#it’s multiple webnovel chapters in 1

[mallahanmoxie]

one thing about ham dani that nobody seems to get and why I'm always fighting for my life in the webtoon's comment section is that in all her fear and reticence around opening herself up with her friends, believing she belongs in this world, trusting in her place and relationships is that SHE'S NEVER WRONG ABOUT THE NEGATIVES. i think it's very easy to look at dani a hundred chapters in still going on about her place as a side character and what she can expect from them realistically, what she can allow herself to feel for them, and feel frustrated, like she's being deliberately obtuse. but dani. is. not. wrong.

one thing that many isekais do is that they will take the premise of "being transported to a novel" and use that simply as a vehicle for the FL to use her knowledge of the future to her advantage and turn the odds on their head. beyond the initial "ehhh why is the ML flirting with me??" which tends to wear off rather easily, there is little questioning about what being in a story means. and inso's law takes that question seriously. because dani IS inside a story, her friends ARE characters AND THIS IS EASILY PROVABLE SINCE THE BEGINNING. How? because she leaves.

it has happened to her before! It happens multiple times in the novel! that's why march 2nd is SO terrifying for her, because everything she's built can be taken from her in the blink of an eye and SHE will be called crazy and SHE will be left grieving and nobody else will remember what ONLY SHE LIVED. she is effectively, practically, tangibly separate from each world by this experience. when dani insists on the labels of main character, side character, the tropes and the narrative possibilities happening within them SHE'S NOT WRONG!! because those things are TRUE!!! I know it's easy to gloss over it bc we as readers just take everything in as a story, but the crazy plot points? they're insane to her too because SHE is a real person and others are not! They're characters! That's why it's called The Law of Webnovels because dani is making sense of the rules of a world which factually functions distinctly different from hers. she's not making that shit up, it's not (entirely) an emotional hold up. that's shit's fucking real.

the nuance is brought on by the fact that the characters are, in fact, also people. they behave like people (albeit inside the margins of wild webnovel logic), they feel like people and they see her as a person. but she does not entirely reciprocate, because to view them as people means assuming the hurt that will inevitably come when 1) she gets sent back into the real world and loses them all or 2) the plot to the novel finally kicks in and who knows if the guy she liked was the ML and will end up with her best friend and all her love and all her trying were for nothing. No matter what, dani loses.

there's also the fact, which i think is exemplified very clearly in her feelings towards her grades and being compared to yeoryung, that even outside the character/real person dichotomy, ham dani and the boys come from WILDLY different backgrounds. when they graduate high school, they will go to different colleges and they will get different jobs and the wide wide gap which dani had managed to bridge due to the magic of webnovel rules will be opened once again. in the social hierarchy of modern korean society, dani will be left behind. ban yeoryung is somewhat immune to this despite sharing similar socioeconomic status because she has 1) better social capital in the form of her beauty and intelligence and 2) plot armour immunity bc she's destined to be with one of the boys anyway (and again it IS destiny bc she's the FL and according to the genre clues dani's been gathering that seems to be the most likely outcome). yeoryung has resources and tools beyond the story that dani cannot access. even IF this wasn't the world of a webnovel, if they existed in the real world, yeoryung COULD feasibly climb her way up but dani? she's realistic about her prowess and she knows very well that being a good friend and a good person does not mean she will get to remain close to her friends who are much much much richer. my point here being that even if she weren't under the assumption (WELL TESTED!!! SCIENTIFIC, EVEN!!!) that she's in the world of a story ruled by story laws, she wouldn't be silly for guarding her heart against the possibility of drifting away from byr+the boys.

all of this is why i love dani's character arc and her as a person. she doesn't act irrationally. she only acts very, very humanly. it's why i loved the kidnapping arc and her confrontation with choi yuri. she has to learn to treat them seriously, as human beings, because despite factually being characters, they don't have the awareness of it and their lives are every bit as real as any other to them. it's part also of dani learning how to be a person herself, because she's still a kid growing up and learning what's what, and doing so in an environment much more stressful than the usual. i think people are being irrationally mean towards her simply because they do not make the effort to understand her.

[writers-potion]

Writing Webnovels 101

There is one key difference between printed/ebooks and a webnovel: you need to adapt your writing for a highly distracted audience.

Unlike a traditional reading experience, people reading on the web have a gazillion other tabs, windows and notifications demanding their attention. So, here are some things to keep in mind when you’re writing for a digital platform.

Short, To-The-Point sentences

Keep your sentences short so that the reader doesn’t lose themselves in the middle.

Keep descriptions short and to the point while focusing on the action of the story.

Fast-paced

Each chapter must have significant action that contributes to plot progression.

Use well-placed cliffhangers that wouldn’t lose the reader in between chapters.

Trope-Led Story

The function of tropes is to provide a distracted reader with a ready-built framework to understand the story.

Using the right tropes is also important to attract your target audience since it tell up upfront about what kind of experience they’re going to have.

Emotion-Led Story

Deliver emotional highs and lows right off the bat, because big, intense emotion is what the readers are looking for.

Emotional information is easier to digest and retain than technical description.

Big emotions are easier to hook into and relate to.

Linear Storyline

Keep flashbacks, flashforwards, time skips to a minimum.

For a distracted reader, a straightforward timeline is a lot easier to understand and return to after a hiatus.

Focused Plot

Having multiple subplots weaving in and out of each other is probably not the best idea.

Keep delivering the emotional experience that the reader is looking for and provide only relevant information.

Technicals

Choosing the right platform

There are so many ways you can write online, from building your own website to writing short episodes on social media platforms.

You can use: novelfull.com, readlightnovel.me, Ltnovel.com, Wattpad, Webnovel, Wuxiaworld, etc.

Before you start posting on a platform, research into the kind of readers it has, what are the most popular genres, etc. Make sure you are pitching to the right audience.

Promoting Your Work

Many writers now promote themselves through newsletters, Instagram, YouTube, etc. but for someone just starting out, creating digital content on top of writing can be tough.

Join a webnovel community and get to know some of your fellow writers! The goal here is not to span other established works to links of your site. As time foes on, linking to one another and making recommendations would come naturally.

Set a Realistic Posting Schedule

Your posting schedule determines how often your readers get to interact with the story world and with one another. It’s how often life gets breathed into your story.

However, going for five days a week isn’t going to be sustainable, unless your story is already finished.

There is no magic number, so figure out a consistent, regular schedule that you can stick to. At least once a week is recommended.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee! ☕

References:

https://creators.wattpad.com/writing-resources/write-your-story/what-is-a-webnovel-indepth-guide/

https://www.drewhayesnovels.com/blog/2014/1/25/shit-i-wish-id-known-before-starting-a-web-novel

[transdimensional-void]

"ascendance of a bookworm" anime, episode 1, scene 1

now that the english translation of the aoab light novel has reached part 5 volume 7, i want to write down some of my thoughts about the anime's decision to make the very first scene of the entire show the memory viewing scene. it's a significant departure from all other versions of the series (web novel, light novel, and manga), yet i believe it was a genius exploitation of its medium that turns potential weaknesses into strengths and allows fans both old and new a fresh perspective on the material.

first, since the anime premiered several years after the ending of the web novel, many of its viewers were always going to be those who had already finished the story. by opening with a scene halfway through part 2 of the series, the anime reassures longtime fans that the characters and scenes they most love are on the way. for those whose favorite character is ferdinand or who are very invested in his dynamic with myne, it gives them a taste of what they love to keep them hooked until he shows up in the story proper.

on the other hand, the anime will also always be some people's first introduction to the series. for those who have no idea what they're getting themselves into, that tiny peek into what's to come in part 2 is a big flashing sign notifying them that this shumilhole goes far, far deeper than the beginning of part 1 might lead us to believe. (of course, a not insignificant number of anime-only viewers seem to ignore this warning and convince themselves that myne's life in the lower city will be the centerpiece of the entire series).

there is also the consideration that, because the first and second cours of the anime were made simultaneously without any assurance that additional seasons would be ordered, placing the memory viewing scene at the beginning of the first cour and the end of the second cour turned it into a beautiful bookend that leaves the viewer with a feeling of a journey completed. it also serves as a framing device, allowing us to imagine that we are not merely listening to myne recount her experiences but that we are re-viewing her life so far alongside ferdinand.

however, where i think this decision reaches the level of genius is the way it places the anime in conversation with the written series. for those approaching the anime after reading the wn or ln--whether you were a reader first or you are returning to the anime after reading--it's a reflection of something the reader knows, but perhaps hasn't yet considered: the scene in which ferdinand views myne's memory is one of the most pivotal--if not the most pivotal--scenes in the entire series.

once you read part 5 volume 7 (or the corresponding chapters of the webnovel), it is suddenly made clear that without that scene, pretty much none of the rest of the story happens. that one scene changes not only the course of myne's life but the course of the entire story. and, of course, once you read all the way to the end of the webnovel (or the upcoming part 5 volume 12), yet another layer of significance to that scene is uncovered. looking back on that scene from the end of the webnovel, it becomes clear that it is a nexus of multiple plot lines.

by placing that scene front and center in the anime, its creators are not merely acknowledging the centrality of it to the entire plot. they are also asking viewers to reframe their own understanding of that scene, to evaluate the place they give it in their own interpretation of the series. "look, this scene is important," they tell us. "pay attention to what's happening here." it allows the reader a fresh perspective, both on the scene itself and on the series as a whole.

but that's just my take. what do you all think?

(nb: i've done my best to make this as non-spoilery as possible, so i encourage those who wish to discuss spoilers for the things i've mentioned to do so in replies rather than in tags. for those avoiding spoilers, beware!)

[killcow]

#webtoon 1- I know it's almost impossible but I would like to be able to legally purchase and download an entire webtoon in digital format. Being able to read the whole story at once while keeping the breakdown. This would certainly have a cost.

#webtoon 2- When I see platforms closing or series permanently deleted. It’s the loss of a huge amount of work. Returning art to a simple disposable fast-consumer product. I know this is exactly the policy of these platforms.

3- A disdain towards their artists, publishers, translators and readers. We have truly entered the era of Lost Media. It's frustrating to think that the last way to access it is through illegal means. In the end everyone loses.

4- Just like the translation of Korean Light Novel which are accessible by chapter on the said legal platforms but absolutely not available in Epub compared to Japanese Light Novel. This stubbornness becomes absurd and still produces the opposite effect.

#webtoon 5- Especially when we know that webtoons are adaptations of #webnovel. The solution would be for English and French publishers to negotiate download rights with VERY reluctant Korean companies.

#webtoon 6- Because this is the snake biting its tail. The multiple closure of platforms will make the reader reluctant to make a monetary commitment. And everyone loses 🤷.

[spinogreen0iq]

Advertising my Webnovel Meganimals :)

This story is about a young girl named Raja, who gets thrown into a new fantastical environment where she has to cope with daily life and slowly uncovers the secrets of her now deceased family, finally having to come face to face with a horrible truth destined to turn the following years of her life into absolute hell :)

This story is also about friendship of two very unalike but also very similar people, being each other’s anchor in their pretty fucked up lives. 

If that didnt clue you in, this book series (yes multiple books, or acts as I call them here) will get pretty dark, so uh yeah, quick heads up.

Regarding upload schedule, I write and edit it all myself and my beta reader doesn’t have time to immediately read it a lot of the time so new chapters always take a lil time before they are uploaded. I apologize in advance, but rest assured I am actively working on this thing.

This story contains quite a bit of darker subjects, including but not limited to mental health stuff, suicide, post war society stuff, children getting hurt, experiments on humanoid creatures, death, trauma ect.

 If you feel like you are not in the mood with dealing with that stuff, id advise you not to read it. 

Just fyi the first book is mostly fine at the start, just has some darker undertones, but after Act 1 stuff happens. If you have specific triggers I haven’t mentioned and are unsure about if they show up in this book series, feel free to dm me or ask me in a comment.

Where can you read Meganimals:

You can read it 

On scribblehub : https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1126217/meganimals-act-/

On Toyhouse : https://toyhou.se/~literature/243442.meganimals-act-1

On deviantart : https://www.deviantart.com/spinogreen0iq/gallery/93938463/meganimals-act-1

As a visual novel-ish thing on YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu1CHgAqolGVhDk0O1iMILnffmg-sjKwc

[rigelmejo]

Random things:

- nothing motivates me like a challenge specifically the challenge of “this worked for someone/me in the past so let’s see if it works now” it’s like 99% effective

- in light of that I thought I read 9 Chinese chapters this month but my count said 5 when I added guardian today idk if I messed up the number myself cause I have bad memory (I count guardian chapters individually And total chapters read per month and guardian was being changed to 5 so my brain could have easily seen 9 on the other count and just changed it to 5?? But also I could not remember for sure what the number was before so was it 9 or 4 too late to ever know lol). ANYWAY in light of whatever happened I now feel hella motivated to read 5 chapters tonight until that count goes back where I expected it to.

- my workouts literally so consistent cause some dude was like “yeah I did 50 crunches, 70 push-ups, jogged 15 minutes for 2 months and lost weight and got in reasonable shape easy” so his advice was like do it a month see if there’s a difference lol. I was like well that’s doable and basically what my gym workout plan years ago was except I would do 40 minutes weight lifting too. I miss that :/ anyway so some days I do HIIT with some muscle building exercises instead of strictly jogging. It’s not much compared to my old routine but I wanna see if he’s right lol. And it’s working to motivate me alright since it got me working out consistently. And it’s simple enough I can find a way to do it.

- parasite eve thanks babe u were the motivation I needed to remind me why my ass wanted to learn Japanese for years

- guardian thank you Too babe! I read more of the Chinese print edition of guardian I got today and. <3 <3 took 1.5 years ok ok!! Shorter than I thought it was gonna take to read the book I wanted to READ ToT (now when will I FINISH it?? Who knows who knowssss I sure don’t - my goal rn is just the Sundial section done, since I just finished reading the eng translation up to that point). So fucking clear to me how much I’ve tailor made so much I did to study for THIS lol. Also reading the translation at some point for context thank u past me for finally having a solid thought and taking that common advice u hadn’t even thought to try before. I read the translation of these chapters a week ago? Maybe 2? Idk. I read the translation slow too. and that alone has been enough I’m only running into a word or two every like 5 pages that I can’t even guess a meaning for. Most words I either get in context or are clear enough with context I get the overall sentence (and just don’t know if it meant shocked or stunned/if he put his hand in his pocket or rested it in his pocket). This is what I been hoping for eventually. One day in the far off future. ToT my reading SPEED leaves a lot to be desired however - 5 print page chapters are still taking probably 20-25 minutes (when reading digitally that’s about 20-25 pages on my phone). It’s pretty slow. Now... I also read non fiction books this slow, and dmbj English this slow so, it could also partly be I am easily a slow reader when my brain isn’t in the zone (it’s in the zone for 寒舍 that fic is solely responsible in March for speeding my reading speed up from worse). Anyway, maybe reading speed will improve over time. I know part of it is I’m not skipping sentences or unknown words, I’m trying to catch all the details I can, because it really is written a nice way to me. And I want to enjoy it. And catch the details I can (which is a lot more than last time I tried to extensively read guardian or modu for fun). So I know stuff I “grasp the gist of” I could move on faster but I’m not. Anyway just... thank you guardian I’ll read you when I can. At least now I can.

[mejomonster]

Guardian Translations

I heard Yuka’s translation is now finished, so I wanted to post some links to various Guardian translations!

How to buy Guardian 镇魂 by priest and support the author:

How to use JJWXC guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lNXe9a7D8GKPPJVVALmITaRUPC5PPGlh/view

Priest’s account page where you can buy priest’s webnovels: http://www.jjwxc.net/oneauthor.php?authorid=145956 (at the moment  镇魂 is not up on jjwxc, see below for print editions)

You can also buy print editions of  镇魂. The website books.com.tw sells them (as well as others). I recommend this website if you need English (it has an English language option on the site) and if you need international shipping. There are 2 volumes: https://www.books.com.tw/products/CN11643960?sloc=main The print edition I’ve linked has some additional scenes and altered scenes compared to the original webnovel, and includes the Prologue, Extras, and Shen San Extra. There’s also another print edition with different covers that is in traditional chinese, which includes largely the same content as the original webnovel, it is sometimes for sale on books.com.tw

Guardian carrd links: https://readguardian.carrd.co/

~

Yukacchi’s​ translation (completed): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qKseO4eG3W5AgPrIgDhClCRKxE0YVr_B

yukacchi’s tumblr: https://yukacchi.tumblr.com/

yukacchi’s translation (translations are locked until you send yukacchi your proof of purchase of Guardian): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qKseO4eG3W5AgPrIgDhClCRKxE0YVr_B

Main Story and Extras, collection. Translated by: RainbowSe7en, ineffablebfs, fandoestrans, foxghost, and deeperfriedkoi; edited by Fangirlishness and Solo. This is the translation with edits on names (Shen to Shen Wei etc.) and various edits to add some details. The last time I saw the epub collection version, it did not have the additional edits the google docs version has. This Google Docs version is the most complete translation compilation. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1J7rTcFYHt71SbwCzkBO2BPmriX-RprCb

Guardian Prologue, translated by alyson_trash

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RIOUArIkDblo8rh0o08aCvrXD1_tc0rWHdMOpLCpUio/mobilebasic

Shen San Extra (Wattpad),  translated by Dawnmist31

https://www.wattpad.com/839604740-guardian-zhen-hun-%E9%95%87%E9%AD%82-translation-from-chapter83

Shen San Extra (Google Docs),  translated by oubings; contact littleyaoji for the link

Additional Translations and Meta (tumblr),  translators credited on site; compiled by dtriad. This masterlist includes several excerpt translations done by dtriad, foxghost, motleystitches,  in_the_bottle,  Tanyavvvvvv, and many others. Foxghost did a full translation of the extras.

https://dtriad.tumblr.com/post/179416163366/%E9%95%87%E9%AD%82-translations-etc-masterlist

Terminology Guide (Google Docs), compiled by littleyaoji

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10JQhCM7FT5Hg916XIy0IS_pINf3LxaZgNlNgbEX3ax8/edit

~

Spanish Translation Complete, translated by Nugudo

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=i8n

~

Korean Translation Complete, official translation,  translated by 김은성

https://ridibooks.com/books/3144001886

~

Japanese Translation, official ongoing, translated by Subarusya/Pleiadies 許源源

This is the official site, and has various links you can purchase the translation from at the bottom of the page: https://subarusya1.com/pleiades/p-guardian

The ebooks are available on Amazon.co.jp (which is the easiest to purchase from) along with other ebook selling sites. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Priest-ebook/dp/B0978QP5QM/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3NGIXUI2276XK&keywords=%E9%8E%AE%E9%AD%82&qid=1649693756&sprefix=%E9%8E%AE%E9%AD%82%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-3

There was an announcement for print editions of the Japanese translation, so print editions should be for sale at some point

[dangermousie]

Hello !

I was wondering whether you could rate and tell us of your top 5 favourite webnovels/cnovels of all time ?! (Sorry if this has already been answered lol😅)

Thank you, stay safe and have a nice day🖤

Awww, thank you and that is such a lovely ask!!!

From n1 to n5, here they are (they happen to be all danmei.)

1. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) - my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.)

Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!)

Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated.

Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love.

Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

3. Qiang Jin Jiu - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train.

In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs.

Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

4. Wu Chang Jie - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet.

In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever.

And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on.

If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in.

There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!��� But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify.

Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

5. OK, this is hard and switches between Sha Po Lang, Heaven Official’s Blessing and The Golden Stage depending on my mood. So what the hell, I am gonna write about all of them.

Sha Po Lang - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (TCGF) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

The Golden Stage - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

I guess I didn’t write as much for the three n5 candidates as I did for 1-4 but my brain is beginning to curdle so...

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[hectabdr]

Dragon Raja IV - Chapters 9 & 10 (Abridged)

Hi everyone, in today's update we start learning a little more about Johann's father and that vision that Luminous experienced.

Previous Chapters

Chapter 9

Luminous woke up in a white room. In front of him there was an old man in a white doctor's coat. He explained that once Luminous left the library, he fell and hit his head on the pavement, so his friends brought him to a hospital to check if he had a concussion. Behind the mirror, however, they were being watched by two psychiatrists, next to them, Nono and Finger observed as well. Luminous had to answer many questions, he answered as logically as he could. According to the lead doctor, this wasn't a good sign, a person who knows that they're suffering from some sort of mental disease will always make an extra effort to demonstrate their sanity and Luminous was definitely going the extra mile.

They actually brought him there after Finger threw a rock at his friend's head and knocked him out. Truth be told, they already suspected the doctor's diagnostic, their friend was schizophrenic. Luminous's tantrum didn't help his case either. The young S-Rank was yelling, then threatened the personnel to let him go and almost flipped the table. Minutes later, he was already constricted by a straitjacket, resting on a small hospital bed.

Trying to ignore the other patients with whom he shared a room, he slowly vanished under the effects of a sedative injection. As soon as his eyes closed, his body felt the cold sensation of heavy rain. He was in the number 0 highway all over again, trapped in that same vision, the one where Nono would die in minutes, yet the shadowy creatures were not trying to eat them alive, but frozen like statues, while a small figure walked among them. Carrying an oversized umbrella, the little devil greeted his brother and made an interesting contribution.

The dream that Luminous experienced was not simply a prediction, but a simulation of it, and as such, it could be experienced all over again. In fact, he could repeat the same scenario as many times as he needed to find the one where Nono would survive. It was like the "save" feature in a video game and there was no need to exchange a quarter of his life for this service.

-Odin, what is he?

-You could understand him as a dead soul, trapped in this Nibelungen. He possesses infinite power, yet for some reason, he couldn't leave this place for many years, until now.

Odin's restriction was about to end, after all, he managed to lock Nono with the Gungir lance and it was a matter of time before he could leave the Nibelungen to reach her. Once you're locked by the lance, you're doomed to die, however, it cannot be locked on the same target twice, since theoretically said target should be dead already. Therefore, the solution was simple, if Luminous managed to prevent the lance from hitting Nono, Odin wouldn't be able to try for a second time. According to Ming·Z, someone in the past already escaped the Gungir lance, he just didn't know how. Luminous would have multiple chances to find a way, with a clear objective in mind, he started the second round.

The scenario resumed and the creatures started moving towards them. The pair once again fought for their lives, with a big difference: Luminous performed exceptionally well. Being able to remember the behavior of the servitors allowed him to know exactly how and where to shoot them, leaving Nono speechless. She was particularly surprised when he blew up her car, since he forgot the part where they agreed to escape in the Maybach. Wasting time to explain his course of action, a servitor took advantage of their distraction and cut through Nono's neck with its hands, killing her in an instant.

He woke up in his hospital bed, extremely frustrated. Ming·Z·Lu left a phone in his bed with a message that invited him to try again. The only problem was that he couldn't fall asleep. Luminous threw tantrum after tantrum until the nurse came in and he requested another sedative injection, which surprised her. According to the doctors, these sedatives weren't addictive, so Luminous had little to no reason to want another one. He had to lie about his condition, saying that there were voices in his head yelling to one another. The nurse injected him again and he fell asleep, ready for his third attempt.

In the middle of the battle, he noticed that one of the servitors had a little number next to it, just like the stats in an RPG, and the creature was a "level 600 enemy". According to Ming·Z, a very strong regular human should have a combat level of 100, so this thing had six times the strength of a tai chi master. Enemies that strong should be avoided in close combat and shot from a distance instead. Odin's power level and other stats were displayed as a bunch of question marks. It was a sign of their abysmal difference in strength. When Luminous tried to analyze Ming·Z·Lu, his stats were hidden by question marks as well.

Chapter 10

Days later, Finger and Nono were drinking in Luminous's old bedroom, trying to figure out what to do next. They believed they understood the situation, their friend was mentally ill. He knew about this boy called Lu Mang, who died in an accident and he created an imaginary version of him. He projected most of his own accomplishments into this made up president of the Lionheart club and got two of his former classmates involved in his delusional quest.

Finger suggested giving Luminous back to the college, despite of the risk that it might represent to his safety. If they apologized for their actions and brought back the number one target of the secret party, they might have been able to get pardoned. Maybe Caesar could ensure his well being. Nono still insisted in analyzing the inconsistencies on everyone else's perspective on Luminous and Finger suggested that she just couldn't accept the truth of her sidekick's mental condition.

Finger's suggestion was tearing her apart on the inside, because she knew that she was supposed to be the one who suggested they give up on Luminous, then Finger would be offended and start defending his old roommate, this didn't make much sense, why was she the one who was hesitating? She expressed her disgust at his proposal and left Luminous's old house.

-Even if he's the disoriented puppy that you say he is, it's still mine! I'm the one who picked him up from the women's bathroom!

Meanwhile, Luminous just lost his 46th attempt at saving his former senior. After all of those attempts, he suffered 22 serious injuries, including 12 fractures, 7 deep wounds and 1 broken finger. His previous attempt was devastating, he managed to get in the car with Nono, but the death servitors lifted the car up in the air and they couldn't accelerate anymore. Nono was visibly terrified, while the creatures destroyed the vehicle, they sat down, waiting for their end to come.

Ming·Z tried to dissuade Luminous from pursuing Nono, or even saving her, but his brother refused. The little devil was confused about his brother's feelings and revealed that he had been writing a small webnovel inspired by the real life relationship between Luminous and Nono. His readers weren't particularly happy with her character and wanted her to be more clear about her intentions.

-I learned more about humans to understand the feelings that you have for your senior sister.

-Did you find your answer?

-Yes, your feelings are in all the wrong places.

-Nonsense!

Perhaps there was something he could do. Ming·Z couldn't stop the Gungir lance, but he would be able to kill Odin if Luminous was willing to trade his last quarter of life. As expected, Luminous refused, so he gave him another gift: he would provide him with any weapon he could ask for on his next attempts. Luminous asked for an apache helicopter but Ming·Z forced him to settle for something smaller, a bazooka.

The next round started and Nono freaked out when she saw Luminous's new rocket launcher, where did he get it from?

Back in the real world, Nono arrived at an abandoned building that belonged to the Media Asia Group. The boss of the Black Prince Group was an old acquaintance of hers, a devoted one at that, the same young man who lend her the red Ferrari: the young master Shao. His business card was enough to allow Nono to request information about an old employee: a man whose last name was Chu.

The middle aged man that guarded the old building was curious about this girl and her credentials. She went straight to the point and asked for the long deceased man, Mr. Chu. The guard recognized the surname immediately, his full name was Chu Tianjiao. Long ago they used to be colleagues and drank together from time to time.

Tianjiao was married to a dancer and had a young son, he wanted to earn more money, so he quit his job working as a driver for members of the taxation bureau and became the personal driver of a wealthy man, who owned the Maybach that Tianjiao drove every day.

Nono kept asking for more information, but there wasn't much to say, he loved spicy chicken wings and braised pork belly, he barely spoke unless it was to brag about simple things. But there was something more, Tianjiao lived in the factory, so she asked the man to take her to Tianjiao's room. In her way, she noticed a reflection in the window, powerful flames, but it only lasted a second.

Tianjiao's bedroom hadn't been opened for many years, but the air inside was surprisingly clean, just a little dusty. The furniture was simple, a double bed, a bedside table, a writing desk, a chair and a mini-refrigerator. Some strings in the corner of the room were used to dry his clothes and a jacket was hanged in them. This was everything that Chu Tianjiao had. Nono stepped in, asking to be left alone and she closed the door to allow her profiling ability to fill the missing details. She analyzed every aspect of the small place and came across a photograph. A family of three, a boy who was five at most, a woman with a bright smile and a man in a white shirt and woolen pants combing his hair, hugging his wife proudly. Was the boy Johann Chu? She couldn't recognize his face.

Nono sat down on the bed, closed her eyes and allowed her ability to put her in that man's shoes. She saw him, a man with no name arriving at the town for the first time, carrying nothing but a suitcase. He sat down at a food stand and ordered braised pork belly, but the vision was interrupted by the pain of heavy mental exhaustion. 

Her skills were demanding and she found herself trapped in that state, feeling like the was sinking in deep water as she desperately tried to escape. The experience sent her back to the Three Gorges Dam, where she almost died, a monster came to her aid and yelled "Don't die! don't die! don't die!"

She wasn't completely sure about how she survived on that mission. Caesar and Luminous put a story together, in which Norton approached the diving bell and attacked her, the dragon then attacked the Monach, where Caesar skillfully slayed the monster. Luminous brought her back to the boat, where she woke up in her boyfriend's arms.

But there was more to it, a monster, one that ordered her not to die and saved her with powers that broke the rules of the world she knew. Was that an illusion?

Nono felt the whole place trembling and got out of the room, outside, the rainfall had flooded the building and the whole structure was sinking in the muddy ground in which it was built. Nono tried to make her way out, she was trained for this, swimming as fast as she could, she got trapped by the tons of stored garbage and slowly passed out from suffocation until someone finally grabbed her wrist.

She woke up in an ambulance, where she discovered the identity of her savior: the boring middle-aged man that guided her to Tianjiao's room was in fact an olympic swimmer who almost joined the national team! He even had an 8-pack and all, Nono wondered, when did that old man become so interesting?

Anyway, while everyone clapped and celebrated the local hero, she contemplated the ruins of the sinking building. Her last connection to Chu Tianjiao was now lost.

In a simulated combat situation, inside of his dreams, Luminous was now on his 62nd attempt to save Nono. His routine was well practiced, not a single bullet was wasted. He pushed Nono back into the Maybach and prepared to fire the Bazooka at the death servitors, but the projectile exploded inside of the cannon, killing them both in the resulting explosion. Ming·Z excused himself for the defective product, after all, Luminous already used dozens of them so at least one could be expected to have some sort of flaw.

77th load, by this point he already managed to make it out oof the servitor battle and they drive deep into the highway. He tried to pass through the toll booths but accidentally hit a concrete isolation block.

He woke up again at the hospital and asked the nurse for another sedative. He had been sleeping for five or six consecutive days with the help of those injections, only waking up to eat and occasionally chat with his fellow patients. The nurse was growing suspicious of him but he faked a mental episode and the nurse ran away to ask for the doctor's instructions.

Finger showed up to visit him and brought some apples, he also reassured him about Nono's trust in him, informing Luminous of Chen's quest to find more clues about Johann's dad. They also found more about Chu's mother, who probably developed her psychological pregnancy after the death of her real son.

To lighten up the mood after the arrival of the nurses, Finger turned the TV on and they watched the news together. Apparently the airport was closed due to the incessant rains, and they were showing the departure of the last plane right before the lockdown, but something startled Luminous.

Odin's flames were reflecting in the water, the god swung his lance and the wind and water were quickly turned into a blade that cut through the airplane like butter. The airport was covered in flames and some of the passengers were injured.

Luminous tried to warn everyone in the hospital and begged them to call the police, but his apparent prediction meant nothing to them, after all, the footage shown in the news was a repetition from days before. They pushed him back into his bed and sedated him immediately.

Odin was indeed too much for regular humans, and he was about to start tormenting the city, just waiting to get out.

[rigelmejo]

i read this thing on reddit about a person who read through 200 japanese novels. first they were N1 (but they think what they did could have worked for an N3 learner), then they started mainly with books for children/teens like 青い鳥文庫 novels with a lot of furigana, then books for a bit older, then general novels and some nonfiction, eventually adding the last 20 or so as audiobooks. they said by books 20-50 they had to look a lot of words up still but the reading was flying by, and by books 50-100 books still required frequent word lookups but were effortless feeling to read. 

they personally looked up Every unknown word (so minimal learning *only* by context - which tbh is helpful with japanese and chinese where u sometimes need lookups of new characters period just to learn the reading even if u can figure out the word’s meaning in context). they did not mention how long the average novel they read was, but i know for the series mentioned above (the easier novels) are about 300 pages long. 

so maybe roughly 60,000 pages for around 200 novels. and maybe for the 20 book threshold where reading started flying by, 6,000 pages. (also i absolutely commend them on how much they read because even in english i cannot read that many books especially in such a short time period, and reading in a language you’re learning tends to start at a slower speed, and so just generally SUCH a huge reading achievement is impressive).

if i assume maybe chinese progress is similar to japanese reading progress, i wonder how close i am to the 6,000 page threshold of ‘20 books’. A priest novel is about 3.5 pages a chapter. I will just estimate 3 (3.5 pages is the length of a digital page length estimator, but their chapters are like 5-20 pages in my print novel versions). So i’m going to estimate probably 3 pages for the webnovel chapters i’ve read. i’ve read like 200 chapters of some pingxie fanfics, maybe 140 chapters of other stuff (finished xiao wangzi, some kids cats stories, some sci fi short stories, some saye, some tian ya ke, etc). and then about 100 pages of guardian (i’ve Reread those pages multiple times lol but i’ll just count 1 read through since i’ve read many of these multiple times). So 340 chapters*3 pages = 1020 pages of chinese read, 1120 total adding guardian. 

rip i am still SO far from even 6,000 pages. (Which in a way is funny, because if i JUST buckled down and committed to reading through the novels I start, I would easily be in the 4000s pages by now, just because tian ya ke etc are like 500 pages each then stuff like guardian is 800 pages, silent reading is even longer, sha po lang and can ci pin maybe be 1200 pages, the pingxie fics i like are easily 500-800 pages, the dmbj novels aren’t long but combined they’ve got to be like 6000 words minimum all on their own for the first several or so). 

anyway, as usual i would love to copy someone else’s study plan and see if it works for me. in part because i usually do really well with such study plans - it motivates and challenges me, and i like to “prove” i can do what someone else did, and “prove” if it works or not. (for example, when i started chinese i copied a guy who did 2000 most common chinese words Ben Whatley memrise decks then dived into reading using a click dictionary, and i did exactly what he did lol - i added some extra stuff, and certainly there were better materials i could’ve used instead but just used what he used... but it worked! his study plan worked! so i was ultimately happy i’d tried it and that it had worked for me too! i wish i had a japanese study plan i could brute force that manageably). so i very much would LIKE to brute force read through X pages or X books in chinese (or japanese one day) and see if it works. i mean... in theory it should. its just intensive reading that the poster above did. look up every unknown word as you read, and its proven to work its just extremely intensive work (very mentally draining at first until there’s less unknown words).

so of course, i prefer to read extensively instead. and learn primarily from context instead of from definition lookups. in part because i am lazy and don’t like ‘clicking’ i am so lazy lol that i really don’t want to be taken out of the reading-flow focus. and in part because i tend to remember much better when i have to “figure out and guess” what something means like a puzzle... when i look up words i don’t remember them unless i do it 3-10 times. but when i figure it out based on what i’m guessing the word means? i learn it within 1-3 times of seeing it, maybe after seeing it 5 times at most if the first few times i could get away with ignoring the word instead of trying to figure out what it means. so i learn meaning much Faster when doing it the ‘through context’ way. reading extensively also means less breaking your reading flow constantly, which helps me because i have poor focus to begin with and often need breaks already. 

however... if i’m reading extensively instead of intensively, there’s a few problems that crop up. 1. I cannot replicate that poster’s study plan, because i’m not doing the same reading type. so it may take me MORE books to get the same reading level skill, because i’m doing something different (or it may take less books, or the same amount of books, its simply unknown). 2. with a language like chinese it means guessing the hanzi readings too if i’m not using a dictionary... which is fine until i transfer from reading to listening. right now it only hangs me up because i’ll guess say “hun” for the reading of a hanzi with a similar radical, then try to look up a really frustrating word by typing in pinyin and finally realizing darn the hanzi is actually pronounced “hui” and thats why it wasn’t showing up. basically, it means the pronunciation gets even LESS reinforcement and correction than if i was looking it up 5-20 times every single time i saw the word until i finally remembered it. That’s a big reason i do a lot of “reading extensively while letting text to speech play” or just listening to audiobooks generally too. Because i like to get as much listening reinforcement of new words, so i hopefully remember their correct pronunciations to an extent even though i’m not looking it up constantly. 

i would love to say that i’d change my study plan, and start reading intensively mainly to copy the person who made that post, and see how my progress goes. but knowing me... its not going to be happen, i’ll be lucky if i can just get myself to read more in general. (fun fact about me... even an english comic it takes me 30 minutes to read 17 pages, and that’s a comic not a novel with paragraphs, in english... i read even slower in other languages... despite having a fast reading level in college where i must’ve just sped read skimmed a lot). on top of things... i am barely reading right now, i can just get myself motivated to read a bit of chinese manhua... but that’s a wayyyy lower “word count” and language density than actually pushing through novels. 

but if anyone else would like to make a goal of more reading? i’ll join you! and if anyone else would like to test what the poster did, with more specifically intensive reading (or u vary it like me and do mostly extensive reading), i’d love to know how it goes! if you want to share progress as you go!

any thoughts? any of you read X books or X pages and think at a certain point reading with no dictionary got easier/faster?

[rigelmejo]

I'm now on chapter 10 of dmbj book 1 woohhhhhh

Thoughts:

I looked up the first 10 books other learners read, hoping to maybe copy their choices if they were helpful. I may link the articles later. A lot of interesting choices but also a lot of choices driven by literary classic picks, which I think webnovels may be easier than in some cases? Also my first novels were like... 小王子 (it was doable as my first extensive read but i had intensively read like 30 priest novel 天涯客 chapters beforehand and in any language the plot of this novel is not predictable so its mentally a lot conceptually)，笑猫日记 (I highly recommend these books as early reading as they were easy everyday language and chengyu which are very common, and being children's stories they felt repetitive in vocabulary but interesting like the multichapter novels made for 7-11 year olds), then like 120 chapters of pingxie fanfics 寒舍 and 半夜衣寒 (which felt closer to dmbjs reading level, repeated vocabulary and setting a lot to help with new words, and took me months, in retrospect they were hard reads the first time which is why I reread 60 chapters twice and 15 chapter of the other one multiple times), 镇魂 reincarnation dial arc like 4 times (intensive reading like 3 times, extensive reading 2 times), then just this WEEK 秃秃大王 （great first read along with 笑猫日记 ideal beginner reading material), and 当你走进图书馆而书里夹了一枚书签 (easy short and very motivating, also a great early reading choice). And now, reading some 盗墓笔记 (again). Some of what I read worked out well and I'd recommend to beginners, some I absolutely slogged through out of interest and hey at least it worked out for me. For me I did notice rotating between intensively reading a "difficult" material and extensively reading (with maybe up to 5 word lookups a chapter) something closer to my reading level, helped boost my reading level fairly well.

For example: I started with extensively reading 500 hanzi graded readers, then switched to 镇魂 天涯客 默读 (I know wtf was I thinking I fried my brain. Then I switched to more difficult graded readers with 1000-2000 hanzi, and intensively reading more priest (rip my brain). Then went back to easier with extensive reading 小王子, and intensively reading 笑猫日记 (which was WAY easier than priest but still considerably more unique words than 小王子). Then extensively read 笑猫日记 as it got easier, and made the pingxie fanfics my intensive reading. Then as pingxie fanfics became possible to read with 5 word lookups or less per chapter, they became that "easier" reading and 撒野 and priest stuff again became the intensively read "harder" stuff. Now "dmbj" is the stuff I'm intensively reading, but I can tell it's going to get easier as it sticks to the tomb horror genre and I'm picking up some of the most common words. So I imagine soon dmbj will become the "easy" read extensively mostly (handful of word lookups per chapter or less) and 撒野 or something else with considerable amounts of new words will become the intensive "harder" reading material. Basically: I keep going between one material with few word lookups needed, and one material that makes me look up a lot more often. This way I eventually get extensive reading practice, and keep reading stuff that teaches me a LOT of new words faster and challenges me, and eventually I move "up" so the hard material gets easier and I can pick a new "hard" reading material. At the beginning, grammar factored into what counted as "hard". But after over 120 chapters of pingxie fanfic and priest lol grammar rarely completely confuses me.

Dmbj is actually a good book series for a learner (if long term you plan to read horror related genres). Which I'm surprised by to be honest? To me, writing is extra "helpful" if it: goes to one setting and describes things in that place for a while like things to do/see, and stays in that setting for a decent duration and repeatedly uses the words related to that setting. So for example: case fic novels are great because they'll go to X place where a crime was, describe furniture and people working there and what work they do, what the building is, what is ordinary there, and then keep repeating those kinds of words for multiple chapters. The fanfic 寒舍 helped me so much cause it would focus in on one location of a mysterious death then go in depth (about a job at a clothing store/going to work and coming home/clothing words/shop words/customer service words) for 10 chapters reusing those related words regularly so I learned them. I did not expect dmbj to be like this, as it's not a case structured story. But apparently an adventure story structure has some similar benefits. In dmbj book 1: they start at a tomb and describe basic outside of tomb words, basic casual language, basic fighting and scared language. Chapter 2 they describe a shop, antiques, customer service, expenses. Chapter 3 they continue using words from the first chapters, adding now supplies words. Adding more weapons and supplies, more tomb words building on chapter 1 words. They get to the river and it's a couple chapters on a boat so you get the swimming/moving a boat/going toward away/sticking into/stepping on/kicking verbs just DRILLED into you, you get 虫子 风铃 船工 矿灯 DRILLED into ur memory. They finally get off the boat and they're in a village, very basic useful village words now mentioned, 水泥 CEMENT is now finally learned (after seeing it in passing in other novels lol) as is recognizing how 电 is used for a bunch of electricity compound words so now u know how to guess future ones. Then they go to the rockslide area and drill common "out in nature" scenery words, they drill literal drill and shovel words into you and camping words. Then they finally get in the tomb and you see 葬 so much you FINALLY remember it (I've been seeing that word since 镇魂 and finally remember it). Dmbj does not stay in a location for several chapters, which I like about case structure stories. But in each chapter it does GO TO A SPECIFIC SETTING/SCENARIO and then hammer in relevant common words to that scenario. The new words get repeated over and over, which makes remembering them easier. And the other main words are very simple verbs, some version of laughed/glared/smiled/thought/scared/shook/went forward/went back/froze, and real simple descriptors mostly being suddenly/unexpectedly/immediately/continued/clearly/obviously/basically. So even if you don't manage to pick up the new setting words of the chapter, you're hammering in familiarity with such useful direct language in writing - the transition words, basic action and reaction verbs and descriptors. When reading more description rich stuff like 镇魂, the skill to see the simple part (which is what dmbj uses lol) and then single if you need to look up any of the additional descriptors you need versus what you can just guess and retain meaning, makes reading harder stuff extensively "easier". I got this skill earlier due to 寒舍 eventually hammering in "this is bare bones what you need to follow a sentence" versus "this is description fluff you can survive not grasping and still comprehend the main plot." But it seems like dmbj also hammers in those patterns.

Dmbj is also good for a learner in that it's just... its really simply written? The vocabulary isn't simple entirely - it's a lot of everyday words I did NOT learn yet like cost, price, profiteer, generator, concrete. But it is simply written in that it is a lot like it's supposed to be: a journal of some guy just saying plainly what happened. With small bits of judging (saying he's a jerk, he's annoying, he's impressive, I wanted to X, I felt uneasy). So it's first person pov, and very directly just "this happened, I felt x, suddenly Y happened, he's an idiot." It is very straightforward. I was reading the 云村笔记 and thats even easier! It's just wu xie in some village running a business! Judging people! (At least so far lol). There's many new words for me (I didn't know election, or again price, balance books, rent property etc), but the words are very common and useful to the situation they appear in. These words are not super rare and unlikely to be ran into, they're words you probably will see in another show/novel during a similar scenario/setting/genre.

Dmbj is easier than priest. And 撒野 (if you read tomb horror - if you don't then yeah the specialized vocab makes 撒野s everyday language easier maybe?). You say, duh, we knew that! And to that I say!! There's a LOT easier than priest, and a lot of danmei easier than priest (and a lot of non danmei webnovels). But dmbj has a nice perk of being a novel I enjoy as an adult, that has novels less than 100 fucking chapters ToT. A LOT of Chinese webnovels clock in at 60-200 chapters. Before I found HeavenlyPath's sites reading list suggestions, the shortest chinese novel I wanted to read was 他们的故事 which was still clocking in at 50 chapters. ;-; 撒野 is arguably about the same difficulty for me right now as dmbj, but comes off slightly more difficult because: 1 撒野 has LONG chapters (as long as my own writing lol) and 2 it also has denser descriptions, which leads to less word repetition and more details to sort through to figure out what's important/what you can follow the plot without and which parts are the action moving forward versus description details. Dmbj is pretty much all action moving forward, it's written very bare bones. Which isn't as pretty to read (I feel you) but is again great for vocab learning repetition and fluidly reading without breaks. Mainly though: dmbj being 20-50 chapters at least for the first several books, makes them more appealing as a "look I finished a novel! I accomplished this!" (Just like in English where I'd also finish reading a novel in a week and feel so glad I got thru something on my reading list lol). Like... 撒野 is also something I want to read and should be able to... but with its length it's going to be a month commitment or more, not just a week or 2 max. (Also see HeavenlyPaths recommendations cause a lot of their shorter novel recommendations are great for this reason! It feels good to start and finish something when you still have the motivation to push through it).

I turned off Readibus underline words feature, and as expected I'm reading faster. I do think seeing no lines gets my brain to think I "need to rely on itself" and my brain gets into the zone of guessing new stuff and figuring out stuff it recognizes and me feeling too lazy to click an unknown unless I'm really curious/it seems particularly useful. So yeah, I do just... read faster/remember more when my brain thinks it's got to rely on its own memory only lol. Anyway I think I'll keep it off for a while. I think the feature to turn on traditional characters looks cool too but I'll save that for when I can read something without running into much unknown stuff. (Fun fact I have guardian in simplified and traditional so one day maybe that's how ill do it.. traditional 镇魂 has the Prettiest covers, but my simplified version has all the extras and added scenes).

I am. Blown away I read 1/3 of dmbj 1, in 2 days. That means like if I got INTO a book this level I could finish in a week. That means if I picked at a novel at this level I could maybe finish it in a couple weeks. That is way closer to my English reading speed and really fucking motivated and so. Blown away by it.

Knowing I am reading this fast, I desperately wanna reread and finish 半夜衣寒 because it's 30 chapters, I've read 25 before at least 2 times, so i know most of the words, and I really wanna finish that fic! Last time I read that much in a month. So to know now I could do it in a week or 2... it makes me wanna go do it nowwwww. But I wanna finish dmbj 1 first or I might fucking drop it then have to come back and reread (like I do with so many things-.-; )

I found like 5 other pingxie fics I wanna read today, so I guess I'll be posting some titles if any of them turn out good.

Still absolutely in the mood to write fanfic but I can't read and write, they're both time sinks so ive been mostly reading ToT for now

Will this be the year I read a decent number of pages in chinese? Will this be the year I get to idk 3000-5000 pages where other learners say extensive reading starts to get easier?? (If I remember correctly they say first 2000-3000 it's slow, 3000-5000 pages you can read okay and easier stuff just flows, 5000-7000 you feel reading is easy but are still picking up new words, 7000-9000 pages plus u start feeling its as easy as reading ur native language). I think last time I counted, at Most I was at like 2000 pages or less read in chinese. 寒舍 alone would be like 540 pages (字数*.65 English word equivalent, put into words to page counter calculator). 镇魂 is like 850 pages on its own. 天涯客 and 七爷 are both around 500 pages each. Oh how if I could read faster... how quickly I could get into Intermediate with my pages read count ToT. Then I'd find out if their claim is true or not! (Also lol 寒舍 is so fucking long and I've read half of it twice so ive read 600 pages of chinese just from that story that's wild... and I'm gonna do it again...). By the way... the suggestion also floated around besides 9000 pages is often 50ish books, and 9000 pages/200 page books (assuming you read 150-300 page books the usual shorter length novels) comes out to be 45 books. If you are an animal (like me ToT) and keep aiming for 500 page books, you'd only need to read 18. (And for curiosity sake if the books are averaging 333 pages which would Maybe be one volume of your typical danmei - each zhenhun volume is 300-400 pages, same with modu etc, then you'd need to read about 27 books to meet the goal 9000 page count). And yes... with a language like chinese and its very long form webnovels the page goal isn't even that unrealistic to reach. Another fun fact, if you happen to like The Kings Avatar, the whole novel is about 7511 pages which is a LOT (you'd probably get limited vocabulary returns eventually though? Unless the novel genre opens up more, I've only seen ep 1 of rhe drama I know little). The dmbj series (if 1.45 million characters is the correct amount) is 2094 pages all on its own, which would also be a hefty portion of the reading required ToT. If you happened to be someone with a few favorite big series in various genres, you could probably just read 9 chinese series or less and easily meet that page count recommendation.

[rigelmejo]

the word brain - summary and notes

the word brain: http://www.amedeo.net/wb/TheWordBrain2015.pdf

It’s a book about how to learn a language. I like the straightforward estimates of time lengths in it. What I’m about to write is gonna have a lot of notes to myself (as usual lol). 

anyway, below is the word brain summary. and my ideas on how to maybe add its ideas to my study plan.

Notes:

Increasing Vocab:

I tend to not do the explicit vocab study the book starts with for very long. I did it for french for around 1000 words (which was apparently enough base), and 2000 words using memrise for chinese. Now for japanese I use memrise to do this step. 

What I learned from this step, is there may still be use in dedicating some time per day to reading my hanzi books and common-word dictionaries - and reading sections over a few times in spaced repetition (like day 1,3,7,13, 30) could work similarly like memrise/anki. So I could still have use for them.

This book mentioned word lookup in novels counts, if you do it often, and so I can see how I usually quickly abandon “this writer’s way” of increasing vocab, and move onto relying nearly entirely on reading and word lookups to learn as soon as I feel reading is doable. So again... I could speed up word acquisition with either: more memrise/anki, or more glancing at my reference texts every so often. Not that much time is needed either - 5 minutes to learn a word (so studied in like 30 sec - 1 minute intervals over multiple sessions). My usual strategy of reading to acquire words definitely works - but I could probably speed it up a bit by a bit more purposeful reviewing. And I could still have a use for my reference books if I use them for hanzi/word learning.

Also - aiming for 5000 words in related languages, 15,000 in very unrelated languages, is usually enough for overall comprehension.

-

Listening skills:

Need generally 1,500-2,000 listening hours to parse speech in a language. This time can mostly be done surrounded by language audio. So basically: yes playing your target language in the background does help. And will help for up to about 2,000 hours, at which point it should’ve benefited your ability to parse speech. If you have difficulty parsing speech, listen more.

You can also do shows/audio you intensively listen to/focus on purposefully (like Listening Reading Method, shows, documentaries). The takeaway point is just - there’s actually merit to the suggestion to “listen to target language as often as you can.” (Which I did not know there was any real benefit). And that even if you’re not trying to comprehend it’s content, simply practicing parsing the sounds by listening is beneficial. So I’m gonna start playing more audio in the background more often. 

-

Reading:

I basically do the advice. What this book recommends: using audio at first whenever you read, to create the correct ‘inner voice.’ I didn’t do it, do it now sometimes, it is what it is. But probably good advice for new learners to USE their textbook audios, course audios, and graded reader audios when they have them available - since they’ll help. (The sure would’ve helped me in french ToT).

-

*Grammar: 

Like my plan to read a grammar guide, this is kind of similar. But this book recommends learning the most common grammar structures just like words - “nailing” them in your memory by reviewing them (in spaced repetition). I think this is probably something I could add to my studies - picking up my grammar books, and reading and re-reading parts of them to help remember them better. So studying them much like words. Or watching grammar videos and rewatching/reviewing in that same kind of sequence to help remember.

I could possibly do a few review grammar guide fast-overviews - where I just reread old grammar guides I read now and then, to reinforce the memory (like spaced repetition). This is something the book recommends.

I don’t think the book mentioned it, but this could be a good place I could add 50-100 hours of producing/practicing grammar structure - at least the main ones.

Basically though - I could do a little grammar-focused study.

-

Speaking:

Grammar overview/learning words. Listen, read, first. Then shadow. 

---

Summary: could use my reference books by studying similar to how anki/memrise work and just reading/re-reading in spaced review sessions (If I want to increase how fast I learn vocab), reading and looking up words repeatedly to acquire vocab does work though. Listen to more audio in background in general. I could probably use 50 hours of some review of the grammar more (review same as words), and some particular practice on main grammar. I should shadow more.

---

Looking at their table, chinese is probably going to take 3-5 years, and if I eventually slow down my study then up to 6 years.

I also think if this book’s definition of fluency is higher than mine like ‘C1′ competency, then I might get away with accomplishing my goals 1-2 years faster than this book’s timeline - since B1-2 is usually enough for me to be happy with what I’m able to do (I would imagine B2 is definitely enough to read/listen for enjoyment and talk to people about general topics with some fumbles?). Anyway... based on their table I would guess it will take me 1-2 more years to do what I want comfortably? At least, if I can keep my reading progress improving at the current rate or throw in some extra hours this year, I think within another year I might get to a point where I can read/listen for enjoyment mainly. At which point, slowing down my progress by studying less wouldn’t bother me as much - then if it took another 1-3 years for improved fluency because I’m studying slower, I wouldn’t mind as much. If this book’s fluency aim is around B2, then I’m probably looking at at least 2 more years. Still not bad ToT I have a bit of a warped perspective, I expected like A2-B1 level reading skill to take 4 years, whereas its taken me more like 2 years, so I’m already way ahead of schedule in how much time I thought chinese improvements would take.

I can at worst *painfully* read most modern things I try to now - so weibo, random literary stories/novels, gu long, webnovels, shows, tests, news. Sometimes I can read much easier than that, but in the worst cases I can take a while and grasp the main ideas and some details (did that with some random novels/news). Which is where my french was at about 1 years in. Chinese, having less cognates, means I’m not going to learn the unknown words fast enough to ease the ‘pain’ unless I keep studying to speed up word-learning. So that’s what I’m doing, still studying much more than I did for french at this level. But as far as milestones, I’m around what I consider A2 pushing into B1 (starting to not find modern material completely impossible) - in chinese I’m even a little better, I can start pretty much whatever new show I want and follow the main story and some details at minimum. I was never able to do that in french. Also I can follow some audiobooks/audiodramas if I have prior context - I have never tried that in french.

My personal “milestones” I go by:

a. can recognize enough common words to start trying to read comics/books with a dictionary (could be very painful lol) - this is when immersion becomes feasible.

b. know enough basic words to start trying to basically express self imperfectly (ideally eventually basically in many ideas) - this is when language exchange becomes realistic/journaling.

c. can recognize enough words and grammar in reading that main idea is generally understood without an aid (main idea understanding without aid might be painful but its possible) - this is when immersion in french I could stop using a dictionary, and in graded reading material i want at least this level of comprehension to start using it, this is when immersion can become pleasant with a dictionary, when info can start being learned from context somewhat more regularly.

d. can start to recognize main idea without aid without it feeling draining, and some amount of detail without aids - immersion now pleasant without a dictionary/aids, can learn more from context alone without feeling drained, with aids i can now pick up new words quicker but without it being draining, comprehension is now enough that depending on material i don’t feel any need/desire for an aid to grasp the missed details.

e. can recognize main idea and nearly all details, the rest mostly clear from context, nothing feels draining (mainly i only have this in graded reading materials - but in chinese daily life manhua i often feel like this now, with french website navigation or informational texts since i use them a lot, etc).

a+b is usually my goal within 5 months to a year - french took me 3-5 months, chinese took me 5-8 months. japanese took me 1.5 years lol. c is my absolute minimum goal - its enough to at least consume media with a dictionary. the beginning of the c stage can still feel ‘painful’ since all reading is ‘painful reading’ or ‘intensive reading.’ But it is comprehensible with a dictionary, so I can start learning that way. d is when I start feeling happier lol, and different areas of comprehension reach d at different points. e is my usual goal but i’ve only really hit it in certain ‘genres’ of content. All these milestones i can also ‘partially hit’ - for example in japanese years ago i hit ‘basic main idea’ milestone c for manga, but not for any other content type. For japanese... it took 2 - 2.5 years to hit c stage, which is where I’m picking back up (I can understand basic main idea with intense draining feeling, but with a dictionary i can follow most things). Now that I’m picking it up, I seem to be c in a few more ‘genres’ - video games I can also follow main idea better, and now novels are more doable with a dictionary (though i would NOT say i could follow even the main idea of a novel chapter without a dictionary). My chinese is sitting at d mostly for reading, at the earlier side of ‘usually I decide to look things up’ for missing details because i don’t want to always rely on context alone (unless its a show or manhua or extensive reading practice).

[rigelmejo]

Well I did start 那些風花雪月 by Gong Zi Huan Xi last night, read 2 chapters, and here are my thoughts so far:

The language is arguably ‘simple’ but there are definitely new words for HSK 4-5 learners. A lot of the new words are arguably useful in daily life, so they might as well be learned. I’m definitely looking up like 1/2 of most sentences right now ;A;

It has become apparent I clearly am not reading a genre I like SO FAR, I could care little to zero about childhood enemies falling in love over the years of childhood to adulthood. The first 2 chapters were about kindergarten to 2nd grade and. I could live without this story. But it was recommended as a good story to build up the skills to eventually read GZHX’s other works, and priests works, so I will tough through it. ESPECIALLY since its only 20 chapters. I can finish this within a month, and probably within a week if I do a few chapters a day. Because its a new author and totally new material (I have no background context on the story), its taking me 30-40ish minutes to get through a chapter. But that should slim down to 15-20 minutes once I’m used to the author. (It generally takes me an average of 15-30 minutes to get through chinese webnovel chapters with a dictionary). I think some people may really enjoy this story though - I can say the writing is a nice style, and the characters don’t feel cardboard (although since i’m only in chapter 2 they still sound quite generic to me... which is partially the fact i just started, and partially probably due to the simple style, so details will come through later in actions instead of description nuances earlier on like it does in priest novels)

It was a LIE that this author doesn’t use chengyu much LOL. I looked up at least 10-20 chengyu a chapter, and only a few were the kind that are pretty self explanatory to me. a LOT more than ttwtadsl, and a lot more than TamendeGushi. Not sure if as many as Priest - but to be fair, in priest novels, the sheer volume of specific description words requires a higher vocabulary to follow without a dictionary, regardless of if there are chengyu. I would hope though, since this was a recced novel, that learning these chengyu will be beneficial - as in they’re common enough, I’m bound to run into them in other novel hopefully. 

I was spoiled ROTTEN with TamendeGushi being my first webnovel I read in chinese. The writing was exceptionally easy, all new vocab was generally applicable and broadly useful to most any genre or conversation, there was very little chengyu except truly SUPER common ones and ones that have a self explanatory meaning, and the author purposely managed to sculpt a MOOD with the way things were written even though everything used simple language. Most important - that story literally starts on a rebirth scene, where the character is like “i committed suicide? WHY am i here again???’ and then the first chapters lead up to WHY they did what they did, and how conflicted they feel about being reborn with the knowledge of what happened later. And also the way its presented makes it clear the narrator has self worth issues, and also views quite level headedly that no one is the villain of this story - things just didn’t work out, got messy. All of that REALLY pulls a reader in, I think. The first scene guarantees this is about to be a do-over story with that one ‘magic’ element to it, and the rest grounds everything in the mundane reality and in emotions that anyone queer or who’s loved someone who left them is bound to find something to relate viscerally to. It also immediately guarantees, since its a rebirth story, that while the end of the first life is sad, we have no idea if the second time around will be more hopeful - but the main character has a chance. 

So the Tamendegushi intro hooks, then the next chapters build up and answer questions it gave us. Then we return to the intro scene about 1/3 into the novel, now left with totally new questions of WHAT is gonna happen different this time/WHAT will the character do now that they’re trying to avoid the misery of last time? It is a very engaging way to tell a story, and its not completely static (it goes from present, to past, to present again, so you feel the variety). And its written in simple enough language, that even though the writing can convey tone of emotion and jump time periods/lives, its quite easy to follow with a dictionary. In comparison...  那些風花雪月 starts out the same way the SECOND chapter of tamendegushi starts, and there’s no promise of any magical device like a second chance at this life. It starts just very traditionally of young kids who are enemies who grow to be fond as they grow up. While that’s all fine and good (and possibly easier for a beginner reader), I love when I read stuff that’s doing multiple different genres or playing with a few things (like slice of life with One magical element, or a xianxia but subverted, sci fi that also adds very fantastical campy elements, procedural grounded gritty piece with sci fi elements, etc). So for me this very start at the beginning of their lives approach is... not capturing my attention lol.

Basically: the shock of adjusting to a new reader means I am definitely back to looking things up galore. I definitely think of everything I’ve read recently, ttwtadsl is the most attention-grabbing and the short chapters make it easy to read through. I do however, think this novel  那些風花雪月 is better preparation for learning words likely common at least in modern novels (because ttwtadsl is VERY sparse on descriptive paragraphs, and so it does not provide much practice or vocabulary acquisition in that area). I am unfortunately back to spending 30-40 minutes on one chapter instead of 4 lol. But even though this is taking as long as the Pingxie fanfic HanShe for me? The fanfic hanshe HANDS DOWN had more difficult vocabulary, so I think overall it was more of a struggle. That said, hanshe’s writing definitely ‘suited’ my kind of novel reading more - the way of writing was more similar to priest, the language was sentences i found easy to grasp grammar wise, and there were few chengyu except used in ways extremely self explanatory to figure out. However,  那些風花雪月 uses chengyu so often i am struggling to follow most sentences clearly. I’m having major issues following the grammar of sentences in  那些風花雪月 even though i don’t think they’re too hard as far as i can tell? I think I’m just not used to reading ‘this style’ of writing. So its giving me a bit of trouble. though that will hopefully improve uvu.

I may post my october goals met post soon, since october is almost over. It was a less productive month, but i did get some stuff done!

[rigelmejo]

So like around 10 chapters of webnovel 镇魂 is 4 chapters of print version. I just finished reading the 4th chapter of my print copy and it ended on page 46.

I’ve been doing Listening Reading Method with Guardian (the webnovel and audiobook by Avenuex that matches it). And then I’ve also been reading my print version to see the differences and so my readings mostly kept up with my L R Method as far as “story covered so far.” I know I’m slightly behind L R method since I’ve also done webnovel chapters 11-12 where Shen Wei talks with zhao yunlan, and zhu Hong has a scene.

Anyway that’s just a bit of perspective lol. Reading the print novel is wild because sometimes a chapter is 5 pages and takes about 20 minutes to read like roughly the amount of time the webnovel chapters audiobook chapters take to read aloud. Then other times a chapter is 20-30 pages and I’m like!!! When will I get through this?!!! And it takes like an hour... or worse... ;-;

In related things: doing L R Method continues to have some nice benefits. It has improved how easy extensive reading (this specific novel is) by a lot. Every page only has 1-2 unknown words now, and they’re unknown words I can figure out from context. Idioms I can generally either remember or figure out now. So in general, reading feels like that “reading ease” you supposedly feel at 98% comprehension. I may not know all the Hanzi fully (as in both pronunciation and meaning). but because I’ve now heard many of the words in this novel and often seen them with definitions during L R method, I can now recognize what I’m looking at - like I said, pretty much all of the time. I encounter a few unknown words but even them i can fully grasp with context. I think there were only one or two instances in 10 pages where I felt I could only guess the meaning of a word vaguely - rather than being pretty sure of the meaning upon guessing. So it feels? A lot like reading English in terms of ease (not speed though).

So I would definitely say doing L R Method a little bit could be a good way to “prestudy” a chapter or novel if you know you’ll need to up your vocab for the material. Alternatives of course are: reading intensively until you’ve acquired enough vocab to stop having to do that - which is what I did with 寒舍 and it took ~30 chapters to feel possible to extensively read and I still look up words frequently at ~60 chapters in because reading extensively is Not at 98% comprehension it’s just overall meaning and some details comprehension. (Although reading intensively until not needed would probably work well with stuff only a little above my comprehension level since it probably wouldn’t take as many chapters - intensive reading is also good practice for Hanzi lookups for me to be honest as far as constant pronunciation checks). Another alternative is flashcards/prestudy lists - which I don’t do generally unless I’m a total beginner (I’ve done this to learn 2000 words, and for my HSK graded readers I pre-studied the vocab lists in the back of the books first). For me that works best at beginner stage when payoff is highest, or when I’m using a material tailor made for this like graded readers (also that zhitool website I linked that I’ll link to this later - had a list generating tool to do this with any reading if you like this way). Then there’s L R Method as reading “pre-study”. What I find helpful about L R method is: if you learn better with audio it helps remember, it provides context which helps with comprehension, and it involves repetition so you practice seeing a word/then word with definition, audio with text/audio without text. The plus is the repetition helps it stick and be experienced in different ways, the weakness of this is there’s limited time to look up anything in depth (a benefit of intensive reading instead, or even extensive reading when I have more time to actually contemplate Hanzi and look at them). What helps with the L R Methods pre-study is I pick up the vast majority of the words in a chapter somewhat (I would probably have even more success if I did step 3 multiple times), which makes overall comprehension later when extensively reading much better. I also gain an internal listening memory for a lot of the words I picked up - helping me read aloud later, helping me remember some Hanzi pronunciations better (I think Doing L R method shadowing step would help more but I don’t do that often). However, since times limited during L R Method steps (since it’s at the speed of audio), the things I find hardest to pick up I generally still end up missing. So intensive or extensive reading giving me more time to contemplate those parts definitely helps. The inner reading voice is a benefit I didn’t think I’d get but am definitely starting to get.

And again, extensive reading practices some skills none of the other activities do: trusting in my own abilities alone to recognize Hanzi, to recognize meaning in context, to figure out idioms. Challenging myself without help to recognize and figure out what’s vaguely familiar but not perfectly remembered yet (which I think ultimately helps me remember those things better), relying on myself to remember the sounds. And then in general: strengthening my ability to recognize what I do understand (since any those other things above I have tools to rely on if I doubt my own understanding), strengthening general reading skills like grammar comprehension, and as those strengthen eventually improving reading speed. Those things that intensive reading can’t really help me improve in, and L R Method doesn’t necessarily give me the time to focus on.

I mean seems pretty obvious lol ToT as usual these notes are for myself. In case I forget ToT

from what I’ve been figuring out, I’m going to try extensively reading something easier again soon. To improve all those extensive reading skills more. While I can extensively read guardian right now, it is still written in a way where even if I know nearly all words they’re newly learned, even if I can figure out all unknown words right now it’s a matter of “I JUST developed the knowledge needed to recognize them” so I think it’s still sort of like... when you’re 9 and you could read an adult novel technically skills wise but it might still be easier to read stuff closer to ur level and improve speed/etc more first. Guardian is taking So Long to read rn lol. Compared to 小王子 which took a handful of days. I’d rather practice with a few more books that take me a week each, build up my reading skill more - more pages read more practice right?

[rigelmejo]

Just tried a test run of the L-R method with Chapter 1 of The Little Prince.

I did L2 listen -L1 Read, then L2 listen - L2 - Read, then L2 Listen - L1 Read. Basically: I just alternated between L2-L1, and L2-L2. So steps 2-3.

I did this 2-3 times all the way through. The first time I realized why a person might not want to listen to audio the first time they read a material in L1 (english for me). I found it hard to focus on just the meaning of the english to get the story.

For the L2-L2 part, it became painfully obvious my L2 text did not match my L2 audio. Thankfully I am familiar enough with chinese to figure out which parts did match up, and follow the parts in between. However this meant most of my attention was on matching the audio up to the chinese words, and less time could be spent matching the audio to the hanzi/words visually. I just played the audio without pausing. So that’s why I decided to replay it a few times - to catch more the next few times, since I missed a bit trying to follow along the first time. Also I’m impatient and lazy - I’m not going to perfectionist go through each line and make sure I’ve matched each character to sound I could.

For the next L2-L1 part, I noticed an actual benefit. I could actually follow the L2 audio better - because now I had both a translation I could focus on reading less and therefore put more focus into the meaning of the L2 audio. And I was not being whiplashed trying to match DIFFERENT chinese text to the chinese audio. So actually, this way was somewhat helpful for at least connecting sentence/phrase meanings in english to chinese audio.

For the next L2-L2 part, again, easier. I noticed an actual benefit. For the parts that did not match audio-to-text I could follow them easier, and the parts that DID match I could connect some meaning to new chinese words I saw. 

So I do think there is value in going back and forth from step 2 to step 3 over and over and trying to ‘comprehend’ more each time. However - it required FOCUS in both steps, to make an active effort to try to connect what I heard to specific words on the page. For L2 audio - L2 text especially, I had to purposely try to catch which audio words lined up to new characters if the character was brand new. (It was much easier to associate sound to new-words made up of known hanzi, since I anticipated and identified their pronunciation more easily). So I think... to catch completely new hanzi pronunciations, that probably takes the MOST concious effort. At least for me, because my eyes will default to relying on the text. For at least some words today - I think I learned their ‘spelling’ but still probably could not tell you how they were pronounced. So I think extra focus is needed SPECIFICALLY on trying to listen close enough to match the sound to specific new words in the same language L2-L2 part. Because this is the case for me: I would either need to keep repeating the process until the reading is ‘easy’ enough I can focus on the listening more, or I need to do step L2-L2 the first time REALLY FOCUSING on just replaying that step over and over until I can pinpoint the pronunciation of new hanzi. BEFORE I even bother moving on to L2-L1 to start connecting definitions/meaning to the sounds.

Do I think L-R as a study method helps? Yes. 

For me specifically, it allowed me to pick up more written vocabulary. However, I don’t think I could focus well enough to pick up any new audio vocabulary (unless it was made of characters I already knew). So I would need to listen more to connect audio-knowledge to new words. But switching from chinese to english text back and forth was an excellent way to pick up a ton of vocabulary quite ‘effortlessly.’ In the sense I did not have to pause, did not have to break my reading flow and annoy myself by looking up words. The sentences in english stayed fresh enough in my mind, that it was super easy to see the words again in only chinese and recognize their meaning. (Again, the only hard part was attaching sound to the new chinese words if the characters are new for me - I believe that would require more L2-L2 listening step 2). I only did the repeat 2-3 times. I imagine there would be more success if doing it more times, or with a bigger chunk of material. I only did it with 1 chapter of The Little Prince. For me specifically, this felt more fast-paced and comprehensive than my usual method of simply reading in L2 and looking up unknown words and then focusing on trying to memorize them before continuing to read. I felt I picked up most of the unknown words in the chapter with less strain on me because I didn’t have to pause to look at a dictionary. However - I believe it took the same amount of time as me just reading L2 with a dictionary would have. 

Also, I appreciate that this method incorporates L2 audio - forcing me to practice listening more. And also making it obvious how much worse my listening is than my reading clearly, seeing how I can pick up text-word meanings faster than audio-word meanings. I do like that this method combines 3 things I do anyway: read in L2, listen to audiobooks, and read translations. I’m curious how much I will ‘enjoy’ it compared to just reading L2 with a dictionary, if I do this for a novel like DaoMuBiJi or a Priest novel. 

Drawbacks: I do think it was ‘easier’ for me because I have a decent base of vocabulary. In reading, I generally only run into 1-2 new words a sentence in HSK 5ish materials - and half of those or more I can guess vaguely from context and just use a dictionary to confirm. In reading, I’m pretty good at struggling through, and with definitions I’m pretty fast and at ease - so with a method like this solving the ‘dictionary’ part, its basically filling in the ‘few word gaps’ per sentence I would otherwise need to do myself. If I were a total beginner.... I’d be trying to use this to fill up the ENTIRE sentence work of gap in knowledge. The fact I only need to fill in a few gaps in knowledge (like 10% - 30% depending on the novel), makes it much faster than if I was trying to fill 80-90% gap in knowledge a beginner would. I also think its SUPER annoying if the audio DOES NOT MATCH the L2 text. I assume this problem will happen less with webnovel audiobooks. But like 60% of The Little Prince chinese audiobook did NOT match up with my text version - so it was a lot of me quickly ‘approximating’ the audio and guessing its gist to figure out where it was going to connect to the similar-plot chinese text version. That is focus I could have spent on learning instead of following the dialogue-to-chinese-text. If I were a beginner, yikes this would have absolutely infuriated me. 

A note: for this I SPECIFICALLY DID NOT LOOK UP ANY WORDS AT ANY TIME. I ALSO DID NOT PAUSE THE AUDIO (except to re-find my spot in the text). I normally pause to look up words when reading the chinese-text, this time I just went straight through. As in - I read as the audio played. then I switched text languages, started audio and read through as it played. All the definition-word matching was done by guessing from context, and using what I’d seen in the english version. I did greatly enjoy how that let me ‘speed up’ how long it takes me to get through one chapter (compared to pausing to look up), but the tradeoff is I must read the chapter multiple times. I also did not use a parallel text - I used two separate texts. Because I’m lazy, I can’t find a parallel text. 

I will try it again with Guardian or Mo Du or DMBJ. We’ll see how that goes.

---

I also tried a similar thing to L-R method, with Tamen de Gushi.

I have the chinese text link to Tamen de Gushi. I opened it in Pleco Reader, and I clicked the ‘dictation’ button. This tool: plays the audio like a machine-reading, and at the same time it pops up the english definition for each word. So it’s sort of like an audiobook, except with a machine speaker. And instead of an english translation, I just had english word-translations to glance at for a second if I needed them.

So I never read any full english translation text. I have read Tamen de Gushi chapters 1-18 before though, so I already know the plot/have context. 

It was faster than my usual reading method (which is just read L2, look up definition when I get stuck on a word) - significantly faster. But I’m not sure if that’s because of the method, or because this story got a lot easier to me in general. When I first read it I took 20-30 minutes a chapter. Now when I read it in chinese I take maybe 4-8 minutes a chapter. And with the audio automatically playing, it also took about 4-8 minutes. Just like reading without audio - I still had to pause the audio a few times, and stop to look up some hard-words properly. 

Unlike how I usually read, what I did this time was: 

First I listened to L2 audio, and read L2 text. By that I mean - I purposely ignored most of the english definitions unless it was a problem-word I didn’t know. And I often paused on that word, to read that definition better. I focused mainly on connecting the sound I heard to all the chinese words (since I knew most of them). I focused on replaying the sound of new words a couple times, along with pausing to read their dictionary entry. I replayed some sentence audio. So I’ll call this - I defined everything, purposely focused on connecting sound to all words, and paused when needed. 

Second, I listened to L2 audio and mainly tried to follow the audio. By that i mean - I tried to glance at the english definitions popping up, and chinese text, as quickly and relaxed as I could. I did not look anything up, just tried to focus on catching all the audio as much as I could. The text (english and chinese) was only there for me to quickly glance at if I wanted to reference a definition). I did NOT pause the audio, I read straight through. So this step I - tried to just follow the meaning of the audio, did not pause, and tried to comprehend everything I could using the english/chinese text I could see. 

I alternated between these 2 processes, so I did them both twice. Doing them both twice, took me 4-8 minutes. That is pretty fast! 

For better or worse, a downside to using this particular text is that I already know a majority of the words now, and the context is familiar enough that most lookups are me double-checking meaning (not learning it for the first time). A positive to using the audio is I can FEEL my listening comprehension getting used to hearing some set phrases that I am used to READING in chinese novels. You know what I mean, like when people say “strictly speaking, it was really” and “originally, i had thought” “not to say that he wasn’t” etc. Phrases that are wordy, that people DO say in real life, but that are much easier to figure out the meaning of when reading first.

Would I recommend this process I did? Maybe. I think it is helpful for listening practice, especially if you already have prior context. I think it helped me get more used to hearing phrases i am used to reading. I’m not sure if I picked up words any better, but I do think I picked up about the same amount of words as I would have if I just read-in-chinese with a dictionary. So it wasn’t worse than my usual method. And it did incorporate more audio, which is helpful audio practice. But this variation of the L-R I did in pleco, is basically just what I normally do via reading BUT with audio.