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Canada has come back to haunt me

Aug. 9th, 2025 01:20 pm
china_shop: Hugh grabbing Callum by the shoulder and saying defiantly to the camera, 'I'm taking him.' (CKR/HD I'm taking him)
[personal profile] china_shop
Last night, Andrew and I and our tv-watching-with friend started The Sympathizer, a drama set just after the Vietnam war, about a Vietnamese double agent. It's structurally really interesting, and it has RDJ in multiple kind-of-gross roles, lol. Darkly funny, but deals with some really serious subjects.

Created by Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, who are also showrunners. Yes, that Don McKellar.

It also, features Sandra Oh. I did not expect either of their names in the credits! :D

Things to do this weekend

Aug. 8th, 2025 03:40 pm
libitina: 'Nique (SinFest) naps with a sign: "Slackers Rise Up!" (SF slackers sleep)
[personal profile] libitina
Shows to watch
Friday night - War of Faith
Saturday 11am - The Heart Killers
Saturday 2pm - My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho
Sunday 1pm - Apothecary Diaries
Sunday 2pm - Moon Embracing the Sun Jack & Joker

Things to do
Have tea with Egyptian friend to exchange stuff (Sunday night?)
buy some groceries and work snacks from Aldi
get cash / deposit a check
pick up my laundry
buy gas (for the car)
Ask neighbor if he will help clear the plants out of my alley and backyard (in exchange for cash)
gardening! (there still are some plants not in proper pots)
Keep sewing my red SCA dress
package up the dried herbs so you can harvest more herbs to dry
package up craft swap things to mail to people!

Things to cook/eat
Clear room to put pickled things in the refrigerator
eat pickles?
start another jar of cucumber pickles
Do I want to try making cabbage kimchi?
marinate tofu for dinners (try making spicy tofu with the chinese soybean paste in the sauce)
eat butternut squash!
make paste to take to work for some book repairs!
radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)
[personal profile] radiantfracture
Old Fairview: White Lake Observatory

Mile 12.1 (4.4) – Half a mile further along, the access to White Lake Observatory turns right. (White Lake itself is the alkali pond opposite the Twin Lakes turnoff.)

Because of their electrical systems, which interfere with the operation of the radio-telescope, cars are not allowed on the road to the radio telescope. The big dish itself towers above the other installations, listening eternally to signals from outer space. The maze of poles and overhead wiring back towards Oliver are another form of radio-telescope, which pick up very long radio waves. The observatory is well worth walking the three-tenths mile; what's happening is completely incomprehensible to the layman, but fascinating nonetheless.

(1975/77)

* * * * * *

This observatory still exists, under the rather grander name of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. It is, so the government website tells me, "an internationally renowned facility for radio astronomy and leading-edge instrumentation." Until just now, I had no idea that it existed.

DRAO is still, naturally, a radio-quiet site, which must be more difficult these days than in 1975.

Dave Stewart, author of Okanagan Backroads, is quite right about its fascination. I am absolutely a lay person, and yet statements like this are weirdly thrilling: "The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is Canada's largest radio telescope. ... CHIME has no moving parts, but the Earth's rotation allows the telescope to map all of Canada's visible sky every day. CHIME was designed to survey atomic hydrogen from the largest volume of the Universe to date." No real idea why that would be important to do (feel free to explain!), but I'm glad it's happening here.

They have a Perseids viewing party next week!

§rf§

Source: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/research-development/nrc-facilities/dominion-radio-astrophysical-observatory-research-facility
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
[personal profile] edenfalling
Hello!

So since I last posted, I reached the gathering site in Alberta (a very swanky "cabin" in the Canadian Rockies, and I will not be any more specific than that, thank you very much). The get-together was WONDERFUL, which is unsurprising, but alas all good things must end so the vast majority of people left Sunday morning (July 20) in order to fly home (or in one case catch a bus to Banff). I drove northeast to Drumheller, leaving around 11ish, and that was the only day where I had to stop on the side of the road to pee in a ditch because Google Maps decided to route me via county roads through the middle of nowhere so I had no chance to find a gas station.

The Royal Tyrell Museum was EXCELLENT and I highly recommend a visit to anyone who has the chance. If you have the time, arrive in the morning to take a badlands hiking tour (this obviously did not work with my schedule), but the museum itself is still damn cool. I then spent the night in a "hotel" that was 7 rooms above an Indian restaurant. The room was fine! It was just kind of a surprise. But on the bright side, I bought a double order of garlic naan for an evening snack and proceeded to munch on that as car snacks for the next two days.

I also bought a t-shirt, a pair of socks, and a travel mug (no handle, has a tea-and-dinosaurs pun) from the museum gift shop. No regrets!

Monday the 21st I drove back south into the US and then took the Going-To-The-Sun Road from east to west through Glacier National Park. (I had previously acquired an America The Beautiful pass which gets you into ALL national parks, plus any sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, and US Army Corps of Engineers that charge an entrance fee.) Glacier is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Due to time constraints (and also weather; it was gray and drizzly during most of my visit) I didn't do any proper hiking, but I did get to walk upstream along Siyeh Creek for a little way.

I spent Monday night at a motel in Kalispell, west of Glacier, where I was able to wash a load of laundry. And I will post about the rest of my trip another day.

-----

In non-trip news, I am currently staying at Vicky's house while she is off on her own two-week road trip. She is circling through Chicago, Pittsburgh, NJ, DC, South Carolina, Tennessee, and then Chicago again on her way home to Minnesota. Meanwhile I am dogsitting Alfie, bringing in her mail, and generally making her house look lived-in rather than vacant.

What I get out of this is A) some distance from our parents, which is nice (I love them but it's still fundamentally awkward to live in their basement as a middle-aged adult); B) BETTER INTERNET (my parents' wifi works fine for anything word-based but is frankly tragic about images, gifs, and videos); and C) the company of one of the world's most adorable dogs. <3

In job search news, I have applied to two Not The IRS offices in the Twin Cities area (annoyingly you can't apply for a region -- you have to apply to each office individually). I have also updated my resume and tomorrow I am going to poke at LinkedIn until I can figure out how best to upload it and start refining my job search terms.

Also I may have fallen down a rabbit hole reading Ask A Manager columns, but shhh, we'll keep that as our little secret. ;)

['cause] it's boiled [and] fried so

Aug. 6th, 2025 05:35 pm
ursamajor: the Swedish Chef, juggling (bork bork bork!)
[personal profile] ursamajor
I have found THE WAY to make crispy firm tofu that I will now do forever more (or until I get bored and wander off to my next food obsession): brining it. It takes no longer than pressing it, is less messy, and the results are unbelievably crispy, even still a little crunchy after overnight refrigeration of the leftovers and then microwaving it, neither process designed to encourage that. And far more successful than any baking or cornstarch-dredging that I've tried before; will never go back. Noting here for my memories:

- Bring 4 cups water with 1/4 cup of salt (or, ratiowise, 1T salt for every 1 cup water needed to cover your tofu) to a boil, then turn off the heat
- Plop your cut-up tofu into the brine - the video did sliced planks, I did cubes so I didn't have two separate cutting steps, it came out fine
- Let it sit for 10-15 minutes
- Pan-fry the tofu in a little oil, flipping around the 3-4 minute mark; repeat until tofu is crispy enough to satisfy you.

As for silken tofu, for quick breakfasts/solo dinners, I've been nuking it with butter and soy sauce and a little bit of chili crisp, then topping it with a scallion that I chopped while waiting for the microwave. Maybe grating a little ginger over if I'm feeling fancy, or now that the lemons are slowly starting to come back, squeezing a little lemon over. It's like a hot hiyayakko, and might be more so if I ever remembered to pick up katsuobushi at Yaoya-San, heh.

*

In the meantime, our neighbors had been texting us while we were away about the annual plumpocalypse, and we came home to a carpet of purple underneath said plum tree, despite the neighbors coming by and picking up the excess while we were gone. Right now, we have enough to fill our entire dutch oven, with dozens hundreds more dropping daily. I really need to set up some kind of net situation to catch them before they hit the ground, I have made refrigerator jam literally every day for the last week and a half, and we are not keeping up. (Right now, our total jam despite our attempts to chip away at it fills my second-largest glass storage pan - 11 cups!)

But because my method so far looks like:

* sweep plums into a pile
* scoop plums of various softness into our largest kitchen bowl
* fill plum bowl with water and let it sit ([personal profile] hyounpark says in case there are worms?!)
* sort plums - only the intact ones make it through
* cook plums until just soft enough to pit
* pit
* weigh the puree, add 40% sugar
* cook, skimming off scum, until it passes the spoon test
* cool
* find a storage container to put the jam in in the fridge
* put on yogurt and toast ad nauseum because I have not committed to buying the whole kit for Proper Jam Making that would let the jam last longer than a few weeks in the fridge

At least our neighbors are equally meh about Proper Jamming so I feel less bad about not doing it, LOL. Still, I did take a cup and a half of yesterday's puree and turned it into a plum version of my favorite roasted applesauce cake for yesterday's block party, and it went smashingly; I was barely able to snag a piece for H and I to split!

Between the cake success and the tofu triumph and lovely August tomatoes marinating in a pool of olive oil and mint and salt and their own juices, I'm proud of these recent food feats. Now to figure out what I'm doing with the pork belly (for dinner tonight). Probably something that can get topped with some of the plum jam, heh.
china_shop: Zhao Yunlan stretched out on a stool. (Guardian - ZYL sprawled on a stool)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] sid_guardian


A couple more pics. )

Poll #33468 Winded
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14


Why does Zhao Yunlan get winded running through Dragon City in episode 20?

View Answers

he's out of shape (he only went jogging that one time)
3 (23.1%)

he hasn't recovered from his earlier visions / energy corruption
6 (46.2%)

he's running at top speed
7 (53.8%)

it's just a really long way
6 (46.2%)

he didn't warm up first
1 (7.7%)

other
2 (15.4%)

When you first saw the flashbacks in the first few episodes, what did you think?

View Answers

reincarnation
3 (25.0%)

time travel
1 (8.3%)

amnesiac immortals
3 (25.0%)

robot doppelgangers
0 (0.0%)

other
2 (16.7%)

I was already spoiled
5 (41.7%)

I was misleadingly "spoiled".
1 (8.3%)

umadoshi: (stop destroying our planet (bisty_icons))
[personal profile] umadoshi
The entire province is in a drought now, after a generally dry season that was already extremely dry in a lot of areas, and last I heard there was no rain in the forecast. Yesterday official word came out asking people to try to conserve water and telling everyone to stay the hell out of the woods. (Apparently there's a substantial fine, although my understanding is that no such fine has ever been successfully enforced, so that's...great.) So now is the time of hoping the farmers and crops come through as well as possible, and that wildfire season passes us by.

Pinch hits at Casefic Exchange!

Aug. 6th, 2025 07:00 pm
casemod: Inspector Clawseau. (pic#17751565)
[personal profile] casemod posting in [community profile] anime_manga
[community profile] caseficexchange is looking for pinch hitters to fulfil requests that include anime and manga fandoms.

About the event: Casefic Exchange is a fanwork exchange focusing on investigations. These can be solving murders, retrieving stolen items, finding missing people, missions, and mysteries. As long as it has an investigation as its core theme, it fits with the exchange. We are an AO3 exchange; you must have an account and be 18+ to participate.

Minimum requirements: We allow three mediums: a minimum of 3,000 words for fanfiction, a minimum of 10 panels for a comic, or a recording of a completed fic of 3,000 words minimum with "casefic" as one of its tags. Works must include a fandom, character/ship and be of a medium that the recipient has requested.

Event link: [community profile] caseficexchange.
Pinch hit link: Current pinch hits.
Due date: Friday 22 August at 11:59pm EDT.

Available post-deadline pinch hits:



Thank you for considering!
anehan: Tezuka drinking tea (Tenipuri: Tezuka and tea)
[personal profile] anehan
Recently read

  • Xue Shan Fei Hu, The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish, vol. 3. Silly and fluffy danmei. It's basically domestic fluff crossed with palace intrigue, except all the intrigue plots are resolved with minimal trouble and everything always works out for the main characters. Conflict level: -500. I don't know that I actually enjoyed reading this, because there was absolutely nothing of substance in it, but I still started vol. 4 right away. I blame the cliffhanger.

    I'll have to start being less of a completionist about danmei, don't I?


  • Xue Shan Fei Hu, The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish, vol. 4. Yeah. I've no excuse.


  • Gu Xue Rou, To Rule in a Turbulent World, vol. 1. Yet more historical danmei. I was pretty sceptical about this one, since the English translation is published by Via Lactea. Also, the translator/editor team is apparently Suika and Pengie, who made something of a mess of the TGCF and MDZS translations. Luckily, the quality of the translation and editing was better than I expected. Maybe nothing to write home about, but at least none of the tableware was tired of life, which was a step up from the TGCF translation.

    But. The fucking epub file, oh my god. Rant incoming.

    Screeching about the epub. Accessibility, goddamit! )

    It wouldn't have been a surprise if I'd just given up. I'm glad I didn't, though, because this was a surprisingly enjoyable read. So much so that I actually read it in one day.

    The MC is a flightly young master from a filthy-rich merchant family who has been sent to the capital to study for the imperial exam and to eventually buy prestige for his family by becoming an official. The ML is a slave from one of the northern nomadic tribes, whose loyalty the MC earns by saving his life. Since the MC is a flighty wastrel at first, he'll naturally have to face some difficulties to grow as a person.

    The prose isn't the most polished, but I liked the characters, and the pace of the novel is good. I also liked the farming, which is probably a weird thing to say about a story where the MC is studying to become a scholar, but there it is. A large part of this volume at least is taken up by restoring an old manor house and making the estate ready for spring planting. I happen to love stuff like that in fiction -- restoring something dilapidated, forging order out chaos, getting deep into the minutiae of a profession or craft -- but if you're bored by endless talk of watermills, then this might not be the book for you.

    Some content warnings to keep in mind should you be someone who would like to avoid these things: age gap relationship (15/22), master/slave relationship.


  • A.J. Demas, Lion & Snake: Series One. Damn. Way to slay me again, Demas. Slow burn, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, age gap romance in Demas's pseudo-historical setting. Basically tailor-made for me. I have this because I'm subscribed to Demas on Ream. I don't think it's available anywhere else (yet).


Currently reading

Little progress on the old RIPs. Oops.

Up next

More farming in historical China, perhaps?

CDrama Rec: Nothing But You

Aug. 5th, 2025 10:01 pm
tinny: Song Sanchuan and Liang You'an from Nothing But You kissing in grungy brown-orange coloring and the word 'anchor' (cdrama_nothing_kiss)
[personal profile] tinny

Wu Lei and Zhou Yutong in Nothing But You


Nothing But You (愛情而已) is a 2023 cdrama. It's a noona romance set in the world of sports: between Song Sanchuan, a professional badminton player who later switches to tennis (Wu Lei - you might know him from Nirvana in Fire, or maybe from Sand Sea), and Liang You'an, a sports company sales person/executive assistant (Zhou Yutong). He's 22, she's 32, and basically the whole obstacle to their relationship is that she thinks he's too young for her. That sustains the tension for a very long time indeed. :D I personally find both of them very cute (and I say that as someone who was indifferent to Wu Lei's looks before).

Is it a rec? Yes! Yesyesyesyes! It's so, so good.

Does it have a happy ending?
ending spoilers
Yes! So much yes. They manage to wrap up pretty much all the storylines in a saccharine finale, and I didn't hate even a single one of the choices.


Where to watch? You can watch it on Viki or Youtube.

I love so many things about this show!

A) There's not a single 'evil' character on it (minus one very short exception in one of the later eps). Every character has their own valid reasons for doing the things they do. Some of those are callous or misguided, but nowhere near as cliched as I'm used to from other dramas, and overall, most of the characters are just wonderful all around.

B) Many of the main characters are women, and I feel like the story is definitely told from a female perspective. All the women are encouraged to stand up for themselves and follow their dreams. The men aren't idiots either, though, which is just fun to watch. Of the secondary characters, I especially like Sanchuan's stepdad. He always has good advice (which doesn't always match Sanchuan's actual needs, but I love that too), and while I don't know the actor, I got the distinct impression that he must be a popular comedian. I also really like the boss's storyline. Overall, I like a lot more of the storylines and characters than I expected.

many more reasons, not spoilery (two minor spoilers separately tagged inside) )

Now I'm looking through fanvids and interviews on bilibili instead of starting something new. That's not the case for many cdramas for me, and I'm enjoying that, too. (I haven't found any really good ones yet, though. I'll keep looking.)


Some pictures of the couple


They always look this adoringly...


...at each other


He looks good sweaty and sporty


They're very cuddly together


Gimme a hug!


More hugs


Another hug!


There are quite a few kisses too


But mostly hugs :)


Me-and-media update

Aug. 5th, 2025 06:19 pm
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
[personal profile] china_shop
Previous poll review
In the Your Name poll, 73.5% of respondents spell their name out, unprompted, 26.5% offer an explanation or additional information, and 14.3% exaggerate the pronunciation to reflect the spelling. I've concluded that names are super inefficient, and we should switch to serial numbers.

In ticky-boxes, being gentle with yourself (69.4%) came second to hugs (77.6%), followed by three enchanted owl feathers that can draw forth the dawn (53.1%). Thank you for your votes!

Reading
10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall, read by Will Watt -- I loved this! The banter was hilarious, and the reading was flawless. Neither of the lead characters are exactly cinnamon rolls, but that helped to offset the impacts of some, er, questionable choices. I giggled my way through most of it and found it genuinely moving at the end. The basic premise is that the regional branch manager of a bed-and-bath store gets himself and his entire team fired for underperforming, immediately has an accident, and grabs the opportunity to fake amnesia and move into his prick of a boss's house (for "monitoring the concussion" reasons) a month before Christmas, in a bid to reverse the damage and save his team. Reads like a wild remix of the Sandra Bullock While You Were Sleeping Christmas movie, which I also love.

Will Watt is such a great reader that I then listened to another Alexis Hall, this one set half inside a MMORPG, despite my knowing nothing at all about gaming. Looking for Group was cute, contained a) a lot of gaming references and terminology, and b) a fair amount of '19-year-old guy falling for another guy for the first time, and also being very clueless!19, but eventually getting his act together.' The story scaffolding was showing by the end, but it still worked.

I'm now listening to Will Watt reading A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey. Magical AU London. This is an adventure story with lowkey m/m, set in a goblin market and a workhouse full of indentured children. The comps are Neverwhere and The Night Circus, and both seem apt; I'd add in Six of Crows, too. I'm 4 hrs 20 in and enjoying it so far.

Also in audio, Andrew and I started the new Rivers of London. It feels super self-indulgent so far, but you know, fun. Good sense of place, as always (to the point where I keep imagining Aaranovich swanning around Scotland, taking notes).

Ongoing: Guardian by priest, and Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.

Kdramas
Just passed halfway in my Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You) rewatch. Still loving it. *smishes everyone*

Other TV
More North of North, the first few episodes of Middle Class Bogan (Australian sitcom about an upper middle class doctor who discovers that a) she's adopted and b) her birth parents are drag racers; features New Zealand's Robyn Malcolm; the main character is very uptight and it stresses me out, but not in a terrible way); the first episode of Chief of War (Temuera Morrison is outstanding); Bluey! Fringe with my sister.

Hudson Hawk (DVD from my collection) -- shamelessly ridiculous, and I am totally here for it!! :D Apparently New Zealand is the only country where this film was a hit. Rated five out of five giggles.

Desperately Seeking Susan at the cinema -- I love this so much!! Delightful romp with TV/movie-amnesia. Stars Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, and young!Aiden Quinn. Rated five out of five hearts.

We have tickets for Jaws at the end of the month.

Fandom
I posted a poll to the [community profile] fan_writers comm -- possibly a tactical error given the state of my arms, but the discussion there has been great. It's so interesting seeing people's different approaches to writing.

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Letters from an American. (I should get back to Midnight Burger sometime -- I stalled out in the middle of chapter 18.)

Online life
Busy, busy, busy, but it's all good fun stuff.

Writing/making things
At this point, if I can finish my flashfic for the Crowd round of [community profile] fan_flashworks for the 11th NZ time (10th in most places), I'll count myself lucky and satisfied. A lot of my time, energy and arms are going into other things.

Life/health/mental state things
Same as last week, via-à-vis arms being bad and things otherwise being mostly okay.

Food
I made easy fried rice on Sunday, malfatti yesterday, and today I have a beef stroganoff minus onions in the slow cooker. Also, yesterday I made a ton of Korean pork dumplings minus cabbage. I'm still slightly baffled that I cook now -- what is happening??

Good things
The profusion of m/m profic and excellent audiobook readers. Online friends, and active Dreamwidth comms and fandoms. An inbox full of things to reply to, and a life full of things to do. Cooking. Fic and art. Wishlist is coming!!

Poll #33465 Reading preferences
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48


I prefer

View Answers

standalone novels
34 (70.8%)

duologies / trilogies
18 (37.5%)

finished series
27 (56.2%)

ongoing series
10 (20.8%)

re-reads
22 (45.8%)

new books by favourite authors
29 (60.4%)

discovering new authors
26 (54.2%)

gazing helplessly at my TBR list
21 (43.8%)

mostly fanfic
18 (37.5%)

other
2 (4.2%)

ticky-box full of swinging on a star
19 (39.6%)

ticky-box full of carrying moonbeams home in a jar
25 (52.1%)

ticky-box full of having more fun than you are
14 (29.2%)

ticky-box full of teenage giraffes adopting more of a flamingo aesthetic
25 (52.1%)

ticky-box full of hugs
30 (62.5%)

Fannish July

Aug. 3rd, 2025 10:47 pm
tinny: Song Sanchuan and Liang You'an from Nothing But You kissing in grungy brown-orange coloring and the word 'anchor' (cdrama_nothing_kiss)
[personal profile] tinny
I was still terribly stressed and my stress-watching is usually things I never planned on watching in the first place. I got very lucky with all my choices this month!

TV new


Ballboy Tactics, a Korean BL on iQiyi - Han Jiwon, retired gymnast, meets Kwon Jeongeu, their university's most popular basketball player. It's a very slow, thoughtful drama with a lot of internal dialogue. There's communication and sweetness instead of unnecessary drama and tropey staged scenes. I loved it a lot! There are barely any external obstacles (depending on how you count the base setup of homophobia in sports), it's all in their heads - I found that awesome! I absolutely rec this show. It has only eight 25-minute episodes, and I went through it in two days.

When it rains, it pours, a Japanese BL on Viki - Hagiwara lives in a frustrating sexless relationship with his girlfriend, while his colleague Sei lives with his best friend from childhood on whom he has an unrequited crush. They connect via a wrongly addressed email, and start confessing their problems to each other. There's a lot of talk about sex, which surprised me - it's very blunt and honest for a Japanese drama. There's also actual sex, and I really enjoyed the sex-first-romance-later plot here. Both characters are interesting, and I found the actor who played Hagiwara, Muto Jun, especially good/attractive. It's even shorter than the other one with only 7 25-minute episodes. CW for rape and infidelity.

My watchalong finally started When A Snail Falls in Love, with a few weeks' delay. It's an old cdrama with Wang Kai and Wang Ziwen. I'm enjoying how much more Chinese I understand now than when I first watched this seven years ago. The only thing that confused us is the weirdly unfitting soundtrack. Sometimes it tries to pass the show off as a Bond film (which is fair enough), but other times we were completely unable to figure out why the music was chosen the way it was. Granted, that's not unusual for cdrama, and it's not going to stop us. :) We've seen three eps now, and are mostly just cackling at Wang Kai's character's Bond-esque swoops and saves-of-the-day and general hero-halo awesomeness, at the Sherlockian intuitive leaps of logic of the female lead. So far we enjoy Wang Kai's voice and the leads' combined tall-and-smol-ness. What's not to like? :D

And then the biggest surprise of the month:
Nothing But You, a noona romance cdrama set in the world of sports (badminton and tennis) - a rec from [personal profile] china_shop. When I'm stressed, I tend to drop all my shows and instead watch silly romance things that I hadn't planned on watching. But this one was so good I just tore through it, I binge-watched all 38 eps in three weeks, and I ended up loving it from start to finish. It's a romance between a professional badminton player who later switches to tennis (Wu Lei - you might know him from Nirvana in Fire, or maybe from Sand Sea) and a sports company sales person/executive assistant (Zhou Yutong). He's 22, she's 32, and basically the whole obstacle to their relationship is that she thinks he's too young for her. That sustains the tension for a very long time indeed. :D I personally find both of them very cute (and I say that as someone who was indifferent to Wu Lei's looks before). I am writing up a proper rec post for it and will post it soon. You can watch it on Viki.

Movies


I saw #schwarzeschafe at the theater. I should not go to the theater anymore, the camera movements on the large screen make me so nauseous! I had my eyes closed for the second half. Despite that, I rec this movie. It's a German comedy (a loose sequel to the original "Schwarze Schafe" from 2006), and it's about a handful of very quirky characters whose storylines intertwine throughout the movie during a heatwave in Berlin. It's really hard to describe, and all the trailers are (imho) misleading. What can I say, I enjoyed it, I rec it.

Things learned in July

Aug. 3rd, 2025 10:01 pm
tinny: Something Else holding up its colorful drawing - "be different" (Default)
[personal profile] tinny
I felt like I learned a lot... more than half the slots are filled, yay. \o/

16 things, all different categories this time )
china_shop: The Guardian Lantern with the words 'HALF FULL.' (Guardian - lantern half full)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] sid_guardian
Guardian novel readalong.


Hi, and welcome to this week's installment of the Guardian novel readalong!

Here are last week's chapters, and you can find all previous discussions in the schedule posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), or via the !readalong tag.

This week's chapters:

Chapter 25: Zhu Hong and Fourth Uncle follow the branch of the Divine Tree down to the Great Seal. The branch plants itself, and it and the Ancient Merit Tree quickly grow upwards, all the way to the Mortal Realm. Aboveground, Zhao Yunlan has become Kunlun-jun, and Shennong's Mortar bows to him and says his work here is done. Zhao Yunlan/Kunlun is calm and says "I know" a lot; he meditates beneath the Soul-Guarding Lamp. On the mountain above the resort, the captured souls spill out and save Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi from falling. Changcheng is engulfed in spiritual flame and starts reciting the Soul-Guarding Order. Shen Wei emerges, ensouled, from the Lamp, and Kunlun catches him and kisses his brow. Kunlun explains Changcheng is the reincarnated wick. The massive, quickly growing tree waters and replenishes the earth.
Epilogue: Zhao Yunlan is working in his office, in an utterly foul mood. The various SID members come in to gawk at him, and he bites all their heads off. The gui have souls now, but have disappeared, but also, they're everywhere? Zhao Yunlan is staying in a hotel. Shen Wei arrives and apologises for the mind-wipe, but Zhao Yunlan passive-aggressively pretends not to know him. Changcheng reveals that Zhao Yunlan never left Shen Wei's hospital bedside. Finally, Shen Wei kneels, Zhao Yunlan sits next to him, and they make up.

The corresponding chapters:
* official translation vol. 3 chapter 25 = fan translation chapter 106
* official translation epilogue = fan translation Extra 1

Excerpts:

1) Zhao Yunlan becomes Kunlun-jun )

2) The collected souls save Guo Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi )

3) Zhao Yunlan 'explains' the fate of the gui )

4) Guo Changcheng is literally Zhao Yunlan's better half )

5) Shen Wei kneels, and Zhao Yunlan caves )

Questions:
Did you enjoy the ending? What was your favourite part? Least favourite? Do you think Zhao Yunlan's anger is justified? Do you understand what happened to the gui? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much therapy does Shen Wei need? What imagery did you enjoy the most? What are you still most confused about? And do you have any thoughts about how moments in these chapters affected or were remixed in the drama adaptation?

(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 readalong!)

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