Alright y'all. I am knee-deep in writing and figuring out a fairly long story for ChengXian right now. Am in the "outline every plot point" part, and it's killing me that I know the entire second half but that first bit of getting to the second half is just, not, coming, out.
Speaking of, maybe I really should join the ChengXian discord but my social anxiety is still screaming in fear.
I offer the following, in the hope that Miss Moneypenny can get a some respect, a vacation, and hopefully a little attention from the pool boy.
For Moneypenny Monday and for the Scavenger Hunt prompt: Design 3 outfits for a Bond character to be worn on 3 separate occassions. The work clothes are from canon and the rest are from me.
And in a shameless bid for maximum fest points, each outfit is presented below as a separate drawing.
Y'all. My MOM is watching The Untamed right now! No, I have never mentioned anything remotely related to her. She just heard from one of her younger co-workers about it and thought, why not?
She's 66 years old. She doesn't really watch any cultivator/wuxia/xianxia stuff, so knows nothing about them (in their current form. She's seen some kung fu stuff way back in the 80s/90s). She doesn't know what BL is, or danmei. (She's not homophobic or anything, just, not versed in the stuff.)
I will see her in a month or so. We will be having some interesting chats.
beep beep sometimes when you have been in survival mode for a long time the parts of you dedicated to Wanting Things atrophy and you forget how to envision a future that feels rewarding because you are busy with the business of staying alive, and it can seem like your life must be pointless because you can’t imagine any long term goals. sometimes even when you leave survival mode you can’t remember how to Want Things. that doesn’t mean you need to give up on having a good and fulfilling life, it just means that Wanting Things is a muscle you need to gradually strengthen. the part of you that has dreams and aspirations is still there, it just fell asleep, but if you wiggle it enough it can and will regain feeling. it’s okay to start small
So....I JUST dipped my toes in the fandom of MDZS, and barely read enough fics to know what's what, and also barely got a preference to a pairing, and I'm thinking, hmm, wouldn't it be great if I join something? Community and all?
Yeah and then my first trek into its hashtag I came across this thing called ChengXian2023MiniBang.
Um....my records with deadlines is terrible. But, I'm trying to change that. I've also never written anything in this fandom before. So, do I join or nah?
My Lavi figure a.k.a. dream I never thought could come true. He is perfect even if my s/hitty phone camera and Photoshop skills can’t quite deliver it.
So....my small trek into Link Click got me into Chinese animation, and of course I stepped into the black hole that is Mo Dao Zu Shi (or Founder of Diabolism, or The Untamed, or more weird names. You know, if it were up to me I'd call the show something like Rise of the Necromancer, because, my dudes, that's what Wei Ying is, a necromancer. We already have a perfectly good word in English and 'diabolism' ain't it). And...yeah...I am so stuck haha. I have a lot of thoughts. But first, let me talk about the animation, because that's my foot into this particular door.
The animation, what can I say? It's absolutely stunning. Beautiful. Completely captured my attention since episode 1. The voice acting is top notch. I thought Link Click's VA work is already great, this one is better. China doesn't have as much of a robust animation department compared to Japan, and even less so with voice acting, so I am very pleasantly surprised. The music, oh my god, drove the whole show for me. Especially the flute/guqin parts. It made everything more vibrant and the fight scenes much more intense. Seriously, whoever did the music accompaniment and sound editing deserves a raise/promotion. I would recommend this show on these three things alone, if only to have something gorgeous and very enjoyable to watch.
But of course, a show's not just those things, right?
(Seriously giant wall of text of my thoughts, and spoilers ahead)
So, in general, I really like the show. I found the characters amazing and the plot very enticing. The side story with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan and Xue Yang is one of the most tragic things I've seen in a while, with just the perfect amount of love and loss. (I'm actually listening to the audio drama right now and, yeah, those chapters definitely broke my heart.) The main storyline, and I mean the past one with Sunshot and not the less depressing current one, is great, especially the part about Jiang Cheng's golden core. That reveal was so sad and...wonderful haha. I was like "I knew there was something fishy about that whole mountain hermit restoration bit!" Jiang Cheng really made it out terribly in, uh, everything, huh? (That boy was broken after the Lotus Pier saga, and ain't quite right ever since imo.)
However, I do have some complains about...plot structure haha. It's the writer in me, really. So, first of all, the whole thing with names in this story. Look, all the main characters already have two names (just ancient Chinese tradition things?) They also have a title relating to the place they're from, another one for their status, and some locally acquired nicknames. So that's at least 4 different names for each character that they use interchangeably throughout. It would be one thing if there're only like a handful of characters, but no, there's a giant cast that span two generations with a 15-year time jump. Yeah...many times I had to go back to the first episode to figure out who was who and how they're related, and I actually speak Chinese! I imagine there's a handy-dandy flow chart for non-Chinese speakers? It feels so unnecessary. Second, the plot really could use some restructuring. There were times I was like "why the hell are they doing what they're currently doing??" that I imagine were unexplained due to time constraints. Many times I was watching them chase the demonic hand and I was like, why the hell do we care??? (Like, if they actually said it belonged to Nie Mingjue from the get go I would be more invested, but then I guess you couldn't have the "surprise it's Nie Mingjue motherfucker!" at the end.) A lot of times I feel like there's a lack of proper setup and foreshadowing. I would like to get some hint of what comes next, not just watch people go from one plot point to the other for very arbitrary reasons. I feel like season 2 actually did an okay job with build up and conclusion, but being so short probably helped.
I watched the show in Chinese, with Chinese subtitles, but I did switch to English a bit with difficult, ancient Chinese phrases, and I have to say the official English translation is, uh, just okay? It's not great, because it's missing a ton of nuance and mood. You know how you read some beautiful paragraph in a book and it gives you this "feel" of the story? Well, the English translation doesn't do that at all. Chinese, especially ancient Chinese in this kind of setting, is all about using various metaphors and phrases with hidden meanings. That's the beauty of it. But this show's translation just tells you the meaning right away and I find that kind of lacking. I'm sure if you don't speak Chinese it's perfectly fine, but since I do, the comparison is a bit glaring. (I've only experienced the official Tencent version. Maybe fansubs would actually fare better.)
But I guess those are very minor and specific complaints. Again, overall I recommend this animation, and I have not stopped at that, ever since I learned that there's also the manhua, the live action, the audio drama, and of course the original novel. However, because of censorship I will only recommend the animation and the audio drama for now. I will 100% talk about why in another entry, because this entry has gotten a bit crazy long.
Alright guys, haven't posted in a while, life sucks blah blah. But today, I want to talk about a small rabbit hole I sank into. I was pretty stressed so, as I was looking for distractions, I started watching a Chinese anime (so technically a cartoon but, it's anime-esque) called Link Click. The title is kind of dumb-sounding (and kinda hard to google without getting random unrelated nonsense), and I've watched my share of Chinese anime so my expectation was low, and, well...
IT. WAS. AMAZING!! Could not recommend it enough! The premise is that two guys have special powers to let them "jump" into a photograph and visit the past, in order to solve problems like finding out things in a mystery, or helping people with regrets, etc. etc. Except of course it gets much more complicated than that. And the issue they tackle are very relevant to Chinese modern life, which is so refreshing (not because people don't want to depict it, but if the subject matter involves actual life the Chinese censorship go off the charts vs if you write some high fantasy stuff like Mo Dao Zu Shi). And it's kind of gay. In the form that, if there were no censorship, it would probably be hella gay, but alas, we don't live in that world. So the two protagonist have this relationship that juuuuuuuuuust skirts under the censorship to make it ambiguous. I'd say it's less obvious than Yuri on Ice but more obvious than Guardian. (And Guardian, good god, the way they stuck a middle finger to censorship was pure malicious compliance.)
So I highly, highly recommend this show. But do know that 1) the show can get heavy, so if you're looking for cheerful things to take your mind off this crazy world, it's not the best candidate. 2) there's only 1 season so far and, uh, let's just say I really, really want to watch the 2nd season like NOW, so you might get thirsty waiting lol. 3) the English translation is not bad, but there are some references to Chinese culture that someone who'd spent their childhood in China would get, but not quite for everyone else. I don't think the English sub translated those refs at all. But aside from those, the drama of this show is just top notch. The animation is stylized and amazing, the music slaps, so yeah, go forth and watch I guess?
[I have not delve into fandom yet. Probably want to wait until 2nd season haha (it's supposed to be coming this year but who knows). If you are searching make sure to use its Chinese title "shiguang daili ren" or 时光代理人, because again, 'link click' sometimes gives you random things in tags.]
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