➤ scifi short story translated from chinese; originally published in 2021
➤ it's a fascinating outside-outside pov, a nephew telling the story of his aunt, whose story is that of her famous physicist-astronaut husband
➤ the multiple layers of abstraction work well for this story -- and the narrative loops around itself in how it's told too, wandering forwards and backwards in time to circle around the heart of things
➤ which is really a story about family and about place and about how you decide what to prioritise in your life
➤ it's lovely and thoughtful and wistful. I really liked it!
➤ svsss au fic where as part of peace efforts between the human and demonic realms, marriage has been arranged between lqg and lbh
➤ nobody's pleased with the thought of the marriage actually taking place and everyone expects a duel rather than a completed marriage ceremony
➤ stands alone as a fun glimpse into the world of this story, but author hints at the possibility of it being the first chapter in a longer fic (that would probably end up bingliushen)
due to a conversation about how none of mxtx's novels are actually a great place to start for a western fan with no familiarity with the genre, I'm now curious:
for those of you who have read more widely, what do you think would be the best wuxia or xianxia danmei for a western newbie reader, in terms of a cross section of plot comprehensibility / being engaging / english translation quality, etc?
@soph_sol
As much as I find fault with it, I’d say Jin Yong +1, which strike a good balance between plot comprehensibility and being engaging, imo. The stories are fun, although kinda tropey/cliche by today’s standards. They all have many TV/movie adpations, which may be more accessible to westerners?
Can’t say anything about translation quality, because I’m chinese :)
It’s harder if you want wuxia/xianxia AND danmei as a starting point. Danmei as a genre is much younger. When danmei came about, two generations had already grown up with jin yong/gu long/etc. So I guess, authors and readers kinda of just assume a premise of some sort, if that makes any sense?
omggg this is exactly the kind of dynamics I love to see between Feng Xin and Mu Qing during the Xianle era
fx and xl are so SWEET together and fx and mq are so....united in their mutual disdain for each other and how they're connected with each other
and how sex with each other doesn't actually change any part of that for fengqing; they have a good time having hatesex, they still hate each other, they're connected forever via their hatred for each other and their mutual love of xl, and their mutual inability to understand /how/ the other approaches their love for xl
does anyone have any sense of what general region of china #svsss might be set in? I know the time period is very "handwave handwave don't worry about it," so is region similar, where it's so vague that it could be anywhere? I don't recall if we get any clues that narrow down the region at all
mdzs space au about nie huaisang and his years-long project in avenging his da-ge
a repeated theme throughout the fic is nhs visiting and talking to back-ups that had been taken of nmj's personality before death, and the way that this makes literal how HAUNTED nhs is by his brother's absence is just sooooooo good
the worldbuilding is great, the things that are changed from canon due to this different context are great, the anguish and monofocus of nhs are great
reverse transmigration bingqiu story, told through the forum posts of peerless cucumber, cucumber bro's fans, shizunsheavenlykitten, and all the people who think shizunsheavenlykitten is a tradwife
a quick and fun read! I loved seeing the other internet people being endlessly baffled by bingqiu
sqq is in the sort of epilogue where absolutely nothing happens, no matter what some people might say. there's no storyline and he's definitely not experiencing character development!
this was SUCH a delightful read omg. extremely bingqiu of them!
I've been thinking a lot about bingqiu's sexual dynamics of late due to my current wip, and I can say authoritatively that this fic Understands them
If any #TGCFReadAlong people are interested, my summaries are a bit behind our reading schedule but are up to chapter 31 so far, and I'll keep it updated as I continue to read further! It could be a useful reference for some folks?
Delicious in Dungeon (aka Dungeon Meshi), by Ryoko Kui, translated by Taylor Engel
In a world of dnd-ish dungeon crawls, one person's dream is to cook and eat monsters to discover what kinds of food you can make of them. Follow this adventuring party as they travel deep into a dungeon, eating well as they go, on a quest to save a party member who was eaten by a dragon!
I adored every bit of this manga!!! The main characters are all a delight, and it's the kind of story where the author sees and shows you the inherent personness of all characters, including antagonists. And the world created to make sense of the dungeon's existence is fascinating, as are all the ways the ecosystems within the dungeon are expanded upon to make sense of the creatures living within it.
And it's a story that knows what its themes are, too, and is able to tie them all together in extremely satisfying ways in the climax of the narrative!
this free-to-read academic article is an overview of the features of a voice that lead people to read that voice as a particular gender
it pushes back against the traditional view of male vs female voices, of pitch being the main deciding factor in gendering voices, and of a voice's gender being immutable
it's a pretty accessible read, IMO!
16 pages in length; 12 pages if you discount the list of references