I've been neck-deep in a hundred different fandom projects that I have yet to cross-post but for the meantime, some bullet points:

Mangadex got hit with a big DMCA take-down, so that's a lot of fantranslations disappearing.

Justice in the Dark fandom had another round of tension at the end of May when Wowow released a statement about, idk, piracy and copyright infringement; in reaction to this, people started locking their accounts, deleting their posts, taking down translations(?)... I've also locked my Twitter account, more for fandom peace of mind than the fear of WWW seeing my GIFs/edits and cancelling the show lol. I've been having a lot of feelings about fandom, fandom norms, and Anglo cfandom experiences that I want to process but I'm too distracted to write about them. Anyway I'm pretty excited for the show to be fully released so the air feels more clear.

白鲨Jaws/Baishajaws (the band who does Link Click's theme songs) disbanded. I've only skimmed internet reactions but it seems like a messy situation involving copyright(?), pay, and allegedly the front man being a dick.

The Mo Du / Silent Reading audio drama hit a new streaming milestone, so they recorded a message thanking the listeners and wishing us the best. (I literally screamed when I got the update notification lol.)

A screenrecording of my subtitling process because I was showing someone how to sub on Resolve... Now I'm wondering if other apps (eg. Aegisub) are better, after all. (I use Resolve bc I also edit videos and I just supplement with other software, depending on my needs.)

On my reading list: Inside Gaming - Interview with Former Square Enix Translator Tom Slattery

Art advice by nn-ee-zz:

I keep finding out again and again that people react to my designs the most when I draw earnestly. I recommend the same to you, the world is a lot more interesting with your vision in it. If you’re scared people won’t like it just remember that you should be your biggest fan and that you’ll be glad you put your heart on paper. An honest design will last you a lot longer than a popular one. It’ll make you stand out more, too.

Art rec: Prutas card series (Rambutan / Papaya, Mango / Pineapple / Sugar Apple / Banana / Durian by emeldraws: anthropomorphized fruits, with very interesting design choices. I'm kind of obsessed with these!

368 chickens game (h/t superborb), my new source of distraction and rage.

Don't really game anymore (especially because most of them give me motion sickness) but thought I'd take a page out of rionaleonheart's book and try to log all the games I can remember playing...

(Now playing: I Am Setsuna which is currently 70% off and which I'm liveblogging here.)

( games! )

WEBTOONS/MANGA:
Wrote about I'll Be Matriarch in This Life + See You in My 19th Life + A Sign of Affection here.

DNF A Sign of Affection because I 1) found out it was still ongoing, 2) lost my urge to bingeread shoujo/otome comics.

MOVIES:
Wrote about 我的少女時代 Our Times (2015) here, and 海角七號 Cape No. 7 (2008) + How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) here.

GAMES:
Finished Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and enjoyed it!!! Even though I ended up still having questions about the plot, the twists in the last act really stuck the landing and got me in the feelings. I also really liked the way it shows how animals, humans, and ghosts have very different perspectives on life, deaths, and attachments... And the overall design and experience were pretty great, even though I was too dumb and impatient for this game. XD

CREATIVE WORK:

Subbed: 舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend trailer 1

So Close gifs: Shu Qi gifset / Karen Mok/Zhao Wei gifset

Mid-Autumn Dice Game rules (graphic/diagram): personal work, technically a repost from 2021, but I wanted to archive it

Sep 19 & 20 ~travel vlog~

Also made the graphics for NiF Exchange 2024 (technically just recycled last year's PSD to get it done fast)

Currently

PLAYING:
Fallen London, a free text-based + browser-based RPG... Idk how long I'll stick with it but I really like the mobile version! So far it's curbed my wild urges to keep starting new books/comics/games, which is good, because between the endless compulsions to start new books/comics and the frustration of never finishing anything, I was about to go crazy. And it's much healthier than gacha. Even though I almost left our laundry to get rained on because I'd just gotten a (rare!!!) temporary Danger buff lol. My character is named Santan, after a tropical flower.

WATCHING:
舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend, starring Wang Yuwen, Zhang Xincheng, and Guo Yunqi.

Would not recommend this to friends, but it's serviceable and relaxing as a background watch. While Wang Yuwen and Zhang Xincheng have very nice, warm "childhood friends" chemistry (likely due to them being IRL childhood friends with moms who are spreading leaks of their kissing scenes behind their backs), the characters are, though competent, kinda bland...

Enjoying the OP enough that I've never skipped it, though. :') And the show does manage well with its quieter moments of sweetness so I'm hoping it catches it rhythm sooner or later.

READING:
( Well I guess I should make a list lol )

Anyway Shortbox Comics is going live super soon and I'm trying to commit to only getting works by Filipino authors considering *gestures at reading list*. Not to mention I have yet to finish going through last year's Shortbox haul. XD

Link Click

Overall thoughts about the donghua

Season 1 was pretty great and well-paced. It had a case-of-the-day format for the first half, with filler cases between the heavy ones... The noodle girlfriends were sweet... And the entire basketball arc was so well done! But I wouldn't have finished this on my own because it's just too stressful for me.

Season 2 is almost purely plot-driven, but the plot wasn't that great... Without the time to breathe or the thread of emotional logic it had in season 1, the gendered violence and weaknesses in writing women were much more prominent. To be fair I don't think any of the characters are written well here (the main villain was cartoonishly bad), but the women definitely got the shorter end of the stick for me. It had a lot of missed opportunities with the lesser villains' motivations and character arcs, and one of the episodes had an extremely extended domestic violence scene.

AND episode 9 is a total waste of time. It was meant to be a "three stories" episode playing with different art styles, something that is normally my favorite kind of episode, but it ends up only showing us 1) nothing we didn't already know 2) information about the main villain that would have been better off revealed much earlier... The entire episode was like 26 minutes, and I was so annoyed by it I almost left the groupwatch ajskdl;ja;fdja;fa

First impression on manhua + live action adaptation

I checked out the manhua and live action afterwards to 緩一緩, and I'm really enjoying the manhua! Volume 1 has an opera troupe case set in the aftermath of the basketball arc, where you can see the emotional fallout and Lu Guang's attempt to give Cheng Xiaoshi some time travel therapy... Will definitely continue.

As for the live action adaptation... the Slam Dunk props are inconspicuous reminders that I'm watching a Sugarman Media production. :P The setup is also quite different, as Cheng Xiaoshi is superhuman in more than the specific time travel way... and he and Lu Guang meet as adults, with Lu Guang purposefully seeking him out to presumably set things right. (I haven't watched past episode 1, so it's still unclear what Lu Guang wants.)

热辣滚烫 YOLO (2024)
Chinese movie adaptation of 100 Yen Love.

Thoughts

I never saw the original, so I went into this assuming it was a sports movie, only to find out it wasn't as sports- and FL-centric as I initially thought.

The most interesting part about this movie for me is how it carefully avoids bodyshaming the main character, who for most of the movie is thirty years old, depressed, and fat. She ends up losing weight when she decides to get serious about boxing, but the focus is on how much better she feels when she pursues a goal and learns to do things for herself. The movie acknowledges her as not being conventionally attractive, but it also portrays her as being desirable, in a way that I found pretty natural and realistic.

That said, I don't think this was a very good movie... it uses that one cinematic gimmick that I've come to HATE in cmedia, in which scenes are omitted and then shown as "reveals" in the end, to purposes I don't understand... The main character's emotional arc would have been far more compelling from the get-go if it had been told in a regular, linear fashion!!!!!!!!!! The little 小紅花 montage would still have worked, I promise!!!!!!!

Anyway, I enjoyed the last 30-ish minutes (which had the training montage + ending), but I watched most of the middle bits in the fastest speed Netflix would allow me to watch it in.

The Double eps 1-20
DNF, but sometimes I go back to rewatch the music battle scenes (ep 11).

PS. Netflix appears to do this weird censored words thing where it avoids offensive language? Sometimes to ludricous effect. "Xiao jianren" got translated as "you cow" and "hellcat", which... okay...


Also saw other movies I saw when I was rooming with my parents (due to ant problems)! I think they were Oppenheimer and a recent Matt Damon heist movie (it wasn't great). Did another Kung Fu Hustle rewatch too, since it's apparently on Netflix, and yeah... still a classic. :) Curiously, I get more stressed watching this as an adult, in anticipation of the "painful" scenes (mostly in the first half, a.k.a. the best parts) which is funny because this movie is also now "comfort movie" status to me... Landlady with hair rollers you will always be a legend. ♥


-

Other recents:
( August life updates )

Subbed this song last Sunday and only looking at it again today. I figured I should take note of my references so I can find them again...

It's the promotional song for what appears to be a musical about... poetry?? Su Dongpo?? Even though I am, as gixininja puts it, "out of the pit", I'm still very happy to hear ZXC sing this! He gets to utilize his toolkit as a musical actor more fully, which I like. I know I'm biased because I just read the lyrics, but I love the operatic flair in the verses and the way it genuinely evokes a sense of there being an audience to hear a recitation.

I'm still very ??? at the song because I don't read Chinese poetry, don’t know anything about Su Dongpo’s life, and have no idea how to read poetic language, and was mostly Googling phrases and playing connect-the-dots. (Never mind preserving the structure and flow when I'm still chewing over everything.)

Notes

一山一水 一扁舟 / 一路烟尘 一世游 / 一俯一仰 一声笑 / 一轮明月 一江秋

Reference: 一字诗 (陈沆)—this poem is borrowed almost word-for-word, and sets up the structure of the entire song (made of the character for "one"): "一帆一桨一渔舟，一个渔翁一钓钩。 / 一俯一仰一场笑，一江明月一江秋。"

缘来缘去 / 一程去留浑无意

Notes: The overall feeling for me is that fate comes and goes like the flowing river that appears in the first verse, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's still unclear to me whose 去留 is to be 无意'd. 一程 makes it feel like a crucial stage in one's life, maybe?

谁怨谁怕 / 一蓑烟雨任平生

Reference: 定风波·莫听穿林打叶声 (苏轼): "竹杖芒鞋轻胜马，谁怕？一蓑烟雨任平生。"

几时归去 / 对 一张琴 / 一壶酒 一溪云

Reference: 行香子·述怀 (苏轼): "几时归去，作个闲人。对一张琴，一壶酒，一溪云。 "

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Recently:

Finished our groupwatch for The Makanai, which was like Midnight Diner but set in the bubble of a maiko house that seems quite untouched by time, external circumstances, and financial issues. The main characters are two childhood friends who left their home in Aomori to share a dream. Momoko, the older and peerless zombie-obsessed geiko who's sorely in need of a rival, is AMAZING.

We're watching To the Wonder next, the eight-episode drama adaptation of Li Juan's essays about living in Altay.

Got back into games by deciding to DNF FE3H—I was still in my first playthrough (Golden Deer route), but it just wasn't sparking joy anymore, in spite of my love for Hilda. I've instead picked up Eiyuden Chronicle as my new fixation. I'd Kickstarted it a while back in a fit of Suikoden nostalgia, but over the years my excitement fizzled away and I didn't feel a single thing when it was finally released a couple months ago. Now that I am playing it, I have SO MANY thoughts about it, and I really hope I don't lose interest after 20 hours... or after 20 recruitments...

I also found out that you can track Switch sales through Deku Deals and spent some time scrolling through it while waiting for my battles to load (the Switch version of Eiyuden takes FOREVER for battles to load). I got Wandersong as a treat since it was on sale for $5 but I have nooooo idea if I'll ever play it. (I'm mostly waiting for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective to go on sale, because I just played the demo version where I got to save a brave little doggie. ;___;)

My reading brain which had only just come back to life is now offline again. D: I'm hoping to be able to keep reading 1-2 chapters of 橋頭樓上 a week because I really don't want to lose track of the plot... It's the kind of book where you have to pay attention to the little details + I don't have a fantranslation to fall back on if I'm unclear about what's happening. Why can't I have more than 1 brain???

April media log, with some spillover into May—I read With This Ring on the Labor Day holiday—I was sandwiched by snoring adults, and lying on top of the seam where two beds were pushed together, and couldn't sleep. 😂

Books

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A story of intergenerational trauma between a bonesetter/oracle bone collector, an inkmaker, and a ghost writer.

I was really engaged in Ruth's PoV, the conflicts and anxieties that arose from her traumatic upbringing, and the way she personified the themes of language and ghosts and writing. I'm so glad she found answers and got closure in the end, even though I wasn't very invested in the mystery of Bao Bomu's real name. I did really enjoy the novel's relationship with language and translation, and how Ruth's struggles with the language were very specifically a product of their time and place—matching radicals to the paper dictionary + her insinuation that only old or extremely specialized people could read traditional script. 😂

I couldn't stand Art or Art's kids and couldn't forgive them for how rude they and their families were during Mid-Autumn dinner. They were old enough to know better and school their children. May they never be invited to parties or community events ever again.

I actually think Lu Ling's chapters were the weak link because they weren't paced very well, and in spite of its intentions I think it failed to convey the emotional complexity in her relationship with her sister. The non-tragic relationships, in general, didn't feel earned.

Unrelatedly, I wish I'd paid more attention to the timelines of this book, because it feels like Ruth loses her voice around ghost month?

Content notes: this book contains suicide, drug addiction, embarrassing situations caused by poor sex education, childhood sexual assault




With This Ring by Carla Kelly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Marriage of convenience + hurt/comfort romance novel: She is the unloved eldest daughter with severe self-esteem issues and a desire to do meaningful work, while he is a wounded soldier with war trauma and men he wants to take care of.

Nothing about the novel feels remotely plausible, but it's fine, other than the completely unnecessary child acquisition storyline—it just feels too heteronormative, especially since the characters' chemistry feels more platonic than romantic to me. I think I could have rolled with it better if it had more angst for flavor. :P




Shisi, “Little Mushroom” Book 1: Judgement Day
Book 1 = book 1 of the web version (the print versions collate the first 2 books into the same volume)—I'm mostly putting this down so I remember my impressions.

I really loved the first chapter: it draws you in atmospherically and emotionally, with the right amount of mystery to make you keep reading, as the information that's filtered through An Zhe's PoV comes to you piece by piece.

The backdrop for the story is beautifully, vividly rendered, but the worldbuilding feels pretty shaky as of now (I do presume that some of my questions will be addressed later on). There's no cultural information whatsoever, but I guess this is set far enough in the apocalyptic future for cross-cultural interactions to be natural to the characters. The vaguely Western names throw me off, and I'm not very sure about what the book wants to say about Doussey (sp?). I also feel that the romance tropes disrupt the tone and flow of the story, but sometimes they're a welcome interruption from the more gruesome bits.

The action-horror chapters are very well done and give me anxiety with distressingly descriptive (but not overdone) body horror, gore, and bug-related paranoia. 🙈 Anyway, the general vibe to me right now is science fiction shounen anime/videogame with BL endgame. XD

IMO, the English translation does really well with scenery and visual details! The dialogue is a bit stilted, though. But it is very readable, and has some choices I really liked. I just feel it could use more time for polish and a few rounds of editing to smooth out the phrasing and errors (there was one particular sentence that just didn't make sense).

Current/Recent Media

4 episodes into Trigun Stampede—I never watched the original so this is all new to me! So far it's fun and it nails what it tries to achieve, but it's not what I'm looking for right now haha.

Tears of Themis: My first gacha ever. 😭 This is a free mobile otome game/gacha game, with Ace Attorney-like elements (investigation, court trials). The gameplay is very hard to enjoy because my phone is low on memory, and it keeps crashing, but it has enough variety of things to do to make you want to keep playing. The investigation parts are particularly frustrating for me, though, because I keep failing to tap the right spots, and sometimes there are clues that are lying around that you can't interact with until a bit later. I'm mostly enjoying this as a translated piece of media! I nearly had a heart attack when Luo Jinghe (Marius) first showed up as a shadowy CEO that looked and sounded exactly like Fei Du. Turns out it's the same VA as the audiodrama actor. 😂 I found myself finishing 2 cases in 2 days and then quit cold turkey because I was tired of losing my entire night to it. I'm not really interested in the plot, cases, or any of the characters (I find my boss and the psychiatrist annoying tbh), but I enjoy Rosa as a protagonist, at least.

Happy New Year + Kiong Hee Huat Tsai!

What I consumed in the last two months:
( TV: Rock It, Mom; The Heart of Genius; Wednesday; Salt Fat Acid Heat; 两不疑 No Doubt in Us )


( movies: Spider-Man No Way Home; Glass Onion; Cherry Magic movie )

Misc

Mula sa Buwan (From the Moon):

Localized Filipino musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac. I'm not familiar with the original play, and because the setting was adapted to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WW2 (which is still pretty recent), I was too stressed to truly enjoy this. /o\ Still, it was beautifully staged, and I was really surprised and delighted to discover that the play was entirely in verse (which is, IME, unusual)! This was a limited two-weekend run where they didn't have any understudies, so there was also a lot of pandemic tension going on backstage; you could FEEL the palpable joy when the play opens with characters rejoicing about how the theater was theirs tonight, and the gratitude of the actors during the curtain call.

Kotaro Lives Alone: recced by aartichapati; dropped because my Netflix subscription expired, but it's a quiet slice-of-life anime that was perfect as a background watch because I could look away without missing anything.

Disco Elysium: The game’s overall feel (like the lack of warmth in the city—Martinaise just felt so cold all the time) was v depressing and anxiety-inducing for me, but I think my anxiety has also been pretty rough on me lately. I do think it was written beautifully, for me to get so emotionally invested in the characters that I met, and for Harry’s personal storylines to hit me so hard. It handles a lot of dark and sensitive themes really well too, neither shying away nor reveling in them. (And I am absolutely pleased with the storylines I decided to put my energy to——the cryptids and perception boost, as well as the entire Church storyline, and the tie.) Overall, 10/10 experience and storytelling, but in many ways, this game is not for me.

On literary translation: "Hosts and Guests" by Robin Myers: Interesting read. NGL, I'm not sure if there will ever be a language that truly feels like home to me. I wander through the houses I grew up in like a ghost lol

My current headspace is that I can't really watch or read anything on my own rn, so very grateful for groupwatch/groupreads! I also spent the start of the month making a list of short mobile games to play to reset my brain. I've given up on borrowing my brother's Switch (my other brother has taken custody of it haha). I don't think it's a good idea for me to start more standard-length games anyway—I have a really bad game (sometimes TV) addiction problem that gets in the way of my ability to function and take care of myself.
( Games: Monument Valley; Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise )

( TV: Delicious Romance; Who's the Murderer 7; Under the Skin; The Strongest Men of God )

( Music: Sabel (covered by Jona); 打開太陽 (Kimberley Chen x Flesh Juicer) )

( misc links: on troll farms; on writing outside of your experience and identity )

From lassarina, 30 days of Square Enix meme but all in one go because I do not have the stamina to do 30 days.

( 30 days of Square Enix )
30. Free Space! Talk about anything else Square-Enix that wasn't asked.
I don't really have many memories of my cousins because I live away from them and we're just very different people as adults, but I do always remember how when I visited during summer vacations we'd play Bust A Groove. Wish we could do that online...

Unrelated to that, I just saw this on Twitter and wanted to see it again:

pic.twitter.com/aR16Cw7HnR

— francis, lgbtqia+ arc (@fridge_temp_IQ) September 8, 2021