#chinese novel icons

[stayuntilthefoglifts]

Zhao Yunlan: When I was born the gods said "too much perfection"

Daqing: WRONG

Daqing: When you were born, the devil said "oH cOmPeTiTiOn"

[zoluarts]

crossover au one piece x tgcf doodle !!

luffy as crown prince of dawn (xianle) and the god banished from the skies!!

[specialagentartemis]

What queer Asian sci fi authors would you recommend?

Yeah, to put my money where my mouth is, here are some queer SFF writers from Asia and the Asian Diaspora in the Anglosphere that I really like and highly recommend:

Nghi Vo: probably doesn’t need an endorsement from me, hah, her The Empress of Salt and Fortune is one of the most perfect novellas I’ve ever read and well deserved its Hugo win. The whole Singing Hills cycle is great. It’s a fantasy world strongly inspired by Imperial China and Vietnam, and does clever things with fantasy, folklore, storytelling, and memory. Her novels are standalone historical fantasy set in 1920s-America-with-magic and are very much about Asian immigrant/diaspora experiences in the early 20th century US. With Magic.

Yoon Ha Lee: I love his Machineries of Empire. Would love to finish that trilogy someday. But seriously it’s creative, intense military sci-fi in a magic-science space empire and is very interested in what it takes to uphold such a system.

Simon Jimenez: The Vanished Birds is sooo heartbreakingly good and I need to read A Spear Cuts Through Water soon.

Isabel J. Kim: Short story writer. Runs the gamut of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the weird stuff in between. Creative and vivid in really compelling ways. Her first novel is in the works and I am SUPER interested. She does funky and creative things with perspective and structure in her stories. Has several stories now that are about turning popular tropes or other iconic stories around like they’re in a kaleidoscope, but her first published story “Homecoming Is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” is probably still the most affecting to me.

Michelle Kan: Has a trilogy of novelettes called Tales of the Thread, self-described as “aromantic Chinese fairytales” that take a deliberately aro approach to fairytale retellings and fairytale style fantasy. I recommend them. (Also has a superhero novel I haven’t read.)

———

Haven’t read yet but they are on my TBR:

Aliette de Bodard: Her Xuya universe novellas, and the relationships between humans and AIs and spaceships, sound super up my alley.

Kai Cheng Thom: Author of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir is a less traditionally sff entry but is a fabulist/surrealist take on the Trans Memoir… which I feel like I have to be in the right space for, but I do want to read it.

———

Also he’s not out as queer or anything but I can’t not recommend Ted Chiang because he writes some of the best short stories In The World and has THE most interesting and unique and compelling ideas.

———

There are also so many more authors out there I don’t know and haven’t read! But! Someday!!

[linghxr]

10 movies I watched in Chinese class

This post is the unofficial sequel to 10 iconic Mandopop songs from Chinese class. No one asked for it, but I watched to chronicle what I could remember before more fades from my memory! I saw these movies in Chinese class in high school and college, and I had to do some sleuthing to find some names.

The synopses are from IMDb, revised by me. I put links to watch for free on YouTube when I was able to find one, but they might not work in your country.

1. 《和你在一起》 Together (2002) A violin prodigy and his father travel to Beijing, where the father seeks the means to his son's success while the son struggles to accept the path laid before him.

Watch on YouTube

2. 《谁的青春不迷茫》 Yesterday Once More (2016) Lin Tianjiao, the top student in her class, is struggling to cope under intense academic pressure. After she is nearly caught cheating on a test, she befriends Gao Xiang, a free-spirited slacker.

Watch on YouTube

3. 《活着》 To Live (1994) Based on the novel by Yu Hua, four generations of the once-wealthy Xu family experience the difficult changes of the Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

Watch on YouTube

4. 《��宴》 The Wedding Banquet (1993) To satisfy his parents, Gao Wai-Tung, a gay man in a fulfilling relationship with his partner Simon, marries his female tenant Wei-Wei. Things get out of hand when his parents come to visit.

5. 《饮食男女》 Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) A widowed chef lives with his three grown daughters, who each experience ups and downs in their lives and romantic relationships as they leave the family home.

Watch on YouTube

6. 《哑孩儿》 Dumb Child* (2016) After graduating from college, Fang Yan takes a job as a teacher in a rural area of China. There she meets a young girl named Yaya who doesn't attend school due to her hearing impairment.

Watch on YouTube

*Dumb as in mute. It's not a great English name...

7. 《重返20岁》 20 Once Again/Miss Granny (2015) A 70-year old woman living unhappily with her son's family is magically transformed into her 20-year-old self. She befriends her grandson and decides to fulfill the dreams of her youth.

Watch on YouTube

8. 《北京爱情故事》 Beijing Love Story (2014) Different generations look at love, romance, and commitment, all from a uniquely Beijing perspective. All 5 couples and stories are intertwined a la Love Actually.

9. 《蓝风筝》 The Blue Kite (1993) The lives of a Beijing family throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as they experience the impact of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

Watch on YouTube

10. 《青春派》 Young Style (2013) Struggling with romantic woes after his plan to confess to his crush goes awry, Ju Ran fails the college entrance exam (gaokao) and is forced to repeat his last year of high school.

Watch on YouTube

[loverofstufflof]

Ways to consume Journey to the West (without needling to buy and read a full translation)!

I’ve noticed that a lot of people can’t read the book for a lot of different reasons, so I’ve compiled a couple of my favourite ways of consume the story while bypassing these problems, categorized by the various issues I’ve come across.

Note that this is mainly for English speakers, as that’s the language I default to for translations.

The book is too inaccessible/expensive for me to obtain physically

Journey to the West Research has an entire blog post dedicated to compiling free PDF versions of the book. This includes many languages, not just English.

I struggle with reading text in that quantity

There are abridged versions of the story, my personal favourite is the one by Julie Lovell—it’s approximately a quarter of the original story’s length, and mainly focuses on the most iconic chapters. These versions are also typically more easily found in local bookstores.

I struggle with reading novels in general

The story has been converted into audio form! Here are the ones off the top of my head, each listed with their own pros and cons:

Journey to the West: An Audio Drama Series is an original translation told in a read-aloud format, in which the host, Lin, acts as a kindly librarian reading to a group of awaiting 1st graders. She gives every character a distinct voice and personality, and she’s obviously delighted to be able to share her culture with the listeners. The show used to have free translation notes, where Lin gets to act as a disgruntled translator going on about the intricacies of the Chinese language and historical/mythological contexts, but these now require a subscription to access. This show is the reason why I know how to pronounce these characters’ names.

Legends Summarized: The Journey to the West by Overly Sarcastic Productions is one that I’m sure I don’t need to include (because of how widespread it is) but feel I should because someone is gonna mention is anyways. It’s a very summarized, very sarcastic retelling of Red’s favourite chapters in the book, accompanied by fun visuals and the excitement of someone who clearly knows and loves what they’re talking about. As Red has said herself, this series should not be your only source of JTTW knowledge, as she simplifies it a ton to make it more digestible. Great for people who are just getting into the story and want a general overview, not great for people who want a more in-depth understanding of the themes and other complexities.

Journey of the Monkey King is a podcast akin to a longform, more in depth version of the OSP series. It consists of two Irish comedians discussing one chapter per episode; one of them (Caoimhe) has read the book, the other (MJ) hasn’t. The format is mainly Caoimhe giving a comedic abridged version of the chapter while MJ gawks in horror at whatever absurdity the Monster-of-the-Week presents. Because it’s hosted by Irish people, there isn’t much cultural context given, and some names are butchered, however I do find this one a lot easier to follow in comparison to the Audio Drama Series, and it’s far more detailed than Legends Summarized.

Journey to the West English Amateur Audiobook is one that is on my radar but have not started. To my current knowledge, it is an audiobook version of the WJF Jenner translation, which is notable to me because most of these types of podcasts are derived from the Anthony C Yu translation, so this one would be a nice listen to compare how the two went about handling the text.

Please know that this post isn’t intended to shame anyone into consuming the story; it’s not for everyone! But I’ve come across my fair share of aspiring fans who couldn’t access the book in a way that suited them (including myself) so I wanted to make this knowledge more generally know for anyone else who might need it :]

[wangmiao]

An Incomplete History of Zhang Luyi & Chen Minghao's Friendship

Do you like Pangxie's chemistry in Tibetan Sea Flower? Do you feel that they are really old friends? Besides the fact that Zhang Luyi and Chen Minghao are very good actors, they are indeed old friends, and the earliest record that I can find of them working together dates back to 2006. However, CMH was in the 1996 class of acting at the The Central Academy of Drama, while ZLY was in the 1999 class of directing at the same university, so I figured they definitely got to know each other before 2006. So more or less, on Chinese social media, people usually assume that they've been friends for almost 20 years.

Before I dig into the history, I want to mention that some Pangxie scenes are actually improvised by ZLY and CMH on set. CHM has played Pangzi several times, and is insanely good at it, so he knows about Pangzi and the character dynamics inside out. While ZLY is new to the DMBJ universe, he did read all the DMBJ novels before the filming of Tibetan Sea Flower, so he has very insightful understanding of the characters and relationship dynamics as well.

For example, according to an interview of the director, this iconic & funny "拜年/new year's greeting" scene in episode 6 was improvised, and the director just decided to keep it in the final cut. In a BTS footage, Pangxie putting peanuts on Feng's very wrinkled test paper in episode 9 was also shown to be something that ZLY and CMH came up with during rehearsing.

The History

In the first paragraph, I mentioned that they went to the same undergraduate university. Another thing that connects them even more is that they went to the same graduate school - Peking University's School of Arts, and both have the master's degree in arts. ZLY fans sometimes just endearingly call CMH “师哥/shige" because of all of this.

In 2006, ZLY and CMH were in the stage play 琥珀/Amber. Here are some rare photos of 26-year old ZLY and 31 year old CMH LOL:

Both of them continued to do a lot of theatre works, some tv/film roles, and also attended grad school in the coming years. ZLY got his breakthrough leading role in 2014, and started to lead in shows/films.

In 2016, ZLY and South Korean actor Jang Hyuk starred in the drama 新海/New Sea, and CMH was seen sharing the following scene with ZLY. Unfortunately, due to China's ban on South Korean entertainment content in the same year, this drama will probably never see the light of day.

Then, I think some of you already know this, in late 2016, CMH directed the stage play Big D, and ZLY was his lead actor in this play. According to different news articles, the tickets of this play were sold out in either 5, 7, or 8 minutes (LOL no idea why there were such discrepancies, but they were sold out within 10 minutes for sure).

In 2018, they appeared in The Sound which is a very good variety show about dubbing. Celebrities were asked to dub domestic and international shows/films (sometimes in both Chinese and English) to show case their voice acting skills and language skills. What's really funny is that ZLY is one of the typical introverts who can be a clown when he's surrounded by people he's familiar with, but once you put him in an unfamiliar environment, he gets nervous and shy. So after he and CMH entered the room together, he just naturally and subconsciously stood right beside CMH, the one he was most comfortable with, even though he was supposed to team up with another actress (who was off screen). He got really confused for a minute when all the other guests and hosts were questioning why he didn't stand beside his teammate LOL.

Both ZLY and CMH are really very low key actors in c-ent, so you don't see them in public events a lot. The last time that they were spotted chatting in public was during the premiere of the movie Under the Light last September.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope this can bring some insight into their friendship. You can tell they are just so comfortable with each other, and shooting Tibetan Sea Flower seemed to be such a fun experience for them. I hope they get to work together again soon in the future!

Edit: if you noticed my tags and saw the reply of someone requesting to know why ZLY was picked as Wu Xie: I made a long post here.

[the-monkey-ruler]

Greetings! I hope you're having an at least decent weekend. Is it just me or is Stephen Chow involved in a lot of jttw/swk centered media? & do you have anything to say about any of Stephen Chow's jttw/swk centered work?

Stephen Chow WAS Sun Wukong in what could be considered the most iconic Sun Wukong that changed the game. I'm not kidding that there could be a butterfly effect on how Stephen Chow's Wukong in the Chinese Odyssey became such a classic we see how it has affected games, shows, and movies even years later. Dare I say it but I think Stephen Chow could have been just as influential to Wukong's development in modern media as much as even Liu Xiao Ling Tong with how IMPACTFUL his Wukong was.

I have to say that Stephen Chow does have a certain scene of humor that you see in all his movies, not just Journey to the West. He can be raunchy, violent, and nonsensical so I would say that his style of movies might not land with everyone but Stephen Chow undoubtedly always puts a lot of heart into his characters which is what really makes people connect with his movies. He is a master of incorporating meaningful connections through the most ridiculous and insane situations that humans could find themselves in and that is part of his charm seeing both the humor and the tragedy in life as they often go hand and hand. I would suggest reading more about his style here since I think it puts into words how his art form is expressed.

But there can be a fascinating conversation to say just HOW much his Sun Wukong has influenced even modern Journey to the West media. Chinse Odessey was nearly 30 years ago and yet its impact is still being seen today in movies that are directly related to his films, versus movies and shows that he is directly or indirectly involved in today.

Journey to the West Conquering the Demons (2030) (tv remake on Chow’s Wukong)

Black Myth Wukong (2024)

The Monkey King (2023)

A Chinese Odyssey 1 (2022)

A Chinese Odyssey - Origin (2022)

Journey to the West - ARPG (2019)

Bio of Wukong (2017)

The Legend of Sun Wukong (2017)

A Chinese Odyssey TV series (2017)

Journey to the West Demon Strikes Back (2017)

A Chinese Odyssey Part Three (2016)

Honor of Kings (2015)

Taste of Love (2015)

Journey to the West Conquering the Demon (2013)

Asura Online (2010)

Even in movies that he is NOT involved in like Monkey King: The One and Only (2021) 大圣无双 where the Wukong actor is basing his performance clearly on Demon Strikes Back (2017) Wukong. Not to mention nearly EVERY SINGLE Wukong x SO plot line where the SO dies in the end could be traced back to Chinese Odyssey. If you hate how much Wukong's love interests are killed off in media, you can somewhat blame Stephen Chow, not for doing it first, but for doing it WELL and then dozens of directors for years to come trying to recapture that magic but falling short of what made people love that tragic romance in the first place.

Chinese Odessey was made in 1995 and led to the light novel Bio of Wukong which was made in 2000 and at least 4 more movies and its own TV show. The Bio of Wukong was so popular that it led to the inspiration of Asura Online game based is the story and its own movie Immortal Demon Slayer. Stephen Chow continued to make his own movies Conquering the Demon and Demon Strikes Back. He also goes on to help produce Monkey King 2023 and even makes plans to help produce an entire TV series based on his own universe. Asura Online was worked on by Game Science who continued to work on the creation of Black Myth Wukong. This isn't even to mention the spin-offs, sequels, and prequels to Chow's movies and still how they are influencing directors today.

I can't express how much Chow has impacted the very image of Sun Wukong from being a fighter to a tragic hero. I even took from an ENTIRE CHPATER from Transforming Monkey: Adaptation and Representation by Hongmei Sun bout the CULTURAL impact that fans had with Chinese Odessey and how it became such a cult classic. He was the one to really reshape what Wukong could mean to people, not just a hero in an action movie, but a tragic figure that is forced to give up his individualism for the sake of saving the world because no one else can. That the burden of being 'Sun Wukong' can be relatable to anyone and anyone can see their own struggles with how Wukong tries not just to fight demons, but also fight himself.

I have so many feelings on the intricacies of how Wukong's character changes throughout each generation and each audience across countries and what he means to each new audience but never loses what makes him so beloved and keeps him still going strong after 400 years. And I think that Stephen Chow plays a huge and critical part in how Wukong has changed yet again in the public eye. Wukong going from a pure heroic figure to now a tragic hero who has all the power in the world but still finds himself falling short of what he desires in life. I think that this was a vital step in show the complexity and having more directors and the audience toy with the notion of Wukong's internal battle with his identity versus him always just fighting physical battles.

I will say that Chow's influence did lead to the popularity of the Journey to the West Conspiracy Theory which I am not personally a fan of. It is not that it can't be fun or interesting but moreso I believe that this theory has been drawn out far too long in the past 20 years and that it is time for a new nuance perspective to take its place. Genres have waves of new tropes and cliches and I do believe the 'heaven bad, yaoguai misunderstood' has been played out a tad too long to be charming anymore. I think this was a vital step in Wukong’s and Journey to the West adaptions but I also believe that now more can be built upon this premise to allow for more creative ideas that reflect a more modern audience.

I think that the audience that has grown up with Chow's work (Chinese Odessey at least) is now at the age where they can produce and create their own material and we are still seeing how this audience is echoing the same statements of Chow's Tragic Hero standpoint. I don't know what else I can say that I haven't said before but the sheer magnitude of changing a character's image is shocking and I hope that we see what new form Sun Wukong shall take!

[hier--soir]

may + june + july reads

the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde by r. l. stevenson [★★★★]

"Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering."

: ̗̀➛ a london lawyer, mr utterson, investigates strange occurrences between his old friend dr henry jekyll, and the evil edward hyde.

: ̗̀➛ a horror classic! coming in at a sweet 96-pages, it was easy to smash out in an evening. and despite the brevity of the text and the fact that it's over a century old, i found it insanely compelling and indeed pretty chilling at multiple points.

: ̗̀➛ there are some ridiculously funny lines in this. i believe he named the evil character hyde just so he could drop this banger: "'If he be Mr. Hyde,' he had thought, 'I shall be Mr. Seek.'"

: ̗̀➛ henry jekyll my sweet summer child, you flew way too close to the sun with this shit.

: ̗̀➛ "You must suffer me to go my own dark way." BARS.

babel: an arcane history by r. f. kuang [★★★★★]

"The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles."

: ̗̀➛ opening in the year 1828, a young boy from canton is orphaned by cholera and brought to london by a mysterious professor. he is trained in latin, ancient greek, and chinese, in preparation for the day he will attend oxford university's royal institute of translation - babel. the tower is the world's center for translation and silver-working, the magical craft that has so far brought unrivalled power to the british and supports the empire's ongoing colonisation of the world. but what happens when it is discovered that britain is pursuing an unjust war against china, and robin realises that serving babel means betraying his motherland.

: ̗̀➛ this book left me absolutely speechless. upon starting it i was immediately ashamed at how long it had taken me to pick this up considering all the hype. serious thanks to @seventeenpins for recommending this to me recently, you are the best for putting me onto this.

: ̗̀➛ beautifully crafted, incredibly intelligent, great central characters. i don't even know how to put into words what i felt about this one. and as someone who consumes a fair amount of translated literature [see: my love of ancient greek and roman classics] it tickled my interest around the biases and intricacy of translation so perfectly. you need to read it. please.

: ̗̀➛ have to include: "It should have been distressing. In truth, Robin found it was actually quite easy to put up with any degree of social unrest, as long as one got used to looking away."

: ̗̀➛ have to include #2: "So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?"

: ̗̀➛ and absolutely cannot not include this iconic PBS diss: "He greatly enjoyed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, though he could not say the same of the poems by her less talented husband, whom he found overly dramatic."

paradise rot by jenny hval [★★★★]

"But my dreams are full of apples, and in the dark my body slowly transforms into fruit: tonsils shrinking to seeds and lungs to cores. I dream of white flowers blossoming under my nails, as if under ice. Then my nails break, opening up like clams and in the finger flesh there are little sticky fruit pearls."

: ̗̀➛ jo is in a strange new country for university, living in a house with no walls, a roommate with no boundaries, and a home that seems increasingly more and more alive.

: ̗̀➛ so much piss in this one folks.

: ̗̀➛ jenny hval is a norwegian musician and this was her debut novel, and it was bizarre and haunting and disgusting and made me cringe and feel squeamish at many points, and yet i read it in one fell swoop. it grips you for 120-odd pages and when you're done it feels like you've been spit out disoriented.

mrs s by k. patrick [★★★]

"When she is not around, I invent her. When she is around, I invent her. It is not her fault."

: ̗̀➛ an australian butch lesbian travels to england to work in an elite boarding school, where she meets mrs s, the headmaster's wife. over a hot, restless summer, the two engage in an affair.

: ̗̀➛ i enjoyed this one decently enough. the writing style grew a bit tiresome, and the storyline seemed quite laissez-faire, but overall yes i enjoyed it. what can also grow tiresome for me is the woman-on-woman affair when one of them is married to a man - but maybe i've just read too much queer lit with no foreseeable happy ending lately, idk.

: ̗̀➛ the way the dialogue was structured [or perhaps, unstructured to a painful extent] was not my cup of tea at all.

: ̗̀➛ i was really tickled by her living in an annexe so close to the school nurse, who is very religious. the dynamic gave way to great passages like this: "I imagine her, at night, sending prayers my way, so sweet as to be malicious. In each of our interactions there is always the feeling that I would do better under her God. I don't mind her God, so tangible. The sexy Jesus in her bedroom. His body I too would die to have. Not just the chest but the legs, a footballer's legs, complex with muscle. Even those sad, raised palms. Brazen in their injuries. Such glamour." like hello??? incredible.

grey dog by elliott gish [★★★★]

"You called me a dirty little beast, and I have become as dirty and beastly a woman as there ever was."

"What is that quote from Othello, what Emilia says about men? They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; They eat us hungerly, and when they are full, they belch us."

: ̗̀➛ a 'literary horror novel' set in 1901 about the unmarried and almost 30 'spinster' ada byrd who accepts a teaching post in a small isolated town. she wants to be rid of her past, one 'riddled with grief and shame', but upon witnessing strange and grisly sights, ada begins to believe that something ancient and beastly is behind all the peculiarities in this little town. her confusion deepens, and ada's grip on what is reality, delusion, or traumatic memory, begins to blur and fail.

: ̗̀➛ body horror, gore, the horrors of being a woman, witchy business, descent into madness, women longing for women.

: ̗̀➛ because the entire text is written in first person diary entries, i found that it sometimes failed to establish a creepy atmosphere. although this issue was more prominent for me in the first half, while in the second half the diary entries acted as a great insight as to how unhinged she was becoming. slay.

: ̗̀➛ imo this is simply what happens to a woman when she is raised by a heinous father and ends up an adult surrounded by too many sexy older women!

the sleepwalkers by scarlett thomas [★★★]

"How many eyes can one storm have?"

: ̗̀➛ still reeling from the chaos of their wedding, evelyn and richard arrive on a tiny greek island for their honeymoon. it's the end of the season and a storm is brewing on the horizon. they check into the villa rosa, which has a peculiar owner named isabella, and everyone wants to talk about the famous sleepwalkers, a couple who stayed at the hotel recently and drowned.

: ̗̀➛ saw a tagline that coined this as 'patricia highsmith meets white lotus' and i'd agree. good mystery thriller with some action.

: ̗̀➛ this one was a touch slow at first [it's told in letters, dictated audio recordings, from different perspectives, etc] but ultimately gripped me and i thoroughly enjoyed the drama and mystery. newlyweds that hate each other's guts? yeah, bestie, i need to know why.

: ̗̀➛ i really got into some of the takes showing how evelyn and richard viewed each other. this really stuck with me: "I read infrequently, partly because every book change me, right down the level of my DNA. I didn't want to be changed so often. But you were able to hoover up contemporary culture without so much as a little belch afterwards. You just carried on being you."

: ̗̀➛ also let me fucking tell you, there was a line in this book that made me drop my kindle and GUFFAW in shock. page 88, HELLO. evelyn girl you kill me.

the drift by c. j. tudor [★★★]

"These days death had been laid bare for what it really was. An ending. Often brutal, seldom fair, rarely kind."

: ̗̀➛ a thriller-esque, horror-esque book about a deadly infectious virus, and the attempted survival of three seperate groups trapped in isolated circumstances in the icy wilderness. [this one is so hard to describe sorry]

: ̗̀➛ the book is told through three different pov's. i normally despise this but i actually didn't hate it in this case, although i did have favourites.

: ̗̀➛ boyfriend asked me to read this when he finished it and then watched me from across the room the almost whole time, pretending not to be staring whenever i looked up. and he was right, it was fast-paced, had some good twists and turns, and was enjoyable, albeit very different from what i normally read.

what have i done? an honest memoir about surviving post-natal mental illness by laura dockrill [★★★★]

"Put me out of my misery. I feel like a killer on the loose. I need to turn myself in."

"Or the one of New Mum having champagne and cake with the girls. Another doing 'date night' two weeks before her six-week check, like, 'Yes, we still have sex!' Mum is fitting back into her clothes; Mum is making papier-mâché piggy banks; drinking enough water; shaving her armpits; reading a bedtime story; going to a gig; playing peekaboo. Mum is keeping up with her favourite TV shows; reading the Booker longlist; being a good friend; making a healthy yet tasty cost-effective-probably-vegan meal; recycling; giving baby massage; sterilising. Mum is getting rid of her pregnancy knickers when they are the only knickers she truly likes; doing her taxes; walking the dog; donating to charity; freezing bananas; learning Japanese because why not? ... Oh look! Mum is abseiling down the Shard and still finding the time to express and write a blog about the whole experience."

: ̗̀➛ a memoir about a first-time mum's experience with post-partum psychosis, and her survival.

: ̗̀➛ this book was a heart-ache of a read. honest and raw and devastating and uplifting. often very very funny -- "People told Hugo, 'Don't go down the goal end, mate; it's like watching your favourite pub burn down.' Oh ha. Ha. Ha." -- i couldn't put it down.

: ̗̀➛ the end did start to feel a touch self-helpy which isn't necessarily my bag of tricks when it comes to non-fiction, but those inclusions felt warranted and fair after such an in-depth depiction of everything laura had gone through.

: ̗̀➛ serious mental health trigger warnings for this one. there is plenty of humour, but it gets very dark.

the death of jane lawrence by caitlin starling [★★]

"She dreamed of tearing out a rotted pit inside of him where his martyrdom resided."

: ̗̀➛ in an alternate version of victorian-era britain, jane shoringfield is seeking a marriage of convenience that will allow her to continue working, with all the benefits of being a married woman, and she finds this in dr augustine lawrence. however, he has one condition - she can never visit lindridge hall, his family manor outside of town, where he himself will sleep each and every night. but on their wedding night, an accident strands jane at the door in a rainstorm, and in place of her husband she finds a terrified, paranoid man who cannot tell reality from nightmare. by morning he is himself again, but jane knows something is terribly wrong at lindridge hall.

: ̗̀➛ i picked this up looking for a fun, spooky little read, but am sad to say that i absolutely did not like it. the characters were fickle, the plot twists were unsurprising and revealed poorly, and the storyline was all over the place. sadge!

: ̗̀➛ sold itself as a gothic ghost horror, but didn't live up to that at all [for me!] heavily inspired by crimson peak, and it doesn't care if you know it.

: ̗̀➛ also - when your 'independent strong female' mc marries a guy who lies constantly and makes up bullshit and every time she confronts him he boo-hoos so she forgives him immediately cause he really is a nice man?? womp womp.

: ̗̀➛ also also - way more cocaine in this than i expected.

my book rating system is as follows:

★ = i felt pure contempt the entire time

★★ = yeah it's a book

★★★ = i liked it!

★★★★ = good fucking book, damn

★★★★★ = blew my dick clean off and i'll throw a tantrum if everyone i know doesn't also read it and love it

if you want to share a book you love with me, please do! i am always looking out for new recs.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading updates: august 2024

the good news is that I did a lot of reading this month, the bad news is that honestly? I think that my birthday month has had the biggest percentage of literary letdowns, duds, and outright bullshit than any other month of this year so far.

but at least there's plenty to talk about, so let's get going!

Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power (Devon Price, 2024) - uh oh gamers, we're starting on a doozy! I've enjoyed both of Price's previous books very much, but with Unlearning Shame I couldn't help but feel like I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I wasn't getting what I had signed on for. the issue, I think, could be corrected by an adjustment to the title, which seems to be promising a very broad tackling of the concept of shame and is therefore making some pretty big promises. in reality, the book is much more narrowly focused than that, interested primarily in the shame that arises in the activism-minded when they feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of awful things in the world and their perceived inability to do anything about it. fairly early on Price introduces an apparently relatable anecdote about himself and a friend having mutual breakdowns in a grocery store because they were both so paralyzed by the conundrum of trying to buy the most ethical groceries possible, and I realized this book was maybe not really for me or my particular experiences with shame. I think this book will be really helpful for a lot of people for sure, would love to pass it on to a lot of my freshmen, but overall it did not live up to the expectations I brought to the party.

A Separate Peace (John Knowles, 1959) - so I wanted to reread this because someone on here sent me an ask about, I don't know, my favorite required high school reading or whatever, and I said it was A Separate Peace but then I realized it's been over a decade since I read the book and I had to go see if it still actually held up. and god, does it EVER. this is such a brutal and heartbreaking novel, beginning in the last carefree summer that best friends and roommates Gene and Finny will experience before their final year at their boys' private school and their seemingly inevitable draft into WW2. although Gene is seethingly jealous of Finny's seemingly effortless charisma, popularity, confidence, and athletic prowess, the two boys are also inseparable - until a tragic injury changes the course of Finny's life forever. this book is a mess of unspoken pain, from the looming end of innocence on a global scale to the intimate ache of loving your best friend so, so much and having no healthy way to express it because you're a repressed little rich boy in the 1940s.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea (Rita Chang-Eppig, 2023) - Chang-Eppig's debut novel follows the career of Chinese pirate Shek Yeung, also known as Zheng Yi Sao, immediately following the death of her husband, fearsome pirate Sheng Yi. you've probably seen a post or two about her floating around on this very hellsite, calling her a pirate queen and accompanied by this image:

Chang-Eppig isn't interested in portraying Shek Yeung as any kind of heroine or feminist icon; over and over again it's acknowledged that she's simply a woman who has survived massive hardships and will do whatever she needs to do to survive. manipulation? spying? extortion? torture? murder? you name it, she's done it, and she does not feel remorse. while the novel wasn't a knockout for me either in terms of plot or prose, it's nice to see an entry into the trend of "retelling" stories from history and mythology centered on women that isn't determined to justify every step a maligned woman ever made. Shek Yeung is what she is, and her story makes for a gritty, bloody adventure.

Victim (Andrew Boryga, 2024) - this book is pure sleazeball fun; if you've ever wondered what I consider a romp, this is it. Victim follows our manipulative king Javi Perez as he builds a writing career for himself by turning in one essay after another about racial discrimination that he never really experienced, inventing stories of hardship caused by racism and poverty from his college application essay to his school newspaper to the story that finally brings the whole lie crashing down when he stretches the truth too far. the novel is written like Javi's apology in the wake of getting #canceled, and while I do sometimes feel that this premise makes some of the writing seem a bit implausible (why would you admit that!!!) it's a fun setup for a scandal that would have been a bloodbath on the twitter of old. come get your mess!!!

Bad Girls (Camila Sosa Villada, trans. Kit Maude, 2022) - this is my first time reading Sosa Villada's work but OH BOY, do I need to seek out more. this is a skinty little novel following a dramatized account of the travesti (or transgender) women who live and sell sex in Córdoba, Argentina. the women build an unsteady but beautiful and magic-infused family under the protection of the ancient Auntie Encarna. the protagonist (who is named Camila Sosa Villada, no relation I'm sure) watches as her unconventional family grows, changes, and frays over time, struggling to find ways to stay afloat in a world that see them as disposable. Sosa Villada's turns of phrase are brilliant and searing, and she weaves fantastical elements so nimbly into her narrative that it's utterly believable to see women becoming animals and courting headless men in the streets of a modern city. strongly recommend for fans of Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (Aileen Morteon-Robinson, 2000) - this book serves as a scathing literature review indicting Australia's white women anthropologists and feminist scholars for the ways in which they've dehumanized and discredited Aboriginal women, stripping them of the right to be authorities of their own experiences and barring them from a white-centered feminist movement. Moreton-Robinson's account is excellent, contrasting the wok of white women academics with the accounts of Aboriginal women to reveal exactly how massive the disparities in understanding are. as a USAmerican previously aware of Australia's colonial history but unfamiliar with the specifics, it was jarring to discover exactly how similar the mechanism of colonial violence are between my country and Australia, with countless genocidal parallels to be drawn. one particular highlight of the book comes via my purchase of a 20th anniversary edition, which includes a new post-script by Moreton-Robinson in which she dissects and responds to various criticisms of the book at its time of release, taking several critics to task for the belittling tone they used to describe her work and the tools white feminists use to absolve themselves of blame in the face of critique from women of color. fascinating and thorough articulation of Moreton-Robinson's point, and deservedly blistering. I love when academics call each other out by name.

The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance (Sabrina Strings, 2024) - so the thing about this book is that there are really good PARTS. Strings is still an excellent historical writer, and I found a lot to appreciate in, for instance, the segments on the history of Black American pimp culture and the analysis of Playboy and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl. the more personal segments, where Strings contorts herself to fit her own failed relationships into the narrative she's building, are decidedly less consistent in their quality, with some feeling like they would have been better off staying between Strings and her therapist. there's a long and convoluted digression about Sex and the City, and a strange anecdote towards the end in which String recounts a phone call with a friend's college-aged son who, String believes, was masturbating during the call. a yucky experience, to be certain, but I'm not sure it justifies Strings filing a police report against the youth and his mother, who she accuses of having groomed her on the son's behalf. she also casually drops in the same chapter that she considers herself pansexual because she's attracted to trans men in addition to cis men? idk man!!! this book was so uneven that I found myself genuinely questioning whether Strings' first book, Fearing the Black Body, is actually as excellent as I remember it being. I'm pretty sure it is, but god it sucks to get shaken so hard that you have to wonder!

The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures (Phoebe Gloeckner, 2002) - another book that I had to read for class, years ago! I read Diary of a Teenage Girl in one of my gender and women's studies classes in my undergrad, for a class with a title along the lines of Girlhood Stories in Fiction and Film. Gloeckner's novel (though heavily informed by her own life, she insists that it's a work of fiction) sees its young protagonist, Minnie, navigating a great deal of sex, alcohol, drugs in 1970s San Francisco. I started thinking about the book because I was listening to a trio of episodes of You're Wrong About in which Carmen Maria Machado guests to talk about the pervasive sham that is Go Ask Alice (great series, check it out) and I started thinking about Diary, which is so much less preachy and didactic and is, you know, actually drawn from a real teenage girl's diary, unlike Go Ask Alice, and lacking Alice's preachy didacticism. as a diary based on a real diary this book is largely lacking in any particular plot (the most consistent through line is Minnie's ongoing and tumultuous sexual relationship with her mother's 35 year old boyfriend), but if that's not a turn off then you'll find yourself rooting for Minnie to find her way all the way to the uncertain but ultimately optimistic conclusion.

One and Done (Frederick Smith, 2024) - okay, so. this is a romance novel that I picked up because I saw a review talking about how it's an incredibly realistic depiction of working at a university. now that's obviously an insane thing to look for in a romance novel, but I like romances, ESPECIALLY gay romances, and I work at a university, so I figured sure, I'll bite. spoiler alert: it's not great. I posted some examples of the prose here, and even if the two protagonists talked like actual human beings it wouldn't make up for the stale-ass plot or devastating lack of chemistry they have going for them. more like One and Glad to Be Done With This Book That Isn't Very Good, am I right, ladies?

Seduced (Virginia Henley, 1994) - guys, I'm gonna be so fucking real with you. this is the most batshit novel I've ever read, period, let alone the most batshit romance novel. this book was the winner of a poll I ran on patreon last month in which my wicked patreonites got to nominate romance novels of their choosing for my next reading project and voted amongst themselves to crown a winner, and against all odds and my own light attempts to sway the voters, Seduced won it all. this book has everything: a historical setting, a bold young lady disguising herself as her own brother, wildly unchecked orientalism, a murderous cousin, high society scandal, and some of the most torturous sex scenes I've ever encountered in my life. truly this write-up cannot do justice to what I have experienced; I've already promised by patreonites that I'll have to do a little youtube live in order to fully express the extent of my dissatisfaction.

and that was the month of August, babey!!!

[scrumptiousstuffs]

are there more iconic moments that will go down in the FK rabbit hole like this taipei fanmeeting? moments that every somsom needs to know!

Cracking knuckles, stretching my neck and ready to dive in hehehe....

I already mentioned many of my favorites (and iconic) moments of FK during previous asks…

But other moments including way, way back when they were babies (back in 2018) and not officially a CP:

First saying in front of Khaotung’s fans he will love him forever (so, even back then, First has decided who he wants, y'all)

Plus the IG live in 2020 where they stared deeply into each other eyes like separated lovers in a regency novel and calling each other handsome/cute

Hopefully, you already know all the thirdwheeling First did when Khaotung was promoting with Podd for Tonhon Chonlatee.

(I say the boys were laying the ground work so that their fans would get behind them when they finally officially became a CP)

Once they are officially a CP:

Who could forget First’s inner voice during GMMTV safe house season 4, which led to countless gentle teasing by everyone to the point First now just accepts it and says it out loud in front of everyone he finds Khaotung cute (he said this during the GMMTV Live House on 15/09/23 when he and Khaotung were guests on the show) or call his bestie boyfriend in front of live TV 📺

Also, I highly recommend you read through the thoughtfully curated recap FK moments in GMMTV Safe House Season 4 by @firstkanaphans (if you haven’t got the chance to do so!)

This particular interview where First earnestly (and cue more waterwork) informed the interviewer and Khaotung he sincerely wants to build a house that share a fence with his bestie🥺😭

And while the whole GMMTV StarLympics is not my cup of tea, it gave moments like our boys becoming dramatic actors on the field or First being possessive of his bestie (what else is new? 🫣). Plus, Khaotung being a princess 💅 by wearing the dainty diamond necklace and Cartier watch while playing futsal

Both LOLfanfest (2023 and 2024) have great moments from First twerking to Khaotung shaking his booty (also the song is a banger!) and of course who can forget First stripping off his jacket in both events in front of his bestie 🤭🤭🤭...

And anon, I really, really recommend (if you haven’t yet) to watch both ArmShare episodes when they featured First & Khaotung's birthdays. Not only do we get to see them being their emotional self but they have unhinged moments like the iconic forehead kiss by Khaotung causing his bestie to breakdown into giggles.

I'm going to finish up with my most favorite clip of FK: First sabotaging himself (ThaiFuLove Event). Instant serotonin boost! Also, how do First go through all the intimate scenes with his bestie without breaking out of character???

It is also the same event we learnt our boys have GPS? (or something equivalent) on their phones, which allows them to keep track of each other.

(The interviewer and Chinese translators were giggling and laughing cause of these 2 and it made the whole thing even funnier 🤣🤣🤣)

Special mentions: FK Fanmeeting Hong Kong 2023 and the EFMFandomLive event. The latter where we have FK meowing (no seriously, like actual meows) where they were having a conversation in front of the hosts

[asksythe]

I read your tweet on how Wei Ying’s Guidao is orthodox cultivation based on real Guidao and that it’s descended from Bashu witchcraft. I’m very interested in that. Can you elaborate on it? What parts of WWX’s Guidao are based on real-life folklore? I’ve also seen people talk about how his cultivation is bad because it locks souls in their dead bodies. That doesn’t sound too credible to me, but I don’t know enough to be sure. 

Hmm… I’m not sure what you want me to elaborate on exactly. It’s a lot of materials to cover. Dry materials at that.

In any case, Guidao 鬼道 (Path of the Dead, Ghost Path) is a real-life orthodox cultivation. WWX’s Ghost Path, aside from sharing the name, has two main aspects that draw directly from real-life basis: 1/ the summoning, nurturing, and utilizing of ghosts or wraiths (in the novel, those would be the ghost lady and the ghost child that killed Wang Lingjiao and Wen Zhuliu. In the Donghua, they are represented as ghost brides), and 2/ commanding fierce corpses.

These two aspects are drawn from two different sources.

I. Maoshan Sect’s Guidao:

As I mentioned in the tweet, the ghost path belongs to one of the three main fulu orthodox schools of Daoism: the Maoshan Sect (the other two being Quanzhen and Zhengyi)

The earliest mentions of Ghost Path are in Han and Jin history records as well as the Three Kingdoms: Zhang Lu biography texts. These texts talk of a Daoist named Zhang Lingzhi, whose Daoism is called Guidao 鬼道. Zhang Lingzhi taught the people the way of ghosts and dao and raised an army. His soldiers and generals were called ghost soldiers and ghost generals. Zhang Lingzhi’s Daoism was itself descended from Bashu ethnic group witchcraft. Zhang Lingzhi founded the 天师道 Tianshidao School.

(Citation: Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences - “巴蜀的“鬼道”如何变成了道教?” - How did Bashu’s ghost path become Taoism? http://www.sass.cn/912/default.aspx If you want to dig deeper, you can contact the academy directly for their research paper.)

Tianshidao School underwent several name changes over the year. To this day, they are known under the name (or descended, as some would say) Maoshan Sect in Jiangsu Province.

Maoshan sect has four major specialties: talisman, array, sorcery, and the nurturing of ghost familiars. After the cultural revolution, Maoshan sect lost a lot of its scriptures and relics. But it has been around for literally thousands of years. So there are still things there. It’s not the titan it used to be, but it’s still very much a cultural icon. There are numerous movies, books, and games that draw from Maoshan history and legends. One of them happens to be a movie cited as MXTX’s inspiration for aspects of MDZS in the recent Subaru magazine.

(Mr. Vampire, the movie cited in Subaru magazine features the adventure of a Maoshan Daoist)

II. Tujia 土家族 ethnic group’s stiff corpse driving sorcery - Hunan:

The other aspect of WWX’s ghost path: the commanding of dead corpses by a warlock. In the same Subaru interview, MXTX also talked of folk legends of Jiangshi (stiff corpse, or commonly translated as Chinese hopping vampire) serving as the basis for her fierce corpse, ranging from things like general abilities, toxicity, and tricks like using rice gruel to cure their poison.

Jiangshi has been around since the Ming dynasty, but tales of warlock with the ability to command them originate from the Tujia ethnic group in Hunan.

A jiangshi warlock process the corpses, plaster them with paper talismans to restrain their ferocity, tie them in a row, and leads them using a bell that the warlock continuously rings.

(Hoppy hoppy! It's edgiest conga train!)

Well, I don’t think I need to point out the similarity between the real-life Tujia warlock and WWX’s corpse commanding ability.

This specific sorcery was created in a time of war, when young men died in far-off lands. Their families, wanting to bury them in their home soil, would pay a warlock to go fetch their corpses and walk these corpses all the way back to their home province.

These legends might seem very fantastic but the corpse walking part is a very real job that still existed until the last 50 years. It’s featured in Liao Yiwu’s real-life journalism record “The Corpse Walker”

(It's a really thrilling read. I got the physical copy over 13 years ago while I was in my last year at university. I recommend it.)

III. How does Tujia warlock (and WWX) supposedly command corpses?

Regarding the whole, did WWX lock people’s souls inside their dead bodies. Uh…. I don’t think so.

Why?

Because Chinese beliefs about souls are different from Western beliefs. In Chinese lore, a person has three souls and seven spirits (三魂七魄). The three souls represent the positive aspects of a person, with one soul literally being a divine spark. The seven spirits represent earthly taints and degradations and are bound to the body. When a person dies, the three souls will go to the heavens, the next life, and the underworld, respectively. The seven spirits, on the other hand, dissipate after death after 49 days.

This belief is shared in other Sinosphere nations as well and is featured in other media franchises. If you read Inuyasha, you will remember the Jewel of Four Souls and the Four Souls concept being a close relative to three souls seven spirits. In Vietnam, there is folklore of Ba Hồn Bảy Vía and rituals on how to call a person's soul home.

It’s these seven spirits that create Jiangshi. If the spirits do not completely dissipate, the corpse turns into a Jiangshi, a literal life vampire that has only the worst aspect of the dead person and who is forever hungering for life energy. It is these seven spirits that a Tujia warlock (and WWX) controls.

When you have this context, you can put the creation of Wen Ning in a different perspective, and why is it that it's such a big deal he retains his consciousness as a corpse.

(Citation: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%83%B5%E5%B0%B8/80733

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round one of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Kinn and Porsche:

First of all, Mafia prince meets poor boy whom he makes his bodyguard. They are canonically engaged. Some might say they're not that bad, but not only have both killed people without hesitation, they went into scenarios ON PURPOSE knowing what the end result will be. By the end of it all, power couple to the skies but also 2 unrelenting Mafia heads who can and will kill you if you so much as look at their partner wrong.

look the gun tango scene, when they're in the middle of an attempted coup, and they spin around while holding each other and shooting people, is the most iconic thing ever

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

[cnovelartreblogs]

So, I was unfamiliar with Monogatari Novels until I reblogged that last post and shared in a Discord server with friends that I'd heard this news and was excited.

I am. far less excited now. They are dicey at best, awful at worst, and I'm definitely going to be watching their releases with a great deal of skepticism.

I don't have time to do as thorough a blog post about this as it really deserves, but I did want to gather in one place the receipts that were shared with me, so that if others didn't know, they could learn more about the company we're dealing with and make their own decisions about whether to buy from them or not.

First: I noticed myself, and thought it was odd, that a place that primarily publishes Chinese fiction would use the name Monogatari, which is a Japanese word. Further, tho I hadn't noticed, it's actually worse: they use a rising sun as their icon, which is. uh. A choice. A pretty fucked up choice, given the history between Japan and China. When this was pointed out to them, they said repeatedly they just didn't know/didn't realize, which is a fucking weird thing for a company that things they have the expertise to translate these books to say about the history of the country they're translating books from. Like. It makes me think they don't actually know jackshit.

They also have a bad record regarding who they're picking as translators and their understanding of copyright law. (I recommend you use the links, the tweets often have more info in the replies)

(one of those mistranslated lines is so basic that even I, with my less than 2.5 yrs of studying, could have translated correctly.)

Basically: they are sus af. They've also apparently said on their Spanish-language twitter that they've been lying on their English-language one to appease US fans.

I was really excited a couple hours ago. Now, I'm EXTREMELY wary.

Just...be on the look-out, y'all.

To be clear: this doesn't mean that their subsequent publications will be a cluster. They might have learned! They might be doing better! Or, they might just have picked better, more trustworthy partners for specific projects! I don't want to say "do not support under any circumstances." But I know... I'd rather know all the above than not. And I figured other people would want to know too.

(research shared with permission from the person who shared it with me.)

[dateless-bar]

The Great Crusade Café | Concept Design

You can just watch the video which has a detailed description as well as the tour. I used Chinese dubbing with English subtitles, so make sure you have the subtitles turned on while watching.

CAFÉ FOR ASTARTES! | Fan Idle Game: The Great Crusade Café Concept Design

The Great Crusade Café

Productivity Tool& Idle Game Fanart Project (Concept Design Only)

Concept design: Gameplay

[Intro & Setting]

When a user first opens the web page, the name The Great Crusade Café will appear. After clicking, you can start by naming the café owner, which is the role you will play.

Then, as the owner, you will be asked to choose the tasks you want to undertake in reality for today. The default name here is John.

The purpose of this web page is to provide users with a leisurely and comfortable café white noise. It allows you to enjoy such an atmosphere whether you are reading or translating WH novels. Additionally, café-themed white noise has been proven by studies to increase efficiency for people. Therefore, you can also use it while working or painting miniature models.

After setting a task, you can officially enter the management of the café within the game. Don't worry, you can change the current task being undertaken at any time, just below the time displayed in the top right corner. And if you feel that the display of time might make you anxious, you can also turn it off in the settings.

[Coffee System]

After today's business starts, you can choose to make a cup of coffee for yourself first. By clicking on the coffee cup under the coffee machine, you can make a cup of your favorite drink for yourself.

Recaff is precisely the coffee beverage commonly found in the "Siege of Terra" series of novels. And various other drinks also have their unique origins.

After deciding which type of coffee to make, we can choose options like the milk to use based on our personal preference.

This will result in a steaming hot cup of coffee.

After each cup of coffee is made, hovering the mouse over the coffee cup icon will start a 2-hour timer. However, after one hour, the steam on the coffee cup will disappear. And when the timer finally reaches zero, you will know that two hours have passed. Setting a 2-hour timer aligns with the time unit of the Pomodoro Technique. If you want to use the web page as an efficiency tool, you can make good use of this feature.

[Character Visiting]

After making a cup of coffee for yourself, naturally, various characters will be attracted to the café and its aroma. They usually greet you directly and place their orders. But sometimes, you will need to guess their preferences based on the characters' personalities. If you have read many related novels, you will have a unique advantage in this aspect.

For example, people from Caliban would drink black tea. Commanders stationed on Terra, on the other hand, prefer bitter coffee, among other things. Additionally, some special drink recipes need to be purchased or unlocked through gifts from characters.

After fulfilling the characters' needs, their Trust will increase.

Subsequently, they often spend some time in the café, and during this period, you can engage in conversation with them. As the Trust increases, the topics they bring up will also vary.

For instance, Loken might talk to you about Mr. Sindermann's lectures, while Argel Tal could bring up his friend Khârn. Ahriman might mention that the café was recommended to him by his human friend Gaumon.

This often unlocks more characters. After all, the café's reputation is always spread by word of mouth among friends.

And some rarer characters, I mean, like a Primarch, might require the trust of everyone in the legion.

After increasing trust levels, besides more conversations and characters, there will also be an important matter.

Once trust levels reach their peak, characters will give you a variety of gifts, including decorative items. For example, members of the Thousand Sons always like to give you various books, regardless of whether you can understand them or not.

But you can use some of them as decorations inside the café.

This can sometimes be key to unlocking rare characters. Of course, you can also purchase various decorations and drink recipes at any time from the itinerant merchant in the upper left corner of the screen.

And if you complete the current task setting and change the task, most of the characters present will express encouragement and approval towards you.

[Bulletin Board & Character Book]

Each character stays for a different amount of time. Many of them are very busy with numerous affairs. However, you can find clues of their visits on the bulletin board.

Almost every customer who has visited the café leaves something behind on this bulletin board. For example, stickers, messages, or even advertisements.

Hovering the mouse over specific items will display detailed explanations and descriptions.

You can also find information about the visitors in the customer notes, where all guest information is recorded.

However, characters that have not yet been unlocked will be displayed as "unsigned".

[Weather System]

Additionally, some sufficiently important characters, if they are very satisfied with your café, they will grant you access rights.

This privilege allows you to open cafés in different areas, such as on battleships, Terra, the Hive cities, and various other places.

As time passes, the ambient light in the café will also change.

This also means that some special characters will only be unlocked at specific times. If you go from noon to night, you can see the nighttime view of the Hive city outside the window. As time progresses from afternoon to night, you can see the nighttime view of the Hive city from the window. And when midnight arrives, the starry sea above the deck will leave you in awe. In the central area of Terra, mornings always face the unchanging snowy mountains.

[Vinyl Records Player]

While running the café, you can always spin your vinyl records. This allows you to change the background music and even import your own favorite tracks. If you don't like the ambient chatter or the sounds of the coffee machine and cups, you can also turn them off here.

The above is a brief instruction for using "The Great Crusade Café".

The project is a purely conceptual design. As Games Workshop does not allow fanart creators to engage in programming or development. It is currently only presented in this form to everyone. It's worth mentioning that this design was inspired by a series of excellent projects, including VA-11 Hall-A, Coffee Talk, I Miss My Cafe, and Neko Atsume, etc. That's also why I chose to use a pixel art style in the project.

At the same time, I'd like to thank the pixel art artists who collaborated with me. Without you, this demo video wouldn't have been possible.

Finally, thank you for watching. If you enjoy research and artistic creations related to the Warhammer theme, feel free to follow my Youtube channel and X.

May your day always start with a great cup of coffee : )

[joyburble]

So, we see Donfang Qingcang reading on screen several times, and I think it's an important character message.

On encountering a problem, in episode 4, that can't be addressd by violence, what is the first thing our character does? He RTFMs. He sends Shanque to fetch the Fucking Manual, and he Reads It. What. In fact, they both read it, at least until they find the right bit.

Iconic. And adorable.

Definitely much less surprising in a Chinese genre than it would be in any English-language genre. But this section is so spectacular I want to give it a lot of weight.

The scroll is extremely long. He baulks, for a second, at the length,

but this, his face says, cannot possibly defeat him: he backs himself (I love it) and gets down to work.

It's illustrated. I'd love to hear from someone who can read any part of the text. He engages in detail with the content.

He continues in episode 5, having made some progress, and still backing himself to work out what it all means.

He takes it out on the balcony to study it by daylight. When his plans don't succeed at first, he doesn't reject the information, he thinks about it harder and compares it with the data.

Then something interesting happens: after making Orchid's tummyache better, he sits down, and without any stated reason tries to read something else, which looks like a completely normal book:

He can't focus because she's so sad, but we get a glimpse of the corner of a title label. When he puts it down, we can see it's a paperback stitched in the traditional Chinese manner.

It could be anything, but looks a reasonable size for a novel. There are also some other books on the table. Maybe they're technical works from Xiao Lanhua's library, and he's just bored and curious?

This wouldn't be as clear if it was the only example, or if we saw other characters repeatedly reading. But I don't think we do.

In episode 18 post-whump we learn again that what he does to relax and distract himself, when in pain and/or wanting attention, is read a book. It's a slim volume with a vertical format and a pretty, embellished cover. Perhaps a book of poems?

In Episode 26, now knowing he is loved, he is reading for fun again, with no explanation asked or given. Another sewn book, but in this case it has a hard cover with a shiny and colourful design. What could it be? Who knows? It seems to be making him smile a little.

The message we are getting, here, is that what he does when he wants to relax and enjoy life, is read. We’re supposed to understand that in his natural disposition, minus his father’s crimes and his profession of violence, he is a gentleman and a scholar. He is curious. He is capable of handling new information. He has brains and capabilities and ingenuity. He has a big ego, but he can put it in the engine room, not the driving seat. It's a gently-delivered message, but I think it contributes a lot to our perception of the character.

In dream-world episode 31, he is reading a scroll with Xiao Lanhua. Are they reading a story to each other? Doing the voices?

So apparently in his imagination it's a bonding activity too: you can read together with a person you love and share your reactions. A bit like you and I are doing now.

Finally, I think they published this behind-the-scenes shot for a reason (thank you @moonsupremesblog, and I'm sorry this probably should have been a reblog of this post but I got too far in before I remembered)

We can see it's Dylan Wang referring to a script, but we do a double-take because it's totally in character, the lighting, composition, and depth-of-field intentionally reinforce that effect, and we have to look at the plastic cover and the little place-tags to realise it isn't.

[lyon-77]

Erlang Shen in Chinese Literary Tradition Pt. 1: The Investiture of the Gods and Bond with Nezha

I was just reminded of the iconic event of Yang Jian (Erlang) transforming into a magic ferret in The Investiture of the Gods.

For those unfamiliar with this 16th-century historical fantasy, the story is set during the war marking the transition between the Shang and Zhou dynasties around 1046 BCE. In the novel, Yang Jian, not yet the sacred divinity or Erlang Shen, is a young Daoist who just came down from the mountain to gain experience in the mortal world. He joins the Zhou camp and serves as the quartermaster, alongside Nezha who with his temper leads as the vanguard. Despite the humble introduction and minimal backstory, Yang Jian shows extraordinary abilities from the start. It could be that the audience of the period all knew something about Erlang Shen, thus there was no need to be explicit and go into the specifics. I'll just use "Erlang" going forward for simplicity.

The Legend and the Hero (《封神榜之凤鸣岐山》; 2007): Left to right as Yang Jian (Erlang Shen), Nezha, and Huang Tianhua (黄天化).

Erlang's first appearance in The Investiture of the Gods is when he arrives at the Zhou camp with military provisions amid a prolonged struggle against the four Mo brothers (the book's adaptation of the Four Heavenly Kings) on the Shang's side. Mo Lishou (the Heavenly King of the West), commands a magic ferret that has already devoured and killed many people. Erlang volunteers to confront them directly to break the stalemate and to gather some new information. He goes to the battlefield, allows himself to be devoured by the ferret, kills it from within that night, and takes on its form to infiltrate the ranks of the Heavenly Kings. Meanwhile, Nezha and Jiang Ziya, the grand strategist on the Zhou's side, believe Erlang is already dead and have been mourning his death until Erlang sneaks back to the camp and loops them in on his plan. Erlang plays a pivotal role in the defeat and death of the Four Heavenly Kings.

New Gods: Yang Jian (《新神榜：杨戬》； 2022)

At the end of the book, all magical beings died in the war were resurrected and made gods—hence the Investiture of the Gods. This history, however, would explain why, in New Gods: Yang Jian, the four Mo brothers, especially Mo Lishou and his ferret, still seem to harbor some bitterness toward Erlang.

In The Legend of Nezha's adaptation, Erlang saves Nezha from the Shang camp while being undercover. This animated series was actually my first introduction to Erlang Shen.

The Legend of Nezha (《哪吒传奇》; 2003): This goofball is captured by his own camp when sneaking back and needs Xiaotian to help prove his identity.

Upon revisiting my childhood anime, I'm getting curious about the inspiration behind Erlang's golden hoops there (not that I mind them at all!). With the second of the Creation (Investiture) of the Gods trilogy set to release on the first day of the lunar new year, I've been wondering if it could be partially canon for Erlang Shen to actually wear a metal hoop on his left side, especially when he appears as the god of hunting. This style is a traditional custom for men in several ethnic groups in Sichuan (including the Yi and some Hmong subgroups) that have historically revered Erlang Shen. The actor who plays him in the trilogy happens to be of Yi ethnicity and always wears a one-sided earring off-set. Just a vision...

Creation of the Gods (《封神》) Actors for Nezha and Yang Jian (Erlang Shen) from 2018 to 2023.