maggie33

The first episode of Awaken aired on Monday, and I plan to start watching this weekend. Here is the trailer with English subtitles. It looks good. I hope the drama will be good, too.


And I decided to check The Silent Criminal a few days ago. It's a Chinese wuxia drama about a search for a powerful weapon that has the potential to bestow its bearer with devastating powers. I watched five episodes for now, and it is entertaining and amusing. The most amusing thing to watch is the drama pandering hard to BL fans. It’s not based on a BL novel, but it’s clearly made with the same viewer in mind. For instance in the 2nd episode one of the main characters Long Yao wants to force the other main character Shi Jingyao to divulge some information. He threatens Shi Jingyao with torture. “Do you like it rough or soft?” he asks, and then caresses Shi Jingyao’s face with a whip. And they both like to push each other against the nearest wall and lean in very closely and look intensely into each other eyes. :D


And since I should be writing my Yuletide fic, my contrary Muse decided instead to give me inspiration to finish my pre-threesome The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty fic. Here it is:

Think what we might have (2765 words)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sui Zhou/Tang Fan, Sui Zhou/Tang Fan/Wang Zhi
Characters: Sui Zhou, Tang Fan, Wang Zhi, Dong'er
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Humor, Smut, Pre-Threesome
Summary: For the last few months Sui Zhou’s life had been pretty unremarkable and he was grateful for that. But that changed when Wang Zhi came for a visit.

I finished my re-watch of The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, and while I was deliberating over which Chinese drama on VIKI to watch next, I decided to start watching a Korean drama on Netflix – Hospital Playlist.

It’s about five friends who met at the medical school 20 years ago, and now work at the same hospital in Seul. I watched 3 episodes for now and I would say it’s mostly a slice of life drama depicting everyday life at the hospital and the friendship between the main characters. It’s very well written and very well acted. And the main characters have very nice friendship chemistry. During those three episodes I laughed a lot and I cried twice. I really like it and I’m glad I started watching.

The drama has 12 episodes and each episode is around 80 – 90 minutes long. And as soon as I’m done with it I want to watch The King: Eternal Monarch (also on Netflix). I stumbled upon a few gifsets on tumblr, and then I read the description, and it sounds right up my alley. Modern-day kingdom, parallel worlds, a loyal Captain devoted to his King and his kingdom – I like it already. :)

Here is the Wikipedia synopsis:

“Lee Gon (Lee Min-ho), a modern-day Emperor of the Kingdom of Corea, attempts to cross the barrier into an alternate reality where the Republic of Korea exists in the Kingdom's stead. He comes across detective Jung Tae-eul (Kim Go-eun), whom he recognizes from an identity card he obtained during the turning-point of his childhood, his father's assassination. Lee Gon's half uncle who assassinated the previous king is in hiding and assembling armies whilst traversing back and forth between the two parallel worlds.”


Also I have 1200 words written of my first The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty fic. Because as soon as I said to myself “it’s time to start writing my RMS assignment then” my brain went “nah, let’s write a pre-threesome fic for The Sleuth instead”. Thanks, brain, thanks a lot. ;)

I mean fannishly speaking. Real Life – eh, could be better. Although actually... You know what, RL wasn’t bad either. Work was ok. And I finally could go for a manicure after three months break, and it was wonderful. :)


I’m slowly working on my sign-up for Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020. Slowly, because thinking up prompts is really hard. Especially for The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, because my enthusiasm is still so big, that I’m like “Prompts? What prompts? I want everything, give it to me”. :D

And then I found out that there was a similar exchange called Rare Pairs Exchange for all pairings, not just m/m. And that means I could nominate my two f/f pairings: Cheng Xinyan/Zhu Hong from Guardian and Man Han/Chen Jiayi from SCI. So now I’m wondering if I can do two exchanges with 1000 words minimum more or less at the same time. I kinda want to try, but at the same time I don’t know. Two fics seem like a lot, since I’m a slow writer usually.


Speaking of exchanges – 520 Day Guardian Exchange 2020 is live. There are so many interesting things there, but for now I only managed to read two fics besides my gift. They are both great, so this a rec:

Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan fic by china_shop - Natural Selection

Shen Wei/Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan fic by synonemous - obscura


I got a lovely Ye Zun/Zhu Jiu fic by extrapenguin - Outwalked the Furthest Lights for You about Zhu Jiu saving Ye Zun from the pillar, with a wonderful Zhu Jiu voice.

And I wrote a Chu Shuzhi/Guo Changcheng fic for flashforeward - Did it ever occur to you that maybe we fell in love



The week in watching


She-Ra and the Princesses of Power season 5

I watched it all. I loved it and I bawled my eyes out during the last episode. It was beautiful.

( Spoilers here )



Where Your Eyes Linger

It’s a Korean BL drama on VIKI about two 18 years old boys. Han Tae Joo comes from a very wealthy family, so his father employed Han Tae Joo’s childhood friend Kang Gook, who is great at many different types of martial arts, as Han Tae Joo’s bodyguard. They live together and go to school together.

Episodes are very short – only 10-12 minutes long. The drama is 8 episodes long, and for now only the first two episodes have English subtitles on VIKI.

It’s not very good, at least those two episodes weren’t. But both boys are pretty and cute and have a nice chemistry. And it’s sweet and made me go awww a lot. There are longing looks and lingering touches and homoerotic wrestling, and a lot of mutual pining. So I’ll watch the rest for sure and hope for the sweetest happy ending. :)



Ancient Detective

Well played, show, well played. Your reward is your own tag. :)

There was such a twist in the last episode. It took me completely by surprise and elevated the drama from just “pleasurable pastime that I don’t pay much attention to” to “oh, wow, I’m very impressed and I want the 2nd season NOW”.

Major spoilers behind the cut.

( Read more... )


And here is another rec: a wonderful Zhao Wohuan & Jian Buzhi fanvid by TheMeaninglessArt

The last scene in that vid – it did happen like that in the drama, with that exact dialogue. I know they both have female love interests, but I can’t find a heterosexual explanation for that scene, I really can’t. :D



The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty

I started a re-watch yesterday and watched the first two episodes. Still great and squee inducing.

And I’m refreshing The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty’s AO3 tag a lot. There are already a few fics I liked, but I want so much more.

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty episodes 47-48

It was perfect and I loved it completely. ♥ ♥ ♥

VIKI uploaded the episodes on time on Wednesday, but without English subtitles. Argh... I waited patiently at first, but I finally gave up, and I’ve watched those two episodes on dramacool today. The quality was much worse than on VIKI, but still I’m so, so happy that I did it, and I know how it ends (perfectly :DDD).

I will watch them again on VIKI as soon as subtitles are added. And then I will do a lot of screencaps and a few gifs of my favorite scenes, and I will post them in a squee-filled post. Maybe I will also be able to form more coherent thoughts then. :D


She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

The last season premiers on Netflix today. I’m too full of The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty feelings for now to start watching it at once. But I glanced at spoilers and they’re wonderful. Especially this one (link to a tumblr post with screencaps of a very spoilery scene between Catra and Adora). Yay!!!

SCI Mystery

The official version on YouTube has English subtitles now, although not for all the episodes. There are subtitles for episodes 1 and 2, then for episodes 10-13, 15-16, 18, 20, and 22-24. Which is a bit weird, but here is hoping soon all the episodes will be subtitled. I watched a little bit of episode 1 yesterday and these subtitles seem pretty good.

A good new fic on AO3:

hold me close (and let me hear your heartbeat) (4307 words) by ScissorLord
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bai Yutong/Zhan Yao, background Bai Chi/Zhao Zhen
Characters: Bai Yutong, Zhan Yao, Bái Chí
Additional Tags: Fluff, Pining, Unrequited Love, plot twist its actually requited
Summary: Zhan Yao thinks about Feng Jie, and the way Bai Yutong’s eyes had always tracked him across the room as if they were riveted by his movement. He thinks of the way the two of them were close, how they looked at each other and how they had talked often, leaning in close to share words and soft touches. He thinks about Feng Jie and knows what he feels is jealousy for a dead man, but Bai Yutong is mourning and Zhan Yao knows better than to want what he can’t have.

Or

The Tuxi case happens. Zhan Yao and Bai Yutong grow closer in the aftermath.



The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty episodes 37-44

Always a very good thing. There was so much angst in this week episodes and I loved it.

Spoilers below.

( Read more... )


And I had the revelation yesterday while watching. They kneel a lot there to show loyalty and respect, and that’s one of my bulletproof kinks. No wonder I like this drama so much. :)


Exchanges

My fic for Guardian exchange is finished. It will be edited and posted this weekend.

I think I will sign up for Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020, too. I nominated all my usual suspects – a lot of Guardian pairings, HIStory dramas, SCI, and The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. Signups open on the 20th of May and by that time I will finish watching The Sleuth (last 4 episodes will be on VIKI next week). I don’t want to write it, but I want to read all the fics. There are already a few on AO3, but I want more.

RL sucks and is stressful. Not just because of coronavirus, but because of other things, too. There is this situation at work that could be a good thing or a bad thing – I’ll know next week.

But unquestionable good things are:

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty episodes 21-28

8 new episodes again this week. Still so much fun and perfect for cheering up. ♥ And I’ve read today that all the episodes aired in China already, so I peeked at spoilers. So behind the cut there are spoilers not just for the episodes available on VIKI, but for the later ones, too.


( Read more... )


Guardian

I claimed Ye Huo for the 2nd round of Focus on Supporting Characters discussion posts on sid_guardian. So, I started a re-watch of Ye Huo’s episodes.

And apparently I have “how many people I can pair Chu Shuzhi with in fanfic” phase, because, beside writing my exchange fic, I also started writing Chu Shuzhi/Ye Huo fic. :)



And now a few random vid recs:


My two favorite songs from Horrible Histories:

Charles II King of Bling

Luddite


Two vids about my favorite TV show of all time - The Wire.

The Wire Wrap Up (5 Seasons in 5 Minutes) – full of spoilers, of course.

And I am a big fan of The Wire. But this satirical short video titled Fans of The Wire is hilarious.

Yesterday was a bad day. I didn’t feel well, my heart was bothering me the whole day. One good thing is that I work from home this week, it would be worse at the office. Here I could at least lie down for a while during the day.

Luckily it was also the day of two new episodes of The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. That drama is my happy place right now. I love it to pieces and it always cheers me up. But I also kind of regret that I started to watch it without waiting until it aired in full. Because I watched those two new episodes yesterday, and I was so impatient to watch the next one right away. And I couldn’t. But two new episodes again today, so yay for that. :)


I planned to start My Roommate is a Detective this week – another Chinese historical crime drama, this time the one set in the mid-1920s. But I think I’ll wait until it finishes airing and all subtitled episodes are available on VIKI.


Youku put the whole season of SCI Mystery officially on youtube, unfortunately without English subtitles. The playlist is here. Here is hoping they will add subtitles later. It would be nice to have the official subtitled version that you can point interested people to.


In between checking my business e-mail I was also doing some bookmarks cleaning today. So here are a few random fanworks recs.

One fanart:

My favorite Lestat/Louis fanart by Dany&Dany


And two fanvids:

Always Gold by MH - Pythagoras/Icarus (Atlantis)

That was a very entertaining show, and it was such a nice surprise when they made that relationship canon in the 2nd season.


We could have had it all by Feuwise6 - Paul/Jacob/Emma (The Following)

Ah, my favorite psycho killers in love. That show was pretty bad, but that threesome pushed all my buttons – it was complicated, fucked up, dark, angsty and with no happy ending. I loved it very much.

I found out yesterday that the drama is based on a BL novel. Which explains subtext. And there is a lot of it. Episode 5 was delightful in that regard.

Major spoilers behind the cut.

( Read more... )


New episodes appear on VIKI twice a week – two episodes on Tuesday and two episodes on Saturday. Which is great, because I can’t wait to watch more. :)