#lot tomb restart

[dmbjexchange]

DMBJ Rarepair Exchange 2024 Signups

It’s time for the Daomu Biji Rarepair Exchange, a fic, art and vid exchange for DMBJ ships where less than 3% of English-language authors have posted fics on AO3.

In this exchange, participants will be anonymously matched to create gifts for one another during an eight week creating period.

This exchange is open to all the DMBJ canons - if it’s DMBJ, then it’s eligible! It will take place on AO3, so you need an AO3 account to participate – if you don’t have one, you can request an invitation code here. If there isn’t enough time, no worries - contact the mods at here on Tumblr or on Discord and we can send you an invitation!

Please read this post carefully before signing up.

Schedule

September 9: Signups open September 15: Signups close September 23: Assignments out November 17: Assignments due November 18 - 24: Pinch-hit period November 25: Fic reveals December 2: Creator reveals & treats deadline

Allowed Ships

Any DMBJ ship which has had less than 3% of English-language authors post fics for it on AO3.

For this year's exchange, this means the following ships are NOT allowed:

Wu Xie/Zhang QIling

Hei Xiazi/Xie Yuchen

Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang QIling

Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie

Liu Sang/Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling

Qi Tiezui/Zhang Rishan

Wang Pangzi/Zhang QIling

Kan Jian/Liu Sang

Qi Tiezui/Zhang Qishan

Liang Wan/Zhang Rishan

Liu Sang/Wang Pangzi/Wu Xie/Zhang QIling

Er Yuehong/Zhang Qishan

Wu XIe/Xie Yuchen

Hei Xiazi/Liu Sang/Xie Yuchen

Hei Xiazi/Zhang Qiling

Hei Xiazi/Huo Xiuxiu/Xie Yuchen

Huo Daofu/Wu Xie

Rules

1. Your creation must focus on your recipient’s requested ship (or one of their requested ships, if they have nominated multiple ones). While unrequested background ships are fine (unless listed as a Do Not Want), the focused ship must only be one of the requested ones. 2. You will be expected to create a gift matching your recipient’s request. Filling any specifying prompts is not obligatory, but try to create something you honestly think your recipient will enjoy! 3. You must not include anything that your recipient has listed as a DNW (Do Not Want). This goes for treats as well. 4. The minimum requirements for the gifts are 300 words for fic, one sketch on unlined paper for art (traditional or digital; no manips), or 30 seconds for a vid. 5. All the requests will be made visible to everyone to allow for treating! There are no minimum requirements for treats (but remember to mind your recipient’s do not wants!). You can also create manips for treats. 6. This is an anonymous exchange: refrain from discussing your assignment in public. After the works are revealed, there’ll be one week anon period when the creators remain anonymous before the creator reveals. 7. If at any point you need to drop out, just click on the “default” button on your AO3 assignment page; we’ll find a pinch hitter to create a gift for your recipient instead. If you need an extension to finish your gift, contact the mods before the deadline. 8. After the reveals, comment on your gift in a timely manner. 9. Most importantly: be excellent to each other!

Sign-Up Information

Sign-ups will take place here on AO3, ending on September 15th. There, you can fill out details about your request and offer. You can edit your sign-up at any time until the sign-ups close on September 15th.

When signing up, you will be able to choose fandom and genre tags, as well as specify any additional details.

You will have to select the DMBJ canon you’re interested in creating and receiving a gift in:

Novels: Daomu Biji / The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles (including spinoffs, side stories, and extras)

TV: The Lost Tomb 1

TV: The Lost Tomb 2 Explore with the Note

TV: The Lost Tomb 2.5 Heavenly Palace on the Clouds

TV: Ultimate Note

TV: Sha Hai (and spin off movies)

TV: The Lost Tomb Reboot/The Sound of Providence (and spin offs)

TV: The Mystic Nine (and spin off movies)

TV: Zang Hai Hua/Tibetan Sea Flower/Adventures Behind the Bronze Door

Movie: Time Raiders

Movie: Reboot movies

Game: Time Raiders

This does not mean that you’re limited to requesting or creating a work during the canon timelines for those series/books/games. It’s just to mark which canons you’re familiar with to allow for easier matching: some participants might have a preference for a particular canon era, some might not be familiar with all the versions. You still have to choose your preferred canon eras even if you want to create or receive an AU.

You will also have to specify genres you’re interested in

Action/Adventure

Alternate Universe

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Angst

Canon Compliant

Crack

Dark

Domesticity

Fluff

Humor

Hurt/Comfort

Porn With Plot

PWP

Requests

Fandom - you have to choose at least one. If you’re willing to receive a gift in any canon era, you can just click “Any”!

Genre - you have to choose at least three tags.

Ratings - you have to choose at least one. This will help your gifter know what you like and are comfortable with when they're coming up with ideas to fill your prompts.

Warnings - you have to choose at least one. This does not mean that you WILL receive a gift with warnings, it just lets your gifter know if you are comfortable receiving a gift with warnings or not.

Optional Details - here’s where you can go into more detail about your perfect exchange gift!

If you run out of slots in the Relationships section (there is a limit of 20), you can list additional potential rarepairs here. Also, if you don’t have a specific ship in mind, but would like any ship involving a particular character, you can say that instead (e.g. ‘Liu Sang / any’, ‘Pangzi / any’, etc.)

You can also include:

General Likes: your creator may, but doesn’t have to, include them. This doesn't have to be detailed prompts, just general themes you enjoy, like getting together or established relationship.

Please note that works featuring QPRs, ace, and/or aro characters are absolutely valid things to request in a ship exchange. You may also request a fully platonic relationship if you wish.

DNW (Do Not Wants): things that your creator must not include - squicks, triggers, characters or things that you simply don’t like. Remember that you don’t owe anyone an explanation about why something is a DNW, and that DNW are not meant to be taken personally. Just list the things you don’t like, “DNW: X, Y.”

Please list if you have any audio or visual triggers (such as flashing lights). This could be in your DNW or could be separate. Please also list song/music DNWs (e.g.   "please no lyrics that use the n-word" or "please no lyrics in [specific language]"  or “please no [specific genre/s of music”).

Prompts/specific ideas: if you have any prompts, you can also put them here! You can be as general or as detailed as you’d like, but remember that while your creator will try to make the best gift for you, filling a specific prompt is not obligatory. You can include a crossover prompt (with other DMBJ verse or other canons), but make sure it’s not the only prompt you have.

For vid prompts, please list things like genres/styles of music you like (or like in vids), vibes/tone/theme you’d like to see (e.g. “angsty amnesiac Xioage”, “Heisang crack”, etc.), and things like that. Please try to avoid giving one or two specific songs for a specific character/ship.

If you run out of space for your prompts, you can write a prompt post on another platform like Dreamwidth, Tumblr, GoogleDocs, etc. and put the link in your sign up.

If you chose novels as one of your fandoms, you can use this field to list the ones you’re familiar with, such as ‘Books 1-4′ , ‘main series only′, ‘main series + specific extras’, etc.

The requests will be made publicly visible after matching is done, so that others will be able to create treats (additional gifts) based on them!

Offers

Fandom - you have to choose at least one. If you can create works for any canon era, you can choose “Any”!

Genre - you have to choose at least three.

Ratings - you have to choose at least one. This will help matching what people are comfortable creating with what people are comfortable receiving.

Warnings - you have to choose at least one. This does not mean that you have to create a gift with warnings, it's just for helping to match what people are comfortable writing with what people are comfortable receiving.

Optional Details - in this field, you can tell us more about the kind of works you like to create, for example if you really prefer established relationship, feel best with certain kinds of AUs, or like writing darkfic. We’ll take it into account when matching! By the same token, if there’s something you really don’t want to write, let us know here as well.

If you chose novels as one of your fandoms, you can use this field to list the ones you’re familiar with, such as ‘Books 1-4′ , ‘main series only′, ‘main series + specific extras’, etc.

In the optional details of your offer, you can also name people you don’t want to be matched to, for example your regular beta, and we will do our best to avoid matching you!

The offers will only ever be visible to the mods; never to anyone else.

Your Assignment

You will be matched to create a gift for someone who requested at least one of the fandoms that you offer, with as many similar genres/likes as possible. This exchange will be hand-matched, after using AO3’s matching algorithm to first generate the potential matches.

If you have any issues when you receive your assignment (you have a question about it or think there’s an issue with it), contact the mods as soon as possible. Do not contact your recipient on your own.

You will have to create a gift for your recipient, fulfilling the minimum requirements of fandom, genre, and ship, and avoiding any stated “do not wants”. Filling exact prompts is optional, but try to create something matching your recipient’s likes that they will enjoy!

You will have to post your gift to the exchange AO3 collection before the due date (November 17th), using the “gift this work to” option to give it to your recipient. Your work will remain in the collection only visible to you and the mods until the reveals happen. Remember to tag your work appropriately or use the “chose not to warn” warning.

Treating

Treats are additional gifts for the participants! To allow for treating, the requests will be made visible when matching is done. You can create treats at any time until the creator reveals! There are no minimum requirements for treats, and manips/moodboards/etc. are also allowed in addition to fic, art, and vids. As with assignments, you have to respect the recipient’s Do Not Wants, and while the optional details are optional, try to create something fitting the listed likes. One treat can only be gifted to one person.

Pinch Hits

In case someone needs to drop out, we will look for a pinch hitter to complete their assignment. Pinch hits will be posted to this tumblr and the DMBJ Yu Cun Discord.

Extensions

If you think you can finish your assignment, but you need a few days more, you can always ask for an extension!

Multi-Chapter Fics

If you are writing a multi-chapter fic for the exchange and don’t want to drop the entire fic at once, these are the posting guidelines for it:

Multi-chapter fics that are assignment fills must be fully written and at least the first chapter posted by the assignment deadline, ready for the fic reveals on November 25th.

From November 25th, at least one chapter is to be posted daily.

All chapters of the fic must be posted by the time of author reveals and end of treating on December 2nd (If the fic is more than 7 chapters long, then this will mean that multiple chapters will need to be posted on some days).

Multi-chapter fics that are treats can begin to be posted at any time, but must also be fully posted by December 2nd.

Other Important Information

Make sure to check the email you use on AO3 frequently during the exchange, as it will be the primary means of communication. We might contact you if there is an issue with your sign-up or if your gift creator has a question for you.

If you’d rather we contact you on DIscord or Tumblr, please leave your handle in the offer section of your sign-up.

Follow us here to avoid missing an announcement or a deadline!

If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact us here on Tumblr or on Discord.

[tuliptiger]

Not to go back on my bullshit again BUT the writing for TOTK is such absolute dog ass dude. The art, design, and some of the scenes are like really really fucking good. I love so much about it but the things that are bad are like rotten spots in a steak or something. It just poisons everything else about it.

I restarted the game after a lot of debate to try and give it a better shot having some time pasted since the initial release and disappointment. Could you imagine being uhhhh the whatever of wisdom and your dumbass is KILLING the vibe of the tomb under hyrule castle?

Like girl, we have keyboards we have ominous backwards singing, we have gloom and dark and it's getting worst the further we go. Yes it's an exciting discovery but uhhh you see ganon (some dude, to her I guess???) in the bottom center of this shit hole with a magic green hand and you think it's cool to go and take a look around? Completely unrelated to the mural and the demon king I'M SURE. And Link just gets all of this absolutely layed on him like "oh I trust you I know I'll be safe with you" bullshit MAYBE come back later when you're more prepared???? I don't get it

The english translation is shit and the writing certainly doesn't help but like. DUDE it just takes me out of it. How old are they supposed to be in this game??? If they're both 17 ish I guess that covers every dumb decision, I guess, but if they're supposed to be adults I get why hylia ignored Zelda in BOTW. She doesn't have an ounce of wisdom in totk. Not a one.

They did Zelda dirty and they did TOTK so so dirty. Oh god I don't want to keep ripping into it but it's so frustrating. Does anyone else have a different perspective of this game???? I want a different lens so badly like what do you ignore, what story are you going with, does any of that even matter to you or do you just like the gameplay??

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

I don't know if you've ever been asked this question, but I was wondering:

Did you learn to draw somewhere, or were you self-taught? Maybe you have some tips or hints for beginners? What was your favourite thing about drawing?

Sorry if this ask is too personal, but I really like your drawing style and wanted to ask some advice :D Have a good day! 🌸

it's a mix of both, really! i grew up loving art from the very beginning, like. im talking about making teletubbies fanarts and asking my dad to make me learn to draw characters from w.i.t.c.h. and tomb raider fandsndfs, according to my parents i had a pencil in my hands before i even started talking -- and that's what led me to actually learn to draw "properly", first in a art-centered high school (that. did less than good to me tbf but it was a matter of 90% of the art-related teachers being garbage) and the comics academy in torino where i think i started to truly "understand" what i wanted from my art style

if i may give some advices other than the good ol' "keep practicing and try to at least doodle something once a day", i could go with:

don't compare yourself to other artists negatively, especially those younger than you. it's probably the hardest part, but you need to "force yourself" to be positive. if you find yourself thinking "this 14 years old draws better eyes than me", go with "i love how they draw eyes, let's see if i can learn from it"

copy copy copy copyyyyy!!!!! copy from references, copy from photos, copy from comics, copy from movies. of course don't plagiarize people and then present that stuff as your own, but try to make a pose yours and learn to take pictures of your own hands, feet, face or ask people to pose if you can't find the right position

your art will look like shit to you, a LOT of times, but know that at one point you're going to quit. if you don't like what you're drawing, either quit there or restart, don't try to "fix" it because you'll just end up noticing more and more issues with it - issues that, most of the times, aren't even issues to begin with. letting go of perfectionism is very difficult, but at some point you'll have to do that--

and about perfectionism, a VERY good exercise we did in comics school was being forced to "draw fast". this isn't me telling you you NEED to draw as quick as possible, but it's an exercise that forces you to learn quickly where certain body parts go, to prioritize specific details rather than others. we had a model, and at first we had to sit there for an hour drawing her, then the hour became 30 minutes, then 10, then 5, and at the end 1. it took us a few lessons to do that, but at the end the super sketchy 1 minute copy went from ???? to a stylized human figure!!!

learn to draw realistic anatomy, and then make it your own style.

for the love of god learn prespective it's a bore it's a chore but as soon as you learn that everything becomes SO much easier

for shading, just. put a point in the canvas where the light source is and go from there!! if the light is on the right, the shades will be on the left

if you're coloring, play with the shades' colors. a good idea is to use the opposite color you use for the lights - if the light is yellow, the shades look great in purples, for example just don't use pure black unless you wanna go for a more dark/noir aesthetic oh my god

professional comic artists retrace a lot of their backgrounds. i'm js. use this as you wish :)

learn to draw different body shapes!!!! like getting out of the anime phase of "fat people are just like thin people but with a huge belly" can be difficult, but it's very satisfying

go out of your comfort zone. if you have problems drawing horses, spend a few days learning to draw horses. take some pics and try to understand them.

body proportions are so fun once you realize how so many things are the same. generally speaking, your spread hand is as long as your face, your feet and half the size of your arm; the outer corner of your eye is at the same level of your ear, and the inner corner is perpendicular to your nose and the corner of your mouth; if you leave your arm on your side, your elbow is at the same level of your bellybutton, and your fingers reach halfway your thighs. it's so fun

and yea, i can't stress it enough. it'll take time. art is painful, art is stressful, art can be discouraging. take a step at the time, accept some failures and celebrate any good thing - even the smaller ones. you learned to draw hands today, and you should be proud. i tried to draw a cat for the first time and it looks wonky, but the cat you will draw tomorrow will look better. i believe in you

[gafurtle]

Reading Meme

What’s up readers?! How about a little show and tell? Answer these 13 questions, tag 13 lucky readers and if you’re feeling extra bookish add a shelfie! Let’s Go!

Tagged by @lucymonster - thank you!

1. The last book I read

I'm rereading The Murderbot Diaries (again...), so I just finished Book 3 and am now reading Book 4.

2. A book I recommend

I mean...I always love when people try out the Cosmere, or I've been recommending Gideon the Ninth to people lately.

3. A book I couldn't put down

I started the Murderbot Diaries because @round-hatches-are-terrifying kept posting about it and I was going on a trip with a long flight and needed something to read. So I started the first book...and more or less read all seven books nonstop over the next week. Like, I had to take breaks because I was on the trip visiting family and we did things all day, but pretty much every spare moment I was reading...and then I just restarted it immediately. Twice. So, uh. That one.

4. A book I've read twice (or more)

I reread books a lot. I've read most of the Cosmere series twice, and I'm working on my third read-through of the Stormlight Archive. I've read the Locked Tomb books twice. I've read the Discworld books over and over again too. I mean, when I really like a series, rereading feels like I get to hang out with the characters more, so I reread a LOT.

5. A book on my TBR

I have GOT to read White Sands. It's the only Cosmere book that eludes me. I need to get my butt to a library and check it out because I tried reading it on my phone and it was terrible.

6. A book I've put down

I've had some bad luck in the past with starting a book on a trip and then not finishing it and then a lot of time passes and I just never go back. I did that with Dune, I know. And a book with clockwork birds in the title I think? My brother really wanted me to read that, but I just fell out of the habit and it felt hard to go back. I did that with Life of Pi too.

7. A book on my wish list

Like to buy? I'm not sure what differentiates TBR and wish list. Oh! I guess the Murderbot short stories? I don't know how to get them ha ha. And I really look forward to when Stormlight 5 and Alecto the Ninth come out.

8. A favorite book from childhood

The Dark is Rising series. A book I loved so much that I am too afraid to go back because what if it is terribe.

9. A book you would give to a friend

I loaned Tress of the Emerald Sea to a friend recently! Honestly, I'd like to loan out the Secret Project Sanderson books since they're an easier in to the Cosmere.

10. A book of poetry or lyrics that you own

I was a classics major, so I have a lot of Greek & Latin poetry on my shelves. Other than that, I've never been into reading poetry, to be honest.

11. A nonfiction book that you own

More classics books, I'm afraid. Like I have histories and books of scholarships and textbooks and all of that.

12. What are you currently reading

The Murderbot Diaries. Again. 😅 Exit Strategy, probably my favorite!

13. What are you planning on reading next

T-The rest of the Murderbot Diaries.... And then soon Stormlight 5 will be out! And one of these days I'm going to get the library and try to get White Sand...

Tagging @round-hatches-are-terrifying and @interstellar-interloper my mbd buds. I'd be curious to hear from @cosmereplay and @imtheseventh and @zibus if you folks are interested too! @spikeface if you want!

[lunanoc]

Hey there! Your posts about heihua and xiao hua in particular have made me curious and I've only started book 7, so I didn’t get too much og book xiao hua (I have watched all the dramas though). Would you mind talking about him (and/or them) a little more? I'd love to read that!

And if not, then I hope you still have a great day :)

hi! i'd be happy to talk more about xiao hua and hei xiazi in the books if you're interested in my take on them (which honestly thank you i'm flattered you'd want it tbh 😂) so thanks for asking (sorry in advance for how horribly long this is)

before i say anything though, a few disclaimers:

while i do like him, xiao hua is technically not my ultimate blorbo (that's wu xie) so because the brainrot is less intense i'm not gonna pretend i'm an expert on all things xiao hua compared to some other people i can think of. same goes for heihua, which is a ship i do like but more passively, so again, not enough brainrot to be a super expert

i haven't read everything they're involved in yet, so for complete transparency, i'm currently about halfway through sha hai in my chronological order read of everything, and anything after that point i've read in bits and pieces only (like various extras, bits of yucun biji etc), so i notably haven't read flowery night. as far as heihua goes, the only thing i've read where they directly interact extensively is the beginning portion of what's considered restart part 2 aka the mute village storyline, but to my knowledge they don't really interact in real time before that point or barely. so i won't be talking about flowery night or the dragon vein trilogy that takes place after restart

any quotes will be pulled from merebear's translations of the dmbj books

i won't be avoiding spoilers so spoiler warning

NOW

with that out of the way, let's talk about book xiao hua and a little about book heihua. i'll be comparing to mostly ultimate note in terms of the adaptations but i'll try not to get too much into that, so the tldr of it is just to bear in mind their dynamic and xiao hua's character in that are significantly different in some ways from how they are in the books. if you want a good drama portrayal of book xiao hua imo the best by far is lost tomb 2 xiao hua even if even he isn't 100% perfect either. anyway i'm getting off track 🏃‍♀️

since you mentioned book 7, it's worth mentioning for anyone unfamiliar with the books that canonically xiao hua shows up for the first time fairly late in the story at the start of chinese volume 7, more specifically the xinyue restaurant auction, while hei xiazi briefly features in chinese volumes 4 and 5 as part of wu sanxing's double agent team along with xiaoge, but by comparison you don't get much about him besides that he's mysterious and competent on a scale wu xie equates with xiaoge. wu xie and hei xiazi don't interact much, so he's pratically not there and leaves you wondering what relevance he has to the story, which is only ever answered come sha hai. and more importantly at that point, there's no established connection between him and xiao hua at all, which is the major difference with the drama adaptations, namely ultimate note. you do find out later, both in sha hai and a thousand faces, that they're at the very least acquainted with each other to some extent, but that's information you only get much later. so essentially any heihua content pre sha hai is necessarily canon divergence au, and yes that includes ultimate note

xiao hua as a character then. it's interesting to note that he's fascinating in how eeriely similar he ends up being to hei xiazi in some respects, namely in how they operate, which is why i feel they get along as well as they do, but let's look at him independently first because there's a lot to say about him.

keeping in mind that the books are all, exceptions aside, from wu xie's perspective, xiao hua isn't named until fairly late into book 7. they meet by chance as they cross paths in xinyue restaurant, but he doesn't introduce himself to wu xie who calls him Pink Shirt until you reach a much later portion of the book that's never been adapted simply because ultimate note changed the story too significantly by introducing him early to keep that entire bit, which is terrible in some ways because it's such a fun scene, but we'll get to that later. in the meantime, here's xiao hua's first appearence, which establishes through frequent paralleled behavior that the reader is meant to preceive some degree of similarity between wu xie and xiao hua as well, which i'll also get to later:

Just as I was about to speak, the man saw Poker-face behind me and his face instantly changed. I thought he knew Poker-Face, but when I was about to start asking questions, I saw a man come out from behind Poker-Face. He must have followed us in. The man was dressed in a black suit with a pink shirt underneath and no tie. He was very relaxed. The man went up immediately and asked, “Young Master, the usual?” The man didn’t speak, but looked at me and stopped. I suddenly felt that he was a little familiar. I lived in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, so I honestly didn’t have a lot of chances to meet acquaintances in Beijing. At this moment, my mind was stuck, and I couldn’t remember who this man was, but I smiled reflexively. The man had obviously stopped like me, and was looking at me with a very surprised and puzzled expression on his face before he also smiled. (...) The both of us smiled pervertedly at each other for a long time, but neither recognized the other. Honestly, when I looked at him, I felt as if I had seen him somewhere before. But on closer reflection, that was all it was. I simply felt that he was familiar. (...) The two of us shared a look, but we really couldn’t remember, and were both a little embarrassed. The old fellow with glasses was amused. These old Beijingers were slick and had seen all kinds of things. He gave us a roundabout: “Do the two young masters know each other? Let’s not stand here blocking the elevator door. When you meet someone you know, you’ll remember.” As he said this, he invited the other party in. Pink Shirt shook his head as if it was inconceivable, looked at me thoughtfully, and then turned and walked into the inner hall. He had only taken a few steps when he looked back at me again. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 6 'Auction' & 7 'Auction Part II'

much like hei xiazi, xiao hua is established as mysterious and somewhat unfathomable in a way that niggles at wu xie who can't remember why it is he recongnizes this man he to all intents and purposes should never have met given they don't run in the same circles and live in areas quite far apart. he takes note of how apparently disinterested he is when he notices that xiao hua is sitting across the iron triangle on the upper floor of the auction house, seemingly on his phone utterly bored out of his mind or acting like he's above what's happening really:

I looked carefully and saw Pink Shirt in a box on the left side opposite us. It seemed that he was alone and playing on his cell-phone. (...) Basically, it seemed like this was the only item being sold today, so all these people had come prepared to win. Thinking that, I looked at Pink Shirt, who wasn’t far away. He was no longer playing with his phone, but arrogantly sitting on a western-style sofa, and staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 8 'Feast for Collectors', 9 'Memories Part I

but of course he's very much paying attention, as pangzi points out:

He took no notice at all, and simply wiped it with his hand and continued: “It’s time for a break, and when the second half comes, I bet another two million gets added. Goddamn it, this Fat Master has learned a lot today.” (...) He pointed to Pink Shirt again. “This guy is also very good. He’s been playing with his phone the whole time and hasn’t even raised his head. He rang the last bell just before the break. It seems he’s determined to win and doesn’t even want to compete. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 11 'Lighting the Sky Lantern'

and this is where we come back to how in some aspects he and hei xiazi are actually quite similar in their approach, in a way that's markedly different from how ultimate note sets out to contrast them almost glaringly. both he and xiao hua cultivate a persona of nonchalence with a devil may care attitude, but behind the false ease and approchability, there's a calculating and efficient mind aware of its surroundings at all times. in a similar way, very quickly you also realize that xiao hua, far from the prim and proper young master he's presented as in ultimate note, is quite literally just as unhinged.

from the moment xiaoge jumps into action to fight the restaurant security staff for the qilin seal, xiao hua jumps to fight him too, except contrary to ultimate note, this isn't in an effort to save face and throw huo xiangu off because he's working with wu xie, and again, he shows himself to be calculating and cautious:

Between one thought and the next, Poker-face flashed like lightning from my side and jumped straight down from the second-floor balcony. His behavior left me stunned, and screams could be heard everywhere. I saw him make it to the ground and turn over swiftly before I heard another round of exclamations. I turned to look and saw Pink Shirt had one hand holding the railing of the gallery, while the other hand was in his pocket. He also jumped down and landed in front of Poker-face. On the other side, Fatty gave a loud roar, grabbed a stool, kicked down the screen, and rushed at the hotel staff who rushed in. The scene was a complete mess. (...) A man who rushed up was knocked down by Poker-face, and Pink Shirt was protecting the front of the glass cabinet. The two men looked at each other but hadn't yet come to blows. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 11 'Lighting the Sky Lantern', 12 'Wreaking Havoc in Heaven'

until wu xie finally manages to get downstairs with pangzi, at which point he finds xiao hua, ass handed to him by xiaoge because it's xiaoge, but instead of angry or surprised or any number of appropriate reactions at being beaten up, the maniac is smiling gleefully. and wu xie understandably thinks it's really fcking weird:

When I came downstairs, the glass cabinet with the seal had been broken and the thing inside had been taken out. Poker-face was looking at the seal carefully and had no intention of leaving. Pink Shirt was getting up from the ground, clutching his neck and coughing. It appeared he had already been beaten once. When we walked past him, however, we saw him coughing, smiling, and looking at us as if he were very happy. I went up to the stage and told Poker- face to take the seal and get away quickly. As soon as I turned around, I saw Pink Shirt approach me and say, “Hey, Brother.” Fatty and I looked at him. Fatty lifted the table and Pink Shirt immediately waved, “Wait, wait!” He took a business card from his pocket, handed it to us, and pointed to the imperial seal. “I won’t stop you. Here’s my contact information. When you want to sell the stolen goods, call me.” Damn it, I said to myself, definitely not a serious person. Fatty actually went up and took the business card, and Pink Shirt made a gesture of invitation. I was so anxious that I pushed them aside and rushed out. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 13 'Huo Xiuxiu'

it's at this point we also get introduced to huo xiuxiu (best girl who i could also talk tbh) who's also an absolute gremlin who teams up with xiao hua partly at huo xiangu's behest to test the iron triangle. which is where get into the entire portion of book that couldn't be adapted, and is the part the ultimate note actually changed significantly, because the iron triangle aren't on the run from huo xiangu, she's the one sheltering them. and so xiao hua's real introduction comes in the form of an elaborate scheme between him, huo xiuxiu, and huo xiangu wherein he disguises himself as huo xiuxiu thanks to the bone-shrinking technique, so successfully even xiaoge doesn't detect it until all three of them clue into something being very wrong, at which point he attacks them, gets his ass handed to him by xiaoge again, and once again finds it hilarious and the challenge has made him want xiaoge around clearly:

He staggered but didn’t fall to the ground. At the same time, I suddenly saw him pull a strange dagger from his sleeve, which seemed to be an antique. Holding it in a reverse grip, he rushed towards Poker-face. I immediately shouted “Be careful!” only to see that Poker-face was no longer in his original position. At the same time, a lightning-quick shadow flashed through the air and instantly knocked the man out with his knee. (...) I knew that the real malicious one was this guy, so I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for him as I helped Poker-face subdue him first. When “Xiuxiu” got up from the ground, his whole body suddenly stretched out in a strange posture. He suddenly got bigger, his shoulders widened, his height increased, and the mask was torn from his face. When I looked at him, I immediately recognized Pink Shirt. He was gasping as he laughed: “It hurts way more getting hit when shrunk to that size. No joke.” (...) Pink Shirt rubbed his joints, smiled, and then came up to me and patted me on the shoulder. He turned and nodded to Granny Huo: “Yes, you have a good eye.” Then he pointed to Poker-face and said, “This guy belongs to me." — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 30 'Get Down to Business'

so essentially, all this was a very long-winded way of showing that xiao hua, before we even know his name and identity, is established as unpredictable, ruthless, calculating, faux insouciant, and a particular flavor of playful that wu xie clearly finds unhinged and is extremely put off by for a hot minute, mostly because he's not aware (not is the reader at this point) that xiao hua's entire life has forged him into finding amusement and challenge in unorthodox things.

in the same way, it's directly because of this that contrary to ultimate note (and even any of the other early dramas like lost tomb 2) he's also absolutely not immediately ride or die for wu xie despite knowing very well they're childhood friends. he abandons wu xie, who as per his assessment was in all likelihood dead or dying, to secure his own escape before coming back to find him, which is the point where wu xie finally realizes the single greatest point of divergence between them. up until then, both wu xie and the narrative make a point of establishing parallels between wu xie and xiao hua, and here finally, what divides them is made clear, and the narrative establishes them as two sides of the same coin separated by this one split in personal code of ethics:

He apparently didn’t rush to check on my situation after I fell into a coma, but continued to climb inside instead. He reached the end of the crevice, completed his task, and then came out to see if I was dead or not. I couldn’t help but feel a little upset. I didn’t know whether this could be considered a ruthless or firm mentality, but he obviously didn’t feel burdened by it. I had finally found a difference between the two of us. But since I didn’t have the physical strength and didn’t want to break our tacit understanding, I didn’t bother expressing this emotion. I knew that when it came to this industry, the habit of desperately rescuing your companions didn’t exist. There seemed to be a kind of prior agreement where two people decided to save themselves if both parties were in danger. It was actually very fair if you thought about it. It was true that Xiao Hua was uncertain about my situation at the time, and even I would hesitate to go back and rescue someone if I were him. I couldn’t help thinking of Fatty and Poker-face again. If they were here, the black-haired corpse would’ve had his head cut off before he could scratch my back. Or I would have seen Fatty rush out from those pottery jars and screw everything up. But I would have been saved. At that moment, I felt an extreme sense of insecurity, more than I had felt before. Although we were three people now, I was really only responsible for myself. It was a very disconcerting thought. At the same time, I suddenly understood why Xiao Hua hadn’t been grateful but angry at me for going into the cave to save him. He was used to solving his problems by himself. Before he did these kinds of things, he had already accepted that there wouldn’t be any backup or help. He wouldn’t blame anyone for his own death, nor would he blame himself for others’ death. Was this the Mystic Nine’s mindset? I felt a chill in my heart. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 53 'Snake Bite'

and to be clear, this doesn't mean xiao hua is a bad person, nor does the narrative present him as one. it's simply the point where both wu xie and xiao hua diverge clearly when up until then they'd been presented as eerily paralleled. the difference between lies in where this mentality and stance is one that will eventually cause wu xie much grief and trauma when he's forced to adopt it during sha hai, it's simply one that xiao hua adopted too long ago to function without, and has stopped dwelling on if he ever did. similarly, xiao hua takes even longer to finally look at wu xie and see his use and welcome his presence genuinely, where before he'd still been cultivating the same easily approchable persona, though wu xie poked several holes into it before then:

Xiao Hua gave me a meaningful smile, “I found another reason why Granny Huo asked me to bring you. To some extent, you’re also a knowledgeable little shit.” I grinned, thinking that these words made it sound like he didn’t want me to be here before. — Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 55 'Unlock the Password'

from there, once xiao hua begins to truly open up to wu xie as a friend rather than a burden he's been forced into babysitting, he very quickly picks up on their similarities and what divides them as well, and in a show of almost uncharacteristic mercy, tries to spare wu xie from the ruthlessness he's accustomed to adopting to an extent when wu xie is forced to impersonate wu sanxing and confront just how ugly and lawless the underground business is. it's why this particular scene with panzi is incredibly touching in that despite confronting him with the responsability behind his choices, he spares wu xie from having to have literal blood on his hands, and in that way spares the version of himself he could have been had life not twisted him the way it has:

“Tonight is the key,” Xiao Hua said. “We just need a person to ‘cash’ in on our ‘achievement.’ Pan Zi has to come forward to determine how many people are on our side. Then, Wang Ba Qiu and Lao Liu will be eliminated later tonight.” I was completely shocked, “What do you mean?” “Never put something off until tomorrow. This is Master Three’s rule and Wang Ba Qiu knows it very well. He won’t wait for death.” As Xiao Hua spoke, he looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain blood tonight.” I gave him a surprised look, “You can say such terrible words without batting an eye. How do you do it?” Xiao Hua smiled, “My grandfather said that sentence, and my mother relayed it to me. I was only seventeen when I heard those words.” As he said this, he sighed, “Stress is the kind of thing that when you talk about it, it’s gone.” I frowned and felt a sudden burst of fear in my heart. I never thought this kind of thing would happen again. “Must it happen like this?” I asked him. “Why don’t we call the police anonymously and have them kill him?” “Mr. Naïve is a fitting nickname,” Xiao Hua said. “If I were your Uncle Three, I might have found a way to keep you naïve, but I’m not. Little Master Three, let’s face reality. This was your choice.” I was silent as I looked at Changsha passing by outside the car window. I remembered that Pan Zi had said something similar to me before. Indeed, this was my choice. (...) While we ate, I asked Xiao Hua when the evening’s events would begin. He merely smiled without saying a word and kept making me drink. It was a kind of wine I couldn’t identify by taste, but I suspected it was mung bean roast, which was the kind of beverage grave robbers used to drink. Not only did it have some crystallized sugar and medicinal ingredients in it, but it had a spicy flavor and tasted like mung bean soup. After only a few drinks, I got drunk without warning and didn’t even notice when I became muddle-headed.  When I woke up, it was already the next morning. Xiao Hua and Pan Zi were lying on the sofa in my room, both covered in blood and sleeping soundly. I looked out the window at the bright sunshine and knew that everything was over. — Daomu Biji Volume 8 Part I, ch. 10 'End of the Act'

looking at all this (and this is is my purely my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt), my main issue with ultimate note xiao hua (and heihua by extension which i'll get into briefly) is that he's not only in some aspects a little to a lot OOC, he's mostly a lot more one-dimensional where book xiao hua is anything but

as far as heihua as a ship goes, they don't actually interact much if at all until much later in canon, even if you interestingly discover in sha hai that it's implied that hei xiazi is working with wu xie on the sha hai project at xiao hua's behest, and that much of his trust in wu xie and his plan stems from xiao hua's trust in wu xie:

It was really a heavy loss. Why did he encounter such tragic consequences every time he tried to emulate Lei Feng67 and do good deeds, while doing unethical things often made him a lot more money? Was he being cheated by partnering up with Xie Yuchen and Wu Xie? He found it very interesting. He seldom completely ignored the details and promised others he’d do something. If he was part of a certain plan, then he had to know every aspect very well— not only his part but the others’ parts as well This was the only time he was doing something he knew almost nothing about, and the only reason was: “You just have to trust him.” He hoped doing this wasn’t a stupid decision. If this thing failed, then he would blacken the Wu family’s and Xie Yuchen’s credit himself. — Sand Sea Part III, ch. 117 'Fleeing Cockroaches'

there's also a fun bit in part I where hei xiazi, before disappearing to retrieve wu xie and wang meng from beneath the sand in gutongjing, leaves li cu with a backpack and a phone with one number he tells him to call for help, and once li cu actually calls it, you understand it's xiao hua on the other end who's entirely nonchalent about it:

Li Cu trembled as he picked up the phone, pressed the call button on reflex, and put it by his ear. After a while, he heard a voice from the other side say: “Who is it? Who called me just now?” “Well…I’m a messenger.” Li Cu said incoherently. “Someone asked me to give you a message.” He thought that after hearing this, the other party would reply to him and say “talk” or “wait a minute, I’ll find a quiet place” in a very low, solemn voice, but the other party said indifferently: “I’m a little busy now, can you call me back in thirty minutes?” Li Cu paused for a moment and thought, you’re even giving me orders now, before he said, “But this message is very important.” “My business is also quite important. If he’s really in such a hurry, why not come to me instead of asking you to call and give me a message?” The other party continued, “I’ll talk to you in thirty minutes. It’s okay if you don’t call.” At this point, the man hung up. — Sand Sea Part I, ch. 40 'Unique Number'

and it's arguable that much of the vagueness stems from the very real necessity of secrecy that the whole sha hai plan demands, but while much of this reads as "oh? he's inconvenienced? that's too bad, also i'm busy at the moment please call back at a better time", given how his character has been established before, it's safe to say this isn't the genuine annoyance and exasperation you get from him in ultimate note wherever hei xiazi is concerned, he's far too enticed by chaos as a form of vaguely perverse amusement. it reads far more (again in my opinion) as how much of heihua's dynamic that i've seen play out in the books goes, that is to say them prodding at each other in a giant mutual game of chicken where they're both grinning inwardly or outwardly like the gremlin trashmen they are

the entire premise of restart part 2 is the iron triangle and the baby triangle needling xiao hua into gossiping about hei xiazi because he's late to their get together, to which he happily complies because oh boy that's this week's chance at getting a tally on the prod sheet.

i'm not entirely sure this is coherent or at all what you were looking for, and is definitely way too long woops, but uh. that's my xiao hua/heihua word vomit? i guess? book xiao hua and/or heihua enthusiasts are very welcome to add onto or debate any of this, i leave the rest to the real experts 😂

[spockandawe]

I’m a fairly beginner bookbinder (I’ve done pamphlets and coptic bindings with paper and book cloth) and your posts about the k118 binding are incredibly compelling. I’m currently typesetting a fic that I’m going to need to break into two 500 page volumes and wanted to try doing a case binding for them. Would the k118 be too difficult as a starting place for case bindings?

Oooh. Let me see! This is a slightly tricky question, because until you get into the mechanics of how all the pieces are assembled, it isn't clear how k118 and casebindings differ. It's like one of those things where you look at two identical animals and are like 'what do you MEAN they aren't related???' I'm going to go into probably unnecessary detail below, but the bottom line up front is that I don't think the k118 will be a good choice until you have some more experience with either hardcovers with closed spines (no matter how a style tackles it, this complicates construction compared to coptic). But I like the k118 binding a lot, so I want to explain why I think that and what the big hurdles to reach that point are!

First, here's the post that I was sent when I first learned about k118, and then here's a link to a tag on the blog of another bookbinder who enjoyed playing with this style. I learned primarily from that first link, but I've also fumbled my way through some similar styles before, which i drew on to bridge the gap between pictures and instructions. I believe this is the DAS video where I learned about covering tightbacked leather bindings. The other times before k118 that I've done this, I did laced on boards where I sewed on cords and then threaded those cords through my cover boards to fix them in place (very cool, but hard, and messier than I anticipated)

Once a k118 is done, it will look a lot like a rounded casebound book! But the distinction is that k118 is built and covered right on the text block (similar to a coptic binding), and a casebinding involves building the case (cover boards and spine stiffener, plus covering material) completely separately from your text block, and the final step is uniting them. I do like casebindings a lot, I do a lot of flat-backed styles where a spine board makes things look nice and crisp, and I can zone out and build a case on autopilot.

These are my cases for 2ha, for example. I made all thirteen of them and finished the covering material like this, and if one of them had gotten fucked, I could have restarted that case without the text block being affected at all. I like these a lot, they're probably 99% of what I've made!

Now, I don't have photos of how tightbacked bindings are covered, because even for k118 they're a sweaty-palmed race against time where you wrap a wet, floppy, adhesive-soaked piece of material around a three-dimensional object, and try not to get adhesive on your pages or the outside of the material. I might have done it with bookcloth, but it's really a style meant for leather and wheat paste. You usually make an ad hoc sheath for your text block so that they're shielded while the covers are free, but my locked tomb book definitely has a spot where paste got on the edges anyways!

Both casebinding and k118 use a text block where the spine is stabilized with glue first, so it will have fewer wiggles than a coptic book. I start with the book spine up, and take my pasted out covering material, and lower it centered over the spine. That helps me keep the material overall centered as the book object gets more complicated to handle, and if you're using leather (which stretches), you can tug downward at both covers to keep things taut and crisp. I don't think the process is terrible so far, though it may be tricky if you aren't used to such demanding glue control! The tough part is doing the turn-ins, which is where the DAS video will be much more informative than I'm about to be.

Now, your book has material glued to it along the spine and both covers. There should be flappy overhangs on all edges, and odds are good that some paste has squished out onto these even if you were careful. This is the part where using paste specifically is important, since it has a slower dry time than pva - when you paste out your turn-ins, at the head and tail of the spine, you'll need to pull your covering material away from the spine to make a space for that material to tuck in. It will go around the cover boards but underneath the spine. this is always a tricky mess, I keep a clean poking tool on hand so I can prod material into the gap, because my fingers won't want to fit. Also, as you're feeding material into the glue hole, you're trying not to get adhesive on the outside of the book. A damp cloth can save things if you spot it fast, and wheat paste will wipe off leather, but pva or fabric will be less forgiving. Bookcloth is also less forgiving for being pulled up and repositioned that way, there's a reason I didn't photograph the spine on efface the footprints!

I don't want to be discouraging here! I think the style is VERY doable, but it's still a hike in difficulty where mistakes will be punished with glue. I tried a tightbacked binding with boards sewn on cords at a point where I was already very confident with casebindings, with leather that was a gift and not a purchase, and still got punched hard in the ego. If you do want to dive into traditional style leather bindings, then yes, absolutely recommend this style. It's much easier than laced on boards, I just recommend watching das's videos on covering books like these, and edge paring leather is its own skill set I'm still not very good at.

(also, if you want to pursue leather, material sourcing gets complicated. 1-2 oz veg tanned goat leather is ideal, you won't want it more then ~1.5 mm thick if possible, and then you're SUPPOSED to pare parts thinner with specialty knives (or sand them). Bookbinding stores will sell this stuff for wild amounts of money, or it's possible to find affordable hides elsewhere, but it is definitely a niche product. Cow hides are not worth it. Vellum sourcing is also annoying, my current books have been done with vellum PAPER, so we'll see how long they live. I'm optimistic! But true vellum can be purchased as scraps or offcuts from calligraphy places, or a comment from a conservationist on one of my prior posts recommended tyvek)

If you want to to work with bookcloth and paper, I strongly recommend working with casebindings or other adhesive-heavy styles until you're comfortable enough with those to get adventurous. A casebound book can be rounded as well to deal with spine swell! If a book is flat-backed, the case is worked flat and you don't have to deal with the third dimension until you glue it to your text block. If you have a curved spine, you probably want to pre-curve your spine stiffener a little first, but it's still MOSTLY flat. This style is still going to be most of what I make! I'm planning to keep k118 for books that need to open flat af (two pending wedding guestbooks, which is why I was testing it so hard here), or for full leather bindings. It's much, much nicer than the other tightbacked styles I've tried so far, but all of them are still an escalation in difficulty and fuss from my usual books!

Tl;dr, if you want to go hard on leather, i do recommend this, but advise you watch LOTS of reference material on leather first. Leather is very complicated and annoying, the learning curve is real, but I find it VERY rewarding to work with. If you want to stick to cloth and paper, I think it might be a discouraging jump in difficulty for the moment, but could still be in reach soon! A lot of my rhapsodizing comes from that lingering frustration/anxiety of my first struggles with tightbacked bindings, and I would hate to set someone up for that same pit trap when it isn't necessary.

There we are, that's enough wall of text for now! I hope something in here is helpful. I think a casebinding is your best bet for this project, and VERY attainable, but if your heart is set on learning k118 someday, I don't think it's FAR out of reach. I just want you to have a good time with this big project!! :D

[rigelmejo]

Things Read 2023

I thought it'd be kind of fun to do a little collage of some of the things read in 2023. Because pictures entice and maybe one of these will look interesting to you, and maybe I'll just feel slightly more motivated the next time I try to read something.

First row: Easiest novels to read, I highly recommend if you're a beginner. 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 (any book in this series).

Second row: also fairly easy, though maybe not for total beginners? (Unless you want). 小王子 (which was the first non-graded reader novel I read in chinese, and in retrospect I wish I'd started with the books above instead... but this was still readable as a beginner, I read it in paper form to stop myself from looking words up and it was still a doable read), 盗墓笔记重启 （幽默漫画）a very cute domestic side stories for dmbj set during chongqi, extremely easy to read if you know the character names. 他们的故事/Their Story by Tan Jiu, a cute slice of life girls falling in love story, it's setting makes it quite easy to read.

Third row: manhua that are a bit harder, but still probably very readable if you're not looking to work hard and sink into a novel. 19天, bl and funny af, set in school so common vocab but the jokes land better as u understand more, I also love the art. 破云  1 and 2, they're kind of hard to read in that this manhua has a page just for niche word definitions in the front, but it's easier to read than the novel it's based on. I thought it was a fun way to enjoy the story while I waded much more slowly through the novel version. Similarly, I've been reading the 烈火浇愁 manhua (not pictured) on and off since I can get further in the manhua than the novel before running out of steam. There's a lot of manhua on the Bilibili Comics app, and that's definitely an option if you're into manhua too if you like a novel premise but aren't quite ready to tackle the novel (or want to check out the manhua too). Also, sometimes on bilibili.com you can find videos of manhua with voice acting and music, which can be nice.

Fourth row: some novels I'm still in progress with lol. I read 盗墓笔记 books 1, 2, and half of 3 in 2023. I'm continuing along, and maybe eventually I'll get to sha hai. If you plan to read/watch more in the tomb raiding or supernatural genre anyway, I highly recommend reading. dmbj is not that hard to read, new words usually pop up early and then are repeated enough that you learn them within a few chapters, which makes the following chapters easier and easier. By the time I was through book 1, I switched from looking up unknown words to looking up no words and just guessing from context and it went fine. npss also writes in an easy style to read once you get used to a few wordings/slang. A lot of the words I learned from dmbj were helpful with other supernatural genre stuff I read, since I like to read that kind of stuff. 撒野, both harder than I thought it'd be and easier. It is very doable of a read as far as following the main idea of the plot, after you've read a few other novels (like row 1) or gotten comfortable with daily life words. It does some beautiful stuff though with the writing style, and detail, that's more noticeable upon re-reads. I've restarted this novel like 4 times because each time I picked it up again my reading skill had improved, and the writing felt different upon reading. If you can watch chinese shows with chinese subtitles you can read this without looking words up, but if you do encounter unknown words this was a novel I found the unknown words were frequently useful and worth learning. I'd say it's very approachable, it's just the chapters are quite long so it's always a painful reminder of how slow my reading speed is. It's about two teenage guys who meet and fall for each other, and it's also about their families and personal struggles and very character focused which I love. After this novel, I plan to check out the other novels by this author. And of course, still, 镇魂. Look, I keep reading the whole first arc, then taking a break, then re-reading the whole first arc. I need to stop being a perfectionist about understanding and catching every detail, and just move forward. I've read my print version about 2 times to the end of the sundial arc, and the web version about 2 times. I've yet again reached the end of the sundial arc as of December 2023, and hopefully I just move forward at this point. I wont say it's an 'easy' read, but I will say I picked up so much of my initial reading vocabulary from this and Tian Ya Ke, that priest's preferred writing vocabulary and particular way of phrasing sentences is more familiar to me than any other author's. So now I have a much easier time reading priest's other novels. And in the case of Zhen Hun, I know 98% of the words more or less on any given page. So yes, it's a bit silly I keep combing over to try and understand more details. (In my defense, I've been combing over the AUDIO my last read through, to try and get my listening vocabulary comprehension closer to my reading vocabulary level - I figured it was a good novel to do this with since I know nearly every word reading-wise in the sundial arc at this point). Anyway... when will I finish reading Zhen hun? Ask me when the last official english translation book is published. Because I'm waiting to read the english until I finish it in chinese first. So no doubt when the english is totally out I'll probably rush through anything I didn't finish so it's easier for me to compare. (You'd think I'd do that for Sha Po Lang and... lol you're not wrong... that's why I haven't started reading SPLs official english translation yet... I want to dig out my chinese print book and compare). Tldr: Zhen hun is one of the easier priest books to start with, all things considered. Or Tian Ya Ke. I started with both, and they're still easier reads to me than Dage and Sha Po Lang and Can Ci Pin.

Special mention:

I also read 2 pingxie fanfictions, 半夜衣寒 and 寒舍 by 夏灬安兰. The first story is shorter by far, both are around as easy to read as dmbj or a bit easier, and they're supernatural au in everyday life so a lot of the words are applicable to either the real world, or to books in genres like dmbj.

I also read/watched many a voice-acted manhua video on bilibili over the last year. Bilibili algorithm recommends me tons of bl, and supernatural mystery stuff, so I'd click on manhua compilation videos when bored and use the voice acting speed to get myself to read faster than I would if I were just reading the manhua in silence. I found a pretty cool horror manhua, but upon making this post I checked bilibili and the compilation I saved was deleted. If I find it again I'll post a link. It was a college student who just moved to the city, and he meets this ancient guy who may be a demon/guardian sort of thing, and the city is just full of haunting and awful deaths and misfortune going on. It was both scary and full of comedy, which was fun.

[shin-the-loser]

Alright but not to post fandom stuff on main but

In the most recent Empires episode from Mythicalsausage, when Sausage is saying goodbye to Hermit!Pearl he gets a flashback to Season 1 of Empires, specifically the end of it where Queen Pearl of Gilded Helianthia burns to death, as her kingdom is burning down and she is intrinsically connected to it.

Distraught by the death of his friend and the world ending, Sausage uses his Blood Sheep sorcery (I think, I didn't watch him in season 1) to go to a space between times from which he can travel through time and space and attempt to change the timeline so Pearl doesn't die.

Unfortunately, it never works.

"The days turn to weeks. The weeks turn to months, and the months turn to years. Realities were shattered. Dimensions were crossed. Time was... manipulated throughout this journey. But the results were always the same. I could never fix it.

Pearl could never be saved.

It's almost like an absolute point in reality, that is forever unchangeable. "

Now I might be reading into this. And this very well might not be a reference at all, but this struck a chord as being rather similar to an anime I watched when I was a teenager: Puella Magi Madoka Magica. In this anime, a girl named Homura travels hundreds of times through time in an attempt to stop the end of the world and to save Madoka, the girl she loves.

But over time, this causes consequences she doesn't anticipate. Every time she restarts the timeline to save Madoka, Madoka only becomes more entangled in the fate of the universe, and only grows more important, and thus more powerful, even if she doesn't know it as she has no memory of the prior timelines.

By the end of the original series (there's a lot of stuff that came after it but I never got the chance to really watch it RIP) Madoka herself learns what has occurred, and uses all the power that she has inadvertently accumulated to effectively rewrite the world by wishing to Kyuubey that Witches would not exist anymore: she would take their suffering and they would be able to pass on peacefully. She would not have been able to do this if Homura hadn't rewritten time around her so many times. But when she does this, she is effectively written out of reality and ascends to a higher plane of existence.

I can't help but wonder if, by Sausage trying for decades to rewrite time and save Pearl, he may have done something similar. By focusing so many timelines on saving Pearl's life, he may have made Pearl, who was already rather strong, so inadvertently powerful that she was able to rise to the level of a Saint, if not a God.

Maybe Sausage is the reason that Santa Perla exists in the first place. Maybe the Sausage buried in the tomb of Santa Perla is the time traveler himself, left to rest in peace after decades of service to her.

Suppose the content creators left a lot of it up to speculation for a reason, though. But damn am I fascinated. I wonder if any of these similarities were intentional or if I'm just reading too far into it. Either way it's super cool and I love the story they're telling.

[ridl]

9, 17, and 22 for the video game asks :3

Thanks for the ask, anon!! answers under the cut

9. A game you played completely blind with no prior knowledge of and enjoyed/loved

Rain world is probably a good example. All i did was a brief glance at the steam page (it has creatures! i like creatures) and add to my wishlist, until my friend bought it for me as a gift. When i started playing i thought i'd be just a fun little platformer, but it turned out to be the most unique gaming experience ever, and became my absolute favorite game! I love it so much.

Also currently i'm playing ff7 and idk how i avoided all the spoilers for years, but i'm enjoying my blind playthrough a lot! The story is surprising me hhh

17. A game you didn’t finish but would like to get back to or restart someday

I played old tomb raider 1 and 2 for a little bit, and i'm actually planning on playing the whole old trilogy after ff7 bc i just bought the remastered collection! (it's finally on a good steam sale, it ends in 25 hrs if ur interested). Sometimes i just start a game and then decide i'm not feeling it at the moment, so i leave it for later when i can fully focus and enjoy it. Otherwise i finish most games if i like them.

22. A game ending that’s really stuck with you

Rain World again, but also more recently Signalis! They made me quite emotional and left me in that state of "wow. wow. i need to sit down and think abt the experience i've had".

(SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY!!!!) Funnily enough, in both games the ending was about about breaking the cycle. Signalis has multiple endings, but that was the one i got on my 1st playthrough. They're such different games, rain world about a slugcat being lost in a vast, industrial and brutal and but beautiful world. The most realistic simulation of a living, breathing ecosystem, with creatures that lead their own lives instead of being mindless obstacles. But there are things out there that slugcat was never meant to see, or comprehend. Signalis is a survival horror, where elster (a biomechanical humanoid) is looking for someone important, someone she made a promise with. She goes thru scary facilities full of horrors, both physical and mental. But she remains steadfest in her journey. There are things out there that elster probably doesn't even understand, or comprehend, or doesn't want to.

Both the slugcat and elster are stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern of death and rebirth. Until it finally ended, although signalis was more painful. They both left their respective world. The rain world ending was especially unexpected, i was basically mind blown by what was happening, but it was a hopeful ending. It's over and you're not alone, even if not in the way you expected or wanted. While signalis was more like... I see what is happening, and it is painful, but there's a bittersweet relief in there. It's finally over.

[witchstone]

1-5 :)

how many books did you read this year? goodreads says 38, but hard to really tell since i read a lot of translated manhwas that aren't listed on there and i don't keep track of. and i've also become really bad at taking note of what i have and haven't read

2. did i reread anything? what? reread the locked tomb over the end of last year, restarted the vampire lestat just a few days ago, and also reread the manhwa the pale horse!

3. already answered!

4. did i discover any new authors that i love this year? nah. my reading habits were abysmal this year

5. what genre did i read the most out of? um. i had a major fantasy romance binge that lasted a few months, so i'll go with that. i did also read a lot of scifi compared to what my usual reading habits have historically been

[tokyoflavor]

Current Watchlist

Dramas I'm currently watching (not all were released this year, but I like to keep things interesting ig)

I'll try and keep this as spoiler free as possible, but I do tend to reblog gifsets of scenes that may have spoilers~

My Journey to You (8/24)

I'm digging this so much! It's dark, it's atmospheric, it's moody, it's beautifully filmed! The cast are all so pretty! All the characters are really intriguing. I'm loving the most: sister Gong Zi Shang and Jin Fan's dynamics, and the second lead couple are so captivating!! [current rating: 8.5/10] Young Blood (11/42) I'm still pushing myself through this one for my man Zhang Xincheng, but something about it just doesn't give me much draw to continue watching. Ofc I will because I wanna know what's so loved about it, but I think the arc I'm on kind of loses my interest somewhat...[7/10] Killer and Healer (14/37) I'm liking this one a lot, despite not caring for Republican era dramas very much. The plot is probably nothing new, but I do like the chemistry of the main leads. If only the eng subs were a little better 😩 [8/10] I Am Nobody (1/27) okay I just started this one so I don't have much opinion on how I feel but so far I'm loving the comedy that keeps you watching for more. idk much about the ML, but he's amusing to watch, and Neo Hou looks so good 👌 [8/10]

The Long Ballad (14/49) Restarted this one as I was enjoying it before and was kind of in the mood for some Wu Lei. I actually cried watching ep 14, it was so emotional! I'm totally invested for the time being [8/10] Secret of Three Kingdoms (4/54) I picked this up for Tan Jianci ofc, but I don't really like palace historical dramas asjfsjdg SOOOO we'll see if I actually get far enough to see him in it much :| lmao [no rating yet] *suffering for my faves* Ultimate Note (2/10) I guess you could hardly say I started this seeing as it's only been 2 eps, I also kind of just.. forgot about it for a bit lol. I'm not sure if it's for me as I don't care for tomb raiding stuff but I wanted to see more of Joseph Zeng and none of his other roles rly look interesting asdsajf :/ I'll see about whether I go back to it after Young Blood.. [6/10] The Killing Vote (2/12) Picked this up because it was getting a good reaction, even though idc for the ML. It's intriguing so far, and I'll admit I'm interested in the plot for now. Will stick with it and see. [no rating yet] Beach Boys (4/12) Watching this for a Drama Club. Not really sure I'm in the mood for it since I've apparently fallen into a cdrama hole so it's not making me overly motivated to watch very much lmao.. I can tell it's just a fun entertaining series / bromance but I kind of want it to reel me in more lol [6/10]

Planning to watch Stuff I'll likely pick up in the near future: Moving (heard many a good thing) The Bond (when i'm in the mood for something srs) Knockin' on Locked Door (gotta support my boy) Stay With Me Beach Boys (for a Drama Club.. i'm trying to gear myself up into the mood for it) Waiting for: Lost You Forever Part 2 (one day..) Anything remotely Tan Jianci related The Worst of Evil Sparkling Watermelon

[iviarellereads]

Nona the Ninth, John 5:1(1)

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(No icon) In which the events of the book's past seem a little more believable now than they were even a year ago when the book was first released.

In the dream, he seems nervous of approaching the concrete building. He finds a can of petrol(2) and sets the car on fire at night. She doesn't like the smell.

Eventually, he starts talking again. All his powerful friends said he could've been something good if they'd had time to present him to the world the right way, if John and his team had been something they weren't, the powerful would have listened.

And, like, at some point, you stop wanting people to listen, you want people to do.

The team got together one night, and it was beef for dinner again but at least no one was vegan and it couldn't go off because his presence inhibited decay.(3) At any rate, G- was outside on grill duty, so they cracked the window.

I told them, This is it. We were put here to save the planet. We’re going to save the planet. We’re not going to let them run away. We’re going to fix this.

And they all looked at him and said, sure, John, but how are we going to do that? P- surprised him by saying they had to first focus on being taken seriously: the victor writes the history books, and maybe it's time to start being scary.

He said, Which just goes to show that only getting to NCEA Level 2 (4) isn’t going to stop you making waves in life, right. You can still eat steak, talk to wizards, and take down the government.

Soon, they got an opportunity. A visit from "a big black car with a bunch of suits in it." Quietly, without naming any country names, John outlines how the suits' leader had recently died but they can't handle the instability of him being dead, so they asked that John animate the leader and make him appear to not be dead. They might, in fact, have preferred it that way, so the leader's opinions didn't get in the way of their plans. They'd like for him to have a pulse, bleed, talk.

John found it an interesting project, but he might need to do some tweaking to the plan, and he'd need to be on the call for the man to speak.(5)

I kept trying to push to find out who the hell they were and who this guy was, but they were immovable. They were all, Here’s what we’d pay up-front. Here is what we would pay every month you kept him looking alive. He said, And that figure had a lot of zeroes.

After a few weeks' testing, he knew he could do it. Even keeping a body warm enough that if it bled, it wouldn't spurt cold. They set up a meeting to do the raising and exchange payment, a "Sino-Swiss"(6) account under an alias. The team got excited, wondering if they could restart the cryo project.

That is, until there was another update on the FTL project. Suddenly, all the international regulators were approving it, despite having been so reluctant when John's team asked for approval. They were even funding it for the trillionaires, after being so stingy with John. The regulators claim to have been on tours of the facilities and seen photos of the progress, and have no concerns.

I couldn’t believe how naive they were being. I couldn’t believe they were falling so hard for this corporate smoke show when there’d been so many checks and balances and hemming and hawing over us.(7)

But nobody listened to him or his team, nobody investigated the trillionaires' FTL project any more deeply. When John's team presented arguments against the FTL project, they were reminded that cows had feelings.(8)

At any rate, the handoff/animating meeting. They arrived, and M- and A- were entirely on the same page, which was scary enough, but they asked to see the body before any exchanges. So, John was allowed to see the body, and realized who he'd been dealing with. Not just a group or syndicate, but a nation, and John at the heart of a political conspiracy.

A- and M- took one look and told him he should do it anyway. So he did, healing the damage to the tissues, blood transfusion to rehydrate, the works. Shortly he has the body sitting, standing, talking through the new throat speaker. He even managed a video call home with no questions.

But I was like, You’ll still need me for big public appearances, I can do it long-range. And they were all, We’ve budgeted for that. And that was when A— and M— stepped in to negotiate. They said they didn’t want the payment in pure cash. They said I wanted something more material. And we went around and around and fucking around. At one point I thought they’d open fire on all of us because they were being so fucking stroppy.(9) They were hitting the table like in a police drama, like, We can end this whenever we want! The ball’s in our court! We know how much this means to you now! I was all, Wow, sorry guys, I don’t really know either of these two, they’re very unexpected and mean. I came here to have a good time and I think they’re being very harsh. I think between Bad Cop, Worse Cop, and Sorry Cop,(10) they got so sick of us that they told us, Fine, we’ll arrange it here and now. He said, That’s how I ended up going home with a couple billion dollars and a suitcase nuke.(11)

=====

(1) "After these things was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." In this part of John 5, Jesus performs a miracle healing. Not the most relevant to this part of the story, as he's already limited Jesus Hours, though the whole "raising the dead (president)" bit might have parallels if you squint. Alphabetically, we now have enough to start separating words: THE TOWER HAS REA- There are a lot of words that have those first three letters… (2) Petrol for most of the world, "gas" for the US and Canada. (3) Not even gonna lie, I'd eat necrobeef. (You can multiply huge amounts from a tiny sample, it's the platonic ideal of what lab-grown meats are trying to achieve! The first lot wasn't cruelty-free by a long stretch but it COULD be!) (4) NCEA levels are used as markers of academic achievement, in the final three years of schooling. Certain courses are marked at level 1, 2, or 3, and you have to have a certain number of credits at specific levels "or higher" to achieve each, with 1 being the lowest (80 credits at any level), and 3 the highest (60 credits at level 3, and 20 at 2 or higher). Admission to university is dependent on having a level 3, as well as any other standards the university imposes on applicants. Looks like Pyrrha "only" achieved a level 2, which isn't as prestigious, but obviously doesn't mean she was in any way less useful or meaningful as a person. (5) To know what to say in response, of course… but also perhaps to be privy to information far beyond his prior access level. (6) There are real companies that use the SinoSwiss name but they seem to be more investment than banking per se. So, fabrication or fudging truth? (7) [Stares in awareness of any of a half dozen horrifying human truths like climate change] (8) Which feels like a nonsequitur but it's also a very real phenomenon that people will hold their first impressions against you all the more when you try to convince them to change their minds. (9) Stroppy - bad-tempered and argumentative. (10) John is obviously Sorry Cop. Who do you think, between Mercy and August, was Bad and who was Worse? (11) Look… LOOK… I love John as a character. He's my blorbo, my child, my little uwu bean (who yes may or may not have (definitely) committed a genocide in the bits he's about to get to). I do not trust him with a suitcase nuke.

[mxstball]

Have a mun question in return! What's your favorite thing about mainline Pokemon, and how did you get into it?

// genuinely didn't expect the return question but let's do this!

// god I think my favorite thing about mainline is the lore... in two different senses of the word. Starting with in-game, the world of Pokémon is vast and has changed so much in the 27 years that it's been out. Back during Generations 1 and 2, it was just a game about catching mystical creatures and stopping Team Rocket... but now? We have gods, parallel dimensions, paradoxes, ancient yet forgotten legends, regional variants, and so much more. We have a general gist of the inner workings of the world, how humans fit, and how their / our actions have affected the world in turn. From the extinction of past variants such as Ursaluna to the saving of Pokémon like Lapras to even passing mention of world events such as the dissolution of Team Rocket, our actions and our experiences throughout the series has shaped the world in so many ways, both passively and actively.

// In the other sense of the word, Pokémon pulls from so many aspects of different parts of the world. We take this for granted sometimes, but each of the 1,000 Pokémon pull from real-life animals, pop culture, mythology, religion and so much more. Learning about even the mundane of the various types of regional birds leads to better understanding the differences in culture, climate, and conditions of the various regions. And it's not even that you need to LEARN all of that to better understand the game, either. It's all there in the background so that, when you do that research, you gain both a better appreciation for not only the Pokémon world, but also for the real world as well.

// As for how I got into the franchise? Well, Pokémon was actually the first JRPG I've ever played. When I lived with my grandfather when I was 6, I wanted to be like him. He was really big into playing videogames and played a lot of games on his PlayStation like Tomb Raider and FINAL FANTASY VII; however, because I was young, he didn't want to expose me to so much violence at the time, so he gave me Pokémon Silver on my Game Boy (not Color) and the walkthrough guide for the game as well. I played it so much, though I was never able to beat it. Whitney's Clefairy destroyed me. Then, I got Crystal as well, but couldn't beat that because Ice Cave was too hard... yes.... even with a guide.

// Anyway, while I'd say that was what got me hooked, it wasn't. I went into the foster care system 3 short years later, and as such was never able to play Pokémon at all. Even when I eventually lived with my mother, she would not allow me to play the games because it was a "sexual game" or some shit (yes. not joking. it's a fun story if you wanna dm me about it). However, I still had the games in my heart and always wanted to play them again. So, when I left my mother's house and was able to choose a game to get for my new DS, I got a used copy of Pokémon Diamond, restarted the game, and started the game.

// And the rest, as they say, was history.

[crowleaf]

During my semi hiatus:

⛧ I've almost finished totk. I'm on the lightning temple right now (the order I went was fire, water, wind, and now this one) and am procrastinating by farming to upgrade my armors. I dunno, that temple just feels so claustrophobic so I'm having a difficult time doing it but this isn't a complaint, good atmosphere, feels like I'm suffocating in a tomb, 10/10

⛧ I started reading The Poppy War, after a long reading dry spell (I've been reading nonfiction stuff but haven't read a novel since maybe March). Feels nice to be reading again but I'm having to retrain my attention span to focus for longer than ten minutes at a time.

⛧ I've been drawing, a lot. I haven't been posting any art to my art blog, and have actually reserved a url for a Secret art blog in case my art changes so drastically that I just want a hard brand reset. I don't know when I'll post art again. Feel like I'm experiencing an art growth spurt and I just want to see if it actually leads to anything, so I'm drawing a bunch of self indulgent bullshit that I don't want to share publicly.

⛧ I made an appointment with a new therapist. Haven't been in therapy since mid-2020, and I want to start fresh with someone new because my last therapist really didn't do much for me. My first meeting with her is in about a week and I'm both anxious and excited about it.

⛧ I started smoking weed semi-regularly again. It started giving me major panic attacks sometime around 2015 and I stopped smoking it after I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack (I was not). Lately I smoke it at night before bed and it helps me get to sleep before 3 AM, and actually get a restful sleep most of the time.

⛧ I restarted a cross stitch project I began a year ago, arrogantly believing it would be simple enough for a beginner to tackle in time to give my mother as a birthday gift. Turns out it's the most complex pattern I've stitched to date. But it's going better this time, thanks to the parking method. I should have it done in time this year, and I'm trying not to judge 2022 me for their hubris after having only completed two small projects before trying to tackle this one the first time around.

⛧ GO S2 trailer dropped on mine and @principaliteas mid-year mensiversary and I think that's pretty neat

[stormoftara]

A third thought about Nona the Ninth

I said it before and I will say it again. I do not believe that that's Gideon in Gideon's body.

While John can clearly bring back the dead, even those long dead, such as the bodies he used to revive the Ninth House. Is this what he did with Gideon though?

It's clear that some souls cannot survive in a different body. But some souls can survive in a different body, take Pyrrha is fine in Gideon prime's body while Cam and Pal struggle to share the body. Gideon wasn't in Harrow's body for long, at least not long enough to show ill effects and due to Harrow's efforts to keep her seperated so she wouldn't be absorbed. We don't know how much, if any, of Gideon was absorbed into Harrow. However whether John took Gideon's soul from Harrows body or found it after nearly dying is really not answered.

So I think the current Gideon is some sort of fabrication. Clearly there is some of her in there. She gets big mad at Crux and she has her flippant attitude. But parts of her seem strange.

Like would Gideon just accept a new name? Would she want to dress in those strange outfits that John likes so much? She knows a lot about necromancy and its unclear if that's due to hanging around Harrow (in Harrow's literal head) for so long and learning some things or if something else is at play. (She knows the names of the Devils from John mentioning it to Harrow, but she clarifies that she learned it from "dad" which seems odd)

There are other strange things. Gideon's body is wounded still. This seems like something easy for John to fix. I don't know why he wouldn't, unless he couldn't.

I dunno. I just get weird vibes from her. She seems off, but not in a way that I think most people would notice. I mean in Caanan House she didn't speak for weeks, so how well would Pal/Cam even know her? And Nona doesn't know her at all and calls her dead the entire time, something she doesn't always say about Ianthe in Babs body. I need to reread the book just to be certain about this, but it feels weird.

Of course, Gideon knows things only Gideon would know, so it might be a fragment of her soul that John took and reformed. He made her into someone who would call him Dad. And would obey.

There is also the strangest thing where Gideon can make her body go entirely limp and dead. She never demonstrated this skill before so it must have to do with how her soul is connected to her body.

But. That's just one idea.

If it's Gideon. Truly Gideon in that body, she is double crossing John, right? She seems to want him to die and curses Ianthe for saving him at the end of Harrow the Ninth.

But if there is some of John in Gideon now. Like a part of her soul and part of his soul, then she would know how to destroy him. He cannot die so long as Alecto exists, so the Locked Tomb has to be opened. He might've put some of his soul in Gideon to hedge his bets. If his soul is fragmented like that then he will live even if "John" is killed.

Perhaps that's even his plan. Have Alecto kill John. Use Gideon to restart the universe again, just like he did before. A genocide of humanity and then he will restart. But this time he'll totally do it right.

I dunno. I have many thoughts. I'm going to reread the series again and look for more clues.

[myfallbucketlist]

26/30 Hammer Horror Movies

This one is top tier! It’s got Peter Cushing killin it as usual, and a great performance from Christopher Lee as the mummy. It’s got the classic smash through the class door scene which I feel is key. It’s got the great discovery opening and the cool tomb. This one also tells the actual story of how the mummy came to be and his motivations apart from the guy controlling him. The whole thing is so good! There was definitely a lot of brown face in this so I can see why maybe it’s a little bit buried and why the other mummy one after this felt like another restart, but this one is so good and so much better than that other one. I even like it better than the universal mummy movie, which was never a fave for me in that cinematic world, but this one is changing my mind! This and Frankenstein and Dracula were such great movies from Hammer and I’m really happy that I watched this one!