#off topic chatter

[theyilinglaozus]

So I've been sort of binge watching Mysterious Lotus Casebook these past few days and I am so here for the 'you are the only one (rival) for me in this life Li Xiangyi' energy Di Feisheng carries. He's not here to solve crimes and fix the past! He's not here to make friends! He's just here to settle the score with his number one true rival. I respect that.

[jocelynships]

Guys wish me luck I’m entering a contest to try and win tickets to see KISS 😭

[theyilinglaozus]

Casually loosing my mind over the fact that she finally comes home to Netflix at the end of this month! I have been waiting for this movie for years -- long enough for my heart to be broken when the first one was scrapped, and I've been eyeing this one carefully. But finally, I can enjoy one of my all time favourite stories in anime again! Please do yourselves a favour and check out The Rose of Versailles when it drops. It's such a beautiful yet sad story (with touches of real life history included), but it's been a timeless classic for years for a reason!

[theyilinglaozus]

The updated ui on the tumblr app for ipad is seriously making me want to delete the app off my ipad entierly, honestly. And that's saying a lot considering how long I've been on this hellsite.

At least with the phone update there's still a navigation pad and icons, but this slider bar on the ipad version? It's terrible design. For one it sits at the top of your screen. There's nothing on it, no symbols or writing to help guide you, instead you're just clicking to move to the next 'thing' rather than selecting what it is you want to see / need. There are no notifcation updates to tell you if you have replies, reblogs, messages, whatever - and it's just not user friendly in any sense of the word. I feel for those who struggle with ui's on a good day, because this one is terrible and does nothing to help make naviaging easy.

I've disagreed with a lot of tumblr decisions in the past few years, but this one is a huge misstep. Whoever was in charge of designing it did not even think to consider its effect on the userbase, and I've never known such a terrible system implemented to a website. That along with the forced introduction of the tiktok-ification of short form video content sitting badly with users, it's easy to see why people are upset.

Tumblr, you're struggling as it is. Listen to your userbase rather than driving them further away. Stop trying to make changes that are negative for everyone, and start fixing the damned things on this site that need addressing - like the disgusting/inappropriate ads we keep getting, the bots, the way community posts keep appearing on dashboards of those who aren't even in said community.

[theyilinglaozus]

I’m three episodes to the end of Love Story in the 1970’s and, as I mentioned in the tags in the last post I reblogged, this drama has given me so many thoughts and feelings.

I’ll probably write a little review of it for MDL as I’ve enjoyed my time with this story and the characters, but I also feel like a review isn’t quite enough to explain the impact this drama has had on me with its historical time period. The drama has a softer approach to communism and the reform era but there’s still harrowing shadows of the reality of what people went through at the time looming over the drama at all times. It’s something I feel is important to understand, and the contrast between the warm hug and comfort the love stories between all the characters have in this drama vs. the looming effect of ‘follow and support the ways of your country or suffer the consequences for following individualism’ are stark.

A gem of a show, and one which has proven to be more than I expected when going into it.

[theyilinglaozus]

For 2025, Goodreads said ‘wow, you sure did read a lot of Meatbun didn’t you’ and honestly? Yes, yes I did. Very happy with surpassing my reading challenge this year. I would have liked to have worked more on my reading classics challenge, but considering some of the tough moments of this year — comfort reads were very much needed! What with reading Jane Austen’s Emma recently and picking up a few new classics in my recent book haul, maybe I’ll try and challenge myself with the classics a bit for 2026. It feels really nice to finally have finished some of the series which have been on the to-read list for a while, so hopefully I can keep that up in 2026 too. Who knows!

[theyilinglaozus]

So I just came back from vacation yesterday, and to my delight a few hours after arriving home I recieved a surprise package -- which turned out to be my rosmei danmei (+ Nirvana in Fire) arriving a few months earlier than planned! This is my first order of any rosmei danmei releases, and I can honestly say that I will be buying them again! The quality is so good, and you can tell that there is so much love and effort put into these translations. I've been following rosmei's account a while for a few other titles they have lined up, and one thing I truly appreciate is how much they listen to their customer base and ask for feedback about things like cover design before coming to final decisions. Both Coins of Destiny (Liu Yao) and Nan Chan come with dust jackets - hents the two differing covers in the above photos - and although How to Survive as a Villain does not it does come with french flaps -- remember those from the earlier Seven Seas releases before they removed them in later licenses? Well, rosmei knows how much we love them too! I really struck lucky with my order, as I was aware when placing it that both Coins of Destiny and Nan Chan would come with the preorder bonuses. How to Survive as a Villain was not originally supposed to as I missed the deadline for that, however I was surprised to find when I opened my order that it came with the preorder bonuses anyway! I'm guessing there must have been spares left over since it was an earlier preorder, and I just got lucky that they sent a preorder version one out for me. I'm so happy though, as I was a little sad to miss out on that. I'll be posting pictures for the aloha comics release of the Nirvana in Fire manhua seperately, as I know there are a few people that are wanting to see what that's like since the english translation seemed to sneak past the radar for many of us, so that'll be posted shortly. But otherwise, enjoy these pictures of my latest little haul!

[theyilinglaozus]

For over the past month or so, I've been playing Black Myth: Wukong. Yesterday I finally finished my first playthrough, and I can honestly say it was such a fun game and I had a blast with it! It's thrown me into a bit of a rabbit hole with Journey to the West - so much so I've been watching old episodes from the 1986 version in my spare time. Black Myth: Wukong feels so much like a sequel to the drama, and you can tell that so much love was put into this project as homage to that version of the drama, as the theme tune even plays at certain points towards the end which really felt special. I've been sharing lots of posts + videos whilst playing over on my Bluesky, but here is a selection of some of the beautiful scenes. Each chapter of the story ended with an animated or stop motion music video segment that told a related story, and it felt like such a damn treat watching them.

There's a photo mode too, which I also had a lot of fun playing in:

The game had some content that was cut due to time restraints, but the studio announced we would be getting two DLC's which would put that content back in. I'm personally hoping we'll be getting either Nezha or the war in the Heavens, but no one really knows what the DLC will be right now. As long as it's too the quality and standard that the main title is at already, I'd be happy with anything extra. A lot of comparison to this game is made to the Souls' series, but I personally felt it was more in theme to a God of War game. There were one or two bosses that I really struggled with - I will never forget the many attempts in fighting Erlang Shen. His final phase had me stumped for a week - but I never stopped having fun with the game. There was always something new to explore, or more lore or characters that were familiar from the drama or the novel. I have a bit of a playlist for some of the bosses I enjoyed fighting the most, mostly because I like looking back on these things later. All in all, this game was a treat, and such a love letter to its source material. I'm so glad I got to play it in the end, and that it lived up to expectations. It's truly something special.