more on HIStory3 - Trapped, part nth
Jun. 25th, 2019 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
issenlloSo, I managed to find the novelisation of Trapped on Google Play (yay!) and it's been entertaining to read it. Have I mentioned how much I love the vertical format? I loathe reading Chinese in horizontal lines, I feel like it takes me 20% longer to parse the sentences.
Just on the first few chapters for now (because I don't like reading stuff on my phone), and already:
1) The events are described chronologically, which is fine, though it lacks the drama's, well, dramatic media res. But a boon for fanfic writers like me because you don't need to puzzle out the sequence of events.
2) Li Li Zhen, who is Tang Yi's birth mother, is seriously badass. Also a bit tragic. But badass. She finds out that her boyfriend is actually a mob boss currently in prison, lies to him that she had an abortion so as to break it off with him, has the baby (who is put up for adoption), then twenty-four years later, gets in contact with his partner mob boss for work-related matters, and never a word about her boyfriend is said. It's like she's coldly put everything behind her, but as Shao Fei explained, the year Tang Yi ran away from home, she searched for him desperately. And no one else around her knows her secret, because she's like a stone-faced buddha.
(Also, Tang Yi probably inherited her talent for stony-faced silence.)
3) Okay, seriously, Tang Guo Dong let his so-called buddy languish in prison for 24 years?! The man went to prison for you! It was supposed to be only a few months (he was expecting to get married)! A year or two at most. He thought you betrayed him and vowed to kill you! (Okay, that one is a good reason for making sure he stays inside for a long, long time.) But really, you don't do that to a bro. Shouldn't you get him out quicker and try to explain he's misunderstood you all this time, and you really did not have designs on his girlfriend? Wtf, TGD? 24 years is too long considering that it was for beating up a rival gangster's son.
4) The number of AUs that (3) engenders!
5) Speak of AU brainstorming, I'm trying not to write one where evil!TGD already realised that the runaway boy he took in is CWH and LLZ's son, and in petty revenge did not inform CWH (or Tang Yi, or LLZ), and instead did his best to win over the boy so that the boy would take his name and be his 'son' instead. Which proves CWH's point about lyin' bastard TGD who ruined his life and his family. And then LLZ finds out and swears revenge on him for bringing her precious son into Xing Tian Meng and turning him into a gang member. Because that's just what every (cop) mummy wants, for her child to be a future criminal. And then she runs into CWH (who did NOT languish in jail for 24 friggin' years, because he hired his own lawyers to file an appeal and got out earlier) who is still hopelessly in love with her, because she's that badass, and together they take down TGD and get her son back (and she adopts Hong Ye) and then she denies CWH visitation because "no son of mine is going to spend time with a gang member" and CWH has absolutely no choice but to quit Xing Tian Meng and beg her humbly to believe that he's reformed. And thus we strike a blow for justice and anti-drug policies everywhere. Wholesome ending, kisses and hugs. Epilogue: Li Yi (not Tang Yi) enrols in police academy and on the first day, meets a cute, impulsive recruit named Meng Shao Fei...*
6) For some parts of the narrative, it is pretty obvious that it was adapted from a screenplay. E.g. there'd be a detailed description of Tang Yi's lighter, which is needed because it appears as an Object of Reverence a few times in the show, when otherwise we'd just say, "Tang Yi's all-important lighter, which TGD left to him". I mean, how is a lighter more important than the music box that Tang Yi's mum left for him? And a few times the setting's not really mentioned and is meant (I guess) to be inferred, because (for example) they're cops, that's obviously the bullpen - a setup which is pretty typical for any detective show and so doesn't need belabouring.
*I'm of two minds about AUs, usually. I like exploring them, but at the same time, if the AU means that a key event did not occur and therefore a character's motivation has changed, it would take a lot for me to accept it. Tang Yi's been characterised all along by his need to avenge TGD: without it, he'd be a very different Tang Yi, and I'm not sure he'd have the chemistry with Meng Shao Fei that he does.
I'm writing a few fics myself, by the way, it's kinda fun to be so psyched about a new fandom. I should have met you then, and Jailhouse, all the time you ever wanted are the recent ones.
Just on the first few chapters for now (because I don't like reading stuff on my phone), and already:
1) The events are described chronologically, which is fine, though it lacks the drama's, well, dramatic media res. But a boon for fanfic writers like me because you don't need to puzzle out the sequence of events.
2) Li Li Zhen, who is Tang Yi's birth mother, is seriously badass. Also a bit tragic. But badass. She finds out that her boyfriend is actually a mob boss currently in prison, lies to him that she had an abortion so as to break it off with him, has the baby (who is put up for adoption), then twenty-four years later, gets in contact with his partner mob boss for work-related matters, and never a word about her boyfriend is said. It's like she's coldly put everything behind her, but as Shao Fei explained, the year Tang Yi ran away from home, she searched for him desperately. And no one else around her knows her secret, because she's like a stone-faced buddha.
(Also, Tang Yi probably inherited her talent for stony-faced silence.)
3) Okay, seriously, Tang Guo Dong let his so-called buddy languish in prison for 24 years?! The man went to prison for you! It was supposed to be only a few months (he was expecting to get married)! A year or two at most. He thought you betrayed him and vowed to kill you! (Okay, that one is a good reason for making sure he stays inside for a long, long time.) But really, you don't do that to a bro. Shouldn't you get him out quicker and try to explain he's misunderstood you all this time, and you really did not have designs on his girlfriend? Wtf, TGD? 24 years is too long considering that it was for beating up a rival gangster's son.
4) The number of AUs that (3) engenders!
5) Speak of AU brainstorming, I'm trying not to write one where evil!TGD already realised that the runaway boy he took in is CWH and LLZ's son, and in petty revenge did not inform CWH (or Tang Yi, or LLZ), and instead did his best to win over the boy so that the boy would take his name and be his 'son' instead. Which proves CWH's point about lyin' bastard TGD who ruined his life and his family. And then LLZ finds out and swears revenge on him for bringing her precious son into Xing Tian Meng and turning him into a gang member. Because that's just what every (cop) mummy wants, for her child to be a future criminal. And then she runs into CWH (who did NOT languish in jail for 24 friggin' years, because he hired his own lawyers to file an appeal and got out earlier) who is still hopelessly in love with her, because she's that badass, and together they take down TGD and get her son back (and she adopts Hong Ye) and then she denies CWH visitation because "no son of mine is going to spend time with a gang member" and CWH has absolutely no choice but to quit Xing Tian Meng and beg her humbly to believe that he's reformed. And thus we strike a blow for justice and anti-drug policies everywhere. Wholesome ending, kisses and hugs. Epilogue: Li Yi (not Tang Yi) enrols in police academy and on the first day, meets a cute, impulsive recruit named Meng Shao Fei...*
6) For some parts of the narrative, it is pretty obvious that it was adapted from a screenplay. E.g. there'd be a detailed description of Tang Yi's lighter, which is needed because it appears as an Object of Reverence a few times in the show, when otherwise we'd just say, "Tang Yi's all-important lighter, which TGD left to him". I mean, how is a lighter more important than the music box that Tang Yi's mum left for him? And a few times the setting's not really mentioned and is meant (I guess) to be inferred, because (for example) they're cops, that's obviously the bullpen - a setup which is pretty typical for any detective show and so doesn't need belabouring.
*I'm of two minds about AUs, usually. I like exploring them, but at the same time, if the AU means that a key event did not occur and therefore a character's motivation has changed, it would take a lot for me to accept it. Tang Yi's been characterised all along by his need to avenge TGD: without it, he'd be a very different Tang Yi, and I'm not sure he'd have the chemistry with Meng Shao Fei that he does.
I'm writing a few fics myself, by the way, it's kinda fun to be so psyched about a new fandom. I should have met you then, and Jailhouse, all the time you ever wanted are the recent ones.