#watching list

[isdantah]

Have you watched metal cardbot?

Still not but I would like to watch it along with Brave Police J-Decker and the old Transformers Robot In Disguise (not the 2015 which I already watched). I'm searching for some subbed streaming but since I usually put things to watch while I work I have to find a good moment also to watch them XD But I've looked other amazing fan arts and comments and I'm pretty much interested!

[rigelmejo]

Chinese Reading List over the last 5 years (I counted once and it added up to around 500k words read):

Mandarin Companion Sherlock Holmes

Pleco Graded Reader Butterfly Lovers

Mandarin Companion Journey to the Center of the Earth

小王子 (doable but I probably should have picked something easier, I was really excited to extensively read my first story and it really built reading stamina)

天涯客 (intensively read 20 chapters)

真魂 (intensively read 20 chapters, did listening reading method with same 20 chapters, must have reread the first 20 chapters at least 4 times, also listened to the first 20 audiobook chapters 3-6 times each so I'm very familiar with the words in them, I basically kept engaging until future chapters in this book were 95% comprehensible or more so I could extensively read my print copy)

寒舍 a dmbj fanfic (intensively read 60 chapters)

镇魂 (extensively read the first 30 chapters of my print copy, and the extras)

秃秃大王 (intensively read, but it was close to my reading level so I was only looking up maybe 5 words or less per 100 words)

大林和小林 (intensively read, 95%+ comprehensible I was just looking up any basic words I still didn't know, same author as the novel above, probably the BEST novels for beginners to read after graded readers, I found them recommended on Heavenly Path Notionsite)

笑猫日记 1 (intensively read, but it was near my reading level so I was looking up 5 words or less per 100 words, learned a lot of chengyu from this)

笑猫日记 2 (extensively read, extensive reading built up my readind speed and stamina)

寒舍 a dmbj fanfic (extensively read all 110 chapters, probably 95% comprehensible or more especially since I'd learned a lot of words in the early chapters from the first time I read it. Part of the time I listened to Edge's TTS as I read. Built up reading speed by listening as I read. Longest thing I had read and finished at that point, at over 100k words)

盗墓笔记1 (intensively read but it was close to my reading level so probably 92% or more words I already knew, first non-fanfiction I finished reading that was over 40k words)

盗墓笔记2 (extensively read except for a few specific artifact words of things they found in the tomb, first non-fanfiction novel I finished by extensively reading that was over 40k words)

盗墓笔记重启 manhua (extensively read all of it, super easy to read, very funny if you're into dmbj)

19天 (extensively read maybe 50 chapters? Cute, funny, super simple to read)

他们的故事 manhua (extensively read maybe 15 chapters, also very funny and cute and simple to read)

破云 manhua (extensively read 1st volume, I got a print copy, its a bit hard I mean even my copy has chinese definitions of some of the legal/crime terms at the bottom of the pages lol. It's doable to follow, probably because I'm used to crime mystery stories. I also watched the voiced version on bilibili so a little listening practice)

吞海 manhua (extensively read a few chapters, I could follow just like 破云, but I can't quite handle reading the books extensively)

烈火浇愁 manhua (extensively read 5 chapters, the historical bits were harder, the rest was fine. I felt comfortable extensively reading pretty much any manhua by this point. I'd love to read the novel version but I'm certain 烈火浇愁 and 残次品 are beyond my reading ability as of 3/2025, priest's novel 默读 which is a regular modern setting only became possible to extensively read 12/2024. So I don't think I could handle a sci fi setting yet).

半夜衣寒 dmbj fanfic by 夏灬安兰 (extensively read, I just really like this person's writing style, and their writing is easier than priest for me to read and just perfect for me? I really enjoy their plots. This author's fanfics are who I credit for getting used to grammar in long sentences and getting used to "intuitively" understanding it, and for starting to do those kind of reading inferences of what is implied but not explicitly stated. Such as picking up character moods from physical descriptions, rather than words about their mood, and picking up hints about the ghost cases that hint things about characters in the stories as parallels. And I picked up familiarity with a ton of common adjectives and 4 hanzi descriptives from this author).

默读 (20 chapters in December 2024, looking up around 5 words a chapter. I didn't read much in 2024 just some random manhua chapters - I'm sad bilibili comics app is gone as I used to read several manhua on there. Does anyone know other apps or sites to read chinese manhua on? I can look up manhua I like, but I don't know where to find other manhua by genre and explore new ones. Some rereading of stuff I like, a handful of chapters in some danmei I was trying to decide if I liked)

Shows I watched (in primarily chinese, at least once with little or no english subs):

Handsome Siblings (so hard lol I only watched 2 episodes, tried to watch 3-4 months into learning, looked up about 10 words an episode)

xin xiao shi yi lang (Zhu Yilong is in it, got through 5 episodes, took intense focus to follow it at the time so I didn't get far, I tried watching this maybe 4-5 months into learning, looked up around 5 words an episode)

Granting You a Dreamlike Life (15 episodes, looked up about 5-10 words an episode, watched around 6 months into learning and was the first show I could watch without pausing to re-read the captions a ton)

Till Death Tear Us Apart (technically I watched this with english subs so I looked up 'all' words, but I paused and read almost all the chinese subtitles for most of the episodes, this was good practice while I was also reading Graded Readers)

Guardian (rewatched in chinese, I watched this so many times with english subs I know the plot and most lines well)

Anti Fraud League (I think I watched 4 episodes, for Xiao Yuliang, probably the first cdrama I tried to watch only in chinese since it had no english subs, I had to watch in 10-20 minute chunks because I was focusing so hard it was exhausting)

Word of Honor (watched about 1 year into learning? I had read the beginning of the novel before, I had seen the initial episodes with english subs, and I was watching people react so I was getting a LOT of repetition. I ended up watching chinese only version of the episodes - since english subtitles weren't always done as quickly, then rewatching with the english sub when it came out. I managed to follow the main ideas of the plot on the episodes I watched in chinese first, then I'd find out a few days later all the details about the stuff Wen Kexing said... because I was barely hanging on in chinese whenever he'd get poetic. I had significant familiarity with the story or else I don't think this could've been understandable at 1 year)

Humans cdrama adaptation (Ma Tianyu is in this! I love his acting! Also I loved the BBC version of Humans, I love stories about androids, sci fi, so this was super fun! I watched this maybe 1.5 years into learning and it required about normal focus to watch, was not draining to follow, I looked up almost no words)

Ice Fantasy 2 (I've only watched a few episodes, but they feel almost as easy to watch as english as long as there's chinese subtitles. I couldn't find Ice Fantasy 2 with english subs anywhere. The first season of Ice Fantasy is also quite doable to follow, it's very simple for a xianxia language wise, easier than The Untamed. I love this show, because it's a bunch of tropes I love, but I don't think that'll be true for everyone lol)

Bureau of Transformer (first time I watched was with english subs on iqiyi, but then iqiyi took it off, and so I've rewatched 1-2 times in chinese only. I love this show to pieces. A bit harder to watch than something like Humans, but still mostly fine to watch with no word lookups, especially once I was past 1.5 years into learning and especially because it has chinese subtitles).

Sparrow (watched 2 episodes with chinese subtitles, I could follow the main idea without looking anything up, but I felt like I was missing enough details for it to be frustrating, tried watching at around 2 years so maybe I should give it another shot)

Justice in the Dark (was idk 3 years into learning? Could follow mostly fine with chinese subtitles, miss some details. Now as in 2025? Can follow with just audio and no chinese subtitles fine but takes a lot of focus, missing a lot of details. I have seen it multiple times though which helps. With chinese subtitles, now in 2025, almost as easy to follow as an english show, much like Humans cdrama was)

The Bad Kids (tried to watch this 1 year in, 3 years in, and I guess now 5 years into learning? First time I tried to watch with chinese subs, it felt a bit too hard, I think because there's less dialogue so the words they say ARE more important if you can't understand a particular word. At 3 years in, fine to follow, but I just didn't click with it. Now? Still fine, can watch it without chinese subtitles but I miss some details so it feels harder)

Stuff I listened to:

Lazy Chinese (perfect for beginners, also any other Comprehensible Input Lessons youtube channels)

Peppa Pig (doable for beginners)

Maomi Chinese (easiest podcast I've found)

Astroboy Chinese dub (I have a lot of reading skills, cartoons for 5-10 years old are perfect for me)

Tea Time Chinese (intermediate podcast, doable for me)

Talk to Me in Chinese (intermediate podcast, doable for me)

Dashu Mandarin (advanced podcast, I don't quite understand it yet)

The Untamed condensed audio

Guardian condensed audio

Ice Fantasy condensed audio

镇魂 audiobook (I'm familiar with the plot, so it's doable, I am waiting to continue listening until I finish 默读)

默读 audiobook (I sure love working on difficult stuff I'm into lol, because I'm familiar with the plot it's doable)

HP audiobooks (they're on the easier end and I'm familiar with the plot, I'm going to keep going and see how much I get from it)

Twilight audiobooks (they're on the easier end and I'm familiar with the plot, I'm going to keep going and see how much I get from it)

SCI audiobook (I'm only 2 hours in, hoping it'll be doable soon)

撒野 (I'm only 1 hour in, hoping it will be doable soon)

Random audio dramas I find (only a few hours, not enough to name any titles yet lol)

Audiobooks I think would be good listening or reading practice, if I end up ever checking them out:

斗罗大陆 Soul Land will have you reading 2.99 million characters

全职高手 The King's Avatar is so long, that's got to be a ton of practice if you already love it

盗墓笔记 daomubiji is also fairly long, with shorter individual novels at ~40k a piece, so this would be a good series to get a lot out of.

If you're into a particular danmei author, a LOT of danmei novels go from 100k-500k characters a piece. ErHa is like 1.6 million words on it's own. If you have a favorite danmei author, you can just start going through their writing, which will have similar writing style and therefore be easier than using novels from separate authors.

[writingonesdreams]

Reading & watching list

Books

Fantasy bromances

Ember blade 6/10 dropped

Flesh and Spirit 3/10 unreadable language

I'm the mission 2/10 dropped

Hands of the Emperor

Blood song

Declaration of rights of magicians

Villians by necessity

Clockwork boys

Penric's demon

Master of Sorrows

White tree

Witchlanders

Legend of Nightfall

Uriah Heep

Among thieves

Queen’s thief

Ranger’s apprentice

Trios

Storm thief

Wicked saints

Legacy of Ash 7/10, lots of dying, sad ending, character arcs going nowhere, otherwise pretty epic

Mistwood

Empress of all five seasons

City of Brass

Weird fantasy

Atlas six

Peculiar sadness of lemon cake

The ninth house

Winter's promise

Or what will you

Among others

Soulless 4/10, good idea, forgettable

This savage song 

Dcera zimy 

Enemies to lovers

Winter of Ice and Iron

Sorceress of his own

From blood and ash

The wolf and the woodsman* - great worldbuilding, but very angsty. There is no break from the tension and it drags on. Dropped around half.

Down comes the night - 70% in, very good, new fave cold character, great medical magic

Cold magic

Cinder

For the wolf 2/10 dropped

Poison study 2/10 dropped

Blood red road

Contemporary romance

Simple wild

Hating game

Flatshares

Emergency contact

Library of lost things

Marriage plot

Little Paris bookshop

The Blue Castle

Dragons

Waking fire* - very slow beginning followed by a pov switch. The 3 povs are going to be rather unrelated so I'm giving this up for now

Natural history of dragons*

Tooth and claw

Political fantasy

Legacy of Ash*

Stranger the dreamer*

Declaration of rights

Jade city

Vagabonds

Ancillary justice

Famous ones

Poppy war

Rivers of London

Red rising

Deadly education

On writing

Complete guidebook to novel writing

Wired for story Lisa Cron

Wild Mind Natalie Goldberg

Bestseller code

Schreiben als Selbsthilfe

Day to day writing

James Wood Art of reading

Terry Eagleton Introduction to literature

Poetry of life Bausinger

Nonfiction

President

Utopia for realists

Humankind

Far shore: essays on writing

Between humans and society

Anthropology of magic

Anthropology of fiction

Anime

Ayamu

Power of the Saint

Honey and clover

Kimi to boku

Ao Ashi

Arslan

Shoukoku no Altair

Tomo-chan is a girl 10/10

Romantic killer 10/10

Takt Op. Destiny 

Rust Eater Bisco 

Kingdom

GATE

Horimiya

86

[agentharrisonofshield-a]

For personal reference

Viewing Schedule:

- Supergirl - CATCH UP: Lucifer - CATCH UP: The Blacklist (CAN’T THEY JUST BE HAPPY?!) - TWD (Negan’s episodes) - Humans - Brooklyn Nine-Nine - HtGAwM - Orphan Black (recap & then s4) - Sense8 - Black Mirror - Cold Feet (SCREENCAP ALL THE HERMIONE NORRIS WITH FRINGE!) - who knows what other shows my RP partners will have me watching by the time I get halfway through this list

Neverwhere will be added to the list as soon as I dive into my storage unit and find the box set that I never got around to watching.  

[harleenfrances]

i have so many comics in my reading backlog that it's getting complicated & i need to organize them so... here's my comic masterlist ig. i'm thinking about doing reviews if that's something anyone would be interested in, or maybe just to organize my thoughts & help with my fic.

currently reading: Gotham Central Kesel's Harley Quinn run (specifically: Night and Day forward)

will read next: Lieberman's Harley Quinn run Dini's Gotham City Sirens Year One Long Halloween

i'm waiting on my copies of Woman of Tomorrow and Superman Smashes the Klan (the latter of which i tbh am gonna read for school but am excited about nonetheless). i think next up i'm gonna get a Nightwing comic, a Jason comic or two, and something with Babs so I can start figuring out the long-term plot of my fic. so if you guys have recommendations, let me know :) non-comics wise, i'm currently watching both Analog Batman horror fan series on YouTube, and listening to Batman Unburied. i'll be watching Gotham Knight (the animated one) soon & i intend on playing the new Lego Batman and Gotham Knights when i get a chance, but am focusing on finishing Telltale Batman since i never actually did.

[xenolinguistics-department]

Hi! After reading that bit about "Seventeen Moments of Spring" I'll take the brazenness to recommend you a few other movies. I think there are several components to that: spy detective/thriller + Yulian Semenov (script writer) + Vyacheslav Tihonov (the actor) + Maxim Isaev (that character) , so:

spy detective/thriller + Yulian Semenov + Vyacheslav Tihonov: TASS is Authorised to Declare - Tihonov is a little older there and plays a counterintelligence operation director instead of field operative (but field operative is played by Solomin senior).

Vyacheslav Tihonov: plenty of stuff, of course, but I would recommend The Optimistic Tragedy - he's much younger there and emotes much more and also the movie itself is great.

spy detective/thriller + Yulian Semenov + Maxim Isaev: Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Password not Needed and Isaev (series) - the latter is a newer series based on the same books as the older two movies, they're different but all good in their own right.

spy detective/thriller + Yulian Semenov: Departure (that's my Roman, or I guess, Mongolian empire) and Confrontation (more detective that spies)/

spy detective/thriller but let's make it narrower and stick to WWII: very obvious - The Omega Variant and Sword and Shield and The Saturn Trilogy and Teheran-43, somewhat less obvious - Where Have You Been, Odysseus? and Game without Rules and Secret Mission.

All the links are to Wikipedia, but all these movies (except for Isaev seires) are available on YouTube for free most of them on the official channels of the studios.

thank you so much for taking the time to recommend me these! I'm honestly amused how knowledgable you are on the subject. I've heard of a few, but the one that caught my eye the most is the optimistic tragedy... a quick google search told me everything I needed to know (specifically, how good mr. tikhonov looks there). I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to soviet film, so I'm glad to have a professional to consult <3

[xtruss]

Alkemist Labs Releases “Herbs And Fungi We’re Watching” List

Alkemist Labs Has Released A List of The Botanicals And Fungi That Most Frequently Failed Identity Testing During The First 8 Months of 2025

— 18 August 2025

They've named the botanicals and fungi that should undergo more scrutiny in sourcing and testing.

All samples were tested using high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) to assess the identity and quality of botanicals and various ingredients.

Alkemist holds a flexible scope ISO 17025 accreditation for HPTLC, which can detect adulterants and contamination, such as containing incorrect plant parts, closely related species and unknowns.

This technique applies to crude raw botanicals from powdered to whole form, extract (powdered or liquid) and finished product/blends.

This list is representative of the products Alkemist’s manufacturer clients are testing before they put them into their products, as well as some finished products.

Common names are as listed in AHPA’s Herbs of Commerce 3rd Edition, the definitive guide to proper botanical and fungi labelling (* = appeared on previous lists).

“We provide this information on current identity problems Alkemist is seeing to augment some of the other excellent tools available to the industry in supporting ingredient and product quality,” said Petra Erlandsen, Alkemist VP of Sales.

“This list, along with other resources such as the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) bulletins and laboratory guidance documents, can be critical tools for the market to stay vigilant against adulteration and other quality issues.”

— The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP), based on a partnership among the American Botanical Council (ABC), the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP), and the University of Mississippi's National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), is the largest international nonprofit consortium focused on reducing adulteration in botanical ingredients and finished products sold as dietary and food supplements, conventional foods, cosmetics, OTC drugs, herbal medicines, and other natural health products

BAPP has expanded its scope by formally introducing its “Best Practices Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the Disposal / Destruction of Irreparably Defective Articles,” a voluntary set of guidelines for use by suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors to facilitate the removal from the global supply chain of all (botanical and non-botanical) adulterated and/or contaminated ingredients and finished products that cannot be lawfully remediated for intended use.

[fukuwatchestv]

Watching List

Currently watching

We are: not gonna lie, my favorite parts are the friendships shenanigans. The love stories are not really vibing with me, and nearly went into the DNF pile, but last episode was fun, so we’ll see.

Only Boo: like others, I’m a bit disappointed the tension between Kang and his mom fully deflated so easily. It’s cute, that’s fine.

Wandee goodday: great start so far, I’m really enjoying it, and is 100% living to expectations (hopefully it will stay that way till the end)

My Stand in: why did no one told me Mek was in it?… anyway, this is my fav of my watching list. It has meat, and everything I could have dreamed of (though the series summary still gives me headaches lol)

Recently watched

I rewatched a few things, but mainly I watched US series because I’ve been embroidering a lot lately, and I needed series not requiring me to read subtitles as much.

Twins: finished a little while ago, very much enjoyed it. Very funny to see how a similar starting basic plot can have widely different atmospheres (Not Me)

Unknown: DNF. I get people liked it, but it left me indifferent. To be fair, it could be I made the mistake of embroidering while watching it, but I don’t think I’ll give it a proper second chance anyway.

Deep night: yeah to actual throuple! A low stakes series. I liked it. I would like it more with more meat plot wise, but that’s ok.

Love is better the second time (Koi wo suru nara nidome ga joto): this series reminded me what I like in jdramas. I wouldn’t be able to explain what it is, but it had all the right ingredients, so I’ll go watch a few more (but non bl). Took me a while to figure out which of the leads I already knew, ended up on Japanese Wikipedia, and rediscovered this short series (not bl, though Hasegawa plays a gay character)