fangirlishness: The Librarians - a book growing tentacles (write every day)
fangirlishness ([personal profile] fangirlishness) wrote2025-09-20 10:21 am
Entry tags:

Writer Self-Challenge Bingo Card #2

Since I just - after four years, finally - managed a bingo on my first writer-self-challenge bingo card (here), I decided I'd call that one done and created a new card for myself.

You can create your own card here: https://bingobaker.com/#e7f0e229ba002276

I clicked a few times so I wouldn't get all the same prompts as before. Then I modified the card slightly because the Free space in the middle was somehow bothering me on my last card. So I just added a new prompt (one of those I had last time) and put it into the middle square. The new card shares eight prompts with the old one, and three of those I could not fill on the old card either. Making my life harder yo. :D I'm looking forward to the new challenge!

As I fill the card, the squares will be colored in. I created the color gradient with this tool here: https://colordesigner.io/gradient-generator
gradient preview





checked off squares (0) )

I'll check the squares off as soon as I "do the thing", whether I have published the story or not. I'll add the links once they're published.
fangirlishness: Zhu Yi Long (cdrama)
fangirlishness ([personal profile] fangirlishness) wrote2025-09-20 08:32 am
Entry tags:

Love Like The Galaxy ficlet

My muse seriously has woken up again. I'm halfway through Love Like The Galaxy, and had to write a tiny little fix-it for a scene in ep 26. It's a speed run of their relationship development, but I feel better now. :)

My Soul is Beginning to Expand (1505 words) by Fangirlishness
Fandom: 星汉灿烂 | Love Like the Galaxy (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cheng Shaoshang/Ling Buyi | Huo Zisheng
Characters: Cheng Shaoshang, Ling Buyi | Huo Zisheng
Additional Tags: Vignette, First Kiss, Epiphanies, Power Exchange
Summary:

On the way home from the proposal, Ling Buyi wants to kiss Cheng Shaoshang.



Unintentionally, this fits a square in my writer self-challenge bingo. :)
china_shop: Chu Shuzhi wielding his magic blue strings. (Guardian - CSZ strings)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-20 06:06 pm

Slo-Mo Rewatch: Guardian episode 2, part 1

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purply sky with stars. Text reads "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid-guardian.dreamwidth.org."


Hi, and welcome back to the Guardian drama Slo-Mo Rewatch. Watch half an episode a week, at your leisure, and then come and chat about it here in comments. Or you can just jump into the comments without rewatching, of course!

Here are the previous weeks' rewatch posts.

Episode 2, up to 22:11

Summary
Shen Wei heals his shoulder while the fish in his aquarium look on. Zhu Jiu plays chess and schemes to get the Sundial. Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei save Li Qian from falling off the building, then she faints. Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan take her to the hospital and discuss, among other things, Shen Wei's marital status. They make a lunch date. Lin Jing, Wang Zheng and Zhu Hong watch footage of the Envoy's appearance, until Chu Shuzhi makes them delete it. Guo Changcheng and cat!Da Qing stake out the hospital to protect Li Qian. Shen Wei shows up with food. Watching from the SID, Zhu Hong identifies Li Qian's necklace as the Longevity Dial, and Zhao Yunlan concludes Li Qian killed her grandmother. Changcheng tackles the hospital attacker, is knocked out, and then Shen Wei plain-clothes Envoys the attacker out of the ward just as Zhao Yunlan arrives. The hospital attacker and Chu Shuzhi fight in the street, and the attacker escapes.



Quote
ZYL: I'll treat you to lunch once this case is solved.
SW: No need... When that happens, it should be my treat.

Detail
I think this is the first time I've noticed that when Zhao Yunlan catches Xiao-Guo at the hospital, he repeats his "I've got your back" from earlier. Zhao Yunlan seems quite shaken, to me, realising he sent Xiao-Guo into genuine danger.

Questions
Do you have a favourite scene or quote from the first half of episode 2? What is Shen Wei thinking when he sees Zhao Yunlan's graze? On a scale of 1 to 10, how sorry do you feel for Li Qian? How much bandage does a person need for a grazed arm? What do you think of Zhao Yunlan's management style? Were you surprised by the passing of time in this half-episode (at the hospital, we learn Li Yufen died two days earlier; at the SID, Zhao Yunlan says Xiao-Guo has been there for a week)? When Zhu Hong warns Zhao Yunlan about Shen Wei, do you think that's genuine suspicion or can she already tell which way the wind is blowing? Do you think Xiao-Guo manages to be successfully supportive at Li Qian's bedside? What's your impression of the hospital attacker, Gao Tianyu? Do you find him sympathetic? On a scale of 1 to 10, how hot is plain-clothes Envoy!Shen Wei?

If you're familiar with the novel, any thoughts about how the drama adaptation compares? The novel!SID team versus the drama!SID team? Anything else?

(As usual, these are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the rewatch to join in. We'd love to hear your thoughts!)

And here is our schedule, where you can sign up to host a post!
umadoshi: (autumn leaves)
Ysabet ([personal profile] umadoshi) wrote2025-09-19 10:54 pm

Almost two weeks' worth of reading

The seasonal crunch at Dayjob hasn't even started yet (so soon, though) and I already feel like I'm falling behind. >.< But I've been reading, so here's a fairly bare-bones post about that.

[personal profile] scruloose and I finished listening to Exit Strategy, and reluctantly are not moving forward until after said crunch period. This is a good resting point. We're both really enjoying these, which isn't really a surprise (heaven knows everyone raves about the Murderbot audiobooks!) except that I so thoroughly think of myself as not being someone who takes in much(/any) audio media other than music. It's possible that these are the first audiobooks I've listened to since...maybe since some Robert Asprin book on cassette during a family road trip when I was a teenager (which I only recall even that much of because the reader's delivery of "'Gleep', said the dragon" has stuck with me), and whatever snatches of audiobook I've heard while road tripping with Ginny and Kas.

Saint Death's Daughter (C.S.E. Cooney) was a really good read and rather brutal; I imagine I'll pick up the sequel at some point.

Julie Leong's The Teller of Small Fortunes was a much softer book (it may count as "cozy", but that seems to be a very subjective classification). It didn't leave much of a mark on me, but I enjoyed it.

The most recent novel I finished was When Women Were Dragons (Kelly Barnhill), which was one of those books where I didn't think I had much idea of what it would be like but then found it was nothing like I'd (subconsciously, I guess) expected, based on having read a few sentences about it somewhere. It too was good, and the fact that both the tone and the actual unfolding of the concept threw me is on me, not it.

Now I'm reading The Starving Saints (Caitlin Starling), but I'm only a few chapters in.

Non-fiction: Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World is not a fast read, but then, I didn't suppose it would be. Slow progress is still being made.

I mostly don't mention cookbooks I've read, but a couple days ago I finished reading the ebook of The League of Kitchens Cookbook: Brilliant Tips, Secret Methods & Favorite Family Recipes from Around the World by Lisa Kyung Gross and the Women of the League of Kitchens Cooking School, with Rachel Wharton. And then the second book of collected Murderbot novellas (3-4) popped up on Book Outlet, tempting me to place an order even though I ordered from them pretty recently, and they also had the hard copy of The League of Kitchens Cookbook, so I pounced on it.

I don't remember where I heard about it, but someone somewhere mentioned it and then I snapped it up a while back when the ebook was on sale. I had no real idea what the League of Kitchens was until I was reading, and it turns out to be such a neat thing! From the book copy:
Founded in 2014 by Lisa Kyung Gross, the daughter of a Korean immigrant and a Jewish New Yorker, League of Kitchens is a unique cooking school that empowers immigrant women to share culinary expertise and culture through hands-on cooking workshops, both in their homes and online. The instructors pass on their knowledge, skills, recipes, and most importantly, their secrets for how to cook with love. At its heart, League of Kitchens is a celebration of the invaluable contributions of immigrants to our food culture and society.
IIRC from the intro to the book, they don't/didn't go searching for people from specific backgrounds as instructors; rather, it's about finding people who match what they're looking for, regardless of their country of origin. (Here's their current list of instructors.) Some classes are taught online, which is tempting, although I don't realistically like my odds of ever actually signing up.

(One thing I really like about the book is that the recipe instructions are broken down into incredible detail. I pretty much always want more detail than I'm given when learning something or being asked to do something. When I was still very early in the book, I was excitedly calling out to [personal profile] scruloose about how the recipe I was reading--which was not for something super-complicated, I don't think--was broken down into seventeen steps. SEVENTEEN. Yes, please!)
veetvoojagig: (chuguo heart)
Bellz ([personal profile] veetvoojagig) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-19 03:47 pm

My first Guardian fanfic!

His Hands (2537 words) by VeetVoojagig
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chu Shuzhi/Guo Changcheng
Characters: Guo Changcheng, Chu Shuzhi, Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Pining, Yearning, Lots of both, chu shuzhi has had enough of it, Hand Jobs, Semi-Public Sex
Summary:

He sighed softly, chin in his hand, as he watched Chu-ge drag a pen across a page from across the room. As steady in this mundane task as in fighting or manipulating his strings. What if Chu-ge was to set down that pen now, and walk across the office to Changcheng? What if that broad palm cupped his cheek, thumb brushing across his bottom lip? What if the other hand came to rest on his head, fingers threading into his hair? If the hands together tipped his face up to look into his eyes? Gazing down at him with the same want as his own?

guardian_wishlist_mod: (Default)
guardian_wishlist_mod ([personal profile] guardian_wishlist_mod) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-19 11:25 pm

Wanderer's 2025 Wishlist

Username: Wanderer
AO3 Username: TheWanderingWandererWonders
Does your account accept gifts? Yes

Wanderer's wishlist )

Comment below to leave a gift for this wishlist! Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. Comments are screened until reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival).

All gifts must be posted in or linked in comments. If you like, you can post transformative works to the AO3 collection. If your gift doesn't meet AO3's terms of service (picspams, etc.) and is too big to fit in a comment, you can post to Googledocs, set the security to "anyone with the link", and link to the work in the wishlist comments. Other hosting (Tumblr, etc.) is also fine as long as the gift is only visible with a direct link. In any case, please leave a link to the gift in the comments here.

Guardian Wishlist rules/FAQ/schedule
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-09-19 10:07 am
Entry tags:

Me-and-media update

Just a quick one today, because I'm trying to write half a dozen other things. :-)

Previous poll review
In the phone poll, 61% of respondents hold the phone to their ear, 40.7% put the call on speaker, and 28.8% wear an earpiece or headphones.

In ticky-boxes, cats with resting blep face came second to hugs, 61% to 69.5%. Thank you for your votes!

Reading
More of Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, read by Candida Gubbins. Andrew has started listening with me, so I needed a solo listen and, accordingly, am trying Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, read by Catherine Ho, which is great so far. (I've heard it contains one of my DNWs, so I'm approaching with caution.)

Kdramas
Finally finished Nothing But Love (it's so good!). Also finished Aema, which was fantastic, dramatic, pacy, with tons of complicated female relationships and femslashiness (fair warning: gets very dark in places). Two more episodes of Mystic Pop-Up Bar, which continues to be delightful, I did not see that romantic pairing coming!! (It's doing the Gobin "who is the reincarnation of whom??" mystery thing.)

In theory I'm still watching My Youth in the hopes it develops some/any dramatic/romantic tension... but now You and Everything Else is out, who knows. Viewing time is limited.

More Low Life this evening, yay!

Other TV
Mostly Dark Winds and Bluey. We would have watched more Chief of War and Prehistoric Planet, but my Apple app is refusing to stream, grrrr.

Guardian/Fandom
So much is happening! It's great! The Slo-Mo Guardian Rewatch is delightful, [community profile] guardian_wishlist is in its creating period (which is always much too short, argh), and I still haven't caught up with [community profile] fan_writers comments. Also, omg, my tabs!!!

I nominated for Yuletide and am having some earnest conversations with myself about signing up. Last year was my first year; it was a blast, but it was a lot. I could always just treat...

Writing/making things
I'm very close to finishing the unexpected-kink fic (still needs a title), but most of my focus is on [community profile] guardian_wishlist. I've finished one gift and started another, which is threatening to get long (the joy and curse of rarepairs), and I have a laundry list of things to write after that. I'm aiming for, like, six or eight in total, by 6 October, but it will depend on whether I can write short.

Anyway, the current one is at least doing that delightful thing of occupying my brain when I'm not at my keyboard, making me jot down notes and dialogue when I wake up. I've missed this level of engagement.

Life/health/mental state things
Andrew's taking some time off work, which is an adjustment for both of us, and also great and much deserved.

Good things
Tuesday was a glorious sunny summery day. My new glasses are nearly ready. So Many Kdramas! TV-watching dates. Biking again. Bluey! Writing. Fandom and you all. <3

Poll #33633 Muppets
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44


It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights

View Answers

Kermit
17 (38.6%)

Fozzie
8 (18.2%)

Gonzo
12 (27.3%)

Miss Piggy
7 (15.9%)

Animal
18 (40.9%)

other / none / what?
11 (25.0%)

ticky-box full of I keep biting my lip, ow
8 (18.2%)

ticky-box full of paper tigers prowling stripily through their 2D jungle
20 (45.5%)

ticky-box full of Yuletide nominations
11 (25.0%)

ticky-box full of so many WIPs, so little time
14 (31.8%)

ticky-box full of hugs
33 (75.0%)

tinypinkmouse: (Default)
tinypinkmouse ([personal profile] tinypinkmouse) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-18 11:17 pm

Fic

I'm attempting to make this post on my phone, because I want to share the fic right now, but posting from phone isn't quite so easy it turns out. But very importantly I just finished posting my college AU fic (it's still set in drama canon universe though), and I'm really rather happy about it!

A World of Its Own (38986 words) by tinypinkmouse
Chapters: 11/11
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei (Guardian), Wu Xiaojun
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pre-Canon, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, things diverge before canon starts, there are universities for dixingren, and everyone knows about dixing, Getting Together, Blow Jobs, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding, Drunkenness
Summary:

It's a stupid idea, but applying to a Dixingren university means Zhao Yunlan can say goodbye to any plans Zhao Xinci had for his future. And that has to be worth it, right? He really doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps.

trobadora: (Guardian - SID team)
trobadora ([personal profile] trobadora) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-16 11:18 pm
Entry tags:

Guardian Wishlist sign-ups are closed! All wishlists are live!

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org


[community profile] guardian_wishlist sign-ups are now closed! We have 21 wishlists covering a variety of Guardian canons and related fandoms and a wide range of media. Go forth and make gifts!!! :D :D :D

Wishlists are tagged for fandoms and media (previous years' tags are labelled with their respective years, so check the plain fandom and media tags at the bottom for this year's), and there's also a spreadsheet for your convenience.

Anyone can write or make gifts for any sign-up, right up to reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival). All gifts must be hidden from public view until reveals. Post or link gifts in comments on the recipient's wishlist. (Comments are screened.) Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. You don't need a Dreamwidth or AO3 account to gift.

Rules/FAQ/schedule | AO3 collection | Fandom and media tags | Spreadsheet | Promo text and graphics
trobadora: (Guardian - SID team)
trobadora ([personal profile] trobadora) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-16 11:18 pm
Entry tags:

Sign-ups are closed! All wishlists are live!

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org


[community profile] guardian_wishlist sign-ups are now closed! We have 21 wishlists covering a variety of Guardian canons and related fandoms and a wide range of media. Go forth and make gifts!!! :D :D :D

Wishlists are tagged for fandoms and media (previous years' tags are labelled with their respective years, so check the plain fandom and media tags at the bottom for this year's), and there's also a spreadsheet for your convenience.

Anyone can write or make gifts for any sign-up, right up to reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival). All gifts must be hidden from public view until reveals. Post or link gifts in comments on the recipient's wishlist. (Comments are screened.) Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. You don't need a Dreamwidth or AO3 account to gift.

Rules/FAQ/schedule | AO3 collection | Fandom and media tags | Spreadsheet | Promo text and graphics
tinny: Close-up of Wu Lei with long Dongji hair, his head propped up on his hand, looking so soft (wulei_so soft)
tinny ([personal profile] tinny) wrote2025-09-16 09:28 pm

9 + 3 icons for retro_icontest

The current round at [community profile] retro_icontest provided three themes and I made three icons for each theme.

Enjoy!


Dongji, Nothing But You, and Shine )


Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.

Previous icon posts:

facethestrange: (guardian: weilan: hands)
facethestrange ([personal profile] facethestrange) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-16 09:07 pm

My latest Guardian fanworks

2 drama fics, 1 novel fic, 1 RPF drawing. (The last one has already been linked elsewhere in the comm, but I'm still putting it here for completion's sake. :))

Held (463 words) by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Hands, Memories, Wedding, Domestic Fluff, Tenderness, Canon Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Mild Sexual Content, POV Zhao Yunlan, Guardian Bingo
Series: Part 11 of Guardian Bingo 2025
Summary: He takes Shen Wei's hand in his, slow and solemn, and thinks of the handshake from what feels like a lifetime ago — all the longing and confusion and desperate hope in the firm grip, back when Zhao Yunlan didn't understand anything.

Taking What's (Not) Mine (1568 words) by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Shen Wei/Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Ye Zun (Guardian), Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Threesome - M/M/M, Twincest, Dubiously consensual voyeurism, Mildly Dubious Consent, (as in: everyone consents but Ye Zun wouldn't exactly care if Zhao Yunlan didn't), POV Ye Zun (Guardian), Clothed Sex, Grinding, Coming In Pants, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Finger Sucking, Biting, Come Eating, Possessive Sex, Possessive Ye Zun, hand-wavy post-canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies
Summary: Ye Zun is welcome here, in Gege's bed, in Gege's home, no matter how Zhao Yunlan feels about it.

Show Me (1879 words) by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen San/Shen Wei (Guardian)
Characters: Shen San (Guardian), Shen Wei (Guardian)
Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Oral Sex, Laughter During Sex, a bit of praise kink, Soft
Summary: "I want to show you," Wei says, breath warm against his skin, and Shen San makes a soft, strangled sound and nods wordlessly, the fire he has tried to keep in check all day rising and blooming in his belly.

Good Fortune by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018) RPF, Chinese Actor RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong
Characters: Bai Yu (Actor), Zhu Yilong
Additional Tags: cheek kiss, Holding Hands, Fluff, Guardian Bingo, Fanart, Drawing
Series: Part 10 of Zhubai ~canon~ but with more kissing, Part 10 of Guardian Bingo 2025
Summary: The new crush is mutual.
guardian_wishlist_mod: (Default)
guardian_wishlist_mod ([personal profile] guardian_wishlist_mod) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-16 12:47 pm

laCommunarde's 2025 Wishlist

Username: laCommunarde
AO3 Username: laCommunarde
Does your account accept gifts? Yes

laCommunarde's wishlist )

Comment below to leave a gift for this wishlist! Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. Comments are screened until reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival).

All gifts must be posted in or linked in comments. If you like, you can post transformative works to the AO3 collection. If your gift doesn't meet AO3's terms of service (picspams, etc.) and is too big to fit in a comment, you can post to Googledocs, set the security to "anyone with the link", and link to the work in the wishlist comments. Other hosting (Tumblr, etc.) is also fine as long as the gift is only visible with a direct link. In any case, please leave a link to the gift in the comments here.

Guardian Wishlist rules/FAQ/schedule
guardian_wishlist_mod: (Default)
guardian_wishlist_mod ([personal profile] guardian_wishlist_mod) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-16 12:46 pm

comefeedtherainn's 2025 Wishlist

Username: comefeedtherainn
AO3 Username: comefeedtherainn
Does your account accept gifts? Yes

comefeedtherainn's wishlist )

Comment below to leave a gift for this wishlist! Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. Comments are screened until reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival).

All gifts must be posted in or linked in comments. If you like, you can post transformative works to the AO3 collection. If your gift doesn't meet AO3's terms of service (picspams, etc.) and is too big to fit in a comment, you can post to Googledocs, set the security to "anyone with the link", and link to the work in the wishlist comments. Other hosting (Tumblr, etc.) is also fine as long as the gift is only visible with a direct link. In any case, please leave a link to the gift in the comments here.

Guardian Wishlist rules/FAQ/schedule
guardian_wishlist_mod: (Default)
guardian_wishlist_mod ([personal profile] guardian_wishlist_mod) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-16 12:14 am

Gavilan's 2025 Wishlist

Username: Gavilan
AO3 Username: Gavilan
Does your account accept gifts? Yes

Gavilan's wishlist )

Comment below to leave a gift for this wishlist! Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. Comments are screened until reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival).

All gifts must be posted in or linked in comments. If you like, you can post transformative works to the AO3 collection. If your gift doesn't meet AO3's terms of service (picspams, etc.) and is too big to fit in a comment, you can post to Googledocs, set the security to "anyone with the link", and link to the work in the wishlist comments. Other hosting (Tumblr, etc.) is also fine as long as the gift is only visible with a direct link. In any case, please leave a link to the gift in the comments here.

Guardian Wishlist rules/FAQ/schedule
tinny: Song Sanchuan and Liang You'an from Nothing But You kissing in grungy brown-orange coloring and the word 'anchor' (cdrama_nothing_kiss)
tinny ([personal profile] tinny) wrote2025-09-15 06:13 pm

Fannish August

Work pressure didn't let up in August either, so the stress-watching continued.

TV new (finished)


My fascination with Nothing But You has now led me to trying out the leads' back catalogues:

Zhou Yutong was last in Will Love in Spring (on viki here), a 21-ep romance cdrama from 2024, starring Li Xian as her love interest, an embalmer who tries to see everything in life with equanimity and calm after getting into lots of fights in his youth and feeling responsible for his best friend's death. She's a successful sales person and workaholic who was in a car accident when she was 12, where her father died and she lost a leg. The story is very sweetly told, with lots of flashbacks and non-linear cuts. I watched the whole thing within a week and liked it overall. Some of the relationship dynamics and generational conflicts with their parents/grandmother were amazing, but the miscommunication between the leads got on my nerves, as well as the sometimes preachy dialogue about life and death from all characters. CW for death, since that's the theme of the show and some important people die. Last but not least: it gets extra points for having an actually hot sex scene - that's very rare for a het cdrama. There are many happy/cuddly/kiss scenes, too. I should probably make a kissy picspam post. :D

TV new (unfinished)


Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, a 2024 cdrama starring Wu Lei and Zhou Jianmai as successful (i.e. impossibly competent) billiard players. It's on viki. It was filmed in Finland, replete with lots of night scenes and snow everywhere (the BTS about that is funny because apparently it did not snow nearly enough and most of the snow is fake). It's based on a webnovel by MBFB, the same author who wrote Love Me Love My Voice, which was so low on drama it verged on boring, but I sat through the whole thing last year. Lets see if I can do it with the Finnish billiards romance, too. So far Wu Lei's subtle expressions are still holding my attention (and he's soooo pretty), but his character is the older one in the relationship, and he's very stoic, which just isn't Wu Lei. Plus there are some tropes I don't like - and I recognize them as typical for the author: both leads are hyper-competent, they seem to have an inhuman number of hours every day to do their multiple jobs and travel for six hours on top of that, there is a lot of eating/food conversation going on, the man does implausible romantic things for the woman while keeping important things secret from her, all the side characters are in favor of the romance and constantly commenting on it. I went into it expecting pretty much all of it, so it's not too bad. It turns out that watching characters play billiard tournaments is much less interesting than watching people cook (which is what Love Me Love My Voice did), but I have now started watching BTS material, which I found pretty interesting, especially the featurettes on the leads getting proper training in the sport. (Otoh, I have also been watching a ton of Dongji Rescue BTS material, and learning to freedive >> learning to play billiards, just sayin. ;))

I also started reading the novel the drama is based on, trying to figure out if some of the relationship setup things were better in the novel, but it turns out the drama is very very close to the novel, often scene by scene, including dialogue. Which is probably a good thing, because there is only a terrible MTL translation available of the novel (the title is "During the Snowstorm"). I actually needed the drama to explain some of the book scenes to me, because the translation was pretty much incomprehensible. /o\ I did not get to the kiss scenes in the novel yet, but apparently the drama was heavily censored and stripped of eight episodes to meet the episode limit requirements when it aired last year, so maybe there will be some more differences going forward. There are still a *ton* of kiss scenes left in any case.

I started Shine, BeOnCloud and MileApo's new BL (this is only on wetv). They're taking their mission statement to increase Thai soft power seriously and have chosen another political topic: 1960s student protests. I didn't like ep1 much, but have heard that they get better. I found ep2 better than ep1, at least, and have now watched through ep 4, but to me none of the pairings make sense, and I really do not like Mile's character in this. They're sexy together, no question, but I'm not happy about them just being sexually attracted to each other with no other connection - at least one of the couples has a love of literature in common, even though they never seem to agree on its interpretation. I hope I'll be able to finish it, despite the setup screaming tragedy for everyone. Not least because Apo is absolutely gorgeous and doing great in the role and I'm already halfway through anyway.

TV new (dropped)


I started Breeze By The Sea (on viki), a Taiwanese remake of the kdrama „Top Star Yoo Baek“, starring Puff Guo, who I really like. The first two episodes were so bad I had to push myself to continue, which really only worked because I was too tired to think of anything else to watch. It's about a burned-out asshole of a movie star being sent to relax on an island, at a guesthouse the female lead and her grandmother run. He slowly gets entangled with the locals and their problems, and slowly loses his asshole behavior. Unfortunately, that is very strong in the beginning, and I think unforgivable in places, so really wasn't enjoying his redemption as much as the show thought I should. Unfortunately, I also didn't find him attractive, and his acting was so-so. Puff Guo was wonderful as always, but she couldn't really save this on her own. I gave up on it after 7 (of 18) episodes.

Viki peddled My Girlfriend Is The Man! to me, a genderswap kdrama based on a graphic novel. Here on viki. The female lead turns into a man because of a genetic quirk that runs in her family - and episode one already conveniently ignores that everyone knew this was coming for dramatic reasons. Ooof. I made it through almost three eps, in fits and starts, and then dropped it. It seemed to always do the opposite of what I wanted it to do, gender-wise, while heaping on the embarrassment squick. Yes, it's embarrassing to suddenly have a different gender, but I'm interested in the repercussions for the main characters, not what the sister's friends group thinks about the new hunk, nor her constantly ogling her newly-male sister. Oi. I really wanted to like it. :(

I also tried an ep of Love is for the Dogs (also on viki), but it did not grip me at all. (I'm not a dog person, that might explain it.) It's obviously geared towards animal lovers, with many scenes of cute animals just for the sake of cute animals. If that's your thing, you might like it.

I checked out half an episode of Romance in the Alley, which in Chinese is just "Alley Family" or maybe "The House in the Alley" (Chinese is hard yo), so the romance part is almost certainly false advertising, but it looks interesting at first glance. It's supposedly a slice-of-life show about three families in an industrial town in the 80s. It won a bunch of awards, which is what alerted me to it. I hope I'll have the time/motivation to check out more of it, but the subs are terrible, so probably not. It's on youtube.


TV continued


My watchalong made it through three more eps of When A Snail Falls in Love, and we're mostly enjoying it? I've forgotten almost all the case details since I watched it last in 2018, and we're both enjoying Wang Kai's voice and face. Nothing much to report otherwise.
facethestrange: (zhubai: wedding)
facethestrange ([personal profile] facethestrange) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-09-15 01:49 pm
Entry tags:

Guardian drawings for Sunflower Auction

(I can't believe I've never shared this here! I still have one spot left, and I only just realized that tumblr is not the only place where I can promote it. :D)

There are about exactly 12 hours left to bid in [personal profile] sunflower_auction for Ukraine (countdown), where I'm offering 3 Guardian drawings!

Drama, novel, RPF - any of them, not one drawing for each fandom. :) Weilan derivatives tentatively included (Luo Fei/Luo Fusheng included very enthusiastically). :D In addition to just drawing some regular fanart, I'd be super interested in illustrating your fic (or other people's fics, as long as they gave permission).

You can bid here! ♡

(I'm the only Guardian creator this year.)

Examples: drama | novel | RPF
To only view art without any fics, select "Fanart" under "Additional Tags" in the sidebar. I'm not pre-filtering because the general themes of my fics are also relevant to what I draw, so you may get a better feel this way.
(My icon is an example too. :D)
guardian_wishlist_mod: (Default)
guardian_wishlist_mod ([personal profile] guardian_wishlist_mod) wrote in [community profile] guardian_wishlist2025-09-14 11:49 pm

MeLuci_fer's 2025 Wishlist

Username: MeLuci_fer
AO3 Username: MeLuci_fer
Does your account accept gifts? Yes

MeLuci_fer's wishlist )

Comment below to leave a gift for this wishlist! Gift comments can be anonymous or signed in. Comments are screened until reveals on 6 October (Reunion Festival).

All gifts must be posted in or linked in comments. If you like, you can post transformative works to the AO3 collection. If your gift doesn't meet AO3's terms of service (picspams, etc.) and is too big to fit in a comment, you can post to Googledocs, set the security to "anyone with the link", and link to the work in the wishlist comments. Other hosting (Tumblr, etc.) is also fine as long as the gift is only visible with a direct link. In any case, please leave a link to the gift in the comments here.

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