Stars Of Chaos 杀破狼 Vol 1, Notes 4

grading the dramatic entrances of The Untamed, in no particular order

Wen Chao at the Cloud Recesses - Yes, he’s garbage, and he interrupted Jiang Cheng’s carefully prepared gift-giving, which is unforgiveable, but you cannot deny that this is a moderately dramatic entrance. From a piece of shit. 5/10, hate him, consolation prize for most punchable face.

Lan Wangji on the search for Wei Wuxian - The slow climb up the stairs. The epic scenery. The unsubtle threat. 8/10, points deducted because the follow-up is anticlimactic. We should have gotten to see some ass-kicking.

Lan Wangji at the hostage summer camp - Improvement! Isn’t letting the scenery do all the work, but letting it work for him instead. More slow swishy robes. More murder in his expression. No sign of having a broken leg because he keeps the pain inside. 9/10, excellent way to not be dead, no wonder Wei Wuxian rapidly develops a technique for flirting in hostage situations.

Keep reading

I recently started keeping a list of all the ways I hear/read Chinese people say "death / dying". This has got to be the most artistic rendition of that question that I have seen to date :)

I just replaced my computer because it was at 100% disk usage 90% of the time 😫

windows 10 is garbage so every time i boot up the computer i have to run command prompt and enter

net.exe stop “Windows Search”

so that the shitty goddamned search/cortana feature that i never fucking use stops running in the background taking up all my fucking disk space

Still reading 病案本 Bing An Ben (Case File Compendium). I’m on chapter 106 (out of 254) now. And I can totally see why Meatbun needs another 148 chapters. I have no idea how she is going to resolve the basic romance, much less the mafia murder mystery treachery conspiracy thing.

Instead of thinking of this book in terms of Plot Arcs, I’m thinking of it in terms on Intractable Relationship Arcs.

(Minor spoilers under the cut.)

So, ch 1 - 51: Xie QingCheng and He Yu hate each other. They get thrown in every romance trope imaginable, but they both hate each other. It’s cute. I’m enjoying it.

Ch 52: oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I don’t see how they are going to come back from this. Oh no.

Ch 54 - 87: So… I guess this is… something? I mean, at least one of them is appreciating the other one now. There’s a lot of sugar to read. And bitter. Ugh. This is not healthy.

Ch 88 - 101: Finally, some mutual respect. Sort of.

Ch 102: 23,730 words. This scene was 23,730 words. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted just reading this chapter. I think I Really Like It. And now they like each other! Yay!

Ch 103: Wait — Xie QingCheng doesn’t want to continue with liking each other? But… we read 101 chapters just to finally get to a mutually consenting kiss! And then another 23,730 words of consensual kissing ☺️ (kinda 😏).

Ch 104 - ?: It’s great that He Yu is finally self-aware, but how in the world is He Yu going to get Xie QingChen to ever Talk to him again?!?!

This is why there is a mafia murder mystery, isn’t it? Because without fresh corpses and the threat of imminent death, there is no way to move their relationship forward. Or sideways. Or any way at all.

Man. This story is such a roller coaster. I’m pulling my hair out.

YOUR NAME ENGRAVED HEREIN (2020)

Do you think the world has changed?

I love Priest's supporting characters. I love how she started Stars of Chaos from supporting characters' POV, and then she keeps dropping in on them and making us love them more and more.

My one complaint is: why doesn't she write more (even more) Extras featuring her supporting characters? We care!

Brief Character Analyses and Spoilers for Stars of Chaos below...

Cao Chunhua 曹春花 / 曹娘子 Cao Niangzi:

曹春花， I love you! How did you get so good at languages and disguise and acting? Did you ever get to catch a nice young man? Or are you constantly catching nice young men in a serial fashion? Ahhh, our little 娘子 <3 I definitely want to read more about you and your adventures.

Li Feng 李丰, "Long An" Emperor, Chang Geng's unfortunate half-brother:

You tried so hard. I don't actually want to read more about you, but I want you to know that I appreciate that you did your best, and validate that you really were a lot better than your dad -- you were just unlucky, and, sadly, you had to die for it. Life is hard. And short, for you.

Fang Qin 方钦

Yah, life is unfair. I don't want to read more about you, either -- I just want to ruminate on how you were a fancy rich popular kid, but all you really wanted was to hang out with the nerds. The nerds were smart and fun and honest and doing cool things, but your fancy rich popular old-money family held you back. Too bad you didn't have any backbone.

Chen QingXu 陈轻絮 and Shen Yi 沈易

What an amazing couple. I feel like Chen QingXu is barely in the book at all, but every time she is mentioned it is with reverence and awe. My favorite scene with Chen QingXu is when she's chaining together Pipa melodies while a battle is literally going on in front of her, then elegantly floats away when her part of the battle is concluded...

And! And! When she figures out that the Spirit Mannequin is actually a "book" and clutches it "like she's never seen wood before," I swooned -- Chen QingXu is a scientist, through and through <3

Every time Shen Yi is mentioned, I know I'm going to have a good time, too. It is through his near-constant consternation at Gu Yun that we see how terribly fun (emphasis on the "terrible") Gu Yun is.

Poor Shen Yi, putting up with his crazy best friend. Accidentally rising to one of the highest positions in the land just because he doesn't want to go home and instead follows his best friend out to the far remote edges of the empire; and is totally willing to give it all up to be a house-husband for the girl he likes, once he gets up the courage to tell her he likes her. What a sweet guy <3

Yah, I want more Chen QingXu and more Shen Yi and more ChenYi.

Old Master Shen 沈老爷子

While we’re talking about the Shen family, I’d love to read more about Shen Laoyezi. He knows everything. His bird cusses out everyone. He’s pretty awesome.

Yao Zhen 姚镇 / 姚重泽 Yao ZhongZe (Chong Ze?) (I'm not so good when a word has multiple pronunciations)

I'm not super hungry for more Yao Zhen content, but I love every bit of Yao Zhen that I get to read. Poor man -- he just wants to hang out and enjoy life, but Gu Yun keeps giving him all these empire-critical, life-and-death-of-thousands responsibilities. The man knows what he wants! But Gu Yun just railroads past those clearly delineated desires and keeps raising him up to higher and higher positions of responsibility!

Living up to your true potential is overrated; sleeping 10 hours/day is the way to go :)

Huo Dan 霍郸

Oh, the stories that Huo Dan could tell... Poor man, having to put up with Gu Yun's peculiarities and Chang Geng's idiosyncrasies and I'm sure he learned very early on to always knock before entering any space that the two of them think they're alone in.

I want more Huo Dan stories ;)

That's pretty much it for me. I love Ge PangXiao 葛胖小 / 葛晨 Ge Chen, too, but I am satisfied with his story already. He's cool, he's sweet, but he's not mysterious like Cao ChunHua and Chen QingXu, or in an entertaining state of near-permanent exasperation because of Gu Yun's shenanigans like poor Shen Yi is. You do you, Ge Chen.

Help I can’t get over this show and this DAZZLING SMILE ™ 😢✨💗

wwx: *talks* drunkji: *only thots*

MDZS Volume 4 Annotations

Part 6, pages 210 - 234

More anti-slang, and a couple more clarifications.

More under the cut

Ok, so. This is weird, not because it’s incorrect, but because it is correct (but I don’t like using the word “strumpet” here).

The direct translation of “满身风尘” is “whole body wind dust,” implying that you’ve been outside for quite some time and are probably tired and dirty, most probably because of travel -- travel fatigue. Makes sense.

But 风尘 also refers to when women are driven to prostitution, likely because society is unstable or dangerous (like in times of war)(or just when times are hard). 风尘女 is another way to say “prostitute.”

So now I’m not sure whether MXTX was trying to say “besides the fact that the woman looked travel-worn,…”; or if she was saying “besides the fact that the woman looked like a prostitute (who hadn’t worked in 11 years?)(and is in normal clothes?)(and isn’t trying to beguile any new customers, either?),…”; or if she’s just conveniently using a word/phrase that means both at the same time in Chinese.

I don’t know why the translators chose “boy.” The Chinese is 少年, which is pretty obviously “youth” or “young person” or even “teenager,” but is definitely not a child.

Get to know you?

Tagged by @theji

Tag some number of people you want to get to know better/catch up with.

Last song - #357 of a 413- song Zhou Shen playlist. I’m working my way through ALL of Zhou Shen’s songs!

One of my favorite recent discoveries (I am truly grateful to all those Youtubers who put these long playlists together) is when some show had some people in costume trying to sing 芒种Mang Zhong and doing a terrible job of it -- like, it sounded like me trying to sing, and my kids won’t even let me sing them lullabies --, and then Zhou Shen struts in with an entourage, singing with confidence, power, perfect pitch, and crazy charisma.  It’s worth it to hear the bad singing in the beginning just to more fully experience and understand just how different and special Zhou Shen’s singing is.   

And then he sang a little bit of 左手指月(Left Hand Pointing at the Moon).  Wow. 

Last movie - The last movie I watched that was new to me was 刻在你心底的名字 Your Name Engraved Herein, on Netflix.  It was crazy good. It was so good that I spent the next week obsessing over it and not feeling the slightest bit tired (my new measure for how strongly something affects me: if it can replace sleep, it’s Good).  Some reviews mention that the movie is sad, but I watched through to the last second and actually found it quite positive.  It ends with happiness and hope.  That’s enough for me to look forward to a(n emotionally wrenching but ultimately sweet) re-watch.  

The last movie that I actually watched was 闪光少女Our Shining Days (no longer on Netflix, but still free on Youtube!).  It’s the perfect antidote to all emotionally wrenching media, while still being beautiful and subtle and, actually, kinda deep and meaningful, especially for those of us who really care about traditional Chinese arts. And it’s hilarious and the music is Awesome.

Currently reading - 镇魂 Guardian by Priest.  I’m only on Chapter 4, but I’m totally enamored.  I am still getting used to the new vocabulary and sentence structures of Priest (new to me) vs 墨香铜臭Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (魔道祖师 x2!), though, so it’s slow going right now.  

Currently watching - ...still on Street Dance of China Season 3.  Someday I’ll finish Episode 9.  I really like it, honestly!  I just really like to give it my full attention, read all the cute little pop-up comments, and, well, I haven’t figured out yet just when I’m (stealing my kids’ ipad and) doing that.

Currently craving - Anything Asian.  Please!

Tagging: @herr-zhou, @coffintownkids, @bimingjue 

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