第四年第一百八十五天

Jul. 13th, 2025 07:22 pm
nnozomi: (pic#16332211)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
十 part 5 shí
南, south; 博, learned pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=24
卜 bǔ
占, to occupy; 卡, to get stuck/card/car; 卧, to lie down pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=25
卩 parts 1-2 jié
卫, hygiene/to protect; 印, to print/to engrave; 危, danger; 即, immediately; 却, but; 卷, to roll; 卸, to unload
pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=26
⺁ parts 1-2 hǎn
厅, hall; 历, calendar/history; 厉, strict/severe; 压, pressure; 厌, to dislike; 厕, bathroom; 厘, 1/100; 厚, thick
pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=27

语法
Using 吗 and 呢
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/ma-ne/
Using 吧 and 吗
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/ba-ma-sentence-particles/
长 vs 久
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/chang-jiu-long-length-time/

词汇
危害, harm; 危险, danger
为, to act as/become; 为了, in order to; 变为, to change into; 称为, to be known as
围, to enclose; 范围, range; 周围, around
温暖, warm
文化, culture; 文件, file; 文明, civilization; 文学, literature; 文章, article; 文字, writing/character; 外文, foreign language
握手, handshake; 把握, grasp
pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

玩玩
Two versions of 开花忘忧; pick whichever you like, an octave higher or lower.

大家过得怎么样?我还可以啊,我不在的时候我的棒球队赢得太多,为啥呀。

Culinary

Jul. 13th, 2025 08:04 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

This week's bread: a Standen loaf, 4:1 Strong Brown/buckwheat flour, with maple syrup (last drain from bottle) instead of honey and Rayner's Malt Extract. V nice.

During the course of the week I made Famous Aubergine Dip to take to a BBQ.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe: approx 70/30% wholemeal/white spelt flour, Rayner's Malt Extract, dried cranberries, not bad.

Also made foccacia to take to BBQ.

Today's lunch: sweet potato gratin with black olive tapenade (as there were sweet potatoes left over from last week), served with warm green bean and fennel salad (I did use tarragon vinegar but I think this had rather lost its oomph) and baby green pak choi stirfried with garlic.

Miscellaneous recs

Jul. 13th, 2025 04:20 pm
maggie33: (sexy icon 1)
[personal profile] maggie33
It’s so hot here again. And it’s this kind of stifling, humid heat that happens before the storm. I went to have a coffee in my favorite café in the morning and came back drenched in sweat. Ugh... No more going outside today, so instead I’m making this recs post with a lot of cute, funny and exciting things. 😊


Ballboy Tactics

This short Korean BL was super adorable and sweet, even though it didn’t avoid mentioning heavier topics, like for instance homophobia in sports.

Both leads are talented, pretty and have great chemistry. Just look at these two cuties:



And wow, that was some nice kissing, boys. And a very nice NC scene. For Korean BL that was very explicit. And long, and sensuous, and beautifully filmed.

And you know what that means, don’t you? It means two kissing gifs behind the cut (NSFW of course). And some spoilers, too. 😊


Read and see more.




I like that Jeong Wu was confused for like a week, and then he accepted that he was in love with Ji Won. And he instantly went all in in flirting with Ji Won. And in kissing Ji Won. And right after flirting and kissing he came out to his friends, without much hesitation and anxiety.

And the secondary couple is very cute, too. Consisting of that one knowledgeable best friend, who instantly recognizes what was happening with Ji Won and Jeong Wu, and of that other clueless and dumb best friend, who not only doesn’t notice anything about Ji Won and Jeong Wu, but doesn’t recognize his own feelings. Well, ok, it seems he finally did get a clue right at the end. 😊



Teaser trailer for Twelve

This is an upcoming short (8 episodes) supernatural kdrama, which starts airing in August. I was sold just by the summary and cast. To quote Mydramalist:

12 animals who received a call from heaven and came down to the human world to save it. They are each given their powers to protect humans and are reborn as 12 angels. Led by the tiger angel Tae San, the leader of the angels, the 12 angels fight a bloody battle against Asura, the king of demons who was hated by God and banished, and the demons to protect the human world.

There are Ma Dong Seok, Seo In Guk, and Ko Kyu Pil as angels. And in addition to that there is Park Hyung Sik as a cruel villain with beautiful black wings. I’m so in. 😊


Why 42 languages have the same word for "pineapple".

This vid from my favorite category of language history is funny and informative at the same time.





Some canons are just perfect for ‘POV outsider + social media’ fics, and Kpop Demon Hunters is one of them. And this fic is hilarious. I have never watched anything by that Todd guy, but it didn’t prevent me from enjoying this fic.

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Soda Pop" by Saja Boys (3183 words) by glitterlessgold490
Fandom: KPop Demon Hunters (2025), Todd in the Shadows - Fandom
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Fake Song Review, Fake Video Essay, Swearing, Screenplay/Script Format, RPF, (technically it's a fake review by a real person of a fake band's song), Songfic, an incredibly niche crossover that's only for me, Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, But Todd really doesn't know what canon is, in-universe
Summary:

They popped onto the scene in 2025 with one hit single and fizzled out just as quickly - what happened to Saja Boys? Forced by the whims of Patreon subscribers, YouTube Music Reviewer Todd in the Shadows covers the rise, fall (and possible sabotage?) of KPop's briefest boyband, while desperately trying to untangle the innuendos of "Soda Pop".

Weekly proof of life: mainly media

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:01 am
umadoshi: (summer light (florianschild))
[personal profile] umadoshi
We made it to the little market down the road for the second week running and found the first vendor we visited down to his last several boxes of raspberries, so we bought two and headed back home. First raspberries of the season!

(I think yesterday was the first time I ever actually stopped and noticed why raspberries are called that.)

Reading: In non-fiction, I'm still reading through Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace.

On the fiction front, last week I read Cameron Reed's The Fortunate Fall, relatively recently (and finally!) reissued under her current name after its first life as an award-winning SFF novel under her deadname literal decades ago. (I believe her upcoming novel is her first since this one!) It didn't actually hit my emotional buttons very hard (which isn't indicative of how anyone else might react), but it's beautifully constructed and executed. I see why it's so beloved by so many people. ^_^

I also read We Are All Completely Fine (Daryl Gregory), which I didn't realize was a novella until I started reading, so it went by pretty quickly. Interesting horror worldbuilding, although other than the characters' specific histories it's almost entirely hinted at or nodded to; I, at least, came away with almost no actual idea of what's actually going on on a larger scale.

And I read the new Murderbot story ("Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy") that Martha Wells released for the show finale (note that Murderbot itself isn't actually present in the story).

Watching: No Leverage this week, I don't think. [personal profile] scruloose and I have agreed to switch this to an "I watch this when I feel like it, and if they're around and feel like it, they'll watch with me" show rather than one we're Watching Together. They enjoy it, but don't feel a burning need to see every episode.

I kind of wonder if I haven't been started a show on my own for so long because I'm sort of subconsciously waiting to be able to watch the rest of Justice in the Dark whenever the whole thing is subbed somewhere.

We've seen the Murderbot finale, and I'm awfully glad the show's been renewed.

Beyond that, the two of us have now watched the very first episode of Silo, having had good luck with Apple SFF shows. I haven't read the books, so I know almost nothing about it.

(I have food stuff to talk about, but I think I'll call this a post and hope to write more later.)

(no subject)

Jul. 13th, 2025 12:50 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] kimsnarks!
tinny: Bridgerton: Penelope in an orange dress, happily sauntering off with a book in her hand, the text "Time to go read a good book" on yellow background (bridgerton_penelope read a book)
[personal profile] tinny
Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire
Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire
Toby Daye #10


The king convenes a conclave to decide whether to allow the use of [the important thing Toby discovered last time]. Of course some people use the gathering to further their own political agenda - by murdering people.

Another wonderful installment of the Toby Daye series. I got through it very fast - it was a fun and easy read. Which doesn't mean fluffy. :D As usual for that series, there's lots of death and attempted assassinations (including Toby's and her loved ones'). I simply love Toby's snarking pov, and it makes reading those books a joy every time.

some thoughts WITH SPOILERS

* The stakes kinda can't go any higher for Toby, since she's virtually immortal already and her accelerated healing means she comes back even from being dead now. (She already did in the last book, so that's nothing new. :)) So the threats now expand to her loved ones. In this case, Tybalt and Quentin.

* I love Tybalt with Toby. Period.

* I loved how she pretty much resigned herself to Tybalt being dead and/or asleep for 100 years. Even if the book didn't go there, having her agonize over it was painful enough, thank you. Entertaining the thought for a few minutes was stressful enough for me.

* I also liked all the thoughts Toby has on growing up - not her own, Quentin's mostly. That gave the book some nice weight, in the sense that it brought out the amount of time that has passed in-verse, and that Toby develops and grows along with 'the kids'.

* Apropos kids, I really liked how she described the pyjama party. She's more of a mom now than she used to be (although Toby has always been a mom, but it wasn't as clear in the earlier books).

* Considering the book took place during a political meeting, the politicking was kept to a minimum and didn't get on my nerves. It always helps that Toby doesn't like it either. :D

* Plot-wise, I thought it was suspenseful and even though one would think that there's not much new to tell after this many installments, I didn't feel it was too repetitive.


4 stars - Another fun time with Toby being undiplomatic and almost dying a few times. :D



1 - 5 stars - Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Final Architecture #1 [DW link]
2 - 2 stars - Miss Merkel: Mord auf dem Friedhof by David Safier Miss Merkel #2 [DW link]
3 - 4 stars - Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire Toby Daye #10 [DW link]

(I'm terribly behind on those reviews... not on the books, luckily, but I have to write up a few more soon.)

第四年第一百八十四天

Jul. 12th, 2025 06:51 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
⺁ part 2
厌, to dislike; 厕, bathroom; 厘, 1/100; 厚, thick pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=27

词汇
握手, handshake; 把握, grasp pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
陪我去上个厕所, come to the bathroom with me
我也没有十足的把握, I didn't grasp it fully either

Me:
在夏天我很讨厌穿太厚的衣服。
你为什么拒绝了跟他握手?

Superman (2025)

Jul. 12th, 2025 05:49 pm
lirazel: Lead couple from Healer ([tv] lois and clark)
[personal profile] lirazel
I saw Superman! I liked it a lot!

Positive stuff:

+ Finally, a superhero movie that cares about every single life! I did not think we would ever see such a thing--superhero movies use "collateral damage" to raise stakes while not actually caring about the people who die. But this movie cares because Superman cares. And I love that so very very very much. Even if it hadn't done anything else, I would have thought it a success for that.

+ Honestly, Superman is my favorite superhero because he's so ridiculously good and decent, and this movie gets that. It's earnest and sincere and isn't winking at you but it also isn't saccharine--it knows that it can be HARD to be good, and intentions aren't everything.

+ Top tier casting. Everyone is doing a fantastic job. Corsenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult ARE their characters. They were just as good as I hoped, but I was not expecting how much I would love Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific.

+ This movie loves the relationship between Clark and Lois, which means that this movie has good taste. Their chemistry is lovely and the scene where they're doing the interview is probably my favorite scene in the whole thing.

+ Lex is realistically evil in a way that many of our real billionaires are, which I appreciated a lot. His motivations are completely foreign to me, but I only have to look at the real world to see that there are really people who are like that.

+ The twist involving Superman's backstory was so ridiculously good and meaty. A really bold writing choice, but a great one.

+ I thought the pacing was really good! It never felt like it lagged!

+ Everything was bright! You could see what was going on even in the dark scenes!

+ Lots and lots of fun details that made it feel like the people who were making the movie were having fun making it.

+ Krypto!

Mixed stuff:

+ Being a rabid John Williams fan, I was delighted that they adapted his Superman theme for the film, but I really wish we had gotten just one scene where they used the full-throated original. None of the music was that level of thrilling.

+ I could have done with a lot more Clark at the Daily Planet, living his normal life, letting us get to know the Daily Planet people. The action scenes were very good action scenes, but as always in an action movie, I want way more of characters interacting. Imagine how much more Clark & Lois we could have had! However, I understand that the masses do not share my taste so I get why there wasn't more of that, and there was enough that I'm not angry about it.

+ The plot could have been better. It wasn't bad, and it provided a fine backdrop and set piece for the characters to show who they are, but I didn't love it, you know?

+ #teamsomebodyloveeve

+ I wish we'd had a smidge more showing us how Lex inspires loyalty in other people. I mean, yes, in real life, there are a bunch of people who will follow a billionaire that they think is smart without thinking about his morality at all. It's very realistic! but I want to know about this specific dynamic. Is he paying them obscene amounts of money? What is his view of the world that he could convince the engineer to do what she did to her own body?

Negative stuff:

+ Okay, what was the Kents' accents???? If the movie had been set in Alabama, sure, that would be reasonable, but I do not believe that people in Kansas talk like that? Nobody Iw've ever known from Kansas talks like that? It’s so weird how media uses "very southern accent" as stand-in for "country" even when the country the people are from is the Midwest.

If you are from Kansas and I am wrong about how people talk there, please tell me so I can stop being annoyed about this.

[as an aside, Mister Terrific's accent was so lovely that I immediately looked to see where Gathegi grew up, and to my shock found he grew up in California! I would never have guessed it! His southern accent was so realistic! Well done, sir!]

Me trying to work out the geography of these made up countries: ??????? The one is clearly Russia, the other is inspired by Pakistan, Afghanistan, or possibly a province of India, yet we're told this is all happening in Europe. Which makes no sense. Russia is half in Asia, it would have made so much more sense to just say Asia instead????

But my complaints are small.

So yeah! A fun movie! I recommend it even if, like me, you're not such a big superhero person and are exhausted by too many superheroes.

Now can we pretty please have a prequel movie about how Clark and Lois met and how she found out he's Superman???????
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
I dreamed of taking a transcontinental train with as little difficulty as traveling to D.C., which I am not convinced has been the state of American rail for decades. Otherwise since my sleep has gone principally to hell again, I feel burnt and friable and past my last fingernail of whatever I am supposed to be doing. On the one hand we are a communal species; on the other I would like to feel I had any right to exist beyond what other people require of me.

I am relieved to see that the enraging article I read last night about the deep-sixing of Yiddish at Brandeis has since been amended to a reduced but not eradicated schedule, but it would have been best to leave the program undisturbed to begin with. The golem reference is apropos.

My formative Joan D. Vinge was Psion (1982/2007), which even in its bowdlerized YA version may have been my introductory super-corporatized dystopia, but I had recent occasion to recommend her Heaven Chronicles (1991), which I got off my parents' shelves in high school and whose first novella especially has retained its importance over the years, of holding on to the true things—like one another—even in the face of an apparently guaranteed dead-end future, the immutably cold equations of its chamber space opera which differ not all that much from the hot ones of our planetside reality show. Not Pyrrhically or ironically, it chimed with other stories I had grown up hearing.

Jamaica Run (1953) is an inexplicably lackadaisical film for such sensational components as sunken treasure, inheritance murder, and a deteriorated sugar plantation climactically burning down on Caribbean Gothic schedule, but it did cheer me that it unerringly cast Wendell Corey as my obvious favorite character, the heroine's ne'er-do-well brother whose landed airs don't cover his bar tab and whose intentions toward the ingenue of a newly discovered heir may be self-surprised sincere romance or just hunting his own former fortune, swanning around afternoons in a dressing gown and getting away with most of the screenplay's sarcasm: "What is this, open house for disagreeable people?"

I cannot yet produce photographic evidence, but the robin's eggs in the rhododendron beside the summer kitchen have hatched into open-mouthed nestlings. A dozen infant caterpillars are tunneling busily through the milkweed.
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
I had the opportunity to go to a concert of his recently and enjoyed his part of the show exceedingly. The opening act, Puddles Pity Party, was very much not my thing, alas, but Mr. Yankovic is exuberantly himself, the costume changes are lolarious, and the music is inimitably Weird. If you like his work, you'll almost certainly like his concert. Extra points awarded for the songs (not all of them, alas) that had text videos, effectively functioning as closed captioning with a sense of humor.

Also, the audience was full of people wearing extremely cheerful shirts, and made great viewing.

I have not seen the most recent Murderbot yet, but I did spot David Dastmalchian as John Deacon in a clip of Weird-the-biopic which was played at the concert, so that's almost the same thing, right? I was very proud of my facial recognition software for picking up on that. I would like to belatedly award points to the casting department for finding a way to get another MENA-descended person into Queen, which is a great joke I didn't get at the time.

I loved the new Murderbot short story, which I read aloud to my SO.

(no subject)

Jul. 12th, 2025 11:29 am
skygiants: the aunts from Pushing Daisies reading and sipping wine on a couch (wine and books)
[personal profile] skygiants
lest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.

This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.

84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.

Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.

As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.

Assortment

Jul. 12th, 2025 04:12 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

Walkouts, feuds and broken friendships: when book clubs go bad. I don't think I've ever been in a book club of this kind. Many years ago at My Place Of Work there used to be an informal monthly reading group which would discuss some work of relevance to the academic mission of the institution, very broadly defined, and that was quite congenial, and I am currently in an online group read-through and discussion of A Dance to the Music of Time, but both these have rather more focus perhaps? certainly I do not perceive that they have people turning up without having reading the actual books....

Mind you, I am given the ick, and this is I will concede My Garbage, by those Reading Group Suggestions that some books have at the end, or that were flashed up during an online book group discussion of a book in which I was interested.

Going to book groups without Doing The Reading perhaps goes under the heading of Faking It, which has been in the news a lot lately (I assume everybody has heard about The Salt Roads thing): and here are a couple of furthe instances:

(This one is rather beautifully recursive) What if every artwork you’ve ever seen is a fake?:

Many years ago, I met a man in a pub in Bloomsbury who said he worked at the British Museum. He told me that every single item on display in the museum was a replica, and that all the original artefacts were locked away in storage for preservation.
....
Later, Googling, I discovered that none of what the man had told me was true. The artefacts in the British Museum are original, unless otherwise explicitly stated. It was the man who claimed to work there who was a fake.

This one is more complex, and about masquerade and fantasy as much as 'hoax' perhaps: The schoolteacher who spawned a Highland literary hoax

This is not so much about fakery but about areas of doubt: We still do not understand family resemblance which suggests that GENES are by no means the whole story.

My latest Guardian fanworks

Jul. 12th, 2025 12:48 pm
facethestrange: (guardian: xiao wei lollipop)
[personal profile] facethestrange posting in [community profile] sid_guardian
2 Weilan drawings, 2 Weilan fics, 1 Zhubai fic. :)

I'm Fine, Xiao Wei by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Ye Olde Haixing Era, Catching Hurt Character as They Collapse, Character doesn't realize how badly they're hurt until they collapse, Character who is clearly not fine insists they are fine, Hurt/Comfort, Fanart, Drawing
Summary: Zhao Yunlan gets injured in battle and tries to walk it off until he can't anymore. (He still doesn't think there is a problem, though.)

Renewed Interest by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Accidental arousal while cuddling for comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Awkward Boners, Cuddling & Snuggling, Spooning, Blushing, Fanart, Drawing
Summary: Zhao Yunlan may be exhausted, but he's not this exhausted.

Diplomatic Emergency (1091 words) by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan, Guo Changcheng
Additional Tags: Fuck Or Die, Extremely Consensual Fuck or Die, Established Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Implied Sexual Content, Fade to Black, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Humor, Hand-Wavy Dixing Powers (Guardian), hand-wavy post-canon, a lot of hand-waving in general, Guardian Bingo
Summary: "I'm fine, you don't need to worry," Zhao Yunlan replies. "It feels a bit like my skull is exploding, but I'm fine. Oh, and everything is a very curious shade of orange, but I'm sure I can sleep it off."

"Orange? What did you drink last night?"

Tomorrow (376 words) by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Ye Olde Haixing Era, Alcohol, Attempted Seduction, Hand Kisses, Drunk Shen Wei (Guardian), Tenderness
Summary: Oh, Xiao Wei, I don't think you should drink this.

That's not something anyone can say to the Black-Cloaked Envoy in the company of his subordinates. So Zhao Yunlan doesn't.

Lie to Me (292 words) 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: Not A Happy Ending, but they love each other a lot, not a happy ending for Weilan either, is this character bleed? it's not NOT character bleed
Summary: "They really wanted it to be true."

Bai Yu knows exactly what Long-ge is talking about — Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. And, more importantly, not Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan.
landingtree: Small person examining bottlecap (Default)
[personal profile] landingtree
Until I turn thirty, in about a year's time, I will not buy any books for myself unless they are:

-audiobooks.
-by a personal friend.
-for a book club.
-by Gene Wolfe or Tanith Lee.

Other people may buy me books, and I may buy books for other people, but I am not allowed to cheat using either of these facts.



~
Free-writing #2
~

First pope blue, tall, scowling. Second pope smaller and cursed. Third pope rotated, screaming, then popped. At this point the equipment was recalibrated. Fourth pope knew nothing of sin; this pope was kept. Fifth pope explained all real politics as a cheese factory and seemed promising but was terminated when its growth became exponential. The committee is worried about the sixth pope as its termination process was interrupted; it is suspected that this pope was rescued and taken home by employee Angela Smythe and investigations into her disappearance and a series of murders around Crabtree Lake are ongoing. Equipment was reset to most conservative values. Seventh pope resembled a pope. Eighth pope specifically identical to Pope Benedict XVI. Greater deviation was introduced. Eighth pope blue, porridge-flavoured. Ninth pope entered radioactive fusion and damaged main test chamber. Experimental protocols mandated a shutdown for re-evaluation and the entire project was deemed a failure, with no return on investment and no product saleable to the client. During this time it is now known that a further twelve popes were generated by Dr Alvarez using a sophisticated procedure for zeroing all sensor readouts; the committee was informed of the problem when one of its members read the manifesto co-written by Alvarez in the morning news. It is the position of the committee that Alvarez had not been an extremist Collyridionite prior to his joining the Institute but had instead neglected exposure procedures clearly stated in the safety manual. Background checks performed by the Institute’s hiring department are vigorous and no atheist or extremist staff members can have been admitted to the papal generation chamber.

The committee can guarantee that all equipment related to the project has been rendered nonfunctional. The advance of the Alvarian Popes toward Rome continues, but the government of Italy has the complete co-operation of the Institute and effective countermeasures will have been deployed by this report’s time of issue. The identity of our client remains confidential at this time.
china_shop: Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng looking at each other, with the text "Nope. Still not scared." (Guardian - ChuGuo still not scared)
[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 19: At the Great Seal, Lin Jing discusses their predicament with Shen Wei and meditates effectively. At the police station in the mountains, Daqing and Chu Shuzhi meet up with Guo Changcheng. Daqing shifts into human form and tells Changcheng that the souls of the dead are still at the resort; Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi decide to go to find them.
Chapter 20: Zhao Yunlan goes to the court of the Ten Yanluo Kings with Zhu Hong and sasses the Kings. A reaper reports that the Great Seal has broken, and an earthquake shakes the court. Zhao Yunlan demands to see the Reincarnation Cycle. The Qin'guang King shows him the Soul-Guarding Lamp. At the Seal, Shen Wei comes out to Lin Jing as the Emissary, and Lin Jing pulls out the icicle. Shen Wei heals and reveals that he's been manipulating Ghost Face. Meanwhile, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng search the resort for souls. (Guo Changcheng records a dead courier's last message.) They're joined by a rogue cultivator who tries to make conversation but has a disturbing shadow. A huge youchu bursts out of the ground.

The corresponding chapters in the Chinese version on JJWXC and the fan translation are chapters 100, 101 and a little less than half of 102 (up to "Meanwhile, in the county less than fifty kilometers away, people were still completely clueless.").

Excerpts:

1) Lin Jing and Shen Wei strategise )

2) Chu Shuzhi explains that the Ghost Face problem is above their paygrade )

3) Daqing finds his human body hideous and explains some gui lore )

4) Zhao Yunlan is unimpressed with the Ten Kings' Hell Expo and has no more fucks to give )

5) Shen Wei is blasé about his chest icicle )

6) Chu Shuzhi is softening towards Guo Changcheng, despite himself )

Questions:

How many points does Lin Jing get for a) attempting to communicate with a youchu, b) keeping calm and meditating on, and c) not falling out of the tree when Shen Wei revealed his Emissary identity? Where did the youchu learn human speech? How wounded would Shen Wei have to be to admit that he wasn't fine? Does the SID really only employ people who can hyperfocus, or is hyperfocus a side-effect of the Soul-Guarding Order? What do you think of the descriptions of the different hells? How adorable are Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng? How well are you following what's going on with the Seal and Shen Wei's machinations? 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!)

Our schedule for this round -- please sign up to host a post if you can!
troisoiseaux: (reading 8)
[personal profile] troisoiseaux
Continued my nostalgic re-reads of formative 2000s YA with A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper, a novel about the impoverished, eccentric royal family of a very small island - think Gibraltar, but legally independent, mostly abandoned, and on the other side of Spain? - in the years before WWII, in the form of the diary of 16-year-old princess Sophia FitzOsborne. (I only realized years after originally reading this how much it owes to Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle, which I've still never actually read.) This holds up delightfully, although it feels almost embarrassingly self-indulgent, in terms of realizing how precisely it's calibrated to appeal to a certain type of teenage girl and how precisely I was part of that target audience, which might be best described as "former American Girl and Dear America girlies." (And, I suspect, Samantha girlies in particular?) Like, it's just sooo.... she's an orphan living in a crumbling castle (with secret tunnels, a slightly unhinged housekeeper, and possibly ghosts) on an isolated island! She feels herself the too-ordinary middle child among her more talented/charming/outrageous/etc. siblings and cousins, but she's our protagonist, of course she has hidden depths! Plot threads include Sophie's crush on slightly older family friend Simon,* whether to move to London to be Presented Into Society as her aunt insists,** and the looming specter of real-world 1930s geopolitics— the boiling-pot build-up to, you know, WWII - a reference to the fascist sympathies of the British upper class in one of Sophie's brother's letters here, a piece of news there - is chilling, but things get dramatic very quickly when two lost German "historians" (or so they claim) wash ashore.

Footnotes (100% spoilers) )

第四年第一百八十三天

Jul. 11th, 2025 06:22 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
⺁ part 1 hǎn
厅, hall; 历, calendar/history; 厉, strict/severe; 压, pressure pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=27

语法
长 vs 久
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/chang-jiu-long-length-time/

词汇
文化, culture; 文件, file; 文明, civilization; 文学, literature; 文章, article; 文字, writing/character; 外文, foreign language pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
我知道你这段时间的压力, I know how much pressure you're under right now
这么长时间我都没发现原来校长是你爷爷, all this time and I never figured out that the chancellor was your grandfather
他可是我见过的最有文化的人, he's the most cultured person I've met

Me:
你是自己写的吗?你很厉害。
这个文字我看不懂。
lannamichaels: Brachos 2a, caption: "There's a debate about that" (daf yomi)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


Fun with idolatry and "I'm doing Avoda Zara" jokes! The perek ended yesterday but RL is being busy.

The absolute requisite note on Avoda Zara is one that gets stressed constantly, which is that this is referring specifically to the religious groups amongst whom the tanaim and amoraim were living, and only them. Among the reasons the commentators have said this for a long time is 1) actual real differences between the avoda zarah described in the mishna/gemara and the goysche practices they lived amongst, combined with 2) because if they kept to all of this, there would be many practical problems, because they were a lot more interconnected by that time and working in specific professions, and 3) the outside world thinks it gets a say in Jewish religious texts and would be violently offended if this refers to them.

But definitely there were times when dealing with Artscroll commentary when I had to snap and actually look up when the Meiri lived, and it's like, ah, 13th century France, I understand completely.


Read more... )

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