darkemeralds | How's the pandemic going?

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.

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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?

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. ^^;)

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.

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! ^_^

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

"...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. ^^;)

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. :))

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!

How's the pandemic going?

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