How's the pandemic going?

[darkemeralds]

So far so good here, at least in terms of not catching the virus. But we're all going a bit nuts in our respective homes.

To pass the time, I've been through The Untamed several times and will probably make at least one further foray--that's just how rich and complex the story is. For variety, I've also absorbed Guardian, a modern-setting fantasy involving an upper world rather like ours, and an underworld where dwell alien beings who wield dark energy. The title refers to the job of the lead character, Zhao Yunlan, in investigating and stopping incursions by underworld beings into upper world. It's kind of a police procedural with magical objects, snake-people, cat-people, twins...and epic love between our Chief and a mild-mannered university professor whose True Nature hides behind his dorky round glasses. Oh, and genuinely terrible special effects. But loads of charm.

The charismatic star of Guardian has gone on to play the lead in Detective L, basically Sherlock in Shanghai in 1930, with a tweed-clad female Watson and some great costumes and sets. So now I'm watching that.

Last night, in I think it was episode 7, a character uttered a sentence exactly word for word from my Mandarin Chinese 1 super-basic language lessons: 我不明白你说什么。Or, in Pinyin, Wǒ bù míngbái nǐ shuō shénme, which means "I don't understand what you're saying."

But I DID! It was so cool!

I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy.

Comments

[branchandroot]

*thumbs up* I admit, I ran aground about ten eps into Detective L because of what a jerkoff Luo Fei can be to Qin Xiaoman, because I absolutely adore her, but when they're playing off each other it's huge fun.

[darkemeralds]

Agree that he's kind of a jerk to her, but I love the contrast between his assholishness and her sheer determination. It's rare for me to enjoy any het ship, but I'm kind of not hating this one, especially since there is apparently some big OT3 energy with them and the coroner friend.

And Bai Yu is just so much fun to watch. So I carry on.

[tabaqui]

I just started watching The Untamed. It's so ridiculous and so beautiful! I had to read a synopsis for the first ep, i was a bit confused, but after that I just enjoyed. :D

I'll give Guardian a try when i've finished Untamed.

[darkemeralds]

Oh cool! The Untamed is SO worth your focus. The first two or three eps are incredibly confusing, and genuinely seem to have been created specifically to be rewatched after going through the whole story.

Isn't the whole thing just gorgeous? I love it so much.

[tabaqui]

Heee! Yeah, they are very odd.
But omg, so pretty! Everyone is so pretty, all the colors and the gorgeous clothing, the scenery! It's beautiful.

[darkemeralds]

The actor playing Lan Wangji aka Lan Zhan has the most compelling damn face I've ever seen. He's remarkable. You think Wei Wuxian is the main protagonist, and he is, but very quickly I found myself just watching for Lan Zhan to come on the scene.

Then, if you should happen to sort of fall into the fandom, you're exposed to pictures of these beautiful young men in modern dress with modern hair (and makeup, so much makeup) and it's a moment of weird cognitive dissonance as the face slots into place in your mind without the dramatic waist-length hair and silk robes surrounding it, and you recognize them.

I'm really having way too much fun in this fandom now. There's some excellent fic, too, by some of the old Big Names in fandom.

[tabaqui]

Neeeeeeeeeat!
I haven't seen quite enough of the show yet to make me delve into fic, but I'm sure that'll be coming along soon....

:D

While watching, i was struck by the fact that China is so super-censorious when it comes to homoerotic/homosexual content (they recently blocked AO3 across the country because of slash fiction), but the stuff I've seen coming out of their movie industry is so...homoerotic. Or at least is so bordering on it as to be ridiculous.

[darkemeralds]

It's hard to avoid the conclusion of "the return of the repressed," isn't it? China, as I understand it, has a serious oversupply of men, owing to single-child policies and female infanticide/abortion. Then they outlaw homosexuality (which was an open part of ancient Chinese culture, according to some of my scattered reading). How would you not develop a powerful homoeroticism in art in those circumstances.

The end result, as several Western commentators have noticed, is like the queerbaiting that generated slash fandom in the late 20th and early 21st centuries here, but on freakin' steroids.

As far as Chinese censors are concerned, there seems to be no limit to the longing looks, tender embraces, endearments, exchange of tokens, hand-touching, tears, and self-sacrifice between two people of the same gender, as long as they don't actually get naked (except in bathing situations) or kiss.

In other words, the rules are specific and harsh, but somebody is definitely adhering to the letter of the law while exploiting every last loophole in it, and the censors are letting it by.

After all, even in the Chinese censorship office, ten percent of the censors must be queer themselves, right?

[tabaqui]

HA. Yes. On the one hand, it makes for some interesting and intriguing viewing.

On the other hand....it makes me sad.

[umadoshi]

Guardian and The Untamed are both such bright spots. *^^*

(Also, hello! I subscribed recently and I don't think I said hi at the time.)

[darkemeralds]

Hello! Nice to meet you. I love your Bai Yu icon!

I'm going to have to go back through Guardian. I only watched it once, and missed a lot. I'm about halfway through Detective L and thoroughly enjoying it. People tell me that Nirvana in Fire should be my next foray. I'm having so much fun.

What else do you recommend?

[umadoshi]

Guardian makes for a very satisfying rewatch. ^_^ Seeing all of those early interactions and knowing where Shen Wei's coming from is really something.

I don't have much in the way of c-drama recommendations, alas. Guardian was my first, and between how hard I fell in love with it and my tendency to consume new media pretty slowly, I haven't gotten a lot further since. The Untamed was my second (and I've seen it twice, since I watched it and then turned around and showed it to my spouse).

I can vouch for HIStory 3: Trapped (on Viki) being charming and tremendously full of tropes. It's a ten-episode BL show about a cop and a gangster falling in love, and since it's Taiwanese, they get to actually have a textual romance, makeouts and all. (And there's another gay romance in the supporting cast, and those actors committed to their characters' relationship to an amazing degree, and it paid off beautifully.)

But other than that, I've only seen the first case of Detective L (planning to get back to it, though!) and Bai Yu's recent Fairyland Lovers, which was...fine? I love Bai Yu and really liked a couple of the other main characters (Bai Yu's character didn't actually grab me that much, although he did good work with the role), but the show didn't hook me.

In theory, Nirvana in Fire is my next drama too. We'll see how that goes.

(I have a scary list of dramas I want to watch, but the state of the world is not helping with my capacity to take in new stories, especially when I could be cuddling up to more Guardian fic.)

[darkemeralds]

I know just what you mean about concentration. I find I can concentrate on Chinese dramas better than on almost anything else, but even there, I pause and go check Twitter, or get something to eat, or whatever. NO brain continuity at all.

I'm getting close to the end of Detective L. I'm informed that they were cancelled early and had to cram the conclusion into a much smaller number of episodes than planned. They took their time getting to the underlying mystery, and I've enjoyed the leisurely pace. I feel like the OT3 of Luo Fei, Qing Xiao Man, and Ben Jie Ming (okay, maybe only fannish slash goggles can see that) wasn't even hinted at till episode 18 or 19, more's the pity.

Thank you for references to other shows. You're the second person to entice me towards HIStory 3, and I'll be looking for that next.

The only Guardian fic I've read so far is Fayjay's Gothic/Regency AU Guardian Gothic Series. She's awfully good. Got any recs?

[umadoshi]

I have at least one friend who watched all of Detective L except for the last case, knowing that she'd be badly disappointed. I'm enough of a completist that I expect I will watch the whole thing once I get back to it, but I'm sad that the show had to deal with that. :(

My great hope for new dramas this year is that Zhu Yilong's Lost Tomb series will actually get released. (He finished shooting it not long before I fell into Guardian fandom last year, I think, and apparently this delay between production and airing is unusually long, so I know many, many people who're getting fidgety about it.) I haven't seen any of the other Lost Tomb series, but am hoping I'll be able to follow this one reasonably well. I gather his role (or all of the main roles?) is played by a different actor in every series in the franchise, which is interesting, but I have only a vague sense of how it works. (As is obvious, I imagine. ^^)

AFAIK, HIStory is a sort of BL anthology series? There's at least one other HIStory 3 besides Trapped, which I gather isn't as good/as satisfying.

Guardian fandom is bursting at the seams with amazing fic authors! *^^*

I'm going to point you at Archive of Dixing to start with, which is "a searchable directory listing of all English-language fanworks for the 镇魂 Guardian fandom"--very useful, given that there're a LOT of Chinese-language fics in there mislabeled as English.

Since you mentioned an AU, three other AUs I've especially loved have been Bonibaru's "The Crimson Lotus" (a Scarlet Pimpernel AU, and it also has some canonical side stories by no_detective), ratbones' "All-Consuming" (zombie AU, with minimal on-page zombie presence), and clevermanka's recent "Ghost Story" (which isn't PWP but has boatloads of well-done ghost sex).

But there's so much good stuff out there that can mostly point you to some writers I love. Just as a starting point, take a look at naye, frith_in_thorns, xparrot, marycrawford, starandrea, Trobadora, and rageprufrock.

(Seriously, that's not a remotely comprehensive list! And I'm underslept enough that even if I try to just name all of the great writers among people I know, I'll inevitably miss several and feel awful. ^^;)

[darkemeralds]

Thank you for this treasure trove! Coincidentally, I just downloaded clevermanka's Ghost Story and am looking forward to it. I follow Bonibaru on Twitter (my feed there is becoming increasingly c-drama-centric, which beats the hell out of all the political stuff), and I will definitely check out your other recs. I'm amazed that rageprufrock has come into this realm--well, not amazed, more delighted, since they are one of the best in fanfic.

Thanks for all the recs and info.

[umadoshi]

Boni is a multitalented wonder. *^^* (And devastatingly good at persuading people to watch things.)

I have two Twitter accounts, and the feed for the locked fannish one is also heavily centered on c-drama fandom (which means my to-watch list will only ever grow exponentially!). I similarly appreciate the respite from the political hellscape. >.< But the Guardian fandom is also a fantastic combo of friendly and blazingly enthusiastic.

AFAIK rageprufrock has only written two Guardian fics, both long enough ago that I suspect there won't be more, but they're both marvelous (surprising no one) in very different ways from each other. They're also both novel-verse, not drama-verse, now that I think about it.

I hope you find things you enjoy! ^_^

[darkemeralds]

"...novel, you say?" she asked hopefully.

[umadoshi]

"...novel, you say?" she asked hopefully.

Yes! ^_^ It's even fully fan-translated as of last month! (I haven't actually read the entire thing myself--for a long time it wasn't translated past chapter...75 or so? Out of 106...so I read what there was last summer and haven't started my [re]read since it was completed.) There are still some people working on smoothing it out (I'm not involved, so I don't know what the actual plan is), but it's there!

If you weren't aware that there's a novel (I may be misinterpreting your comment? If so, ignore the rest of this reply!), you should know that it's vastly different from the drama, unlike the MDZS/CQL situation where the book and drama are still clearly the same story. Essentially nothing about the Guardian novel meets Chinese censorship standards, so the drama is more of a massive AU than an adaptation. Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu did a breathtaking job of retaining the heart of the characters/their relationship (and they're why I'm fannish about the drama, whereas I enjoy the novel a lot), so there's more emotional resonance with the original than there has any right to be, given the situation.

(I'm not great at short comments, even with strangers. ^^;)

[darkemeralds]

No, you read me perfectly! That was me hoping you'd point me to a translation.

It's amazing to me how LONG these Chinese novels are. It took me weeks to get through MDZS. They really do seem to read like fanfic--in the best way. I gather that they're "webnovels," making them something like long fics posted on AO3 or Wattpad, but the fact that they get made into TV series, with high production values and huge stars--it just blows me away. When will Hollywood get on board with this obviously wildly successful approach to pleasing audiences?

I've downloaded the novel and am busy converting it to .mobi and sending it to my Kindle.

Thank you so much! (I like long comments--and hey, we share a couple of fandoms, so we're no longer strangers. :))

[umadoshi]

No, you read me perfectly! That was me hoping you'd point me to a translation.

Oh, good. ^_^ I was pretty sure about the hoping for a link, but not sure if you'd known the novel existed or not, and I didn't want to over-explain if you already knew.

I'm theoretically reading Heaven Official's Blessing (same author as MDZS), because many, many people I know love it, but it is SO long. At least four or five times longer than MDZS, IIRC, and divided into...five books? (I'm not sure if that's meant to be more like "here are five distinct novels" vs. the western sci-fi/fantasy doorstoppers that are one giant novel internally subdivided into five "books".) And unfortunately I think I've bounced out of it, which wasn't really helped by knowing at least a couple of people who're like, "I love it so much now, but I didn't really bond until around book 4..."

Thank you so much! (I like long comments--and hey, we share a couple of fandoms, so we're no longer strangers. :))

^_^ Hooray, then! And I hope you enjoy the Guardian novel!

[lyr]

Glad to hear you're still okay. So far, so good here, too.

I'm still trying to persuade more people to watch The Untamed. So far, I have badgered at least four into thinking about it.

Oooh, I have heard of The Guardian and would like to try it. Where are you watching it?

[darkemeralds]

Thank you for your service! I seem to have persuaded one or two to get started. The hurdle of the first three episodes is quite high, so I chat-watched them with one friend on Netflix Party, and explained as we went. It was fun, but she hasn't stuck with it, alas.

I bought myself a Viki account, because it seemed pretty clear that his new little hobby of mine might last a while.

The subtitles on Viki are pretty good. As far as I can tell, a fan community creates them. It's all very hazy, but the video streaming is every bit as good as Netflix's, and there's an enormous selection of Korean and Chinese content.

[sffan]

You will be overjoyed to know that I have started watching The Untamed. Slowly, very slowly (it takes a lot of mental bandwidth to read the kinda bad, really fast subtitles on the youtubed version I have access to and I am still working 5 days a week). I am enjoying it immensely, though.

As I described it to a friend:

Pretty boys!
Pretty costumes!
Pretty stunts!
Everyone's kinda gay!

I'm in!

:D (I may be getting access to Netflix, although I've been warned their subtitles aren't that great either. I'm too used to anime, I guess)

[darkemeralds]

Yay!!!

The subtitles on Netflix are bad. Adequate to get most of the main plot points...I think. I've watched some episodes on Netflix and there are different nuances.

Over time, too, I've engaged with various Twitter and Tumblr accounts (and a bunch of fanfic) by Chinese speakers, and have learned more about the ins and outs of names and language styles, and how much of the story is conveyed that way that are untranslatable and that non-Chinese-speakers simply can't get.

There's a moment in Guardian (which I recommend next when you've absorbed The Untamed) where the main character discusses the love interest's name--Shen Wei--decides it's unsuited to him, and changes it by changing the tone of the second syllable, from rising to high-level (I think).

It's great because he explains it, including the strokes he'd add to the character. So he's still Shen Wei as you or I would write it, but his name now sounds slightly different and means something entirely different.

This whole thing is just fascinating to me. It's giving my lockdown/quarantine/isolation a sense of direction.

[darkemeralds]

Oh. And you know there's a novel, right?

It's like 900 pages of fan-translation. I read it. It's AMAZING how closely the show adheres to it. Let me know if you're interested. I can hook you up.

[sffan]

You can absolutely hook a girl up :D I'll finish the Witcher books I'm reading, but then it's a go on The Untamed :)

[darkemeralds]

Name your format and tell me where to send it.

[sffan]

Sent you a private message :D