Sugardy Candy

I would do the Shakespeare bucket list except I haven't watched a lot of Shakespeare? Bit embarrassing, that.

Currently watching Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung, and enjoying the female characters so much. The historians are terrible people but also quite enjoyable.

Still on HIStory 3 - Trapped, so much. Writing fic, though not as productive as I would like. I'm so terrible at plotting.

***

Borne on the Winds of Heaven, Nirvana in Fire, alternate-ending, by Ione

For HIStory 3 - Trapped fics

and, heavens, when you looked at me, Jack/Zhao Zi, by agentlithium

Black Hands, Clean Slate | 黑手漂白, WIP, Jack/Zhao Zi, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei, other pairings, by pumpkinpaix (scribogenesis)

In Chinese: 逃脫術, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei, explicit sex, by kafkacafe

There's this literary term called the pathetic fallacy, which is defined as (quick google) as "the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature". Modern Chinese narratives have a lot of this - well, classical Chinese uses a ton of allusions and references, and my theory is that modern narrative that use the pathetic fallacy is the less fraught, and more assessible version of that stylistic technique.

That's my amateur view anyway: I'm definitely not trained in Chinese narratology, especially that found in modern Chinese fiction. But it's a reason I stopped reading popular Chinese novels. Nirvana in Fire being an outliner in this respect.

Which is a long way of saying that whenever the narrative in the Trap novel trips me up, it's in these moments. Am also not keen on descriptions of people as cute little animals, which happens not infrequently.


On the other hand, there's loads that made me laugh like a loon, speculate or try to figure out. ( spoilery )

Ranty: I don't even know why there are so many Chinese ABO fics for Trapped. They are fascinating for about six minutes and then we get into all the things about ABO fics that make me roll my eyes: someone being needy, someone being dominant because it's in their biological nature, the obsession with penetrative sex, and mpreg.

Oh well.

Recs (not the ABO ones):

Promised & Sealed, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei, reference to Chen Wen Hao's suicide, by katikat.

Also by same author: Among Tombstones, and A Glimpse of Dry Land, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei

我宁愿所有痛苦都留在心底, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei, by ElaineLA

By kanesilver, all Jack/Zhao Zi:
你要负责
初吻以後的拷问
怪咖
谁不是怪咖
I love the characterisation lots, especially for Zhao Zi!

What saddens me about HIStory 3 - Trapped now that it's ending next week:

1) That people don't go on dates at teashops more;

2) That there aren't people on DW (or LJ, for that matter) to discuss the show with;

3) Because the people leaving comments at the official FB page are kinda*... and I can see that our priorities aren't quite the same;

4) I like the behind the scenes clips, but hate the actor interview clips due to the severe embarrassment squick whenever the actors have to play some silly games as though to prove that they're devoted to their screen partner. They are actors. Their job is to make the characters convincing;

5) Not enough details to feed my conspiracy theories, hah.


*The more vocal ones seemed to be clamouring for sex scenes nearly all the time. I'd rather have more plot, thanks. Though the series is pretty good with plotty stuff; it's not especially twisty, but decent execution makes it enjoyable.

More squee/thoughts on Trapped:

1) That curl of hair on the side of Meng Shao Fei's head. It's almost exactly like the one on Guoguo (Ella Chen) in Down With Love where she acted opposite Jerry Yen's character, and... maybe it's a thing in Taiwan to have a ridiculous curl, but I find it adorable.

2) My wild theories on Jack and Zhao Zi's backstories proliferate like whoa. Can I go Infernal Affairs on them?

3) Also on the ending(s). I guess it's a happy ending all round for all three pairings, but how do they get there...?

4) Is Tang Yi in fact Tang Guo Dong's secret son? Tang Yi was remarkably unfazed at Chen Wen Hao's reference to TGD's marriage and children comment, but it's never addressed thereafter. Either TY already knew of his mentor's secret family and pointedly did not comment on it, or knew it was rubbish right off, ditto. I mean, either it's a reference to TY himself or not at all?

5) Really, really wondering about Meng Shao Fei's backstory. Apparently top of his class at the police academy. Don't see him giving that up for love, unless he absolutely had to. And then it'd break something in him.

6) Also the Trap episode trailer/teasers. Damn it! It was delicious to see how the actual episode was so very different from what was implied in the teaser. Well played, Trapped team, well played.

***

Went to the temple for Vesak Day (they had free food) and a fun(!) exercise to copy scripture (only the Heart Scripture, as it's pretty short) and really actually read it for myself(1). It's a little like Ozymandias, except with more reiterations on emptiness.

Also today/yesterday, discovered a Youtube video that proceeded to compare Dream of Red Chamber with Louis Cha's Gods and Semi-devils (aka 天龙八部), and also another that explicates the religious and philosophical meanings in it that totally went over my head (because I'm an unlettered oaf who just understood the surface narrative) AND another with references to Journey to the West, which pretty much made my day.

(1) The way my parents propagate Buddhism in my home (and most of my friends' homes) is: "hold these joss sticks, put three in the urn"; "bow to Buddha/Guan Yin"; "say your prayer. How? Just say it!" Unless you were actively curious about religion, you didn't really learn much, you just copied whatever the adults did... without knowing how or why.

There I was, wondering why I took to HIStory3: Trapped so quickly. And then of course, I realised: it all started from Tokyo Crazy Paradise. Police/gangster (or yakuza) pairings are definitely my kink. Aaand I'm a little embarrassed to admit that that probably came from A Better Tomorrow aka 英雄本色 aka that movie with Chow Yun Fat and Leslie Cheung. And Ti Lung; I always forget Ti Lung. There's no m/m or BL in the movie - though I've read (Western) critics who allude to the homosocial elements in it... whatever? - but encountering the tension between good and evil in a relatable setup (gangsters: bad, police: good - but what about righteous gangsters and corrupt cops?) was clearly a formative experience*.

*ALso explains my (lesser but still fervent) love of wuxia.

And it (ABT) totally explains my urge to make up terrible, melodramatic backstories for the Trap characters. Now, hm, Meng Shao Fei (half of the main pairing), who is impulsive but overall a good cop who has been investigating/stalking Tang Yi, erstwhile gang leader for a good FOUR years to find out how his mentor died, is totally the one whose dad was a cop who died in action and his mother worked two jobs to put on the table because apparently the police pension is peanuts, and she finally died of overwork while Shao Fei was in high school and Sister Lizhen (said mentor) stepped in as a big sister figure through a social work attachment via the police academy and ended up influencing Shao Fei to be a cop. And then she died, and the only link is Tang Yi...

And Tang Yi (other half of main pairing) was clearly from a broken family filled with domestic violence, so he bonded with the neighbour's kid Zuo Hong Ye, who was also from a terrible home situation, and who became his adopted sister. They ran away from home and tried to survive on the streets, clearly not very well, until the previous gang leader Tang Guo Dong adopted them and brought them home and Tang Yi took on his saviour's family name. Then his saviour/father figure died, and Tang Yi took over his mission to legitimise the gangster's businesses, attracting enemies from both sides of the law along the way.

And Jack (one half of the second pairing) was in the army when both parents died so he went abroad and became a mercenary...

Ok, I'll stop. My theories for Zhaozi (other half of the second pairing) are even wilder. But that's the fun in ficcing, I guess. I need to get to the end of the series before I put together any coherent narrative, I think.

But there's fic already:

Home, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei, by FlorBexter. Also by same author, With your touch, Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei