ossian

It's been a while since I've done any of these, huh. I figure I'd just word vomit some of my recent(-ish) reads that I rather liked. Caveat: all ratings are my personal taste, so YMMV.

BL:

魔尊也想知道 by: 青色羽翼 - 10/10
Everything about it is great. The characters are all great, those you root hard for, the ones you end up pitying, the ones you end up despising. The romance, IMO, was pretty well done, which is honestly a hard thing for any romance story these days -- the top (MC) is wonderfully understanding and non-toxic, while still having flaws; the bottom is adorable and scary same time; their relationship looks unbalanced on paper, but the characterization makes it work out. The story's pacing is great, exceedingly short for a xianxia genre story, and the plot moves swiftly without being rushed. And the humor, OMG, there were chapters where there were honestly like 50 pages of comments mostly consisting of readers going "Ahahahaha" and the effect. And it's well written humor, IMO, not having to lean on slapstick or memes like many other stories that try too hard to be funny. I gotta say, the author did a great job of balancing suspense, humor, and romance in this story. Highly recommend.

嫁给铁哥们 by: 衣落成火 - 7/10
Length wise, this is the opposite of the above, being on the long side of stories. (Though, if we go by this same author, she's written many longer stories, so I guess it's actually on the short/medium side for her.) This story was also written as a side thing while the author was working through writer's block on her main fic, and the results of that show up in that there's not as much action/suspense in it as her other works of the same genre. It's actually more closer to slice of life kinda story. Personally, I really loved the earlier chapters where the main couple hadn't "fallen in love" yet and are just being unconsciously fluffy together, while supporting each other in their "downtrodden/weak" days. After the point where the ML fully recovered and they left their home region, the story starts getting more formulaic (especially to someone who's read the author's other xianxia novels). But it's still something nice to relax to when I just want something to turn off my brain.

BG:

这不是钓鱼游戏吗[全息网游] by: 萨巫 - 8/10
I've read a bunch of (VR)MMO genre stories lately, and a lot of the ones I ended up dropping were because they broke my SOD too much, in that the game feels like it's completely centered around the main character, to the point where it stopped feeling like a game and more like just pure transmigration. This story stands out in that it consistently feels like a multiplayer game, and it's...fun. While the MC and her team are standouts, there are still enough focus on the background characters and the various guilds etc also doing stuff and accomplishing things that matter, that it still feels like a game. People's *attitude* feel like this is a game. And when I read it, I often feel like I want to go play a MMO... (then I remember my MMO accounts are for GW and STO, and drop the notion. :p) The romance only starts near the end of the story (the MC's ML shows up earlier, but they are only acquaintances and didn't meet in person til like the last third of the story-ish), so any romance in the story is an afterthought. Read it for the urge to game, not for the romance.

路人，但能看见主角光环 by: 羽轩W - 6/10
I really like the premise of this story, and it did start out quite strong. Some of the focus parts are also very "cool" to read. However, I have to admit as the author added more and more side characters, it started to get bloated, and also started to break my SOD. The main couple starts off already in a relationship, so there isn't as much out-right romance as there's a steady stream of (slice-of-life-ish) fluff sprinkled throughout the story.

No CP:

在各个灾变世界装神仙 by: 糖中猫 - 7/10
Overpowered but (not-so) slightly cray-cray female protagonist physically world-hopping to save the multiverse, with the backing of her home government (near future semi-post-apocalyptic setting). A lot of feels everywhere. But also a lot of stretching of the SOD. It's also a fairly short and fast paced read.

大乘期才有逆袭系统 by: 最白的乌鸦 - 7/10 (also got a wip manhua adaptation)
Overpowered and slightly wacky (but still responsible adult!) male protagonist going around slice-of-lifing undercover (since the story starts off with him already cultivated to OP levels) while slowly unraveling the mystery of the cosmos. Also featuring some physical world hopping. It's long compared to the above jj stories, but pretty short for a qidian xianxia story, honestly. I really liked plotting, how a lot of things revealed in later parts are well foreshadowed (or Chekov gunned) in earlier parts. And some of the humor is also nicely done, funny without having to resort to slapstick. The downside of the story is that it's written by a male author and it definitely shows in a lot of places. While I wouldn't say it's outright misogynistic, there are parts that were uncomfortable for me as a female reader, and I have a pretty high tolerance given the amount of period novels I've read. So take that as a warning.