Sugardy Candy

Started watching Reset 开端 (trailer and 1st episode (of 15) here). Groundhog-ish set-up, thrilling and I love how the main characters slowly unravel the mystery behind their exploding bus. Highly recced.

Reading adventures of 2021: Two main ones stand out: The first being Scum Villain Self-Saving System, which I'm finding to be most darlingest of MXTX's works. I mean, MDZS is really fine, and I love what I've read of TGCF so far (slowly reading it) but there's something about SVSSS that tugs at - nay, plays with my heartstrings. Although I have to say, looking at fanfic: do people actually like to pair Liu Qingge with Shen Qingqiu? >_> Inexplicable.

The second one being Thousand Autumns, which I started out with the donghua and naturally, couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Yan Wushi is immensely... bigger than life, heh, yet you can't help sympathising with him, and also still finding him really sexy. Shen Qiao: I really like his character trajectory in the way it shows growth yet also shows that some ways, a person's essential personality never really changes.

Others:

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho: which I love for the setting, the Manglish, the gothic feel and Black Water Sister herself. Main character narrator is... good? I guess I have no choice but to like her given that the entire story unfolds through her eyes, but Cho's other characters are simply so alive. The energy from their anger, resentment and fear powers the story. And wow, I must go to Penang again once pandemic allows.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao: My sole big quibble (if that isn't an oxymoron) is I cannot imagine a pair of conservative parents choosing to name their daughter Wu Zetian, but otherwise it is a thrill-ride of a book (with mecha! I repeat, mecha!), a deliciously delightful threesome and a furious, magnificent Wu Zetian.

TGCF: The Taiwanese edition is only up to book 4 so I've been (sort of) pacing myself while checking every other week to see if books 5 and 6 are here yet. I guess there are... unauthorised versions online somewhere but I didn't really want to check them out... yet. I'll see how desperate I get. Also, whoa, really deft mythmaking and backstory creating; it's rather awesome how the novel-verse gets bigger and bigger. I can see that there's a lot of foreshadowing, so I'm anticipating a lot of meaningful plot resolutions as I get further and further inwards - onwards?

A few others (not many, really) and I had ordered Louise Erdrich's The Sentence except Book Depository sent another book by mistake so that was a bummer. I got a book on (of all things) "explores the life philosophies of some of the world's best investors" which was interesting for the first three chapters on how some well known investors like Buffett, etc, and after that simply felt rather narcissistic? Um, yeah, there's this thing about going against the flow, seeing potential in companies, etc, etc, etc... but also there's this other thing about living in a time of rapid industralisation and explosive economic growth in the last century. I dunno, it'd make a good Christmas present for someone who isn't me.

I did pick up a book on knitting tea cosies at Kinokuniya's bargain shelf so... bargain.

OMG this Yuletide is amazing because yvenger (jjjat3am) wrote me HiStory: Trapped fic with Meng Shao Fei/Tang Yi and it is splendid: give you all the beautiful things.

Summary is an excerpt:

“He’s not the only one wondering,” Tang Yi says.

“Wondering what?” Shao Fei asks and Tang Yi swallows around a dry throat, wishing there was some coffee left.

“When you might move in with me,” Tang Yi says.

“Oh," Shao Fei says.

It's a lovely fic, full of warmth and love between the two of them. As the summary suggests, it's of the two of them negotiating onwards to the next stage of their relationship, but really, they are also so good with each other that it would have happened anyway, but the author narrates it in such a comfortable way that it's really just brimming over with love. Bonus, Jack and Zhao Zi are just as wonderful. I'm so grateful to receive this fic.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Last two weeks of 2021 which is a shock but at least I got my booster so that was good. Or good not good depending on how any other variants come up (thanks Omicron). But it's done.

***

Yuletide fic done in time. Very last minute because I was putting off on writing this other fic, I didn't mean for you to see, a crossover reincarnation shortfic of Qihun (Hikaru no Go live action 2020) and MDZS (and Fatal Journey) starring Gu Yu aka Nie Huaisang. But done is done.

Recs:

The end is where we begin, AU, ending change, Shen Qingiu/Luo Binghe, Scum Villain, bySilver999

A Chance to Interrupt, Shang Qinghua/Mobei-jun, explicit, Scum Villain, by Pip (Moirail)

Before I got my own place, I already knew it was going to be pretty small (1 bedroom flat) so I was looking up interior design style guides for small spaces. However, what (mostly) westernised interior design guides think of as 'small spaces' are actually about twice the size of my place. And some of those ideas just didn't quite fit, e.g. the so-called tiny house movement seems to assume that you will have a backyard. (That's just cheating, I wail.)

Stumbled a while back on a series of home makeovers in China by Beijing TV, which seems to be more on point. It calls itself 暖暖的新家： to makeover a truly small apartment (or house） (400sqft is a pretty common size) so that it comfortably holds a family of 4 or 5, a family of 6 (or this. The most interesting ones, I find, are the ones where they makeover a tiny bit of a hutong in Beijing, like this one (lots of hutongs were subdivided last century to provide more housing) #夢想改造家. Also an interesting snapshot into some common urban (usually Beijing) family structures: many are single-child families but both sets of grandparents move in to assist with childcare. It's kind of fun.

Dear Yuletide Author:

Thank you for taking the time to write a fic for me, especially in these trying times. I have some thoughts about these fandoms below, but they are only suggestions and please feel free to write where the muse takes you.

DNWs: ...coffeeshop AUs? Canon pairings meeting in childhood (unless they did grow up together). I don't have many strong DNWs, to be frank; so long the actions or descriptions are plausible in the overall logic/context of the fic, I'm okay with them.


(1) HiStory3 - Trapped
Meng Shao Fei

( About him )


(2) Thousand Autumns
Shen Qiao, Yan Wushi

( About them )


(3) Nirvana in Fire
Mei Changsu, Lin Chen

( Thinking of... )


(4) HiStory3 - Make Our Days Count
Xiang Haoting

( About him )

All by x_los, all Scum Villain

Living With a Tiger, Original Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan, reincarnation, AU, arranged marriage between child!Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe

Anyways, Stan Shen Qingqiu, meeting a new transmigrator, crack

How To Stop Being Strung Along By A Guy & Get What You Deserve: 5 Steps to a Serious Relationship!, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu | Shen Yuan

***

ALSO, HOSPITAL PLAYLIST SEASON 2 ENDED AND THERE IS NO MORE. >_< but also ^_______^

How lovely were episodes 11 and 12? I actually prefer episode 11, because the moment of realisation/discovery was so very much nail-biting and squee-inducing. And episode 12 was more traumatic, patient-wise. But it was very, very nearly perfect.

Now I can re-watch season 2 in peace. I don't actually wish for Season 3 because my feeling is, quit while you're ahead. Season 1 was already excellent, Season 2 surpassed that despite my fears and that it has a lot more ups and downs patients-wise (look, they did this part so well that I can't not feel for their predicaments, unlike some medical dramas where the patient is a sort of realisation tool for the surgeon's romantic/professional development). And they're all adults. They've all got to a good place, relationship-wise and also professionally and ALSO personally. Let 'em live their lives.

Finished knitting my cardigan (lie: I finished last month) but had to weave what seemed like a million ends first. After the first three I felt like saying, forget it, I'll just wear it with the long ends hanging out and tell everybody it's part of the design. But done's done. I need a cookie.

Apparently MXTX is going to get official English translations of her works (details here), which is great. I'm iffy about English translations of Chinese works, probably because I'm usually mentally translating it (badly) back into broken Chinese as I read. Oh well, we will see how it looks like first - in any case, I'm really more interested in MDZS and SV, rather than TGCF as I haven't even read it yet (will get round to it one of these days, I swear).

I'm at the stage of Untamed rewatch where I'm actively resenting the fact that no one taught Xiao Zhan to play the flute. He doesn't have to actually play - he can play 'do, re, mi' throughout, since it's gonna be dubbed - but it would save me from wincing at how the lip movement doesn't look right, dammit. For guqin I have lower standards because in some scenes it is so obviously a prop that I might get thrown out of the scene, but I am not annoyed by a prop.

This has been a random update.

Still on Hospital Playlist. Ep 6: How do they make the sad moments so bleak yet the joyful moments so sparkling?

Brain still eaten by Thousand Autumns. Btw, in the animated version Shen Qiao had regained his eyesight earlier (though it isn't as perfect as before), then almost-bluescreen dies (manipulated by Yan Wushu) and as de rigueur for wuxia, this means his skills level up, just in time (with a side plot at Bixia Sect, also killing Kunye) to go rescue his man YWS who is attacked on all sides, dashingly getting in just before the death strike, and gets to cradle WYS in his arms. Ah, I like that they take turns.

*Awaits season 2 with badly concealed impatience*

Thinking of some comparisons between the novel and the adaptation (novel!YWS is a lot less caring at first, doesn't even remember SQ much, unlike his donghua version), as well as the comparisons between Tian Ya Ke the novel and Word of Honor the TV adaptation, where WKX is someone who doesn't have a shixiong connection with ZZS but just crazily stalks him until he gets ZZS to pay attention to him. Wonder if the episodic format tends towards this type of characterisation, i.e. the 'crazy' character really is crazy...

I adore the opening of Thousand Autumns right now. here

Also, how much I melted for Thousand Autumns when I saw those scenes of SQ and YWS playing Go? I don't even play Go but I loved those scenes.

Still on the novel version, chapter 80.
( Read more... )

Non fanfic:

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho. Lives up to hype, though the K-drama-esque revelation at the ending was... very K-drama-esque. Or maybe that's just me. Jessamy (hate the name), a Harvard grad, returns to Malaysia only to find herself being haunted by her grandmother. As she tries to resolves a minor case of possession (her own) family secrets come out. In some places, it was pretty reminiscent of listening to the hairier tales of my grandma's family. Is there a genre such as SEA modern gothic? Because I think this might describe the plot. Now if only everything took place in an old Peranakan shophouse as well...

I love her dialogue, and how the Manglish never becomes awkward. I feel ultra-sensitive about writing set in SEA that try to portray the way people actually speak - it grates when it feels fake or awkward - and Zen Cho has always done it well in her previous works. And love all the in-jokes, though I've probably missed a few at the first reading.

***

Fanfic writing:

Does anyone know how Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun address each other, other than as Zhang-laoshi and Gong-laoshi? I'm tired of trying to figure this out via variety show clips and fan-vids on Youtbe. I know, I suck at research. Also I get distracted by the pretty. Also there's a lot of Xiao Zhan clips because c-entertainment news is mad full of it. And also. Much as I love staring at the pretty, it grates to keep coming accross WYB-XZ clips. I mean, I get that people adore Wangxian - as do I, but purely in fic. I think that that (RPS) ship has long, long sailed off a cliff. Anyway, Youtbe, stop giving the things I do not want.

Am I writing RPS of ZZH and GJ? I don't know. I have an idea but first I need to know what they call each other. I guess I can always invent some xiaoming or buddy-names...


TV:

Dream of Red Chamber, 2010 version. I'm not that much of a fan of having someone narrate the scenes to me, even though I know it helps in keeping the plotlines in mind. It's distracting. And this version mainly just follows the narrative sequence of the 1987 version; y'know, they could have done something interesting with the ending instead - instead we get the same old, same old Gao E version, except without the good songs of the 1987 version. Other than that. It is indeed very, very pretty. But the sound effects are *groan*. I know it's meant to portray a dreamlike atmosphere or the Dreaded Hand of Fate or whatever, but it unwittingly makes things feel cartoony. And I wish they'd just indicate which character it is (there are so many) when they appear onscreen after a few episodes' absence. And Yang Yang looks just fine as Jia Baoyu, BUT the actor who portrayed his younger self was way, way more... transcendent? And I've seriously having dissonance when I look at Li Qin as Xue Baochai versus the Li Qin whom I like in Joy of Life. Argh. Thankfully she is later acted by someone older, so I can dislike her in peace.

Hospital Playlist 2, coming this week. Can't wait. OMG. It's coming this week. Can't wait. Did I mention that I can't wait?

I think the reason that up to now, I can't make myself watch TV set in contemporary times (and so I've only been watching period shows or fantasy shows) is I dread seeing Covid appearing on TV. Don't ask me why, but I feel like if they portray the pandemic or don't portray the pandemic and it doesn't ring true to me I might throw my TV away. (If it was obviously made before Covid, I'm fine.) That's why I still haven't really watched History 4 even though I was pretty excited for it earlier this year. Besides the fake/not fake incesty plot. Look, after your stepbrother takes advantage of you while you're drunk the ONLY correct response is to cut him out of your life forever (whether or not you wish to make a police report, for the sake of family cohesion blahblahblah). That is exactly the time to spit on his 'love'. Instead (from the clips I caught) you tell yourself you're in love? I can't.

Lucifer season 5b. I liked this more than season 5A. Linda is my guiding light.


...I came to talk about ONE book.

In a bid to catch a lot more Wenzhou aka LLD clips on Youtube, I somehow ended up catching a lot of somewhat fantastical to seemingly delusional RPS (my characterisation) video clips for the actors, and incidentally learning a lot (true or not) rumours about the actors, other actors, and crazy world of Chinese entertainment. It's been a trip.

(I'm trying escapism recently.)

Anyway. I've also been watching:

Imperial Coroner (period drama, mystery, ancient-China-vibey coroner solving crimes), which is amazingly good: it's tightly plotted, logical sequences, starts to hint at an over-arching plot within the first few episodes, and the intelligent characters (including the female lead) are all extremely likeable.


The Long Night (crime thriller, dark), which I started watching last year. It is devastatingly good and also makes you rage, rage, rage at the injustice and unfairness of life. Stars Bai Yu, whom I didn't realise at first was the same Bai Yu of Guardian, because he's that good.