#and also been years since year 3 but yi get the point

[trenchcroats]

Hey guys, compliment my f :3

/silly

[dukku-of-catempty]

Linking my translation of Red Candle's interview yesterday here, also typed out below. I didn't translate everything, but hopefully it's enough for fans to get a glimpse of their game dev process. Interview vod here.

Ninesols was delayed twice. As their first try at a metroidvania, they found out there's a lot more to be done. Their first game play video was actually an accident. Someone clicked the wrong button on the obs and it became a live stream.

For the interview today, we have 2 of the 6 co-founders of redcandlegames, Henry and Vincent/4wei, plus the game play designer Lighty and Art designer Pege/XiaoHe.

Game Dev Process

Back then Yi was a head shorter, pretty close to Hollow Knight. Devs call it the "Hollow Cat era". It took them 1-2 years to progress from Hollow Cat to 2D Sekiro.

Q: You've already set such a high bar for game play (hollow knight, sekiro), why did you have the same high standard for art and story as well?

Henry:(points at Vincent) this is all him. I said, just focus on the game play! Then he decided to throw in the story

Vincent: I didn't set it out to be so dialogue heavy. But simple gameplay doesn't keep gamers playing, they have to be invested in the world to want to play more.

Vincent: I wanted to save budget so I thought, comics, they're simple enough. Turned out they were costly too. Pege got the other end of that. She drew all the in-game comics.

Pege: Comic works in that you can get up close to the characters and see the details, their expressions.

Their initial inspo for the artstyle was Akira... really reaching for the heights of everything

On the designing process:

Vincent: pacing comes first, whether it's story, combat, or the gaming experience

About 35mins in: Lighty explains the initial concept of TaoPunk

Vincent come up with keywords and Pege designs the character. For example, Goumang was "princess, tsundere", Lady Ethereal was based on "Zhuangzi and the butterfly dream".

40min, Pege explains the character designing process

Pege had the hardest time designing JieQuan. Girls are easier.

Vincent: he's the typical straight macho dude

MCs: what do you mean straight? All I see is 🌈

Vincent wanted there to be a low point for the gamer, since the first 3 bosses were relatively easy. He drew inspiration from Bloodborne and MGS, and JieQuan was born as Yi's tormentor.

Pege's favorite character is Ji, based on his character design and gender.

Vincent: I said Ji can be a they, but Pege insisted on him being male.

MC: So we can actually see stuff under his skirt

Henry: Yi had to struggle to not get flashed during the fight

Lighty also likes Ji best, because of his character. He likes his views as an immortal.

Henry also likes Ji best, because of his combat pattern. Out of all the bosses, his combat pattern is the only one thats entirely original. He wanted to make a 3rd stage.

Since all the characters came from Vincent, he doesn't have a favorite, but is impressed by how popular some of them are. Lady Ethereal's fight was actually the least costly. The platforming was a budget choice. Including the jumpscare, Ethereal was the easiest stage to make.

Vincent: Even the bgm. For Lady Ethereal, I didn't need to tell the composer what I want, they finished it perfectly.

Henry: This is a collaboration where everyone provides their expertise, and Lady Ethereal is an example of us working extremely in sync.

They ran out of time and funds at the research center, and were not entirely satisfied with it even when the game launched.

Solarian was based on Middle Chinese. Old Chinese sounds close to Vietnamese and is too hard for the VAs to pronounce. Vincent thinks since the game is sci-fi in ancient times, a new language is needed for immersion.

Everyone's stressed at the end of the project: it's been five years, and the game hadn't been tested by the mass public, so they weren't sure how it'd be received

Solarian language and Voiceover

Vincent: in Taiwanese we have checked tones, libiodentals, we digged deeper into these traits and referenced Taiwanese/Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Middle Chinese for the Solarian language. Our Solarian expert, Sheng-Han Lin worked on it for 3 months. He even wrote a program where it converts a word into Solarian automatically, complete with KK phonetic symbols.

Basic Solarian words/phrases:

(Making these up, tone numbers are mandarin)

Bi³ Suen² = big brother

Shuai² In³ = Hello Friend

Why⁴ Song⁴ = Stop right there

Uen Zai² Chok = got it (I think?)

Ket Do³ = thank you

Vincent: first thing I said to the VAs was "sorry". Even after the recording process they still weren't sure what they were saying 😂

Many thanks to our voice director Neven Chang. It's the VAs performance that convinced me that Solarian is an actual language.

The Solarian characters came out of the need for there to be inscriptions on the background architectures, but modern Chinese characters breaks the immersion, so the art team came up with the idea to use the CangJie input method.

Vincent: initially we wanted to use the oracle bone script, but it's too time consuming, we needed something systemized. We do have our own Solarian font tho.

Solarian font has been dicephered here

Fan made font

Q&A section!

First question: are there plans for future nine sols DLCs?

Vincent: we still have a lot of work, like console ports and adding more languages, plus the crowndfund reawards... so currently we're looking to finish these first.

Vincent: as you know, we are a bunch of overachievers, so if there is a DLC, there's no telling how long we'll work on it... but atleast for me, I do hope to tell more stories in this world. That's all I'll say for now.

Q: will there be merch?

A: Yes, all the crowdfund rewards will also be sold as merch, like the art book and physical game pack, but at a higher price. Not the figure though, they're already finished, to make more we'll go bankrupt.

Unless, there's a really high demand for it 👀

Q: were there any additional plot you had to cut due to lack of resources?

.

*SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

A: Chien's boss fight, Ji's 3rd phase, Yi fighting himself in Eigong's soul sanctum, a TianHuo last boss, Abacus was supposed to be Yi from the past, Kanghui, the dragon... we cut a lot

Vincent: There are two plotlines I stood my ground on: the revenge plot, and the relationship between Yi and Heng.

We actually changed Shuanshuan's story a lot. Initially he was supposed to be super energetic and run around all of New Kunlun.

Q: there are a lot of ways the player can fight in #ninesols, were you worried about it being too hard?

A: Yes. It's very parry focused, so if you can't parry, you're dead. The Story Mode was made out of this fear. But from the response we've got so far, it seems to be ok.

Vincent: the real problem is gamers having false expectations. Souls fans get frustrated with the parrying and combat fans get frustrated with the dialouges. So we have to let the gamers know, this isn't hollow knight, isn't Sekiro, this is Nine Sols.

Q: what do the lyrics in the bgm mean?

A: they are all really simple. Like "heroes are forged in agony". For Fuxi and Nuwa, their keyword was "Peony Pavilion", opera related, so the composer incorporated 牧虎關 into their battle bgm.

All #ninesols boss music was composed by @/FFXX_sound. 4-5 of the songs were recomposed after betaing. The boss fight in plumblossom village wasn't supposed to be this hard, but the bgm was too fire, so the team adjusted it.

Vincent: the composer could choose whether to use Solarian or Mandarin lyrics. I was there during recording. We got a talented Taiwanese men's choir to sing for us. Four professional singers singing "Huh! Hah! Heroes are forged in agony!" It looked ridiculous.

For the ending song, redcandle wanted to connect to the international audience, and Collage fit that perfectly. Plus our fans kept recommending them to us. Communication was smooth, apparently Natsuko is a gamer and really liked us.

Taopunk was a mix of Eastern and Western cultures, so it was decided early on that there would be English lyrics in the ED.

There was an ARG on discord where fans can uncover the ED bit by bit.

There are also plans for future interactive games like that

Q: what are some challenges for the EN locoalizatuon?

A: It was pretty smooth, we had a lot of help from our discrod server, including JP proofreading. Both EN and JP TL was actually done in a month before release. We just posted our beta dialougues and everyone came to help us.

Lady Ethereal used to be FuDie, but it sounds terrible in English, so she was renamed.

KangHui used to be GongGong, but it's too confusing to non mandarin speakers.

Eigong too, she used to be Yigong, Yi as in change, but players may mistake her to be related to Yi.

Solarian society trivia:

-they are a matriarchal society

-the average age of death is 140

-cats are evolved from Solarians

They are working on more languages, all of them EU ones. MC asked if there are plans for SEA languages. They say that'll require ppl fluent in these languages, since the other TL are mostly done by community members/fans.

2-3days after release, their text file was hacked. It's a Google doc, Lighty went on there and found someone typing Italian text there, all correct dialougues. They kicked them out then emailed the Italian.

The Italian : I'm just a player, I just want to help.

They translated pages of text, the team was terrified. Security breach!

the Italian said thank you to the team for being patient with them, cause they did the same thing with other games and got severe responses.

RedCandle: thanks but please don't ever do it again.

Q: are you satisfied with the response from non CN speaking players?

A: Yes. Most of the reviews we got were English. It's our goal anyway, to break the culture barrier.

There are of course some surprises.

MC: you mean the furries?

A: the amount of fanart was unexpected

Vincent: I was also surprised by the response we got on reddit. We actually realized our goal, so I was pretty happy with that.

Q: any plans for a new game?

they've worked on nine sols for 5 years already, pretty drained right now, so (as a team) theres no new content planned yet

And here comes the funniest part lol (clip)

Q: any plans for a new game?

Vincent: Having ideas for a new game is one thing, but we still--

(Thunder claps)

Vincent: 😱 Did I say the wrong thing? I'm sorry! OK? We'll start working on it!

Discussing the ending...

Devs consider the true ending a good ending. Its ok if life has no meaning, having lived is enough and all that.

And ED is Collage's take on the ending.

I'll end the thread here, though there are 30mins more to go. Many thank to Wenlobong for hosting the interview, and Red Candle for making the game! Really hope #ninesols will get more recognition

[darkenforcer]

2 FROM EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE PLEASE

QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN || accepting !

What caused you to start writing? What was your key point?

reading and writing have always been hobbies of mine, so when i learned i could write as the fictional characters i love? with other people!? i was so down!

i don't remember what keyed me in on it, though? i used to play pretend (it was just LARPing, lbr) on the playground until i was around 11, so maybe it kinda clicked in my mind that writing was the natural next step? no clue.

Do you tell your friends / family that you write?

KINDA... i tell people i write with a community online and create "collaborative stories," but i never refer to it as rp or go in-depth unless i know that person's also done it before / is in similar fandom spaces.

Are you happy with how your favorite canon muse was portrayed in canon?

sure, i don't have any major complaints about his writing! it's consistent and fun to compare how differences in the localization shift the tone of certain character/rship-building scenes, while still managing to keep the spirit of his character intact. my only "issue" is that they could've put more time into expanding his character arc in the third act (but the same can be said for every character... a fumble all around tbh).

Have you ever written a canon muse that you first thought of ‘meh’ when they appeared in their canon show/movie/book?

NOPE! can't do it. if i'm not weird about that fictional character from the start, it's very unlikely i'll ever put the effort into forcing myself to write them. i need that click! that spark!

How do you create an OC? What are your steps for developing an OC?

i haven't developed an oc in yearssss so i'm the last person anyone should be asking. uh... (1) be a preteen, (2) develop an insane normal fictional crush, and (3) make an oc to ship them with. bam.

Who was your first OC?

i made my first in-depth oc when i was a wee 9 year old... she started out as a self-insert sonic oc that i obviously had to ship with sonic and shadow bc, duh. i also forced my cousins to make ocs so we could roleplay together lol.

i had more before that one but they were basically just vague roles i slipped into when playing pretend with my friends.

Is there any fandom you regret exploring?

can i say all of them njgnjg i think every fandom out there has its subset of annoying fans who'll make you reconsider ever interacting with anyone you haven't personally vetted lol, even if briefly. for example -- just bc of its infamy -- i never interact with sonic fans outside my circle; i've seen way too many pointless debates and shitty opinions to risk venturing out there again...

In what fandom did you start?

i am SO glad sonic was the first because the ones after it are infinitely more embarrassing.

What are your favorite ships on here (feel free to tag?)

OOO good question!!! i'll start by saying i've been rooting for break/zhilan since day 1 -- love those goobers!! other than that, i enjoy seeing any ship get together on here, like lloyd/zelos, vash/wolfwood (both iterations), nicolette/wang yi... if you're shipping with someone just now i'm hooting 'n hollering whenever they interact.

Have you ever developed a ship based on writing with a certain other character / mun?

nope, not yet! it's not that i'm against developing ships after noticing chemistry betwen muses -- far from it! -- it's just never gotten to the point where i wrote one.

What’s something you find weird on here?

i can't think of anything in particular, so... tumblr's commitment to making their layout as annoying as unoriginal and bloated as possible.

What people make you happy when you see them on the dash?

commence the taggening... you (duh), @kleinstar, @moraypower, @hollowfaith, @cladinivcry, @ultimatelifefcrm, @innerbeast, @nicawlette, @twohundredpower, @spiderstaff, @lalaluuz, ... i can't keep tagging people i'll go on forever...

[slonekaru]

I’m back with another question!! What were your top 5 moments in a BL.

It could be the moment you went from “I kinda like this show to I love this show so much” or like moments that made you swoon.

Wow this one is actually so much harder than favourite BL's of this year! (I also had to remind myself that it wasn't just sex scenes - bad brain)

Love in the Air - Riding (Episode 6)

So we are starting with a sex scene but lets face it that scene left me gobsmacked! Payu may have still been the Dom and in charge but he let Rain reward him for winning his race and take control.

The tongue lick, Rains dirty talk, Payu looking absolutely wrecked.

If I could get pregnant via watching TV, that moment Payu called Rain Naughty Boy, IN THAT VOICE, would have been it.

Then when Rain said he was riding, I was like, he's not, he's not, he is! OMG he did!!!

Cutie Pie - Marriage Talk (Episode 7)

The scene where they are in Lian's club and talking about marriage. I really liked the discussion in general. It's a popular discussion point in BL's now but I liked this one because it had one friend that took the role of 'why is it important you can still be together'. I thought it was important because friends sometimes say things like that without malicious intent they just don't think.

The other reason I love it was it was my intro to BounPrem. I heard people go on about them but had never watched a show with them in. As soon as I saw them I fell in love with their pairing. It was a revelation and I fell down the BounPrem rabbit hole.

I believe my thoughts were along the lines that Boun looked like a vampire (hilarious since I later found he wants to play one) and that Prem looked like he would be really good in bed (again - bad brain). I also like it because it has more PremBoun vibes rather than BounPrem.

Between Us - Boyfriend Talk (Episode 5)

This has been stuck in my head the last couple of weeks.

The fact Win leaves his bedroom door open for Team and that Team is comfortable enough to let himself in speaks to how their relationship is progressing.

But the part that got me was when Team asked Win not to see anyone else at that time. When Win doesn't reply, Team looks so heartbroken.

It must have taken great courage to ask for exclusivity when they are on such unsure footing.

Then the fact they both clearly want to date each other but aren't ready yet.

We Best Love: No 1 for You - Confess and Walk Away (Episode 5)

I love the We best Love series so much. I'm sad Season 3 has never materialised.

Shi De confesses to Shu Yi while he thinks he is asleep and later (after some intervention from a third party) Shu Yi confronts Shi De.

It's beautiful, they are just two guys talking and then Shu Yi says he never wants to fall in love with a man. The camera is focused on Sam Lin's face who is playing Shi De and I feel it every time. The way Sam Lin is trying to hold back the tears but still helping Shu Yu. It's so real. So, so very real. And then he tells Shu Yi to be happy and find a nice girl. So heartbreaking.

I will watch this scene over and over.

Kinnporsche - Apologise (Episode 13)

Lets face it, there were so many moments between Vegas and Pete.

Trying to choose one was so hard! Do I choose the post-credit scene, the sex scene, the talk about their fathers, Vegas being shot, Pete leaving the Main Family, Pete first seeing Vegas torture someone.

But ultimately I picked the scene behind the bar after Pete escapes the safe house.

Biblebuild were so amazing. Pete truly needed the apology from Vegas, he needed the breakdown. It was finally about Pete and not about Vegas like the earlier apology. Vegas is the only person Pete cried in front of during the series. And Vegas needed to truly understand how much he hurt Pete.

[mykingdomforasong]

First Line Game

The idea is to post the first line from the last ten fics you posted and see if there’s a trend. (Thank you for the tag @sadiebwrites!)

Today, they’d started at the end. (Twice Upon a Pointe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percabeth, T)  

2. Annabeth had a plan. She was going to go to Miami, watch him dance, and then take him back to her hotel room, where she would reveal the matching white lace bra and panty set she had on under her dress. (Divertissement, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percabeth, E)

3. The hot sun of Dorne wasn’t dissimilar to the climates in the East. Din had hardly noticed a change since he set sail from Asshai and then Yi Ti on the far shores of Essos, bound, at last, for his homeland. The bronze and gold stone building and rich tapestries of Dorne were far more pleasant than the strange shadows of Asshai and the black stone buildings that seemed to bleed out of that darkness. (Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken, Star Wars, DinLuke Game of Thrones AU, E)

4. Tatooine sandstorms were deadly once they picked up. There wasn't any flying possible when they raged through the Dune Sea, so Luke was just glad that they'd been sheltered in the still-abandoned hovel that used to belong to Ben. (The Sand Storm, Star Wars, Skymandolo, E)

5. Han thought the Rebellion might be a good chance to get closer to the young man he'd turned his entire life around for, physically and emotionally. In his experience, military downtime was the perfect opportunity for some ... bonding. (Kiss Me Quick, Star Wars, Skysolo, T)

6. Bo-Katan frowned at her broken and bruised fingers. All four fingers on her right hand were splinted and wrapped, a harsh reminder of Moff Gideon’s near-victory and the destruction of the Darksaber. (The Forge, The Mandalorian, Bo-Katan/The Armorer, E)

7. "The gravity has been on the fritz," Han warned as they walked onto the Falcon. (Interesting Men, Star Wars, Skysolo, E)

8. When Luke had dumped him to pursue a Jedi lifestyle, Han promised he "wouldn't get in the way." (Attachment Issues, Skymandolo, E)

9. There weren't a lot of perks to being the Mand’alor. It was a position Din had stumbled into and continued to stumble his way through. (Familiar Faces, Star Wars, DinLuke, G)

10. Left Bank Books was named for Old Ben’s favorite spot in Paris. Or so he always said. For as long as Luke had known the old man, he couldn’t remember Ben leaving the state, let alone going to Paris. The bookshop rested on the corner of Main Street in Anchorhead Township (an equally baffling name from Luke’s perspective), and with the county library half an hour away, and the nearest mall over an hour, it had remained something of a town utility throughout the years. (Left bank Books, Star Wars, DinLuke, G)

Observations: I am 100% a character over settings person. If it were up to me, all characters would be having conversations and/or fucking in blank white voids. But for all that, I very rarely start with a line of dialogue. If you look at the dates of these fics, you can also see when the Star Wars brain rot ended, and when I relapsed hard back into the Percy Jackson fandom.

Tagging: @theydjarin @captainkappa @darkmagyk @steine-druff @grey-sides @phykios

[mixergiltron]

Passion for fassion.

Fassionola,also known as passionola,is a sweet syrup used in some Tiki drink recipes. It's bright red like grenadine,but much more berry flavored. It is a bit rare though,as only a couple companies make it. Part of this has to do with the crazy history of the stuff.

It is believed to have been created around 1916 by a German immigrant named Victor Kremer. He was a druggist,and back then drug stores often contained a soda bar. Victor and his wife created a passionfruit flavored syrup for sodas and ice cream. It was originally called Passiflora,then the name was changed to Passionola. It was made in three colors: red,which was berry flavored,gold,which was passionfruit flavored,and green,which was lime flavored. At the time it was pretty much just used for soda and ice cream,although it and other flavorings were used to make drug cocktails as well(ever wonder where the 'coke' in Coca-Cola came from?). Several companies were involved in producing it,but it wasn't until around 1956 when the Jonathan English Company took up the mantle,and they continue to produce it today. Don Beach is sometimes credited with being involved with passionola,but neither he or Trader Vic used the stuff until much later in the '60's and '70's. Passionola pretty much was out of the realm of Tiki until that time. It also took a hit in the '60's,when it became associated with so-called 'stag pills':

(From the upcoming book Fassionola by Martin Lindsay. Doesn't sound much different from today's ads,does it?)

Passionola was mentioned by name in the 1963 Congressional report,Frauds and Quackery Affecting the Older Citizen, Hearings Before the Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate. A year later,the US patent office granted a patent for fassionola,which helped disassociate the syrup from the scandal. It was after this Don and Vic started using it in some of their drinks,since now it didn't have a negative connotation. Today it's being used more and more as an exotic ingredient in modern Tiki drinks. BG Reynolds makes it in limited batches,so you have to get on their mailing list or check their site to see when it's available. Jonathan English is still making it,in several flavors,but they don't sell online. You either have to visit them in person,or search for listings on eBay(which is where I acquired mine). There are also a couple of small batch companies making it,but you'll have to do some searching for them.

So enough history,let's get to mixing. Here's a few Giltron approved recipes I think you'll like. Enjoy!

Mix #190 Pi-Yi

1oz light Cuban rum* 3.4oz gold Cuban rum* 1oz pineapple juice 1/2oz lime juice 1/2oz passionola red 1tsp honey syrup 1 dash Angostura bitters

Blend with 6oz crushed ice for five seconds and pour into hollowed-out pineapple.

*Since Cuban rum is hard to come by,you can substitute Virgin Islands or Puerto Rican rum.

Created by Donn Beach around 1937,this has a sweet start with a tart finish. No,i didn't use a hollowed-out pineapple,I've done that once already. It's a nice summer-y drink that's not too strong.

Mix #191 Cannibal Cooler

3/4oz Plantation 3 Star rum 3/4oz Plantation Original Dark rum 1/2oz Plantation OFTD 1.5oz orange juice 3/4oz lime juice 3/4oz fassionola 1/4oz cinnamon syrup 1.5oz club soda

Flash blend everything except soda. Pour into tall glass,top with soda and stir.

Another Jason Alexander creation,it has a nice sweet/tart blend with citrus and a cinnamon finish with plenty of kick. Another excellent cocktail from the master. (bonus cool points if you saw the movie the pic is from)

Mix #192 Welcome to Georgetown

1.5oz El Dorado 3 1/2oz Lemon Hart 151 1/2oz creme de cacoa 3/4oz fassionola 1/2oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into coupe glass. Add some grated nutmeg to top.

From master mixologist Brian Maxwell ,this is sweet,the fassionola comes forward and the chocolate finishes with some spice from the nutmeg. The 151 gives it kick. A bit of a foo-foo drink but I liked it.

Mix #193 Alucard's Cup Of Blood

1oz Plantation Isle of Fiji rum 1oz Wray & Nephew overproof rum 1oz pineapple juice 1oz lemon juice 1/2oz falernum 1/2oz fassionola 1 dash Angostura bitters 1 dash absinthe

Blend with crushed ice and pour into Mai Tai glass. Garnish with something spooky.

Created by Facebook user Andrew Campbell,this blood red drink has a nice sweet/tart blend with plenty of funk and plenty of kick. Will definitely bring this back out for Halloween.

Mix #33 Megalodon

1oz Lemon Hart 151 1oz white rum 1.25oz lime juice 1oz agave syrup 1tsp red fassionola

Blend with a cup of ice for 5sec.

Just had to repost this since it's so good it's in my regular roster of mixes. Delicious with plenty of kick.

Find a bottle of fassionola and try something new. You can even sub it for grenadine to mix things up. Hipa Hipa,i ke ola!

[lobotemi]

formulating small thoughts on all of the sinners in limbus so far (some vague limbus company spoilers, LARGE TEXT WALL WARNING):

yi sang - the blorbo. the scrimblo even. he is definitely one of my favourite sinners after canto 4 (will post my full thoughts on that later) which is surprising because i didn't really like him that much before at all. i was really neutral on him but canto 4 has just made me love him to bits

faust - she is super interesting to me, considering her source material i think she has the potential to have the best canto. i am also just constantly entertained by her antics (hell's chicken was the BEST for getting to know everyone a little more outside of the main plot. i'm super excited for 4.5) it's obvious she's hiding something, i think dante even mentions as such, but i think that makes her cooler. she is the one who (presumably) recruited all the sinners and vergilius, so she's rlly rlly interesting and i hope we get to know more soon (soon as in 2 YEARS WHEN HER CANTO IS OUT)

don quixote - definitely top 3 sinners for me, she's everything... she grew on me so much, after things like her moment with sinclair, the facade slip in canto 2... she's just super interesting to me and i'm really excited to see what comes with her canto. plus her favourite moment of mine which is the bongy chicken log where she talks about eating the chickens, and then proceeds to not own up to it. phenomenal job don

ryoshu - hellscreen is one of my favourite pieces of literature referenced by limbus, and it's real fucked up. ryoshu is very entertaining to watch, though she rarely speaks. seeing sinclair translate her acronyms is very silly and overall as a character i really like her so far. excited to see what's to come for her

meursault - i like meursault, there's no one i actively dislike, but i'm just neutral on him. he's cool i just dunno how to feel about him yet. his source material is cool though i'm excited to see how his canto goes. his moment in hell's chicken was silly and made me like him a lot more

hong lu - he's silly. i think all of the sinners are silly but hong lu takes the cake. though after canto 4 i've started respecting him a lot more, he can be really mature and he is a sweet little guy he's just a little dumb sometimes. i really enjoy his presence in the group though, he's great, i can't wait for his canto (though i'll probably never read his source material because of its sheer length, but i'll probably force myself to eventually because i am interested). thank you project moon for making me read classical literature

heathcliff - funnily enough heathcliff was one of my least favourites out of the group at the start of the game, but he is definitely one of my favourites now. it's been really sweet to see him gradually start to care about the other sinners and he has mellowed out a lot which i appreciate. wuthering heights is cool and i'm excited to see his canto (which i think is coming after ishmael's, so hype!)

ishmael - ISHMAEL. she is amazing. wonderful. beautiful. i'm not sure if i'd say she's my favourite sinner but she is definitely in my top 3 with donquixote, though if you asked me idfk who else is in the top 3. SO excited for her canto and she seems really interesting from the tidbits we got about her so far. like, she's gone to the outskirts? i hope she finally gets the closure she needs and deserves (..and we get a sea shanty from mili LOL)

rodya - the mother of the group... rodya was another character i didn't really care for at the start of the game but she's SO sweet and i don't understand how i didn't like her. canto 2 wasn't my favourite but it was really silly and i hope she gets another focus canto at some point because it feels unfair that sinclair and yi sang (and probably everyone else from this point) get a mili song but gregor and rodya don't??? i dunno, i really like both of them and i think it's a shame since their arcs didn't feel complete.. so hopefully she gets more spotlight!

sinclair - sinclair is very very cool. i like him very much, his canto was really interesting and kromer was a really cool villain, i like seeing him slowly gain confidence over the story and demian looks to be a really cool character as well. like gregor and rodya, his arc didn't feel fully complete to me (?) but hopefully he can get more of a spotlight in the future despite canto 3 being phenomenal already. i am not opposed to more sinclair content, he fits in the group really well and he bounces off the other sinners well. i really like him!!!

outis - words cannot describe how excited i am to learn more about outis. she's such an asshole but we support women's wrongs. was there any need to make fun of sinclair like that in canto 4? no, but she did it anyway. she seems to give less and less of a fuck about maintaining her relationship with dante every canto and i find that hilarious, outis is amazing. i'm really excited for her canto, i like her a lot

gregor - he is done so wrong in his canto. SO WRONG... gregor deserves the world, all he has ever done is be a cool guy to the rest of the sinners and he was the first person to kinda be nice to dante. and that was from the start as well. massive respect to trauma dad he is amazing. i hope he gets more spotlight soon, he works so well in the group and he has such fun interactions with everyone.

dantehh - they're so cool. they're so amazing. shuckaroonies they are a really interesting character. i really REALLY appreciate that they're not a self-insert because i think that would shatter my soul. i'm really interested to find out who they are, how this whole reversing people's time came from and where they came from because faust seems to know who they were before. they are a very good executive manager. well done on scoring those goals for lcg you absolute legend

these obviously aren't my full thoughts on all of the sinners, i'd love to do individual posts analysing all of the sinners and possibly a post with predictions about the next cantos based on the their respective source materials. but this is just how i feel about them after engaging in limbus for about 2 months and getting into lobcorp and ruina. (if you have read this far, and somehow haven't played these two games, PLEASE PLAY THEM THEY ARE SO GOOD...........)

[truly-morgan]

[Discreetly married RenCheng, chaos discovery]

RenCheng | Mo Dao Zu Shi Modern AU 31-05-2022

[married #rencheng, modern sett., chaos >:3]

Jiang Cheng and Lan Qiren are both rather discreet men. One because he grew up with everything he did compare to others, the other because this is simply how he grew up.

This is probably why it wasn't all that surprising for lqr and jc to marry in such a discreet way, without officially telling anyone. They want it to be small and intimate, they knew both their family would have blown it out of proportion.

(they were also very aware of the rather large age gap too, there was no need to add to it).

The only ones present were little a-ling and little a-yi. Jl had fallen into shared custody between him and jgy after the unfortunate demise of his sister and brother-in-law.

ljy had been adopted by lqr somewhere at the beginning of their relationship, jc more than happy to help raise the little boy.

Their wedding was small, but having these two young boys with them was enough.

Afterwards they never really made anything official aside from documents. They didn't hide it either, they were simply discreet men who kept the intimacy for when they were alone at home, away from prying eyes.

They would both tell people how much they loved their husbands when asked, sharing a little house where they took care of ljy and jl. They went to events together, and people never questioned it.

Then chaos happened one evening when the Jade's brother and wwx came over for dinner.

lwj was asked to go get something upstairs for lqr and wwx decided to follow along, being a little snoopy since lqr never allowed him to go about freely in his house ("unfair, a-cheng can do it though 😤").

And slowly wwx started to realise that many of the things he found around the house belonged to his chengcheng?

Was his a-cheng cheating on his husband with lqr😱?! Even lwj frown, looking unsure if his own uncle was really cheating on his husband with jc.

cue wgxn running back downstair, their mission forgotten as they joined people back in the living room.

"A-cheng!? You are cheating on your husband?!" suddenly accused wwx cue jc looking at him all "???" because last time he checked he never did anything with anyone else than lqr, at least not since he started being with him.

"I didn't think shushu would do such a thing," lwj said, sounding disappointed.

this led to the four people in the living room being even more confused. "What are you even talking about?" jc ends up asking wwx.

"I found your thing scattered around the house" ("You snooped around?😑") "a-cheng you cannot do that to your husband!?".

silence follows wwx statement, the brother and wwx looking tense and apprehensive of knowing what exactly is going on.

"My things are "scattered" all over the house because 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 my house" jc points out, lqr shaking his head with a sigh.

this only made the trio even more confused. Since when? this led to lxc and wwx asking questions to their respective family member, clearly confused.

"They are married, you dumbass" jl ended up pointing out ("language" jc scolded after).

This left the trio gaping at the news, looking at the little family as if they all had grown a few other heads.

"Since when!!!!" wwx quickly asked

"You never told me" lxc frowned

"🤨??"

"I told you I was married" lqr said before drinking some tea

"I did too" simply shrugged jc, "Not my fault you never asked to who or didn't figure out in the past ten years"

"Ten years!!"

"yes ten years" ljy smirked, going to the corner table where stood a couple of frames. "Look at how small we were the day they got married" he added while bringing the frame with him.

"It's not our fault you never realised jiujiu was literally living with his husband, why did you me and jiujiu were always here when you came over?" jl asked, before a grin also spread over his lips, "Why we were always by yizhang side when going to a diner or other events"

"And when a-die couldn't pick me up when I was sick, it was Baba who came to pick me up" ljy commented "I even called jiang cheng baba in front of you more than once" the teen pointed out.

"Wei Ying, you were literally invited with lan wangji to our tenth-year anniversary last month" jc pointed out. they had gone for a nice dinner in a fancy restaurant and had invited the 3 men.

Silence came again as the Jade brother and wwx seemed to be slowly reviewing the past ten years, and from the look of it, they were also slowly finding more and more occurrences where everything made more sense knowing they were married.

the silence was broken when a melody started to play, jc looked down at his phone.

"Ah, food is ready," he said while standing up, "I'll need both your help," he said towards the two young men who followed after him.

jl and ljy both looked rather smug about all this. They had known for so long and had seen how happy the couple had been all these years without people bothering them. They were the ones who had been there ten years ago!

jl even stuck his tongue out to wwx, the man who claimed to know everything about his jiujiu but hadn't even figured out who his husband was all this time.

Later, the diner was served and a conversation started between the little family as if the event of earlier hadn't happened.

====

(that was pretty fun to write really, rencheng being a happily married couple for ten years and the people close to them none the wiser about it (maybe jgy had his own suspicious or had figured it out)

Original

[seedlessmuffins]

tagged by my beloved @divorcecourtdad so thank you jay!

what got you hooked on hockey?

i was born and raised in vancouver so i've been a fan of this loser team since i was born, courtesy of my canucks fan dad and my canucks fan grandfather, and i also played hockey as a kid

2. your first ever fandom friend

in general? probably my dad! i've talked hockey with him my whole life. online probably @swaggypsyduck, but i have been working on converting all my footy friends to hockey friends so now i talk hockey with lots of people here (shout out to han, gen, yi, hala, and ciene who let me convince them into following hockey teams and watching games

3. the jersey you would most like to own

hughes or demko black skate jersey they are sooo sick!! or honestly any of the canucks special event jerseys, the diwali, black history month, pride, and chinese new year jerseys are all so stunning (but sooo expensive

4. your player (you only get one so choose wisely)

elias pettersson my baby i've been following him since 2016 i have his jersey i love him so much

5. a pairing that deserves more fic

pricey & luongo (there was definitely something happening with team canada at the olympics)

quinn & petey (they're sooo couple)

6. your favourite on-ice moment

watched live:

"this could be an interesting start"

"what a game for elias pettersson! 5 points, tied it late, beats the tender in the shootout!"

"miraculous play in the back of the goal crease and a standing ovation at rogers arena!"

watched on tv:

"connor bedard! overtime winner! sends canada to the semis!"

"they slayed the dragon! 5:22 into overtime, and the canucks move on to the second round"

"sidney crosby! the golden goal! and canada has won olympic gold!"

"the shift"

7. link someone else's art/fic/etc that you love & think everyone should check out

i think this is my favourite fic of all time, summer to your heart

8. link something you made & are proud of & want people to see

my quinn hughes webweave i think is pretty cool and my hockey tactico thoughts i was pretty proud of as well!

tagging @swaggyswinub @cryingforcrocodiles and @cherishlaluna to do if you want!

[aphel1on]

tag someone you want to get to know better

tagged by @woobifiedvillain a few days ago and finally remembered to do it!!

Favorite color: Yellow, but not an overwhelming yellow, like that soft warm yellow? I love it. People tend to not expect this answer, I think I give off more of a blue or grey vibe. Honestly a pretty grey/silver is probably my second favorite color, but a buttery yellow is just so good for the soul.

Last song: You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi. Danced to it in the kitchen, got consumed by the guitar riffs, nearly knocked a chair over. Before this morning it would've been the Genshin OST... I've been listening to it a lot while I write or do chores recently.

Last movie: An exceedingly mediocre romcom on Netflix that I watched with my sick mom to be nice. Genuinely couldn't tell you the title or more than like, two or three plot points. Last movie that I watched bc I wanted to was the Barbie movie, which was genuinely better than I expected. Enjoyable but would still give it, like, a mixed review. I'm not getting into two months' ago Barbie Movie Discourse on this post

Currently watching: I'M STILL TRYING TO FINISH THE UNTAMED!!!! woobifiedvillain i'm speaking directly to you and quoting you: i too am "chronically incapable of paying attention to visual media, even the good shit" and when i try to explain this to people irl they act like i am insane!!! I haven't watched Good Omens season 2 yet even tho I am reblogging posts about it rn. I think it's mostly adhd, or really just a part of the larger Neurodivergence Soup (tm) that makes it nearly impossible for me to learn something from a YouTube video. I mean, sometimes for a hands-on task a video is essential, but can't there be a written list of instructions to go with it too, bc that sticks in my mind way better sobs... ANYWAY i'm currently on episode 43 of The Untamed, so I should be able to finish it by, like. The end of the year at least lol?

Currently reading: I started reading SVSSS recently because, like. The mxtx mania is in full throttle. I just got here a little later than most people lmao. I'm also currently "reading" like seven different books that I bought or pirated this year and have on hold. One of my Unfortunate Skills is bingereading like 200 pages of something in 1-2 days and then not finishing the rest of it for 8 months.

Currently working on: Keep My Shadow Alive, my big xue yang-centric fix it fic!!! Well, more like a fix it, and then break it more, and then eventually actually fix it fic. Starting from the canon divergence of "Add Pre-Teen Xue Yang to the Burial Mounds Fam" and going from there. I read every fic like that that's on ao3 and was still being eaten alive by the brainworms so I started writing my own take on it and ~6 months later it's the longest fic I've ever written and only 25% of the way through its outline???? So. Who knows if it will get finished (my track record is admittedly not great)- but I've had such a blast writing it so far. Xue Yang is just SO fun to write. Yes it has a plot and character arcs and I could even go full English Major* and start telling you about its Themes, but also it's just an excuse to write Xue Yang interacting with every member of the MDZS cast. Going to STOP talking now bc I fully am the type of writer who will get carried away talking about their wips.

*i am not an english major, but spiritually i am an english major.

Current obsession: Yeah uh, MDZS. My friend convinced me to finally read it in January of this year, and the hyperfixation train has simply not stopped since then. Genshin Impact also dragged me back in with the Fontaine update and I've been having a lot of fun playing it. But MDZS is still mostly the thing that's eating up my RAM. Particularly the Yi City crew, but 3zun is rotating in there too. Sometimes even The Man WWX Himself, i talk about him less but i do love him a lot also lol

Tagging: I'm honestly too shy to do this!!! But thank you for tagging me anyway<3

[moondal514]

All of His Sorrow Won’t Fit in His Chest?? O:

WIP Game

Thanks for the ask <3

So this is a WIP that until recently I was calling the WenZhou Hadestown au but now it has a title! Perhaps I’ll manage to actually post it this year 😂. It’s primarily based on SHL canon cuz that was the only canon I knew at the time I started writing it, but I’ve since then read both Qi Ye and TYK so I think it’s now a weird franken-canon.

It’s not really a Hadestown au but I call it that because I got inspired to write it after I saw my 2nd performance of Hadestown. That and I’ve been listening to the Hadestown soundtrack as I write it. “All of his sorrow won’t fit in his chest” is a lyric from the song How Long (yes that’s the one where the earth gets compared to a rotisserie chicken 😂).

The basic gist of the au is Qin Huaizhang takes Wen Kexing and his parents back with him to Four Seasons Manor, so Wen Kexing (Wen Yan at this point) and Zhou Zishu grow up and train together. Like in canon, Qin Huaizhang dies and 16 year old Zhou Zishu takes over as sect leader. Also like canon, he moves Four Seasons Pavilion Sect to the capital to support Helian Yi and form Tian Chuang. However for Reasons™️ (I won’t say here cuz that’s a spoiler for the fic), Wen Yan is not able to make the move with the rest of the sect, so Zhou Zishu leaves him and his parents behind at Four Seasons Manor. The plan is for them to join the rest of the sect at the capital later.

…That doesn’t happen. Four Seasons Manor is attacked and burned down. By the time Zhou Zishu gets news of this and rushes there, all he finds are the dead bodies of Wen Yan’s parents. Wen Yan himself is missing and presumed dead.

And that’s the beginning.

Here’s a snippet:

The cold violence of falling snow brought with it the sharp scent of winter, a smooth white sheet interrupted by a figure sprinting through the snow. Zhou Zishu’s feet sunk into the ground as he dashed to the stables, a letter clutched in his fist. Ice bit at his cheeks but he could hardly feel anything but the loud percussion of his heartbeat.

He rounded into the stables, mounted a horse, and took off into the night, dread he had no time to examine building in the pit of his stomach. He rode fast and hard, uncaring of the exhaustion of his horse, his tight grip on the reins a wordless plea.

He reached the town at daybreak.

It was razed to the ground, nothing but ash and broken wooden slats. He rode through the ruins, heart hammering with every burnt corpse and trampled piece of fabric he saw. The smell of blood and rot was thick, perfuming the air in a horrible mist. He urged his horse to ride faster, heading up the mountain into the familiar trees he had known since his childhood.

Please.

He followed the path up the mountain, his horse reaching the limits of its exhaustion. He forced it onwards with a kick. The trees whose fragrance once brought the comforting scent of home were framed with the scent of smoke. The thousands of peach blossoms that famously bloomed year-round bore an obstructive gloom.

Please!

Reaching the edge of the trees, he slid off his horse. He sprinted forward, propelling himself up and over the gates of the manor.

Devastation greeted him. The charred remains of a once majestic plum tree. Orange osmanthus trampled into dust. Sand and rocks scattered among ashes. Creeping ivy wilted and rotten.

And there in the center of the courtyard: two corpses piled on top of each other, skewered down the middle of their backs by a spear.

Too Late.

Zhou Zishu collapsed to his knees.

The Sacred Hand was dead. Gu-daifu was dead.

If both of them were dead, if their corpses were here, abandoned, then where was—

“Wen Yan!” he shouted.

He rose to his feet and sprinted through the ruins of what once housed his beloved sect. His shifu’s pride and joy wrought to its destroyed foundations.

“Wen Yan!” he shouted again. His fear grew with the silence that greeted him. “Wen Yan!”

The sound of his calls echoed and warped into mournful desperation, a solitary bird song seeking a response that would never come. He shouted again and again, but the answering cry of a voice he hoped for never came.

He was there alone on the devastated grounds of Four Seasons Manor, alone at the scene of the destruction he had most feared come to fruition, that he had left the jianghu to prevent.

He had failed.

Too late, the wind whispered. Much too late.

[back-and-totheleft]

An Epic That Gets Better as It Gets Longer

I had serious doubts before seeing a 3 hour 39 minute version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Emperor, thinking perhaps an already indolent film was to become absolutely, luxuriantly, corrupted.

How wrong I was. The director’s cut is surely a richer, rounder film, made to the true rhythm of another time and culture. Certainly many felt that the 2 hour 20 minute version of The Last Emperor was a good film when it was released in 1987; it went on, after all, to win Best Picture, Best Director and six other Oscars. But this bold new version, being released on Dec. 4, is a masterpiece — a fully shaped historical epic that allows us to understand the complex character of Henry Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, from his proud childhood in the early part of our century (when his excrement is sniffed daily by royal connoisseurs), through his loss of power, imprisonment and re-education, and finally to his destiny as a humble gardener during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s.

The literal-minded might argue that the narrative is insufficiently changed now to warrant this extra 80 minutes, and from a story point of view, they would be right. The new scenes expand on Pu Yi’s childhood years spent cloistered in Beijing’s Forbidden City, before Peter O’Toole shows up as a British tutor to change forever the way the Emperor thinks. There is a dance between the Empress (Joan Chen) and Official Consort (Vivian Wu), more on the Emperor’s meetings with the Japanese militarists, and an especially striking scene of peasant women being auditioned for the role of wet-nurse to the young Emperor.

But such cataloguing would be missing the true point of this release, which is to restore in its missing footage the real pace of Chinese Imperial life and by so doing reveal to us a treasure of subtlety and spectacle not seen in a long time in Western cinema. Mr. Bertolucci, it is clear, loves China. He sees it not only with an eye as empathetic as Marco Polo, who first discovered the secrets of the old Empire, but also with the wide eyes of a child gazing into a musty box to find a grasshopper, the Emperor’s pet, which has been living a lifetime in the dark. You find yourself very much floating in this film, there in China. By contrast, the shorter version, although well-edited and thematically sound, lacks the sheer sensuousness of experience in which the longer version enfolds us like a favorite old jacket. Perhaps not since Coppola gave us the restored version of Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon have moviegoers had a chance to share in such a visual feast.

Mr. Bertolucci cut his original film without any extraordinary pressure to do so. When asked why in a telephone conversation from Rome, he responded in a world-weary tone: ”Ahhh, I had been through the whole saga of 1900. It was five hours and I had to cut one hour. I didn’t want to go through this nightmare again. The cuts in The Last Emperor did not seem consequential to the story and I was quite happy with the shorter cut.” Has he watched the longer cut again? ”It is too hard to watch. My movies don’t belong to me any more.” Ten years after The Last Emperor and 21 years after 1900, having watched neither of them since, Mr. Bertolucci concludes, ”I have Buddhist distance now.”

Not the usual director’s defense of his cut. But then, nothing about Mr. Bertolucci is usual. To my knowledge, he is the first and last person, without being tarred and feathered, to release a 4 hour and 10 minute film (1900) in the United States. He was also the only director I know of to win a huge Western audience with a Western-financed film about Asia starring Asian actors.

What is so great about The Last Emperor? It is a true epic expressing the fate of the collective — in this case the Chinese empire — intertwined with the destiny of one individual. ”A journey from darkness to light,” as Mr. Bertolucci describes it. ”The dragon becomes man. Emperor becomes citizen.” He quotes Confucius, ”Men are born good, then society makes them bad.”

In that purity, John Lone’s Emperor is the classic confused romantic hero of the Bertolucci canon, an heir to Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Conformist, Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris and the under-appreciated Robert De Niro in 1900 — the boy-man who cannot even tie his own shoelaces. An innocent, he sells Manchuria out to the imperialistic Japanese, convincing himself this is an act of great patriotism. As a result, he is never forgiven by the Chinese and, when captured by the Russians at the end of World War II, he is sent to a re-education camp, where some of the film’s most humanistic scenes take place. There, he is taught to be a person by an interrogator played by the Chinese actor Ruocheng Ying (whom Mr. Bertolucci calls the ”Paul Scofield of Asia”). ”Confess that you are no better than anyone else,” the interrogator says. As with any Bertolucci film, irony comes full circle when the interrogator himself is interrogated and beaten with sticks by the young know-nothings of the Cultural Revolution. In the end, Mr. Bertolucci seems to be saying, all the world comes apart and all meaning is mocked by time.

Supported by his holy trinity of creative genius, Vittorio Storaro (cinematography), Nando Scarfiotti (production design) and James Acheson (costume design), and abetted by a grand international score from Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, Brian Eno and others, Mr. Bertolucci creates a fantastical lost world for the young Emperor. The boy, who has no friends except his mouse and his grasshopper, yearns like the young Buddha to peer over the walls of his private kingdom into the ”city of sound” outside. It is a world he can join only by surrendering the power of his sacred person to become the playboy ruler of Manchuria. Moving from the warm childhood yellows to the coolest blues and stark whites of Manchuria to the final umber grace of old age during the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Bertolucci astounds us with tumbling images of sensuality: Mr. Lone singing Am I Blue as a sleek roue; playing tennis in his garden before being removed by Chang-Kai Chek in 1919; making love to his young Empress, as servants’ hands, faces unseen, undress them. In the cavernous halls of his Manchurian home, surrounded by Japanese and Chinese cronies, the young Emperor wonders aloud, ”Who are you?” A leering face replies, ”Your Minister of Defense, your Majesty.” This Emperor is impotent, and the deceitful murder of his newborn stepchild (sired by his chauffeur) at the Empress’s birthing bed is one of the most horrifying scenes in a movie often infused with tenderness. In all this imagery one feels the sophisticated sensibility of Andre Malraux’s novel Man’s Fate, which Mr. Bertolucci tried to bring to the screen for several years before making The Last Emperor.

Ms. Chen, as a modern, mannish Empress who must pay the price of her husband’s naivete, has never been better. She almost merges in my mind with Mr. Bertolucci’s quintessential heroine, the pristine and elegant Dominique Sanda, who appears in The Conformist and 1900. One of my favorite shots in Emperor comes late in the film, when the composer Mr. Sakamoto, playing a one-armed Japanese militarist and looking as cold as Godard himself, is filming with a 35-millimeter motion picture camera as Ms. Chen rises, ignoring him at her own peril, to walk the perimeter of a sumptuously lighted swingers’ party. Just watch her expression as she moves.

Finally, when Pu Yi comes to understand the price he has been made to pay for his birthright, Mr. Bertolucci’s detached perspective is beautifully served: at the end of the day, Pu Yi no longer seems to care about anything but his garden. A simple man at heart, he returns to innocence in a stunning shot of a crowd of bicyclists waiting for a traffic light to change in 1965 Beijing; as the bicycles shift forward en masse, the camera languidly seeks out the lonely gardener in the crush of humanity.

So what about the issue of length? Some bottles of wine age differently than others. Where would our culture be without Gone With the Wind (222 minutes, not counting the intermission), Spartacus (184 minutes), Ben Hur (212 minutes), Lawrence of Arabia (221 minutes), Titanic (194 minutes), The English Patient (162 minutes), Schindler’s List (195 minutes) and Dr. Zhivago (197 minutes), all of which have been financial and critical successes.

Yet it seems in the world of the multiplex and the media whining over any film over two hours, the ”event movie” of our youth is gone — and with it the marketing flair of the exhibitor. Swamped by huge marketing costs and vast hype, studios and theater owners have perhaps lost faith that movies can and should be something glorious, important and sacred.

I would estimate that four out of every five moviegoers are impatient with long films and will always say if asked, ”It was too slow.” But sometimes, I wonder, was the viewer quick enough to really understand what was being said on the screen? Sometimes being truly conscious while watching a movie takes us outside of literal time and into dreamtime. Al Pacino once told me in reference to the controversial length of The Godfather Part II (200 minutes) that the film had always seemed longer to him after it had been cut, and that when it had been longer it had seemed far shorter — the idea being that you must allow something to breathe in its right proportion in order for it to have the authenticity that allows time to flow through it and not gum it up; when you spike that sense of flow, the consequences may not be understood and may irritate and bore the viewer without his knowing why.

When asked about the length of his movies, Mr. Bertolucci says he has recently finished Besieged, a one-hour film for Italian television, which somehow ended up at feature-length and will be released by Fine Line Features next year (reminding me of Fellini’s Intervista and Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, which also elevated television commitments into features). ”Cinema is going through a dramatic, fantastic mutation now,” he says. ”It is at the end of the first century of its life, it is tres fatigue. It has to be fed with new things: new approaches to character, to psychology, to structure. What makes me feel like going on? Since 1962 — 36 years now — I’d have been bored. The most important thing is the invention of cinema, of still trying to discover its secret.”

The man who has achieved ”Buddhist distance” is the first to know that editing is a fundamental enigma. ”Editing is going into an underground mine where you find incredible precious metals you didn’t know were there while shooting. You see things for the first time. It is magic.” Anyone who tells you that they go into that six-month to one-year maze without some kind of Theseus-like thread is either a fool or insane.

”Ars longa, vita brevis,” ”Art is long, life is short.” The essence, we are told philosophically, is the thing — and the hardest thing in editing is to find that ”thing,” to see ”the thing within the thing.” It takes time and refinement for the eye to understand what it is really seeing. Film is very much a looking-glass world because what works on paper doesn’t necessarily work on film, and vice versa. Film is endlessly supple; it can be cut dozens of different ways to reveal. Like music or painting, film is ultimately outside left-brain logic, closer to Eisenstein’s hyperwarp of the senses, long ago described by Hindus as a dreamscape. Cutting finally is not an issue of length, but of pace; not of time, but of truth. How do you cut a dream? And, who, finally, can judge a dream?

-Oliver Stone, The New York Times, Nov 29, 1998

[thebroccolination]

Hi yes I’m still here collecting crumbs from BounPrem's cameo on Cutie Pie the Series welcome to the party.

I posted a version of this on a Twitter thread a couple of days ago, but Twitter swallows posts so quickly, I wanted to clean it up and add it here too in case anyone else wants to join me in making fanworks about them. 😌 (Especially fic, please, I'm on my knees in a $900 suit.)

Now! Celebrate with me the six-minute appearance of my new hyperfixation comfort couple:

✨TOPWIN✨

Age-wise, Top and Lian seem to be the same age. I've seen varying information on how old Lian is, but I saw twenty-seven mentioned most recently. Top's cheerleading story and the reactions it gets from Yi and Black seem to imply that all of Lian's friends went to university together and were likely in the same year. So let's say Lian, Top, Yi, and Black are all about twenty-seven.

We hear Win use the "phi" honorific with Top, Lian, and Yi, so he's definitely younger than them. But Win also tells Kuea he has photos and videos of the cheerleading story on his own Facebook page, so he probably went to university with them as well, just in a lower year. I'd say that means he's only a year or two younger, about twenty-five or twenty-six.

And even though Win's younger than his friends, he's not especially deferential to any of them.

He freely teases Lian and Yi, confidently calls out Black on his "love is enough" nonsense, and he's comfortable with openly scowling at Top when Top calls Kuea cute. (Of Note: Top seems to enjoy Win's insouciant personality and even actively joins in with his recreational disrespect. I'm going to assume that's part of why they make a good match for each other. Associates in chaos. <3)

While getting to know Kuea, Win asks if Kuea wants to try dating someone other than Lian since he's still so young. Win, as the only other person there younger than the others, might want to know because he and Top have both dated others before they decided on each other, therefore Win can't imagine marrying your first boyfriend.

(I'd say there's a possibility that Win's asking for himself because he's only ever dated Top and he's curious what it'd be like to date other people, but I think if that were the case, Top's expression would be more concerned. As it is, Top seems just as curious as Win.)

Win's obviously annoyed when Top calls Kuea cute, which implies some level of jealousy. But I wonder if Win's particularly annoyed because this is his older boyfriend complimenting 1) a younger guy, and 2) a guy even younger than Win.

From Win's glare and Top's sheepish grin, flirtatiousness might be an established subject of discussion—or at least tension—between them.

That said, I'd also guess that Win and Top are the most settled couple in their friend group since Black uses them as an example by default to contrast Lian keeping Kuea away from them for so many years.

I love that neither Win nor Top objects to the "inseparable" comment. Top seems pleased by it, Win vaguely smug. I think that says a lot about them right there.

During the Never Have I Ever game, we learn that they've both kissed strangers, but interestingly, apparently neither of them knew before the game, and they do NOT seem to appreciate the history lesson. Top insists to Win that he was drunk and single at the time, but Win still looks annoyed, so this'll probably be revisited later.

Personally, I don't think either of them cheated, but given the "inseparable" thing, it's interesting that this is new information for them. I'd guess it happened years ago, probably in university before they started dating.

(Top's devastated little <:O face is super endearing.)

When Black makes a casual suggestion that marriage isn't necessary and love on its own is enough, Win is quick to present his perspective on the lack of queer rights in their country and the necessity of marriage equality. Given the probability that he and Top have been together for years by this point, marriage might be something Win wants, and he might be especially touchy about anyone casually dismissing how important it is.

(Before we move on, please note Top's proud smile, for I may never recover. This man doesn't just love his boyfriend, he admires him.)

(Also, Black's casual dismissal of same-sex relationships while surrounded by five queer men makes his presence there a little strange, so I'm assuming he's known them since they were in university together and he has some additional familial or business connection that explains why he's still hanging out with them. I would be willing to bet one of the things Top complained about to Win on the way home was, "Who keeps inviting Black?")

The way they touch also implies that they've been together for a long time. It's not clingy and passionate like a new couple might be; it's much more casually affectionate. At twenty-seven and twenty-five/six, it's very possible they've been dating for up to five years or even longer.

We also find out during the game that their first date was apparently somewhere in Africa. The fact that Top forgot that first date was on another continent could mean a lot of things: general forgetfulness, they were only there for a short while, he travels a lot, etc. (Just imagine where their other dates have been. Lots of potential for fanwork there. Y'know. Just saying.)

When they all drink for Who Has a Superbike, Top seems a little cagey and glances at Win before he sips. I'm not as sure what this was supposed to mean, but I read it as Top knowing about Lian's gift for Kuea and seeing if Win's picked up on it. I can't think of another reason why he'd hide having one from Win, unless he's not supposed to have one for some reason. (Broke one once? Almost crashed one? Etc.?)

Later, when Lian says Kuea wants to break their engagement, Top's quick to ask Kuea if Lian's not good enough for him. I thought this was sweet because if Top's been friends with Lian since at least university, he's probably seen evidence of Lian trying to lead a double life in the hope of being good enough for Kuea's family name.

Top asking Kuea if Lian's not good enough for him is sweetly loyal to Lian; maybe even protective of him.

Win's solemn, supportive silence was also sweet to me because it implied that while he'll tease Lian and be cheeky to his seniors in general, he won't allow any real cruelty to them, especially from people he perceives to be outsiders.

Ultimately, the impression I got from their six minutes of screentime is that Top and Win have a comfortable and fond relationship with some spice. They're also visibly and publicly proud to be with each other, which seems important for both of them. And based on Win's speech, it's probably not wild to assume that they'd want more if it were legal for them. 🏳️‍🌈

I enthusiastically encourage everyone to join me in making many fanworks featuring TopWin. Include them in LianKuea fic! YiDiao fic! Win has an archive of photos and videos of both of them, I'm sure. ;D

[The original thread is here. Tumblr limits photos to 10 per post, but the Twitter thread has a lot more.]

[hannahhook7744]

Lonnie Headcanons;

The one family member Lonnie is closest to (other than her parents) Is her great grandmother because they have a similar sense of humor.

She is also pretty close to Mushu.

She learned how to cook from her grandmother.

Her grandfather taught her how to make tea.

She is closer to her dad than her mom.

Her brother ironically is the opposite, favoring their mom over their dad.

She is allergic to cow milk but can drink other types of milk just fine.

She learned how to fight from her parents and their war buddies.

She calls Yao, Ling, and Chien Po her uncles and Ting-Ting, Su, and Mei her aunts.

She's known all of them and their kids since birth.

She often refers to Yi-min as her 'favorite ' cousin-- though she's more like a sister than a cousin at this point seeing as they spend so much time at eachother's houses and in eachother's dormrooms.

Her and Yi-Min are better fighters than Li Shang Jr ironically.

Most people assume the opposite since he's older but her brother has no problem correcting them. Even if it is a bit embarrassing to admit that his younger sibling and cousin are better than him at fighting.

Lonnie knows multiple fighting styles from multiple different places, as do her brother and cousins.

She knows over 7.

Lonnie stress bakes and stress cooks. No one complains about it, however, because it means more free food for them since Lonnie couldn't possibly eat everything she bakes/cooks by herself.

Lonnie's known how to sword fight since she was 3.

She's also good at archery but she prefers short distance weaponry because it gets the adrenaline pumping.

She is a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Lonnie is a mix between a tomboy and a girly-girly.

She loves Evie's designs and will model for them on her website occasionally.

She wants to go to college in Agrabah for the experience.

She fully supports Jay in his decision to take a gap year and refuses to talk him out of it when some of their teachers ask.

This is one of the reasons she and Coach Jenkins get along so well. He refused to talk Jay out of his decision as well.

Lonnie adores Gil within 5 minutes of meeting him. No one can explain how he grew on her that quickly.

Lonnie never took that test her mother took in Mulan. Both Shang and Mulan refused to allow it.

Same went for Yi-Min and their other female cousins. After hearing Mulan's experience with the testing, they kept their daughters from taking it in fear of something similar happening to their daughters.

Lonnie's always been very optimistic and outgoing, even as a little girl.

She's very good at climbing things and has been ever since she was a baby.

She's more agile and graceful than Li Shang Jr is.

She's less close to Mushu than Li Shang Jr doesn't really mind since they're still pretty close.

She would eat only chocolate chip cookies if she could.

She also really likes juice and tea. She prefers them over soda, even.

Lonnie is really active and can rarely ever sit still.

This has lead to some speculation that she has ADHD.

Her parents haven't confirmed or denyed the rumor.

Lonnie just smiles smugly and doesn't answer when people ask. It drives them crazy.

Lonnie loves action movies which is no surprise, but she also loves romantic comedies and just regular comedies.

On the other hand, she can't stand horror movies because she hates waiting for things to happen (because it's worse in horror movies) and because they're usually too gory for her liking.

She likes most combative sports and can be very competitive.

She's really clingy when she's sick but people rarely complain about it.

She and Jade (Jay's cousin) become besties upon meeting, much to Jay's horror.

She takes care of Cirkee's and little brother (Mulan dog's) puppies more than anyone when at home.

Her two favorite ice cream flavors arw bubble gum and cookiedough.

She's afraid of rejection.

She's also afraid of heights because of the fact that her dad almost died from falling from a great height in Mulan 2.

Both her beds (the one in her room at home and the one in her dorm room) are covered in both stuffed animals and dolls.

She's a highly recommended babysitter in her neighborhood and at school. This is because little kids adore her.

The isle kids feel the most comfortable around her, Ben, and Douh because they don't feel judged by them.

She's been riding horses since she was 6.

She holds alot of gulit for not standing by Jay and the others at family day in D1, no matter how many times they tell her it's fine.

She likes pop and hip hop music, as well as rap.

She likes singing and poetry.

She also likes jogging and riding her bicycle.

And go-karting. And bumper cars. And laser tag.

Her birthday is on March 1st.

Out of the 13 main teens, she is the 3rd oldest.

She is older than Jay by 16 days.

She and Jay marry after College and go on to have 3 kids.

They name one of them 'Johnny' because they lost a bet to Evie. They refuse to admit what the bet was.

All of their friends have signed her yearbook (and Jay's).

She had several scrapbooks full of photos of their friends and kids.

She and Li Shang don't fight as much as other siblings do. Their parents are very thankful for this.

Her and Li Shang are miracle babies.

She's great at gymnastics and parkour.

She also likes carving her name into things though she doesn't do it often.

Her favorite song is 'no Cinderella '.

Lonnie is her nickname, not birth name.

Li shang jr is 4 years older than Lonnie.

Li shang jr is dating Chaca-- the daughter of Pacha and Chicha from emperor's new groove. (She's not much older than him in this thing).

Li Shang Jr is not actually named Li Shang Jr because it would be very disrespectful for him to be named that in his culture. It is just a nickname as is Lil Shang and L.s.

Li Shang Jr perfers to be called by a nickname over his actual name just like Lonnie. No one knows his actual name though.

He got this nickname when he was little and started to look like his dad. Someone jokingly called him that and it stuck.

His parents only started to call him by his nicknames-- mainly Lil' shang-- when he told them he wasn't offended by it all because his dad is cool.

[verycharismaticdragon]

Got tagged by @thatlittlemouse to list 9 books I intend to read in 2022 (like a month ago but lets not dwell on that)

tagging uhhhhhh @seeorseem @danhoemei @izumiphoenix @fairandfatalasfair @snailcomicz if any of you guys want to give it a go!

MDZS - the only of MXTX's I didn't read before it went official, so I got an ebook version instead of physical copies like the other two. Stars however haven't been in position for me to start it yet.

Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov - so my bestie's Dostoevsky has been living on my bookshelf for... ten years?ish? and I figure someday I gotta actually get to reading it. I loved C&P when I was in high school, so I have some hopes.

A Sword of Frost by Yu Xiao Lan Shan - this is the only wuxia/gufeng novel of YXLS I've yet to read. Since YXLS tends towards lighter texts - like, her 'drama' (Tong Gui) is less heavy than pipi's 'easy' (You Yi) - I'm keeping this one for propping up my mental health next time I get tired of knifey stuff.

Character Design - my friends got me this baby for my bday last summer, but I've only read like three sections because studies take a lot out of me. I do want to work my way through it this year though.

Tai Sui - so we all know how I feel about priest (read 8 of her novels by now), and I've decided I wanna see her final form. Fully expect this one to rearrange me on a molecular level.

Drawing Hands & Feet by Giovanni Civardi - yet another book that has been living in my room, unread, for years. Idk where it came from actually? But anyway: while I'm pretty satisfied w/ the way I draw hands, I'm utterly plagued by leg trouble. Will it help? Who knows? I'd actually have to open it to find out though, which seems just unreasonable.

Qian Qiu - @izumiphoenix hiiiiiiii! Anyway, I've been recced this from all sides, and I've started it, but it's been slow going so far because uh. worldbuilding! politics! i wish i was getting all this info less densely!.. I assume I will eat this up as soon as the plot & character stuff picks up tho who knows.

(abridged version of) Journey to the West - I've read this one a while ago, but I'm very curious how I will see it after absorbing some cultural info from (modern) cnovels. I have considered trying the full version but reason won so far. And reading physical is easier on the eyes too, which is a huge plus for me...

Wushuang - due to my QQ troubles, I wonder if I should just start from the second book. Hey, that worked for me this far! (I've read TYK before Qi Ye and You Yi after nearly dropping ZJLY. Both times The Clowns have proven to be an easier entry point, and good motivation for finishing the other one.)

+bonus: ~Mystery Novels~ (1) an untranslated danmei novel that I've started but haven't finished yet, which will either be extremely good or I will regret ever picking it up. The plot twist that I've largely seen coming still managed to take me out at kneecaps, so it's promising! At the same time, I'm deeply afraid of the author failing to stick the landing on all of the (potentially) amazing stuff they've set up so far. The reason I'm not naming names here is that I want to be able to pretend I never picked it up if it turns out shite. (2) a novel by Mu Su Li - haven't decided which yet, but I loved Copper Coins, so I wanna read more by this author. Panguan seems like the most popular choice and was recced to me before; I'm also curious about Heitian, I've seen someone read it very tastily. (3) a novel by Cyan Wings - same as previous, I loved one of their novels (Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know) and want to read more. I know there are two translated by e.danglars, so perhaps I'll start with one of those.

[shijiujun]

[END 2020] My Top 9 Danmei Novel Picks of the Year

As a part of my Round Up post for the year, here’s my pick of favourite danmei novels, that I’ve read! This is sort of an accompaniment to my previous danmei rec list over HERE, so there may be one or two overlaps, but I’ve read WAY MORE after that and am prepared to like give more options here 

Note: There should be English translations for all via novel updates if you do a search of the English name, but I don’t think most of them are completed.

If you wanna see my full reading and queue list (it’s all in Chinese tho, for my own records), it’s here.

I’m leaving out the usual MXTX and Priest ones, because they’re already good and we all know that and there’re many carrds and posts dedicated to them.

I am also a sucker for fainting but smart men, and not too overly angsty/complicated storylines, just putting it out there first, which is why I haven’t read a lot of some of the ones on my queue list.

-------

1. 一剑霜寒 | A Sword of Frost by 语笑阑珊

Summary: Jing Yan Ran is the Emperor’s brother and wields military power in the novel, and it starts with an object being stolen from the palace. Jing Yan Ran has to retrieve the item secretly, and so enlists the help of Feng Yu Sect’s Sect Master, Yun Yi Feng, who heads the martial arts world’s one and only information trading post. Yun Yi Feng does not deal in business that involves any royalty, but Jing Yan Ran offers him something he cannot refuse - the Blood Red Lingzhi, a rare and mystical herb that is rumoured to be able to treat his life-threatening condition. 

Yun Yi Feng was used by his shifu when he was younger to test out all kinds of poisons and cures, and since then, his body flushes dangerously hot and cold frequently, with bouts of severe coughing fits in between. Throughout the first mission where he spends time with Jing Yan Ran searching for the stolen object, he allows Jing Yan Ran to take care of him, and they fall in LURVE pretty much like 10 chapters in.

Of course, they have to uncover a plot and conspiracy against their enemies who are plotting to dethrone the Emperor, and also reveal the secrets of Yun Yi Feng’s birth.

My Thoughts: AN ABSOLUTE FAVE AND GEM, I’d say this is my favourite danmei novel ever. This is both hilarious and tears-inducing, to be honest, because for most of the novel YYF knows he doesn’t have long to live and so in the beginning he knows of his own feelings for JYR and JYR also shows him that he loves him, but he is unable to officially reciprocate because he knows his body is like weakening day by day. Halfway through the fear that he’s literally about to die as they are JUST about to find the cure is real, and damn I cried so much at that. Some highlights:

YYF falls asleep very easily in baths and everywhere actually, and pretty much within the first 10 chapters he gets used to JYR carrying him around (even naked from the bath, he’s like oh well, okay cool) and taking care of him, and JYR ALWAYS makes sure he is warm and toasty under his cape

YYF LOVESSSS RICHES, PLAYING THE ZITHER AND COOKING - He’s good at gathering the first one, but he FUCKING SUCKS AS THE LAST TWO - It’s so funny because he’s so beautiful and handsome right, and when he sits down at the zither everyone is like OH DAMN WHAT A DREAM- and then he plays, and everyone’s fantasies is shattered, he’s ABYSMAL at it, and the same goes for cooking

JYR doesn’t actually have the Blood Red Lingzhi, and throughout the first arc, he feels SO DAMN GUILTY because YYF even carved out a pendant that looks like what he thinks the herb looks like, and like carries it with him everywhere LMAO

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili

2. 高能二维码 | High Energy QR Code by 青色羽翼

Summary: CEO Xing Ye’s brother Xing Shuo has just passed away at the age of 24, and nothing will make him believe that Xing Shuo died of natural causes despite autopsies and experts telling him that he really died simply of a heart failure. Xing Ye, who has impeccable memory, suddenly recalls the last time he saw Xing Shuo. His brother called out to him just before Xing Ye left for a business trip, and looked as if he had something to say, but ended up just wishing him a safe trip.

At that moment, there was a QR code on Xing Shuo’s phone, and the phone screen was strangely turned out towards Xing Ye, and Xing Ye, with his incredibly high IQ and memory, realizes that Xing Shuo wanted him to see the QR code. Quickly, he reproduces the QR code by pen and then scans it, and finds himself in a game world.

There he meets a narcissistic but also cute mirror which can speak, and finds out later that his name is Lu Ming Ze. Xing Ye’s mission is to clear the game missions in each round that is set by the black and white cubic game system, a system that continuously tempts its players into giving in to committing sins such as killing someone else, stealing and other things. He soon realizes that if he cannot stay on a path clear of these sins, he will never be able to triumph over the game system and return Lu Ming Ze back to his body in the real world. 

At the same time, he gains new teammates and friends for life, and also finds out what role his brother played in this game. 

My Thoughts: MY GOD I LOVE THIS. I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED READING THIS YESTERDAY, and honestly it’s one of my faves. I don’t like game systems very often (I’ve read three others so far, and this, and KOD are the only ones I’ve liked) but this one is *chef’s kiss*. So LMZ was born like with a really handsome face, like SUPER HANDSOME, and that’s why he’s like a harmless narcissist that cannot bear to look at ugly things LMAO, but he’s not spoilt, he makes sure that Xing Ye stays true to himself, and help him keep his head clear. 

THE ONLY THING ABOUT THIS FRICKIN NOVEL IS THAT LU MING ZE STAYS A MIRROR, LIKE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MIRRORS, in the first TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHAPTERS. I KID YOU NOT. I FRICKIN KID YOU NOT. I swear I was sooo touched starved at the end of the novel, because they couldn’t even kiss?!! Like Xing Ye kisses the mirror, and then uses his thumbs to like hi-five mini LMZ in the mirror back, they can’t even hug. Do you know how empty my arms felt when I read this book?!! And my arms have never been filled!!!!!!

I really like this one because each game world is set up in such a brilliant way, but it’s not so unnecessarily complex that you literally don’t know what the fuck is going on. Xing Ye’s intelligence as he outmanoeuvres every single one of his enemies and convinces his would-be loyal teammates to trust him is so satisfying, world after world, victory after victory.

Humour is also absolutely ON POINT. A lot of it is centred on Xing Ye getting caught in the real world kissing his handheld mirror (LMZ) by LMZ’s parents (who cannot see him in the mirror) and LMZ’s parents going like ???!!!!!!!! 

Available: Novel Online | Physical Novel is coming out on 10 Dec (freebies are, you guessed it, a mirror)

3. 妻为上 | The Wife is First by 绿野千鹤

Summary: This is set in a historical setting where men can marry other men, but it’s usually reserved for sons who were not borne by the official main first wife of the patriarch of the family, i.e. a son born by a concubine in a family may be forced to marry a man to keep him from being able to become the next family’s patriarch for example. This is because any family’s next leader needs to be able to have children with a wife who married in as a zheng shi (lawful wife), and not a ce shi (second wife) or any other concubines/mistresses etc. Most of these men who marry other men have to take them as their zheng shi and lawful spouse in a sense, and the same goes for the royal family.

The story starts with third prince Jing Shao, who was forced to marry Mu Han Zhang, a Marquis’ second son, by the Empress and Emperor, thereby officially and effectively cutting him out of the race for the throne. He’s mocked by the public as everyone knows what this means, and for the next 10 years, he neglects Mu Han Zhang, blaming him for his predicament, and deliberately showers his three other concubines with affection in front of him, but 10 years later, when Jing Shao is accused of treason, everyone leaves him except for Mu Han Zhang. They are chased to the edge of the cliff by soldiers, and Mu Han Zhang dies in his arms having taken an arrow meant for him earlier, and Jing Shao jumps off the cliff with his dead body, and promises that if there’s a next life, he will do everything Han Zhang says, and love him.

He wakes up immediately on the night of his marriage with Han Zhang, and realizes that he’s been given a second chance to make everything right. Han Zhang is definitely afraid of him, humiliated and angry when he first wakes up after how rough Jing Shao was with him earlier on their wedding night, and he has no memories of their past life. Jing Shao then sets to SHOWER HAN ZHANG with affection, love and basically everything, because he realized that this is the only person who stayed by his side until the end, and then he falls in love with Han Zhang properly this time, and also deals with every single person who maligned and schemed against him in his previous life, with Han Zhang by his side.

My Thoughts: OKAY BEFORE YALL GO INTO THE ‘WIFE’ terminology discourse and everything, in this case they do use the term ‘wife’ literally, and it’s a position, that while men frequently fall into (there are a lot of male ‘wives’ in this story), is also used to cut off like sons from inheriting the family and the fortune, and even titles. Male ‘wives’ aren’t looked down upon in this setting, in fact, Han Zhang gets a lot of leeway as one, and in his case he was also able to rise up the ranks to be an actual official later on, but the sad thing comes from sons who are most of the time forced to marry a male ‘wife’ for whatever reason, and then they are neglected as the son goes and find concubines, women he actually wants to sleep with - this is sad af yall. I don’t know, on one hand, yay for equality in marriage in this setting, but on the other hand like, damn, must you use same-sex marriage like that argh.

ANYWAY THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVES TOO?!!! I mean, especially when Jing Shao literally just goes into doting mode 200% and Han Zhang is totally like wtf why is he so nice to me is he scheming or something? And then he realizes that Jing Shao is really, really gentle towards him despite his reputation as a cruel, dark military commander, and Jing Shao always smiles at him. In any situation, especially in the beginning, when Han Zhang thought Jing Shao would not stand with him, Jing Shao literally just protects him no matter what, gives him everything, and cries, I love it. 

Especially because Han Zhang is the son of a concubine and he was bullied a lot in the Mu family, and the official Lady Mu married him off to Jing Shao in hopes that he would be unhappy for the rest of his life, and I suppose that came true in the first life, but in the second, Han Zhang gets all the love, respect and support he never got before in this family with Jing Shao and that makes me WEEP.

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Kuaikan

4. 死亡万花筒 Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪

OOOH I intro-ed KOD here in my previous rec list. Still one of my faves and all-time re-reads, especially under the covers in the dark hehehe.

5. 你的距离 | Your Distance by 公子优 

Summary: Ting Shuang is a student at a German university, and has this handsome professor Bai Chang Yi who he swears kind of hates him. He’s just broken up with his longtime boyfriend, and then goes on this dating app that matches a profile with him based on distance. The app can also show the matched profile’s distance from him once they enter the same area, and Ting Shuang starts chatting with this Chinese guy on the app, who he finds out later, is 36 years old, 187cm in height and wears glasses. 

The guy is a little aloof and cool, very mature in his replies on the app, and somehow Bai Chang Yi finds out who he is later, as Ting Shuang starts complaining to him about his professor to Bai Chang Yi. Instead of getting angry and offended, BCY is pretty much amused and finds Ting Shuang cute. A few days later Ting Shuang finally realizes who it is he’s been texting, and after getting past the initial embarrassment and fear, they start dating for real, and they really fall in love!!!!! 

My Thoughts: This is sweet and also hilarious af, if you need to like satisfy your sweet tooth, this is definitely one for you. It’s really funny because Bai Chang Yi runs in the same circles as Ting Shuang’s dad, who he’s estranged from because the dad doesn’t want to recognize a son who is gay, and then BCY convinces him later in the funniest of ways, and there’s a small subplot at the end in which Ting Shuang is pretty cool, and yep, short and sweet! BCY in the manhua is handsome af too guys ;-;

Available: Novel Online, Audio Drama on Maoer FM and Manhua on Bilibili, 

6. 神木挠不尽 The White Cat’s Divine Scratching Post by 绿野千鹤

Summary: Mo Tian Liao, a weapons forger and master who ruled the Demon Tribe, was hunted down and killed by other righteous sects in the region when he managed to forge an incredibly destructive weapon that could end the world. Before he died, he placed the only thing he loved, a white cat, into a hole in the tree behind him to protect it. The only thing he was grateful for was that he did not create a blood pact with the cat, Xiao Mao, because if he had done so, when he died, Xiao Mao would have died along with him as well.

Right before he dies, unbeknownst to him, Xiao Mao who is no simple demonic cat, wraps part of his consciousness around Mo Tian Liao, and MTL’s spirit ends up floating about for 300 years, until he finds a suitable time to return with a body made out of a special tree and its wood. The first thing he does, of course, is to find his white cat, but he’s poor, and the body he has isn’t powerful, so he joins Wo Yun Sect, the only sect that did not hunt him down that day hundreds of years ago.

There, he is chosen by Qing Tong shizun to be his direct disciple, much to the astonishment of other shizuns in the sect, and Qing Tong’s shixiongs. MTL has never seen a person as beautiful and gorgeous as his shizun, and if only he could find that cat (who’s actually his shizun, who recognizes him and protects him, even if MTL doesn’t actually need much protection).

My Thoughts: This was hilarious as well, and so romantic?!!! Qing Tong/Xiao Mao waited for MTL to come back, and the moment he came back, Qing Tong was there ready to grab him, and then before he went to sleep that night, Qing Tong thought to himself, “I’ve gotten my person back, I can sleep well now” and AHHHHH at this point they weren’t even like a couple yet? MTL ‘kidnapped’ Qing Tong when he was a young demon cat by accident because he likes pretty things (like his shizun lmao) and Qing Tong is attached to him because MTL never forced a blood pact on him, and gave him everything he wanted as a younger cat before MTL died. Gosh, a mirror in #2 and then a cat now with this one. XD

Available: Novel Online

7. 破云 | Breaking the Clouds by 淮上

Summary: Three years ago, Captain Jiang Ting and his team of the Narcotics division perished in an explosion due to a wrong call of his, and he returns three years later under a new identity ready to deal with the people who set him and his team up. He’s caught in what seems to be a simple murder case almost immediately and meets Yan Xie, who’s Vice Captain and in charge of this case. Yan Xie realizes who Jiang Ting is shortly after, and begins to unravel the huge mystery surrounding the events of three years ago, and falls in love with Jiang Ting along the way as well.

My Thoughts: Okay out of the FOUR crime/detective/thriller danmei novels I’ve read, the poyun and tunhai (below) series is the one that MIRRORS actual narcotics division and undercovers the best. It has the complexity and depth of the drugs/narcotics world, and both this one and its sequel focuses a lot on the position of an undercover and mole. I liked this one a lot because there are SOOOO many twists especially in the last arc, like you honestly won’t see any of them coming until it hits you? And Yan Xie is such a confident, rich-ass narcissist, and he keeps asking Jiang Ting if he can “just touch” him ONCE lmao, he’s thick-skinned af, but that’s why he and Jiang Ting are so compatible ;-;.

Available: Novel Online, Novel Print, Audio Drama and Manhua on Bilibili

8. 吞海 | Swallowing the Sea by 淮上

Summary: Sequel to Po Yun. Yu Wu is a young-looking new detective under Captain Bu Chong Hua’s narcotics team. Bu Chong Hua is Yan Xie’s cousin by actual relation, but brother in relationship because BCH’s parents died early and Yan Xie’s parents have been taking care of him mostly. He cannot stand Yu Wu, who seems to want to coast through at work and keep to a 9-5 work schedule. 

It’s only after an altercation and Yu Wu dumping his nonchalant facade to snarl at BCH that he realizes that YW is actually more interesting and mysterious than he thought, and he begins to try to get close to him, understand him. It turns out that Yu Wu is a famous undercover who nearly died a year ago during an operation, and due to various reasons, he was assigned to BCH’s team by higher ups so he can peacefully live the rest of his life out there. However, his past catches up with him quickly, and his enemies turning up forces him to rely on BCH. 

With BCH, Yu Wu’s resentment of having to be an undercover in the past and being so easily discarded by his team’s leaders, and of him being forced to be in the shadows while others can announce their achievements to the world, is slowly erased, because BCH sees him, knows him, and understands him more than anyone else.

My Thoughts: I actually liked this one better than the first one - Yu Wu is such a pouty, angry little thing?! And for good reason (there’s a bit of cannibalism in the book, not by choice when he was younger and in a poor village in Cambodia, where some militants forced survivors in the village to eat the meat of boiled corpses of other villagers, so YW is a vegetarian, like if he eats meat he gets really sick) and the twists here are even more amazing?! BCH really, really, devotes himself to YW the moment he realizes how much he likes him, doing a 180 degree turn. Instead of Yan Xie’s flamboyance, BCH is much steadier, grouchy, like an old uncle, but also looks at things even more clearly than Yan Xie does sometimes. Yu Wu is understandably bitter about what he had to go through, and BCH is the ONLY person who can calm him down, whom he listens to, which I LOVE. Some highlights:

Yu Wu grew up in a poor village and thus loves money, and he fights in underground betting rings to earn more money - The stash of hidden money he collects I think is half for his escape money, but if he happens to never need it, his dream is to donate the money to his village so they can open up a school there - ANYWAY because Yan Xie’s parents, and technically BCH’s ‘parents’ are soooooo rich right, Yan Xie’s mom shows her approval to her son-in-laws (Jiang Ting first, then Yu Wu), by giving them winter pants. It’s kind of like inside warmers, and usually meant for older ladies to wear LOLOL so Yu Wu was like staring at the pants when he finally got them and looked soooo reluctant until Jiang Ting told him it costs $6,000 AND HE WAS LIKE :333333 okie

He acts a lot like a kid?!! He likes eating like some snack but it’s really unhealthy for him, and BCH the mother hen keeps catching him in weird places like the toilet, where he’s hiding from BCH so he can eat his fave snack?! And the whole police station knows not to give YW what he wants in terms of snacks and smokes because once BCH finds out, he makes life very difficult for them HAHAHAHA

9. 穿成反派如何活命 | How to Survive as A Villain by 伊依以翼

Summary: Rich and handsome CEO Xiao Yu An finds out he has a terminal illness (cancer), and dies while he’s reading this online novel, where a king mistreats the crown prince from a neighbouring state which sent him over as hostage after losing a war, and ends up being killed by the crown prince years later (SVSSS much?!). He wakes up AS THE KING, and afraid of dying, he immediately goes about befriending the prince, Yan He Qing. Yan He Qing falls in love with Xiao Yu An while being his friend/hostage/bodyguard, and Xiao Yu An tries to avoid all the deaths he read in the book, while making sure Yan He Qing manages to find his three/four wives, including Xiao Yu An’s sister.

Of course, because Xiao Yu An showed him warmth and kindness, Yan He Qing ends up falling for him instead, and Xiao Yu An is an absolute oblivious idiot because he REALLY doesn’t realize until much later. Yan He Qing ends up declaring war on Xiao Yu An’s kingdom because he is duty bound to do so, but doesn’t hurt Xiao Yu An, wanting to keep him by his side, but YHQ’s scheming uncle drives a wedge between them, and XYA leaves, breaking YHQ’s heart.

They meet again a few years later, where XYA is training to be a physician in a small village and chances upon a severely injured YHQ. There, he realizes that it was all a misunderstanding, and that YHQ actually LIKES, LIKES him, but before they can enjoy this short period of happiness, disaster strikes again.

My Thoughts: THIS WAS really enjoyable, and with the manhua visuals, it is *chef’s kiss*. I think this transmigration version actually delved into the part where XYA is unable to change everything, and if he saves one person, someone else is destined to die, and that moral dilemma devastates him a lot. In this novel he actually transmigrates TWICE, once into the king’s body, and the second time into a neighbouring state’s prince/king’s body, who looks exactly like his modern self after. YHQ is real sweet to him istg, and I like that the epilogues are SUPER EXTENSIVE, including an arc where YHQ and XYA transmigrate back to the real world and everyone who died is alive and close to them, and gets their happy ending ;-;

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili