flemmings | (no subject)

Lying on my bed yesterday evening, listening to music in the lovely air conditioning while outside the closed windows it rained and thundered and was smelly-muggy, I started rummaging in the boxes on the far side of the bed and eventually pulled out a manga series sent to me ten years ago, called Red Dragon. At the time I noted it was not about a red dragon-- was naturally something set in Hong Kong probably involving gangsters-- and packed it back in the boxes. This time I started reading. I'm still not sure if it's about gangsters or just an extremely rich Chinese family, but no matter: what it is is by the numbers BL with only the slightest twist that the (distinctly underaged) young master our protagonist has a pash on is a) illegitimate b) the son of a foreigner and c) has eyes that change colour, frequently to red.

Red eyes of course are the sign of a dragon.

This might prove interesting if I can get past those tropes that used to drive me to foaming fury in the old days-- healing sex, and specifically healing sex after rape, which no truly *does not work that way* no matter how much the seme utters the magic words 'I'll be gentle.' (There's also the trope that Iya da does not mean No, but that one I already know the reasons for.)

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It is nice to have Things Waiting To Be Read. Such a lovely feeling of comfort and space and possibility.

This is why I buy books I don't have time to read. And often enough one starts reading and it becomes a slog. This happens so often that I'm delighted when a manga actually lives up to its artwork, or a book to its premise.