awanderingcoyote

Poll #33446 Inter-realm transport options

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

How do random Dixingren end up in Haixing?

View Answers

there's a black market in tokens allowing travel through the Dragon Gate
8 (72.7%)

there's a third Gate (which may or may not piggyback off the Dragon Gate)
5 (45.5%)

Ye Zun acquired a power to jury-rig a temporary Gate
4 (36.4%)

someone has a really strong portal power
3 (27.3%)

a prisoner on a hundred-year sentence dug an extremely long escape tunnel from their prison cell... upward
0 (0.0%)

thanks to an ambitious former Dijun's infrastructure programme, there's a mostly forgotten pulley system / elevator
0 (0.0%)

an inventor built an illegal teleportation device
2 (18.2%)

the original starship still exists, far outside the city, and it has a beam-me-up transporter and juuust enough warp core left to power it
3 (27.3%)

native Dixing megafauna instinctively tunnel in upward spirals, and one or two of them just kept tunnelling (and then some enterprising/desperate young soul painstakingly carved in a staircase)
4 (36.4%)

other
1 (9.1%)

Does Lao Chu own any items of clothing that aren’t black or dark blue?

View Answers

one Hawaiian shirt that he liked the look of at the time but never wears
1 (9.1%)

other (please specify in comments)
2 (18.2%)

no
8 (72.7%)

Pandemic life
I would like to go for a swim today, but the outdoor pool doesn't open till October, boo.

Previous poll review
I really enjoyed everyone's answers to the Youtube poll, thank you! I'd been thinking that I mostly use it for a) tv and movie trailers, b) specific music I'm looking for or that people have linked to, and c) how-tos (especially technical things, now that the search engines are useless, but also random stuff like how to fold dumplings). But the discussion reminded me I also watch essays, usually about story, writing, or film, in particular:

HelloFutureMe,

heyjameshurst,

everyframeapainting,

EllenBrock, and so on. And occasionally talk shows, exercise things (yoga, zumba), and other random things. I have my history disabled so I won't spend my whole life algorithm surfing.

In the poll, 48% of respondents said music, 44% said other, and 24% said "instructional videos - practical" and "dramas and tv". Ten percent of respondents don't use Youtube. In ticky-boxes, squishable fur-creatures (46%) came second to hugs (70%). Thank you for your votes and comments!

Reading
Audio: System Collapse (Murderbot) by Martha Wells, read by Kevin R. Free. I enjoyed this, not quite as much as Network Effect but well enough (and it might hit better on a re-read, like Network Effect did for me). I really appreciate that the series is grappling with wider existential issues, rather than opting for "Murderbot is super special" exceptionalism. And the middle section of Saving The World Through [Spoiler] was very fun.

Audio: Waiting for the Flood by Alexis Hall, read by Will Watt. This is a gorgeously written (and brilliantly narrated) m/m & m/m romance -- very close POVs, lovely similes. The perfect-partner wish fulfillment is almost at magic realism levels, and I found the transition from POV1 to POV2 a bit jarring, but I had been wondering how there could still be six hours left at that point, so something had to happen. My fannish brain wanted it to all come together more at the end -- poly, or friend group -- but how it actually played out was more realistic. The gestalt felt kind of genre-breaking: some very romance-novel elements, elevated by the observational detail and dreamy pacing, and complicated by the unorthodox structure. In minor characters, I loved Marius' mother so much.

Continuing on with Meditations for Mortals (thought-provoking and compassionate; the one-short-chapter-a-day really does feel meditative, and I suspect I'll go right back to the beginning once I've finished) and Guardian (just a few weeks to go in the readalong).

I found Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh in a neighbourhood tiny library yesterday, so probably that sometime soon. I haven't read it since I was a kid, and somehow I own the sequel but not the original. Talking cats ftw!

Kdramas/Cdramas
Continuing Nothing But Love and enjoying it tremendously. Both the leads have such a huge amount of heart, and the theme song's chorus ("you will be loved, you will be loved") really is the theme of the whole show. The found-family vibe is slowly coming together.

Other TV
The Secret Genius of Modern Life hosted by Hannah Fry s02e02 -- about the history of the vacuum cleaner; very close to being a puff piece (suck piece?) about Dyson.

The first episode of Tribe hosted by Bruce Parry (UK documentary series), where he goes to stay with remote tribes and lives with them for a few weeks, taking part in their daily life. It has what I'm assuming are the usual implicit tensions of this kind of anthropology (risks veering into voyeurism), especially when there's a camera crew involved. Parry can't actually sink into the experience fully because he has to keep breaking scene to narrate to camera. But was still really interesting.

Dead Ahead -- an Aotearoa NZ answer to the Ghosts franchise. A Māori family return from living in London to inherit the family home and find themselves haunted by dead relatives (kēhua). It's pretty great and also bilingual, with a fair amount of subtitled reo Māori. (Note to self: rewatch if/when you finally get around to starting to learn te reo.) One short season, which argh, does not resolve the central question. More of a drama than a sitcom.

North of North -- more indigenous TV, this time in the Canadian arctic. We've seen three episodes now, and it's delightful. The main character is lovely and charismatic, and it's made us laugh really hard a few times. Fresh and surprising.

More Bluey -- how is this show so adorable? How am I so intractibly earwormed with Bingo's "poor little bug on the wall, ding jing" song?

Tetris (2023 movie) -- this was unexpectedly excellent! It's a biographical thriller about trying to secure the distribution rights to Tetris. Set during the cold war, with a Ted Lasso-like main character. (I may only think that because of the moustache, lol.) A flawed but likeable main character, anyway. It contains corporate intrigue, corrupt and backstabbing magnates (Robert Maxwell played by Roger Allam of Cabin Pressure fame), and naive Westerners heading to the USSR and landing themselves in hot water in multiple hapless ways. Playful, funny, energetic, tense, and based on a true story. (On Apple+.)

Fandom
Multiple modding things happening at once. I can do this!

And ooh,

fan_writers already has 150+ subscribers. \o/

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses (the last couple of episodes haven't really landed for me; I like the technical ones), Letters from an American (US politics), Gone By Lunchtime (local political pundits; their discussion of the RSB made me want a lawyer or two to butt in).

Writing/making things
Lots of false starts. Apparently I'm still restocking the well or whatever.

Life/health/mental state things
My arms are such a mess, gah. Other than that, things are okay!

Food
I made Crispy Sesame Tofu last night, and it was amazing. Like the lemon chicken recipe, it contains 4 tablespoons of sugar; totally worth it. The tofu crisped really well, too. Last week I made nuoc cham (the dipping sauce that often comes with Vietnamese summer rolls; fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, water, garlic, chillis) for the first time, and it was delicious. Conclusion: sugar is the answer to everything.

Today I'm going to make chicken dumplings to re-stock my freezer.

Link dump
Korean practice post | Current earworm (from Bluey) | Cow Cuddling & Highland cow experience (UK) | The Four Types of Novel Writers by

EllenBrock (Youtube, revisiting) | 9 Mistakes You're Probably Making in the First 10 Pages by

alyssamatesic (Youtube) | Louis Baker - R A I N B O W (Youtube, music). (So much youtube, hi.)

Good things
Guardian. Local TV shows. Cat! Cooking new things. An inbox full of fannishness. Audiobooks.

Poll #33442 Your name

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

When you give your name over the phone, you often / habitually

View Answers

spell it out, unprompted
31 (70.5%)

exaggerate the pronunciation to reflect the spelling
6 (13.6%)

offer an explanation or additional information
12 (27.3%)

other
5 (11.4%)

ticky-box full of being gentle with yourself
30 (68.2%)

ticky-box of a taxonomy of dandelion-wishes
13 (29.5%)

ticky-box of sugar in everything
11 (25.0%)

ticky-box full of waiting patiently, fiddling your bag strap
11 (25.0%)

ticky-box of three enchanted owl feathers that can draw forth the dawn
23 (52.3%)

ticky-box full of hugs
34 (77.3%)

facethestrange posting in

All drawings this time (because all fics I've written recently have been for not-yet-revealed events, hah). 2 novel Weilan, 1 Ye Zun, 1 RPF/Weilan derivative-ish. :)

Consume by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Biting, Scratching, Enthusiastic Consent, Long-Haired Shen Wei (Guardian), cntw because it is blood but it's not violence, Fanart, Drawing
Summary: Zhao Yunlan wants to be drank from too.

Just Come Home by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Hugs, Canon Illustration, Fanart, Drawing
Summary: (...) with no concern for their surroundings, he wrapped his arms around the black-cloaked figure, who was feared and revered by all, and pulled him into a hug. In a hoarse rasp, he said, “Just come home.”
(Volume 3, Chapter 6)

Peace and Noodles by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ye Zun (Guardian)
Additional Tags: Noodles, Ye Zun's Hands-Free Eating Methods, Ye Zun's White Suit, Ye Zun's Ponytail, Zhao Yunlan's Poor Dietary Choices, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Guardian Bingo, Fanart, Drawing
Series: Part 6 of Guardian Bingo 2025
Summary: Zhao Yunlan has taught Ye Zun how to make coffee noodles.
or:
When you have a stain-removing power, you can lounge around the home in your impeccable white suit.

Love Me Like the Ocean by facethestrange
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018) RPF, Chinese Actor RPF, 开始推理吧 | The Truth (TV 2022)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong
Characters: Bai Yu (Actor), Zhu Yilong
Additional Tags: Mild Sexual Content, Nipple Licking, Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations, Fanart, Drawing
Summary: Pirate Bai Yu/Fisherman Zhu Yilong.

tinypinkmouse posting in

With some encouragement from people on Tumblr I finished and finally posted one of my somewhat older WIPs (apparently, I started writing this almost exactly three years ago).

Who We Really Are (20036 words) by tinypinkmouse
Chapters: 4/4
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: Pre-Canon, During Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Animals, Fix-It of Sorts, Dating, First Kiss, Flower Tribe, twins reconciliation, baby animals make everything better
Summary:

No one expects the Black Cloaked Envoy to show up with baby animals clinging to him. Yet somehow it keeps happening.

amedia posting in

Title: Galileo
Fandom: Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationship/Characters: Lin Jing, the SID ensemble
Music: "Galileo" by Naturally 7
Length:: 2:56
Summary: My tribute to the adorkable Lin Jing of Guardian, and his gadgets, gizmos, and doodads.

facethestrange posting in

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, part 5), or via the !readalong tag.

This week's chapters:

Chapter 23: The branch of the Great Divine Tree protects Zhu Hong who stayed behind at the Yanluo Courts. While she's talking about the branch with Fourth Uncle, it grows a third bud. The "youth" who turned out to be a gui throws Chu Shuzhi off the bridge. Guo Changcheng jumps after him, leaving the soul bottles behind.

Chapter 24: During the ritual, lao-Li remembers and confesses that three hundred years ago he stole Daqing's bell to cure his bone cancer. Shen Wei uses the Hallows to reseal the Four Pillars. During the last step (the Soul-Guarding Lamp) Shen Wei erases all of Zhao Yunlan's memories of their relationship, and sacrifices himself.

The corresponding part in the Chinese version on JJWXC/the fan translation starts a little less than halfway through chapter 105 and goes up to the end of that chapter.

Excerpts:

( 1) The branch of the Great Divine Tree grows a third bud )

( 2) Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng fall off the bridge )

( 3) Lao-Li's story )

( 4) Shen Wei mocks Ghost Face )

Questions:

How impressive is Guo Changcheng's courage now? Should Daqing forgive lao-Li? Do you prefer the novel version or the drama version of their backstory? How about the story of Zhu Hong's branch so far? Did Shen Wei's change of heart and self-sacrifice surprise you? How do you feel about what he did?

You can answer as many or as few questions as you like, or just comment without answering any of them at all! And if you see this post and you're not actually reading the novel, I would love to know what you think about any of this with limited context. :D

And here is the schedule, where you can sign up to host a post!

nnozomi posting in

senzenwomen

Marie-Louise was born Aihara Miné in 1875 in Tokyo, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an Irish military attaché. In early childhood she enjoyed the life of a diplomat’s daughter, sometimes taken by her parents to balls at the British Ministry. After her father’s death in 1885 her mother struggled to support the family, and Miné eventually had to leave school because there was no money for fees.

In 1891, her father’s sister, who lived in Paris, offered to adopt her, a plan which Miné’s mother accepted reluctantly in order to give her daughter a better chance. Accompanied by the Minister Plenipotentiary’s wife, Mary Fraser (known to us as a friend of Yei Theodora Ozaki), Miné traveled to France and moved in with her aunt, where she was baptized as a Catholic, choosing the baptismal name Marie-Louise for the Virgin Mary and King (St.) Louis IX.

In 1894, feeling the need to learn a trade, she was inspired by the fashion of the women around her in Paris. It seemed unlikely that Western fashions would catch on immediately in Japan, but hair and makeup might give her a way in. She enrolled in a beauty school in Paris, learning about marcel waves, wigs, hair extensions, and cosmetology (she even rented an apartment in secret from her aunt and used it as a salon, offering free hairdressing to models who would let her practice on them). Eventually she became advanced enough to teach at the school herself.

Come her thirties, Marie-Louise started receiving more letters from her mother urging her to return to Japan. Accompanied by the Ambassador to France, Kurino Shin’ichiro, she returned home in 1911 for the first time in nineteen years. There, as Japan internationalized, she became the Imperial Household’s consultant on Western dress. Through introductions from Kurino’s wife Eiko, she also served as beautician to the nobility; Eiko also helped her reaccustom herself to the minutiae of Japanese life.

In 1913 she opened the “Pari-in” or Paris Shop, Japan’s first Western-style beauty salon, popular with the ladies of high society (thanks to whom Marie-Louise was able to polish her faltering Japanese). Among other innovations, she rescued women from time-consuming struggles with long hair with the “Louise hairpiece,” based on Parisian wigs, which could be easily reshaped and removed at night; it sold up to 150 a day. In the same year, Marie-Louise opened the Paris Beauty Academy, passing on beautician skills to the numerous women left widowed or otherwise adrift by the Russo- and Sino-Japanese Wars.

In 1923, the Paris Shop was destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake; Marie-Louise fled to a nearby park with a handful of tools, which she used to bring some comfort to the other women gathering there, before opening Marie-Louise Cosmetics and the Marie-Louise Beauty Academy in her home. The Academy later expanded to a total of five branches. A year later, Marie-Louise served as the beautician in charge at the wedding of Crown Prince Hirohito (shortly to become the Showa Emperor) and Princess Nagako, solidifying her position as a trendsetter and habituée of women’s magazine spreads. Her schools continued to expand, although she kept tuition low in order to enable more women to learn the trades they needed.

The main school burned down in the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo. Although it was an enormous blow to Marie-Louise, then evacuated to the Karuizawa resort, it was to be rebuilt by 1947; in the same year, an official beautician’s exam was established, and Marie-Louise was the first to receive a license.

In 1953, Marie-Louise was given an award by the French “Cercle des arts et techniques de la coiffure de Paris” for her work in bringing Parisian beauty culture to Japan. She admired her award and left in the middle of the ceremony, explaining that she had a class to teach. She continued to teach until shortly before her death in 1956 at the age of eighty-one.

Never married, she took Mukai Matsusaburo as her adopted son in 1916; he married her most promising student, Chiba Masuko, and their children and stepchildren continued to build the Marie-Louise empire (some taking “Marie-Louise” as their family name). (According to Mukai’s daughter Akiko, he and Marie-Louise were themselves lovers, but he was so much younger that they were not able to marry, and decided instead on becoming mother and son. Whether or not this is true, they apparently made the family work.) Among her best friends was Oguchi Michiko, a beautician and women’s rights activist who was also a friend of Nishikawa Fumiko.

Sources
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA (Japanese) Various relevant photographs

china_shop posting in

( A couple more pics. )

Poll #33412 I didn't expect you to have such skillful hands.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

In the liniment scene, why does Zhao Yunlan wince?

View Answers

it hurts and he doesn't want to admit it
9 (40.9%)

it hurts in a sexy way
5 (22.7%)

he's having a Feeling about Shen Wei touching him
15 (68.2%)

other
2 (9.1%)

Why does Shen Wei have a first aid kit?

View Answers

it came with the house
1 (4.3%)

it's part of his passing-as-human camouflage; he has excellent attention to detail
11 (47.8%)

when he was living in the staff dorm, he was the go-to guy for when people got minor injuries (and they always healed suspiciously quickly)
13 (56.5%)

for Zhao Yunlan
14 (60.9%)

other
0 (0.0%)

Also, feel free to say in comments what your favourite aspect of the liniment scene is. I was going to do a poll question for that, too, but it would have had about a hundred checkboxes. ;-D

Previous poll review
In the Retribution poll, 78.6% of respondents said the best revenge is living well, followed by a tie between "is sweet" and "is served cold" with 21.4% each. In ticky-boxes, an ancient language of shadows and flight (52.4%) came second only to hugs (73.8%). Brain being empty, but not in a meditation way came third with 50%. Thank you for your votes!

Reading
Still listening to Meditations for Mortals: Four weeks to enhance your limitations and make time for what counts, written and narrated by Oliver Burkeman, one short chapter a day. It's good! Yesterday's chapter was, basically, stop hesitating at the fork in the road, and take a step one way or another. So I should probably pick a WIP to work on. Heh.

Also listened to Network Effect (Murderbot) by Martha Wells, read by Kevin R. Free. (I've read it before in ebook, but I didn't remember much.) This time I was struck by how the first third or so is a locked-room mystery

spoilers.

set inside the corpse of the victim, ha! The middle is Murderbot-ART fighting/relationship drama, which is delightful. The final part starts out all action/adventure, and I kept zoning out of the logistics, but then we got other SecUnits, who are delightful, and ART cleaning for the in-laws.

Awesome! I've started System Collapse.

Ebook: just Guardian.

Kdramas/Cdramas
An episode and a half of Sell Your Haunted House with Pru. We have two episodes to go. And I'm continuing my rewatch of Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You), a Chinese m/f romance set in a tennis club. I guess I'm renewing my VIKI subscription after all.

Other TV
About two thirds of The Residence (no spoilers, please!), which is enjoyably quirky in a Knives Out-esque way. Original flavour Lilo & Stitch, just as fun and anarchic as ever. We finished Turning Point: The Vietnam War, which was excellent but, despite having a wide range of voices throughout, ended very much in a US pov. And more Bluey, which is currently my happy place. "Bingo!"

Fringe with my sister (plus a couple of episodes of Bluey).

Guardian/Fandom
Guardian!!! <3 <3 <3 Did I mention that

guardian_wishlist is coming in a month or so?

Also, that

mific and I set up a comm for talking about writing:

fan_writers (original fiction writers also welcome). It's humming away so far. Bring us your writing-meta links and thoughts!

Audio entertainment
A little more Letters from an American (/o\), one episode of Writing Excuses (currently has a very chatty, not very technical vibe, which is not so much my thing).

Offline life
On Saturday I went to the Dowse Art Museum, which had a range of delightful exhibits, including: a) several rooms on the theme of gay cowboys (before I went in, one of the staff cautioned me in an undertone that some of the works were explicit; reader, they were), featuring frilly saddles, large metal dildos, a whole wall of pencil sketches of gay cowboy sex, like seriously, and a short film about a newly het-married man who either decided to live in his gay-cowboy dream or went through a portal to a meadow-by-a-river gay-cowboy paradise, taking the married couple's priest with him, I'm not sure which. It ended with a dance number. b) a collection of latex sphinx cats, with each tattooed by a different local tattoo artist. c) a more sober and traditional exhibition of art made out of stone. d) a collection of "Shoes with Personality". e) some very nice weaving from (iirc) the 1920s and 30s.

On Tuesday, a friend and I went to the National Portrait Gallery for the 2025 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award, which had a fantastic range of styles and media, and I was particularly struck by one that made me think about my WIP meta, how much conviction it must take and how grounded in the concept the artist must have to be to embark on something quiet and thoughtful and complex, and then keep at it.

Writing/making things
I wrote a last-minute drabble for the Face challenge on

fan_flashworks, but other than that, nothing but meta. And I spent yesterday's Writers' Hour on this post. I appear to be in a fic-writing hiatus, waiting for my creative brain to surface, but today I managed to find a sort-of ending for a WIP, just a few paragraphs, and send it to beta.

Life/health/mental state things
Arms still not great. Otherwise things are pretty good. The sunshine makes such a difference.

Food
I made this lemon chicken recipe twice in three days. So good! (So much sugar, lol.) Am about to make malfatti to stock the freezer with.

Good things
Art galleries and lunch with friends. TV with friends. Sunshine. Bluey. Guardian. New writing comm. Dreamwidth. Plenty of fun things to keep me busy. You all.

Poll #33408 Youtube

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

If you use Youtube, what do you mostly use it for?

View Answers

music
24 (48.0%)

game play
9 (18.0%)

vlogs
7 (14.0%)

instructional videos - practical
12 (24.0%)

instructional videos - creative
9 (18.0%)

dramas and tv
12 (24.0%)

movie and tv trailers
10 (20.0%)

other
22 (44.0%)

I don't use Youtube
5 (10.0%)

ticky-box full of squishable fur-creatures
23 (46.0%)

ticky-box full of the delicate scent of honeydew among beech trees
19 (38.0%)

ticky-box full of grabbing a large hammer and just smashing things
21 (42.0%)

ticky-box full of existential hummingbirds wondering what to do with their lives
22 (44.0%)

ticky-box full of hugs
35 (70.0%)

I'm listening to Meditations for Mortals: Four weeks to enhance your limitations and make time for what counts, written and narrated by Oliver Burkeman, which espouses imperfectionism, a philosophy of life where you acknowledge that you'll never manage to do everything, and you stop beating yourself up about that fact. (I'm only seven short chapters in, hence this massive oversimplification.) I was thinking about how this relates to my WIP folder.

I'm serially monofannish. When I move fandoms, my old WIPs generally acquire Permanently Discontinued status. Sometimes I post them to AO3 marked incomplete, and other times they lurk in a subfolder of my WIP folder, where I occasionally mourn their lost potential. But mostly they're easy to ignore.

Over the months and years in a new fandom, I naturally accumulate more WIPs. So how do I choose what to work on next? How do I blow the dust off and get the engine turning over?

( Below the cut: multiple lists! )

A grey-scale banner showing a handwritten page with edits on one side, and hands typing on a laptop on the other. The centre text reads '@fan_writers.dreamwidth.org - talking about writing'.

mific and I have started a new comm:

fan_writers - for meta about writing. As the name suggests, we're primarily coming from a fannish context, but original-fic writers are also welcome! Bring us your links to writing-related meta on Dreamwidth or post directly to the comm.

Here are an Introductions post and a Resources post.

trobadora posting in

Welcome aboard for this week's chapters of our Guardian readalong!

Here are last week's chapters. You can find all previous discussions on the schedule post (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5), or via the !readalong tag.

This week's chapters:

Chapter 21: The Yanluo Kings want to use Zhao Yunlan's heart's blood as the Guardian Lantern's wick, but the yao storm the Yanluo Courts under the leadership of Fourth Uncle, and likewise the daoists and assorted other immortals who were present at Kunlun Mountain. Ghost Face and various gui break free from the Wangchuan, and Shen Wei's trap is sprung. Zhao Yunlan half learns, half figures out Shen Wei's plan, and Zhu Hong clarifies Zhao Yunlan's feelings for Shen Wei. Ghost Face blows himself up.
Chapter 22: Guo Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi fight various youchu (including the fake rogue cultivator) with the combined might of fear stick and zombie powers, then escape to the top of the mountain, but end up in trouble there again anyway. Meanwhile, Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan and Lin Jing run into Daqing, escape from the Netherworld, and find SID and other people waiting for them. Shen Wei plans to re-seal the Four Pillars with the Hallows, and Zhao Yunlan tells Shennong's mortar to take his place and take care of his parents. Everyone comes together to help Shen Wei.

The corresponding part in the Chinese version on JJWXC/the fan translation starts a little less than half-way through chapter 102 and goes up to a little less than half-way through chapter 105.

Excerpts:

( 1) Zhu Hong defends Zhao Yunlan against the Yanluo Kings' designs )

( 2) Shen Wei is caught out )

( 3) Zhu Hong and Shen Wei have a rapprochement )

( 4) Speech time for Ghost Face )

( 5) Chu Shuzhi weaponises Guo Changcheng's fear )

( 6) Shen Wei addresses the crowd )

( 7) Zhao Yunlan's request for Shennong's mortar )

Questions:

What do you think of Shen Wei's plans? Or of the way he acts towards Zhao Yunlan? Is it satisfying seeing all the different characters coming together again? Are you following everything that's going on? How annoyed are you that we don't learn how Lin Jing made it to the Yanluo Courts in one piece? Any thoughts about Ghost Face exploding himself, and what the drama made out of that? Which of the things that has a direct parallel in the drama is your favourite bit of adaptation?

(As usual, these are just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like!)

Our schedule - please sign up to host a post if you can!

wrote_and_writ

Howdy, y'all! I have been home for about three weeks and will be here for another four weeks, then I'll head back to Shanghai. The school year was rocky, although not nearly as bad as Clown School. However, it's not a place I see myself staying long term, which means when I get back, I'll start looking for jobs again. I really really want to be in an international school again, and I REALLY want to stay in Shanghai. It's an amazing city, and I plan to spend a lot more time feeding my soul next year instead of giving so much of myself to work.

That said, I am taking a summer class on using sketch notes in the classroom (credits toward recertification), and I'm excited to try those out in class next year.

I took a road trip to the Oregon Coast with my bestie. We spent a little time in Portland (hello Powell's!) and then drove up and down between Tillamook and Newport, poking around. I added a bunch of birds to my life list. I didn't get great pictures, alas, but I'm not really interested in investing in photography at this point. I am, however, determined to get some binoculars that work with my glasses. It was frustrating to see eagles and hawks soaring but not be able to really identify them. (Or to see some sort of sandpiper scuttle away as I squinted at it.)

On the subject of birds, I started my life list officially a few years ago, and I decided I would add birds as I saw them from the date I decided to start the list. So even though I have seen golden eagles, for example, I wasn't going to add them to my list officially until I saw them again. It's encouraged me to keep my eyes open and observe familiar places with fresh eyes. We saw a bald eagle as we were driving away from Cape Meares -- I said, "Holy shit! A bald eagle!" and made Erin pull over so I could take a pic. My favorite new-to-me birds from this trip are: white-crowned sparrow, pigeon guillemot, Brandt's cormorant, common murre, and a chestnut-backed chickadee. The rangers at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse were very helpful pointing out the birds that were hanging out nearby. I also saw a great blue heron walking along the tidepools and successfully spear a fish. It was really neat! A fellow tourist asked if I had seen the puffins yet, and I said no! She said she heard there were some at Cannon Beach, which was too far north for our plans, so alas, puffins remain unobserved.

Like many people, I am super into K-Pop Demon Hunters, so Erin and I listened to the soundtrack a lot on the drive. I also introduced her to Six and Hadestown.

On the subject of musicals and theater and art, one of my goals for next year (as a teacher, I view life in terms of school years) is to take advantage of the art scene in Shanghai more than I did last year. I plan to ask our drama teacher about plays, but I also happened to see ads for a production of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake and a production of a Macbeth musical called Lady M and I went ahead and booked tickets for myself for each show, so I have that to look forward to. Mom and I are going to see Alison Krauss and Union Station in concert next week, and then right before I go back to China, we'll go see the Idaho Shakespeare Festival's production of Dial M for Murder. (ISF has really moved away from Shakespeare over the last few years. They only had one Shakespeare play this season, way back in May. They should probably change their name to something like the Theater Festival, but ISF is a beloved brand, so they probably won't.)

Oh, I also watched The Residence, taking advantage of Mom's Netflix subscription, and I really enjoyed it. I would watch many more series or movies with Cordelia Cupp!

Alright, that's it for now. I'm going to lie down in my cool bedroom and either knit or read (lbr I'll probably nap). I hope you all are well!

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