I love when intellectual folks decide something successful can’t obviously be because of romance 😬😬😬 Ilya Rozanov, you were right when you called the New Yorker boring.

Common Sense, published 250 years ago today.

Still got it baby www.esquire.com/entertainmen...

Now add the "happy endings are dumb and not high art or prestige TV" people, and you can probably see exactly what we're going to be subjected to when the last episode of Heated Rivalry drops. but you can't help people w/ that mindset, so just enjoy the show and go back to reading when it's done.

#EYDC2025 Sorry for missing 2 days 🥲 Day 21: Surprising drama Definitely #DominionAndDevotion !! Short and beautiful and emotional and basically everything I can ask for in a drama. Came as a total surprise to me.

I’ve read some eye-rolling Heated Rivalry takes, but this one demonstrates such a bad faith interpretation, a misunderstanding of Romance as a genre, and a failure in media literacy and critical thinking skills that I don’t know what to do. 1/ slate.com/life/2025/12...

We asked you to vote for your favorite books, movies, TV shows, short fiction, video games, and more of 2025...and now, Reactor is excited to present the results! Congratulations to all the winners! #booksky

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

#EYDC2025 Day 18: Most watched genre Firstly, it’s mostly costume dramas for me - I just love them. Among them, I seem to have watched an equal amount of palace dramas with politics & revenge; and my fav wuxia/xianxia dramas. Overall, a good year of watching, with a mix of long and short dramas.

Well this is new. Goodreads has implemented a new feature for reviewing advanced copies that asks you to "verify" where you got the copy from. Your review is then labeled with the source. On the one hand, these extra steps might stave off bots? (1/?)

#EYDC2025 Day 17: Fav actors of 2025 Many to choose from but I loved these performances .. Xiao Zhan in #TheLegendofZangHai Gong Jun and Chang Huasen in #BloodRiver Liu Yuning in #ThePrisonerofBeauty Spl mention to Tian Xu Ning in #RevengedLove !!

“Why are folks getting dumber?” Because they don’t read. “Why aren’t men as romantic & poetic as they used to be?” Because they don’t read. “Why are people so vulnerable to propaganda?” “Why is everyone a conspiracy theorist?” Because they don’t read. Because they don’t read.

for anyone gobbling up Heated Rivalry content, this is a great article about Harrison Browne, receiver of Ilya's "TELL PEOPLE!"

Absolutely phenomenal essay about Wake Up Dead Man. And what a movie !!! reactormag.com/entirely-too...

#EYDC2025 Day 16: Fav Actress Many interesting performances this year - Zhang Ruonan in #TheFirstFrost, Chen Duling in #TheGlory or Li Landi in #CoronersDiary .. but i think I’ll choose one of my favorite cross dressing FLs ever, Huang Hao Yue as the emperor Ning Jin Yi in #DominionAndDevotion.

Kindness and empathy aren’t weaknesses, they are strengths. 300,000 years of human evolution hinge on our caring about and protecting one another. Hold onto it. Never let them make you forget it.

I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot

Reading 2025 fiction? Try the short story "The Teleporting Disaster Fairy" by Rati Mehrotra @rati.bsky.social! You can read it here! buff.ly/Vx4qdNX

Day 16 is for the phenomenally talented Peng Chuyue, who I first encountered because he was Xiao Zhan's official CP partner in their idol group. PCY is a sensitive soul, a flamboyant performer and a writer of really great songs. She & She - Peng Chuyue youtu.be/79AfO-mkHxY?...

EYDC2025 Day 15: Fav drama poster I love these two posters. #TheImmortalAscension has a bit of a Starry Nights feel going on and the handsome Yang Yang. #SwordAndBeloved ofcourse has the gorgeous Cheng Yi with the blonde hair and I just can’t get over that look !!!

#EYDC2025 Day 14: Notable writer/director Definitely very impressed by Zheng Xiao Long ( #LegendofZanghai) and Yin Tao ( #BloodRiver). Outside of cdramaland though, my current obsession is #HeatedRivalry and writer/director Jacob Tierney is doing an absolutely stellar job of the adaptation.

#EYDC2025 Day 13: Drama I found boring Tbh, #LoveAndCrown wasn’t on my anticipated drama list. I gave up on the WebNovel in the middle as well. But just checked it out when it aired and abandoned after 7-8 episodes coz it wasn’t clicking.. and the miscommunication ugh 😑

#EYDC2025 Day 12: Fav platonic relationship This is a no brainer.. Su Muyu and Su Changhe from #BloodRiver. They made this drama amazing 🤩 As they both mention to the villain in one of the penultimate episodes, what they share is “absolute trust”!!!! Kudos to #GongJun & #ChangHuaSen for being 💜💜

#EYDC2025 Day 11: Dramas that taught me Dominion and Devotion proved to me that short/mini dramas can also be amazing. #BloodRiver reinforced that wuxia is my favorite genre. #KillToLove and #RevengedLove proved that I’m still obsessed with BLs, though I don’t watch or read them much these days.

Jenny once again proving why she is one of the great Romance critics. If the Heated Rivalry Discourse from non-romance readers is driving you up the wall like it is me, this is the antidote. readingtheend.com/2025/12/10/a...

#EYDC2025 Day 10: Rewatched dramas As I mentioned yesterday, #TheBloodOfYouth was the only drama I rewatched completely. I also rewatched some of my favorite episodes of #MysteriousLotusCasebook and #WordOfHonor.

🤩🤩🤩

#EYDC2025 Day 9: Older dramas I’m very much a product of FOMO, so I love watching dramas while they are airing. Hence, no older dramas for me. I did rewatch #TheBloodofYouth while awaiting the new episodes of #BloodRiver, and also enjoyed some eps of #WordOfHonor coz #GongJun is 🤩🤩💜💜

#EYDC2025 Day 8:Standout secondary character of 2025 First choice is surely Zhuang Luyin from Legend of Zanghai - such a great villain. Second is Xia Jingyan from Fated Hearts - a cruel and ruthless character but who we still ended up rooting for and crying over.

#EYDC2025 Day 7: Fav character of 2025 Definitely Zang Hai played masterfully by Xiao Zhan. There were layers to his character and it was amazing to watch what all he would do to achieve his revenge.

#EYDC2025 Day 6: Dropped dramas in 2025 I have no problem dropping dramas coz I have no time. So the three dramas I dropped after watching about 7-8 episodes are the mini drama The Rebirth, the highly anticipated Love and Crown, and the fun looking Youthful Glory. Just didn’t work for me.

#EYDC2025 Day 5: A visually beautiful 2025 drama It’s hard to choose tbh coz Legend of Zanghai had some great lit scenes, Si Jin looked so lovely, Immortal Ascension had its beauty but ultimately I think I fell in love with the very pretty landscapes and Cheng Yi in Sword and Beloved &…. (1/2)

Heated Rivalry has made it to the Onion now 😂😂😂

The one year anniversary of Yoon's failed martial law takeover just passed and lots of untold stories came out proving that THE ONLY REASON KOREA IS STILL A FREE COUNTRY IS BECAUSE PEOPLE DISOBEYED ILLEGAL ORDERS. The coup was over in hours because people said no.

#EYDC2025 Day 4: Fav OST from a 2025 drama. Ofcourse it has to be the King of OSTs, Liu Yuning singing the song that plays at the most badass moment in the drama Sword and Beloved. The visuals, music and vocals make for a deadly unforgettable combo. youtu.be/ZA4VwF3x93A?...

Goodreads Choice awards are out and this is probably the first time in many years that I’ve not read a single winner. And the winners also happen to be mostly the same set of popular authors, so no surprise there I guess 🤷‍♀️

Hey! New editions of the DOMINION OF THE FALLEN trilogy by @aliettedebodard.com are coming out on 3/10/2026! Enter a Paris wrecked by magical cataclysm and the mysterious Houses ruling the city in this beloved series of fallen angels, devious alchemists, & Vietnamese dragons:

I've had a rough day, and I think I've earned this. GOAT PAJAMA PARTY. Goats are from @sunflowerfarm.bsky.social in Cumberland, Maine (via their YT). Bless their chaotic little hearts and tiny pink noses.

#EYDC2025 Day 3: Fav actor discovered in 2025 Except for mini/short dramas, I’ve not really discovered actors this year. But a recent one who left an impression is Tian Xu Ning who played the memorable Chi Cheng in Revenged Love.

Mine isn’t too bad either … mostly books and cdramas… not surprising at all..

#EYDC2025 Day 2: Fav actress discovered in 2025 Apparently I’ve been living under a rock and haven’t watched a Li Yitong drama before. But she is so cute and adorable while also being a wonderful actress and awesome to watch on screen.

#EYDC2025 Day 1: Country with most dramas watched I don’t even need to keep track because I almost exclusively watch #cdrama only. It’s been that way since 2021 and will probably continue into the new year as well.

Amidst the whole TikTok refugee thing and other polemics, it was heartening to be able to help connect the world through culture and literature, by writing about the current state of Chinese #SFF in the Anglosphere for Reactor. 3/ reactormag.com/beyond-liu-c...

I am SO EXCITED to share this Fifth Saturday extra: @annleckie.com and @byzantienne.bsky.social in conversation about questions of empire and imperialism in their respective novels. Read it now: www.speculativeinsight.com/extras/leckie-and-martine

After being so used to watching only cdramas for the past 5 years, it’s extremely jarring to watch a particularly explicit western tv show 😳😳😳 #HeatedRivalry. No complaints though.. it’s turning out to be a good adaptation of one of my fav romance novels 🤩🤩

It's awards eligibility time of the year! I don't have any fiction to offer for 2025, but here is some involvement with non-fiction for consideration. 1. "The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction," in various non-fiction and related work categories: altermag.com/articles/the... [TBC below.]

Informative, illuminating and full of love for the genre - @gautambhatia88.bsky.social is always on point when he talks about SF. Must read essay about the history of SF in India, most of which I didn’t know about. Can’t wait to check out the many recommendations!!!

Awesome to see this !!! It’s such a gem of a book 💜💜💜

Nominations are closed, bracket is finalised. Introducing the contenders for the Bluesky #CdramaCup2025: