Sugardy Candy

While I'm online instead of falling asleep:

<<锦瑟>> 李商隐 (Li Shangyin)

锦瑟无端五十弦，一弦一柱思华年。
庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶，望帝春心托杜鹃
沧海月明珠有泪，蓝田日暖玉生烟。
此情可待成追忆，只是当时已惘然。

Ok, I've never paid that much attention to late Tang poetry (yes, I'm an unlettered oaf), and I have to admit that this poem caught my attention just now solely for the last bit in the third line: 玉生烟 (Yu Sheng Yan). Which is the name of Wu Yanshi's disciple in Thousand Autumns! Not sure if the author did take the name from this poem or if it's just a coincidence (or from another poem) but it is so adorable that I'm squeeing inside. (Tho' the poem is supposed to be a sad poem. But.) From what I gathered, 玉生烟 means a misty haze caused by sunlight on (jade)stone and refers to something ungraspable (I think?). Is it intended to be a sly reference to Yu Shengyan's very, very slow realisation of his shizun's infatuation with Shen Qiao? :))))

All the more delightful because this lyricism contrasts with Yan Wushi's terrible penchant for puns (Li Qingyu... tou).

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In order to avoid writing my Yuletide fic (I know, I'm procrastinating, as usual), I started watching Crossfire Episode 1 on YT (穿越火线) and binged-watched it over the week. Fast-forwarded some of it, mostly when they were shooting at each other... Loved the earlier storyline of how e-sports started in China, the team's struggles and the prejudice against gaming especially professional gaming.

(There's two storylines, one starting in 2008 and one starting in 2019, and it's surreal to see a narration of how the 2019 team makes it to the national championship in 2020-2021 (!!!) and then flies to Singapore in 2021 (!!!!) for an international competition. Well, they probably made this in 2018-2019 and could not have anticipated the pandemic. Still.)

I watched it for Wu Lei (hello Fei Liu!) but ended up enjoying Lu Han's character more. The last episode was satisfying in that they caught the baddie at last but there's a lot of nationalist jingoism and of course, they had to defeat the Japanese team first (ahhhhh, China, never change).

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By the way, I was grumbling the other day that Xiao Zhan didn't seem to have learnt the flute while filming the Untamed... turns out that he did learn it, there's bts. I guess the scenes where it didn't look right to me was... probably me? -_-; (Or the way that that they filmed those scenes, hmmm).

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.

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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.

Watching 庆余年 Joy of Life on youtube and enjoying it so much that I dread it ending.

The setting is supposedly feudal China (it gets complicated) and the main character is Fan Xian, a young man who somehow has the memories of 21st century earth and is making his way in the world, and delves into the mystery of his mother's death (and existence) while negotiating political pitfalls. Acted by Zhang Ruoyun, whom I've never heard of before but am now an enthusiastic fan of.

Chen Daoming is the emperor of Nanqing (or Qingguo, as the characters refer to it) and he is all kinds of awesome. But then, he always is. As is the the slippery, scheming Chen Pingping, head of what is the equivalent of IA of the imperial court. I sort of fangirl over a series with a plot that moves quickly, where characters speak in semi-cryptic sentences (because they're all plotting like mad) and many-layered period costumes, haha.

Li Qin is so pretty and adorable but I'm totally won over by the the Princess Royal and the way she makes a 'hm' sound so sinister. 'Hm' yes I'm plotting against you; 'Hm' Cross me and die, etc, etc.

And I cannot lie, I started the series for Xiao Zhan, who appears as a supporting character in the later episodes, and I'm quite enjoying his extremely serious demeanor here. I think he took on this role after filming The Untamed, and the improvement to his acting is obvious. It's mildly annoying that the other shows that have been released so far are projects prior to the Untamed, and much as I fangirl him I cannot help liking this later project more.

At episode 41 now, no spoilers please.

*gets home*
*rips off mask*
*takes deep breath*

There are definitely days when Covid's only the sixth or seventh thing on my mind, and then there are very powerful moments when I feel like it's the topmost. On the other hand I've not caught a single cold this whole year due to everyone wearing masks, washing hands and keeping their distance. And now that I've jinxed myself...

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I got my Yuletide assignment! Hm, time to get my writing muscles to work. I've only been writing some random chapters of my MDZS fics these few months.

Watched the first and last episodes of The Queen's Gambit, which is on Netflix. Story of a chess prodigy called Elizabeth. How did they find someone with such wide big eyes and who can blink them in such a coolly challengingly way? Actually, make that coolly, intellectually, challengingly. Loved the last episode where she goes to a tournament and proceeds to thrash everyone (emerging, in true American-narrative trajectory - compare with Hikaru no Go - the winner) and with intense looks across the chessboard without it being necessarily sexually seductive (no doubt it's there somewhere, but I didn't notice). Ah, it reminds me of why I love Hikago so much.

Not sure whether to watch the middling episodes where despite a traumatic childhood, her genius was noticed, she's set on the path to being famous, while spiraling down in her personal life due to addiction, until she climbs up and achieves success because of support from her best friend/sister, etc, etc... you know how these stories go.

Also, the dresses! She wears a different dress for every match (while the male competitors, of course, just get by with suits - maybe even the same suit, who could tell?). The blatant sartorial inequality is kind of enraging but I do love dresses.

Watching:

Romance of Tiger and Rose: It's kinda cute? There's a femdom which is not very well developed but it's still fun. It's essentially a light-hearted romance (24 episodes) which plays with some drama tropes enough to make things fresh and I'm enjoying the costumes and being intrigued by Chen Qianqian's braids. Quick review at Cfensi here

2019 Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre. I'm just skipping to my favourite parts*: when Zhang Wuji fights off the orthodox sects at Bright Peak, not-so-incidentally defending the Ming sect; when he 'returns' to Wudang and meets Zhang Sanfeng and learns taiji in an hour; when Yang Buhui decides she wants to marry Yin Liting; when the lady in yellow comes to kick Zhou Zhirou's ass. Glad to see that the Ji Xiaofu/Yang Xiao relationship is a little less rapey this time round; there's a bit of Stockholm syndrome, but compared to previous versions/interpretations, I'm willing to let that go. Somewhat.

- I'm always kinda disappointed in Xie Xun at the end, when he decides he'd rather be a monk because apparently all that time of being imprisoned by Shaolin monks and listening to their Buddhist scriptures have... changed him? Well, Louis Cha puts it down as 'reforming' but from my perspective, isn't it brainwashing instead? I'm like, damn, even Zhang Wuji later realises he'd have to get away from the Ming sect***, and you? You'd decided to throw in your lot with a bunch of hypocritical monks instead? (I hasten to add that the monks in Heavenly Sword are portrayed as arrogant, prejudiced, self-righteous assholes, and this is something that Xie Xun and many of the other characters know well, and yet...). Also this version of Xie Xun, the 'Gold-haired Lion King' (:-P) has really nice, shiny hair for someone who's been imprisoned in an underground dungeon for months. ^____^;;;

*There have been so many TV versions of Jin Yong's Condor trilogy that unless that version is really spectacular**, I'm quite ehh and happy to skip the parts I'm bored by and re-watch the parts that tug at my heartstrings. E.g. I'm forever soft for Yang Guo/Xiaolongnu, especially their reunion at the heroes' meet and the one 16 years later; also when Yang Guo tells the world to fuck off about his and Xiaolongnu's relationship; and Xiaolongnu kicking Quanzhen ass; and Xiaolongnu and Zhou Botong friendship - it's the only time when Zhou Botong doesn't seem tedious to me. Total avoid: the rape scene. Total cringe on the giant condor - I cannot watch it except as parody: condor as transport device in the 2006 version, for example.

**The results have been generally mixed.

***I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't read the newest revised version of Heavenly Sword but Zhang Wuji's little speech at the end when he declines to be emperor is pretty good: that the Ming sect made their living (so as to speak) by fighting against the ills and corruption of those in power and it's totally self-serving to now hype yourself as emperor on the basis that since we're the 'good' guys, we're gonna be a good emperor. It doesn't work that way because of that thing about power corrupts. (Of course as history proves, this was why they got systematically wiped out - because one of theirs rose to power. Zhu Yuanzhang who became first emperor of the Ming dynasty totally knew how dangerous religious-based rebel sects were. Whereas if the Ming sect had not meddled in politics, they could have muddled along as a halfway accepted jianghu religious-based sect, y'know, like Shaolin.)

Of media consumed:

1. Finally got bored with Netflix!

(a) Well, for a given value of bored. I've been using it to re-watch the bits that I really enjoyed, like the encounters with the foodimals in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, the sky lantern scene in Tangled, the post-cave testflight(s) for Iron Man's suit, and Kim Hang Ah rescuing Lee Jae Ha in King 2 Hearts (all scenes). And the last episode of Hwayugi, which I'd been avoiding (and it turned out to be not as awful as I was expecting).

(b) Also because I'm really with Netflix for season 4 of Lucifer, really. So much so that I've not been paying much attention to Endgame playing in theatres, even though I was looking forward to it - I'll probably get round to it next week or so. Been trying, though not very hard, to avoid spoilers on that front.

(c) And also because my absolute favourite K-dramas of recent months/years, Beautiful Mind and Are You Human Too? are not on Netflix, but Viu. (Goblin is, so at least that's that.) So that rules out binge re-watches.

(d) Also no Nirvana in Fire.

(e) And also because I've been watching Taiwan's BL series on youtube. I'd had a go at Guardian, which is a China product, but lovely as the the main characters are, the basic plot premise just annoyed me a lot. So. Taiwanese BL. As expected (which is unfair on the whole, but my experience of watching Taiwanese dramas, especially the soaps, has caused some bias), the plots are just about serviceable, the dialogue is clunky, and the meet-cute scenes are all hackneyed (okay, 'all' is an exaggeration, but close). But it is something of a novelty to see a BL series play out as banally as a typical hetrosexual romance. Even the character names are punny.

I've been watching the HIStory series so far, which is a bunch of short drama series (mostly half-a-dozen roughly 30min episodes per offering) and it's been predictable but kinda fun. Acting ranges from awkward to okay to "hm, not bad, you had me convinced for a while", while displays of affection range from kissing to pushing the other onto a couch or bed, then fades to black: roughly the same as what I'd expect from a typical Taiwanese romance on TV for general consumption...? And novelty aside, the guys are cute. Not necessarily handsome or good-looking, but damn they're cute, all big eyes and earnestness and wholesomeness. Also, once in a while, it's nice to listen to some Taiwanese slang rather than the China/Chinese variety.

Just a word of forewarning: some people may want to pass on HIStory2 - 是非, which is between a college student and his professor. Apparently the power imbalance issue never comes up? They deal (vaguely) with bullying, homophobia, age difference, family dynamics (the prof has a kid) but not that. I know everything is soft-focus in a romance series, but that was a strange omission. So, forewarning in case you are bothered by that. (ETA) If that doesn't bother you, it's pretty good and I liked it. Oh, and HIStory2 - 越界 (Crossing the Line) is high school romance with volleyball and fauxcest (two pairings) and it's cute too!

What I'm really on, though, is HIStory 3 - Trap, which just started two weeks ago, and features a romance between a cop and a gangster. (The secondary couple is also cute as heck.) It's tropey but sooo adorable. I think cop/gangster pairings are my idfic. Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i-qaUOVu1Q

Still reading 瑯琊榜 Nirvana in Fire, chapter 121 of 149. I'd say that reading this novel is improving my Chinese, but unfortunately a lot of it is classical Chinese or archaic words (or both) that don't see much use in modern times. Kind of fun, though, if you are interested in the language.

And between the more serious chapters I turn to clips of the series for entertainment (beware spoilers), like this one of Xiao Jingyan watching Mei Changsu aka Lin Shu pull his sword (oh dear, that sounds so naughty). I love that moment when Mei Changsu is inwardly going "ohshit ohshit I just gave myself away wtf I'll just pretend nothing's happened".

Or where Xiao Jingyan gives Mei Changsu aka Lin Shu a present (wtf, it still sounds naughty)- and also, that moment when you'd expect Mei Changsu to gasp and say, "I do!"

And I've rewatched this like five times: where Fei Liu splashes Lin Chen with water while Mei Changsu watches - a rare instance of a cheerful and genuinely amused Mei Changsu.

yifu posted on this: China TV-series 琅琊榜, which has the odd translated title of Nirvana In Fire (wonder which publicist thought that up) (see also http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nirvana_in_Fire); I just search for "langyabang" on Youtube.

It's a serial-numbers-filed-off version of ... costumes and setting looks like it could be 3rd or 4th century China, where there were still many small countries and territories, a time when kingdoms rose and fell in a matter of decades. This one features a fictionalised country of Liang, into which comes an ethereal-looking (to use yifu's description) strategist played by Hu Ge (yes, really), who is sickly but brilliant in mind. He goes to Jinlin, the capital of Liang, with a hidden agenda and backstory that slooowly becomes clear as he strategises one of the princes to the throne.

I think it's a bit of an unusual side of Chinese culture (even though in the series, Liang - and other countries - haven't been heavily Sinicised) that makes you think sickly scholars are totally cool, even though the country of Liang, like its neighbouring country, is supposed to prize itself on martial arts and the physical prowess of its armies. Luckily this is fiction, or I would totally side-eye the interplaying concepts. The court intrigue isn't just confined to the harem, but to different departments of the government and army - and the characters are multi-dimensional, all with different motivations for their plots. There's a bit of romance, but overall the series is quite focused on stuff like loyalty, integrity, brotherhood, and so on. Add villains that you love to hate, lots of action scenes, people talking in occasional mock literary Chinese (they probably dumbed it down a lot for plebs like me), georgeous clothes, and I'm there.

So I woke up to 阳关三叠, from one of our CDs, played by my dad as a way of being Chinese-y without resorting to the usual barrage of Chinese New Year songs.

Lunar New Year has come early and took me a bit unprepared. Usually there's a bit of a longer lead-time from Jan 1. But it's supposed to especially auspicious this year as it is the year of the dragon. Ironically, this year bodes ill for those born in the year of the dragon as they are supposed to have offended the god of Jupiter (太歲) - so the astrological section says - by their very existence this year. Well, well.

Happy New Year anyway!

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( 步步惊心 )

The Yearly Revolution, 4 parts (scroll down for links to the other parts) Sherlock/John, Sherlock, by methimyesterday

Moving In, Hikaru/Akira, Hikago, by harukami