wolffyluna | Reading

The schedule for Andor (to the tune of three episodes every Tuesday late evening for the next four weeks) means that I am in fact not staying up to midnight watching it all. This week especially I'll manage to watch an episode an evening, so I'm 100% staying off Tumblr until Thursday evening at the earliest. Dreamwidth I'm assuming will be more or less spoiler-free, possibly Discord as well. The Star Wars Discord I'm a member of is very good about spoilers and all of us are: "But we're working adults? How do they expect us to watch this?"

stardust_rifle

I understand that the reason that V5 did what it did with the Giovanni---> Hecata thing was to rectify the whole "if you want to be a necromancer, the easiest way to do that is to be a member of the Evil Corpsefucking Incest Mafia Vampire Clan" thing, which as a person with a brain and knowledge of Game Design can get behind, at least hypothetically.

As a weirdo on the Internet, however...

stardust_rifle

the Character has been named *passes out in a crater*

douqi posting in

cnovels

I wrote an extremely useless piece of advice on the above here, based largely around 'know enough Chinese and know enough Chinese poetry'. Come tell me how unhelpful it is and/or share your poetry-inspired character names.

douqi posting in

baihe_media

(This isn't strictly about baihe but I'm posting this here anyway since I'll be using a couple of examples from baihe media.)

Let's say you're writing something inspired by on based on a c-novel. And you've come to the exciting part, which is choosing names for your characters. And you find yourself stuck.

Well, not to worry! We have a several-millennia-long tradition of poetry to assist us. All you have to do is this.

Take a line from a Book of Odes poem, or a Tang poem, or really any poem. Then pick out the name-like elements and smoosh them together. Voilà, you've got yourself a name.

Thus, from the Book of Odes the line 蒹葭苍苍, 白露为霜 (pinyin: jianjia cangcang, bailu wei shuang) (Legge's translation: 'The reeds and rushes are deeply green / And the white dew is turned into hoarfrost) gives us Bai Jianjia, which is suitable for either a refined young lady or a courtesan of the high-class, scholarly sort. Also from the Book of Odes, the line 昔我往矣，杨柳依依 (pinyin: xi wo wang yi, yangliu yiyi) (Legge's translation: At first, when we set out / The willows were fresh and green) gives us Liu Yiyi, also a good courtesan or high-class maidservant name (IMO the Book of Odes link might just about make it learned enough to be a young gentlewoman's name, but I don't usually like repeated-syllable names for upper-class or scholarly women, unless it's a nickname).

This trick is pretty commonly used in popular media. The drama version of The Message has a character named (or rather, re-named) He Jianzhu (何剪烛). This is clearly taken from the line 何当共剪西窗烛 (pinyin: he dang gong jian xichuang zhu) from Li Shangyin's poem 'Sending a Letter North on a Rainy Night'(夜雨寄北). The love interest from The Beauty's Blade is called Yu Shengyan (玉生烟), and so is a secondary character from the danmei novel Thousand Autumns, courtesy of the line 蓝田日暖玉生烟 (pinyin: lantian ri nuan yu sheng yan) from another Li Shangyin poem, 'The Brocade Zither' (錦瑟).

'But, douqi,' I hear you cry, 'what if I don't know any Chinese poetry or enough Chinese to know what are appropriate name elements to pick out of verses?'

Ah. Then I'm afraid this post will be of no help at all. Sorry.

stardust_rifle

kakyoin- he is Literally Me

avdol- 90% of the difficulty is cultural stuff that i have to do more research on

jotaro- technically easier than avdol but i’m not overly fond of him so there’s not that Blorbo Love that propels me over hills

joseph- fun but challenging

polnareff- UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

littlefics posting in

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tinny posting in

nexticon

Mamma Mia

https://tinpix.de/2025/mammamia_dance.png

stardust_rifle

I know as a certified incest weirdo I should probably defend all the cousinfucking stuff in anime, but like, I just can’t. Cousinfucking is the LaCroix of incest. If you want freak solidarity then get a more interesting fetish, please and thank you.

larryhammer posting in

cnovels

Slightly off subject, but a mod suggested this was okay so here goes.

While I do read sometimes pick my way through c-novels in the original (not nearly as much as I do in translation), most of my Chinese reading focus is actually classical poetry, with an emphasis on the Tang Dynasty. One of my ongoing projects is 唐诗三百首, 300 Tang Poems, but I've also been having fun wandering through the miscellaneous themed books at the back of 全唐诗, Complete Tang Poems, such as the two books of poems by ghosts. My most recent such foray was into the section of 谐谑, banter/repartee, iow poems of humor and mockery, though after managing to hack my way through a handful I beat a retreat.

The spoils of my raid are here, and the index of all translations (though many are outdated early drafts) is over there.

---L.

luminousdaze posting in

nexticon

It's finally time to vote! Sorry, it's late, I lose track of time here so much.
Thank you to all the participants for their gorgeous entries.

Voter Guide:
Anyone may vote.
Please don't vote for yourself or tell people to vote for your icons.
Voting is by text box poll for the top placements in order of preference.
Voting will be open for at least one week.
Thank you for voting!
There will be no penalties for entrants not voting.
If you notice any errors in this post, please comment below.
Round #87 begins now.

( View and Vote here..... )

Current Mood: 🤩 amazed

luminousdaze posting in

nexticon

Despicable Me
https://i.ibb.co/bRX07JNL/despme1minionjerryexcited3.png

( plus two alternates + + )

Current Mood: blank

stardust_rifle

My problem is that I love my VtM/JJBA fandom fusion AU, but it’s fundamentally unintelligible to anyone who doesn’t have both my precise amounts of VtM and JJBA brainrot, so. Real “I’m going to make a crossover so niche” hours.

kivutio posting in

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douqi posting in

baihe_media

Pre-orders are currently open for The World Knows (全世界都知道, pinyin: quan shijie dou zhidao) by Yu Shuang (鱼霜), serialised online as The Whole World Knows She Loves Me (全世界都知道她爱我, pinyin: quan shijie dou zhidao ta ai wo). This is a contemporary romance featuring a relationship between an artist and a professional pianist. Pre-orders can be made via the following bookshops:

The web version of the novel can be read here on JJWXC.

Pre-orders are also open for What Era Do You Think This Is (都什么年代了啊, pinyin: dou shenme niandai le a) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔). The publisher-provided English title for this was Kissing a Gardenia, but that seems to have been scrapped now. This is also a contemporary romance, set in baihe voice acting circles. Pre-orders can be made via the following bookshops:

Fengrusong
Hanlin
Kuaile
Kuaile (extra merch)
Xinshijiao
Xinshijiao (extra merch)

The web version of the novel can be read here on Changpei.

independence1776

There’s a lot of crappy stuff going on in the world. But I want to highlight good things. So tell me something that made you happy last week (little or big, something you made or someone else did, nature-made like sunsets or spring plants rising from the snow, whatever) or something you did that you’re proud of. It doesn’t need to be world-shaking, just something that stood out to you.

sleepymod posting in

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transficex posting in

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aurumcalendula posting in

cnovels

Now that I've read all of it, I want to rec Reading the Remnants (问棺) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔)!

( some mild spoilers )

The main story has 108 chapters and there are four extras (two of the extras are posted in two parts) as well as an afterward by the author.

The original is posted here on Gongzicp. There are two English fan translations of it: a complete one by Pale Mirror and a partial one by earless tls.

douqi posting in

baihe_media

Across the Empire (纵横, pinyin: zongheng) is, by webnovel standards, an ancient relic. First published on JJWXC in 2005 (for reference, JJWXC itself was founded in 2003), it's one of the earliest court intrigue novels in the baihe genre. It was actually planned as a trilogy of novels chronicling the life and death of protagonist Lin Zong, but only the first volume was fully written. The author started the second volume, but discontinued it after eighteen chapters. In an addendum to the second volume, she provides an outline of how her planned story would have gone.

The protagonist Lin Zong is an interesting twist on the popular cross-dressing lead. She is, at the start of the novel, the only living child of Prince Chu, one of the emperor's brothers. We're told that, being a very sickly child, she was brought up as a boy in order to ensure her good health (this is a superstition/folk belief/tradition that's still extant in some communities; the idea seems to be that, if you raise a child as the 'opposite' gender, you confuse the malevolent forces responsible for their poor health).* So from a very young age, Lin Zong has been treated (and dresses as) a boy, and her father has even designated her his heir, but everyone knows that she was born a girl. This creates interesting tensions down the line.

*This was also the premise of the 2015 Taiwanese drama Bromance, the most accidentally(?) queer cross-dressing drama I've ever watched. Seriously, the protagonist is easily readable as non-binary up to the very last frame of the drama.

Prince Chu is one of those extremely competent, charismatic, loyalty-inspiring princes who are the bane of their emperor brothers' existences. The emperor therefore devises a loyalty test: he arranges for Lin Zong to be married to a high-ranking young noblewoman named Chu Yanran, to see how Prince Chu will respond. Prince Chu and Lin Zong don't really have a choice but to accept the match (the other option is to kick off and basically start a rebellion), and so we end up with the rather surreal scenario of a lesbian marriage sanctioned, nay compelled, by an otherwise institutionally homophobic state.

( some mild spoilers )

I read the Chinese original of both volumes here and here on JJWXC.

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wolffyluna

April 2025

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Page Summary

independence1776 - Not likely to be online much for the next few days
stardust_rifle - (no subject)
stardust_rifle - he shares a name with an actor but fuck it. fuck it. that just means i’ve created a Real Human Name!
douqi in cnovels - One Useless Trick for Naming Your C-Novel Inspired Characters
douqi in baihe_media - One Weird (Read: Useless) Trick for Naming Your C-Novel Inspired Characters
stardust_rifle - ranking sdc main characters by how hard they are to write
littlefics in fandomcalendar - Seasons of Drabbles - Spring Round: Signups and Nominations Open!
tinny in nexticon - Yay! (centered on red background)
stardust_rifle - (only partially joking)
larryhammer in cnovels - A few Chinese poems in translation
luminousdaze in nexticon - Round #86 ≛ Voting
luminousdaze in nexticon - centered subject + red
stardust_rifle - make fugo’s backstory so much worse with One Weird Trick (the trick is blood bonds!)
kivutio in fandomcalendar - [Multifandom] All But Romance Exchange 2025
douqi in baihe_media - Pre-Orders Open for Two More Print Novels
independence1776 - Good Things (April 20)
sleepymod in fandomcalendar - Multifandom: Early Bird Gets The Word Exchange - Nominations open (early)!!
transficex in fandomcalendar - Transfic Exchange - Nominations open!
aurumcalendula in cnovels - Rec: Reading the Remnants by Qi Xiao Huang Shu
douqi in baihe_media - Across the Empire (纵横) by Lin Cuo (林错): Review

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