chinese. With modern day China, creators often use “sworn brotherhood” as a way to depict romance and skirt censors. And yes, I know the English translation labels them as two adopted brothers, and if that’s the interpretation you want to go with, that is also okay (just please don’t label Asian fans as problematic when they do ship them—and please please please don’t label all of Chinese culture as problematic for having this sworn brotherhood concept, the way some people have done)! But as I’ve confirmed with multiple native Chinese speakers, the original Chinese language used is not exactly family-oriented, and that can be viewed as intentional (that’s why you see some Chinese fans ship Diluc and Kaeya while the western fandom views it as incest). Language is complex! There’s no clean, clear-cut answer.

Boys’ love is popular in China, but it’s not always the main focus of every series (you know, sometimes the queer-coding is done just for side ships). We could say You Shou Yan features intentional queer-coding with Sibuxiang x Tony/Tuye or Fei Ren Zai and All Saints Street feature the intent of potential bl with Yangjian x Guanyin and Nick x Lynn respectively; or Are You OK is boys’ love even if the story doesn’t focus entirely on that but it does feature more than one boys’ love couple; or No Doubt in Us contains boys’ love because despite the main couple being straight, there is an obviously suggested side ship that is gay; or Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng is boys’ love because it features guys crushing on other guys and sharing moments, even though the manhua isn’t about that boys’ love romance explicitly; or see Nezha as having boys’ love potential because of how it interprets the Nezha and Ao Bing relationship (to the point of even changing the depiction of the relationship between Ao Bing and Nezha from the 1979 animated movie to be more domestic rather than as enemies); or even say Hoyoverse’s other game, Honkai Impact, arguably intentionally features some girls’ love too.

Maybe it’s just because I identify as ace and I don’t mind if there’s no signs of sex scenes and I’ve even grown accustomed to not seeing kisses. I love seeing other signs of love—like protecting your partner, being their sugar daddy, hanging out with them a lot, and all that jazz. If there’s a kiss, great! If not, that’s fine too because there are other things to suggest they’re canon.

So when Chinese media give you hints such as with Zhongli and Childe, are they queerbaiting? I don’t personally think so. No Chinese creator is purposefully preying on queer audiences using the carrot and string method simply because they can’t afford to. When a Chinese creator gives you a hint of a queer ship, it’s them doing that in spite of censorship, which makes the content suggestive of intent, even if they can’t follow through with making it canon. In comparison, when western media gives a hint of a queer ship but doesn’t follow through with making it canon, that has far more possibility of being queerbaiting because they usually can afford to make something visibily queer and are actively choosing not to, to prey on queer audiences’ desires for queer content. Of course, this isn’t always the case because western media still censors queer content as well, but depending on the context, western creators can afford to queerbait far more than Chinese creators. For example, studios such as Disney are far more likely to do queerbaiting, as seen with their random claims that random characters are gay (like that policewoman from Onward), despite such a detail barely being prominent enough to warrant celebration. 

So back to Childe and Zhongli. What’s their deal?

Well, whatever it is, I can definitely tell you it isn’t queerbaiting. If it is meant to suggest marriage, then those fenghuang chopsticks are as good a sign of canon as any. If they aren’t, then they at least suggest harmony in unity. Either way, Genshin doesn’t have to confirm it, because they can’t. The most they can do is drop symbols and hints like this and let their users interpret it however they want.

But hey, “being together” is arguably as good as any reason for someone to ship something, and this applies to all Chinese media that has the boys’ love on the sidelines. Them dropping such a hint is a good thing, because while it isn’t the main focus, these creators never had to include them, and including such hints is more difficult for them than just pretending gay people don’t exist. Will these types of media ever say that they have actual gay characters who may be in love out loud? I guess not, but we have to acknowledge the context that they are still from China and there are censors for them to deal with.

And with media like this, if you don’t want Childe and Zhongli to be canon, that’s totally okay too! I mean…it is also a game, and games—even more than other mediums—can be interpreted in various ways simply due to the fact that every user’s experience differs.

For the other Chinese media that suggest boys’ love, you can also interpret it as non-gay if you want to (some, such as No Doubt in Us, are far more obvious about it than others, such as All Saints Street).

In the end, love is love—and that includes whether there’s a kiss or not, when the author/team intends it and lets you interpret it any which way, you can interpret their symbols as signs of how canon your two favourite characters are!

Oh, and as a finishing thought, here’s a list of donghua recommendations for anyone who wants to check some of these out! I include a lot of good donghua with pictures, descriptions, and links to where to watch. 🥰​​