Phaeton

My step mother shared these images of the church bell tower in her village yesterday evening. The message in the second pic translates to Faith. Love. Diversity. I freely admit, it left me a bit teary eyed.




(Click to enlarge!)

Liana over on Bluesky is trying to re-home two dogs for health/family/allergy reasons.

In her own words:

The younger dog is 6, and the older one was a rescue an dis probably 9 or 10.

They grew up in a home with cats and are good with other animals, but haven't ever lived with kids. The younger one is afraid of thunder and fireworks, but loves long hikes.

If you're interested in the dogs you can @ me or email me.

Liana (dot) Brooks1 (at) G mail

Please feel free to shop this around!

A year ago I posted an entry about The new spoiler cut - what I like and what I dislike. The facts have stayed the same, but by now my scale has tipped firmly into dislike, and it's mostly because of how people use the thing, which is to cut for length, instead of hiding spoilers.

And now I've seen multiple posts about trying to make it look like a normal cut, which makes me sad face even more. I remember how people on LJ hated the fake cuts (links that were made to look like cuts), and this feels kinda the same to me. A bit like trying to trick me into an action I don't want to take, if I'm allowed to exaggerate here.

Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV)
Author: Phaeton
Title: The Wedding Chamber
Characters: Di Feisheng, Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi
Pairing: Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi
Rating: Mature
Word Count: ~ 1,750 words

Summary: Li Xiangyi has always looked good in red. Wearing his sect leader uniform, or covered in blood, or here on the wedding bed, pale skin and dark hair contrasting sharply with the bedding.

A/N: Many, many thanks to undeadrobins for looking over this, and for being so patient with me and my insecurities. This is a missing scene for episode 38, because they totally fucked in that wedding chamber!

Disclaimer: Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼) was adapted from the novel Auspicious Pattern Lotus House (吉祥纹莲花楼) by Teng Ping (藤萍), and released on iQIYI. I'm not making money with this and I don't mean any disrespect. I loved the drama, and this fic was created for fannish enjoyment only.

( The Wedding Chamber )

So, I've finished re-watching Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities and have started watching The Longest Promise. Here are my first, random thoughts on the first three episodes.


General thoughts:

- I'm sad they didn't keep the blue hair for the merpeople. But at least the styling looks a bit similar.

- I'm delighted by how many names I recognise, both people and places.

- I'm confused at the merperson saying she'll return to Biluo Hai. The whole point of trouble is that they can't go back to Biluo Hai, not even their souls when they die!

- I'm a bit sad that the locations look different. It would have been so cool if they had used some of the same props (Seven Star Lamp) or CGI for at least two of the major landmarks (Juiyi mountain, the space needle).

- I'm not surprised at all that Zhi Zhe is already around and working against Kongsang.

- I'm trying not to be too annoyed at the FL, seeing how her character was portrayed in Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities she's going to grow up a lot.


Actors/Actresses:

- I'm sad that they basically burned/fridged two fabulous actresses (Chen Xinyu and Zeng Li) in the first few episodes. I'm so used to seeing them in major roles, it took me by surprise.

- Mickey He playing the creepy, cruel, besotted emperor is so fitting! He's very good at this type of character as his roles in The Four, Love and Redemption, Stand By Me and The Blood of Youth can attest.

- Watching Han Dong gently cradling a distraught Xiao Zhan to his chest creeped me the fuck out. I'm very sorry, Han Dong, but I've watched you in too many creepy, villain(ish) roles. *g*

- I'm fascinated how much the actors for the current prince Qing (Ruang Shengwen) and the one from Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities (Tan Kai) resemble each other! Great styling, absolutely believable family resemblance!


First conclusion:

I'm enjoying this very much, despite what people have said about it. Maybe that's because I'm coming in from a different angle, curious about how the events here lead to the ones in Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities. And yes, I've used a Su Mo icon - I read we're actually going to see a child version of him in The Longest Promise, which both makes sense and makes me happy. *g*

Yesterday evening when I was reading on the laptop, a black shadow passed by my head. Turns out a bat had strayed into my flat and started flying circles around my living room. It came as a huge surprise to me, as I was sitting there with the windows closed and the blinds down to keep the sunlight and the heat away.

I have no idea when it found its way inside, must have been sometime during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, I guess, and I also have no idea where it spent the day hanging around without me or the cats noticing anything.

Bed!cat was excited and prepared to pounce, but I managed to shoo her out of the living room. Then I opened the balcony door and waited for the bat to notice - this one was a lot dumber than the last one (it's the second time this happened in the 20 years I've been living here), it took almost ten more rounds along the ceiling before it founds its way outside again.

If you were part of fandom way back when and posted fic to Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelief (WWoMB), you might want to check the squidgeworld archive for your old username and fic.

Apparently they imported everything over when they switched to the AO3 code. I found my username and my very first fic ever already on the site, so I had them send me a password reset email and claimed that account for myself. *g*

So, no need to make a new account and be unhappy over my favourite name being taken.

And yes, I've started duplicating everything from AO3. In my case it's super easy, because I only have 25 fics to copy over. I guess that's the only advantage of being a less than prolific author, not much archiving work.

ETA: And I'm all done! Fics, pseuds, icons, everything. *g* Find me here, if you want.

snowflake_challenge - Day Four

In your own space, add something to your fandom’s canon.


Well, that's pretty much what I've been doing all this time already. *g* I rarely write fanfic, but when I do, it's mostly missing scenes. Creating a bridge between two scenes or two episodes, filling in the fade to black, writing the consequences of someone's actions, expanding on a character's thoughts. Stuff like that. So here are my two favourite examples of that, out of context, only vaguely spoilery without knowing the canons:


For The Glory of Youth I wrote The Aftermath. Because episode 49 skipped most of the comfort part after piling all the hurt on the main character in the previous episodes, and I just couldn't let that stand. Especially since the drama was unusually good at that stuff originally, so that situation was a bit of an outlier.

In an early episode of Day Breaker, the main character gets beaten up badly in an interrogation. In the next scene, he's having dinner with the guy who did it. His face is clean and bandaged, and he's wearing clean underwear and a slightly different shirt. I wrote Reunion, because that tidbit was just too enticing, and there was a handy scene break I could fill.

snowflake_challenge - Day Two

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.


Well. I'm going to kinda cheat on this challenge by not writing up something new, but linking you to some previous entries of mine. Over the past year and a half I've made several promo/rec posts for my favourite c-dramas over on c_ent. And those still stand, because my love still holds true!

♥ I still love them with a passion.
♥ I still constantly think about them.
♥ I still re-watch at least one episode of them every week.
♥ I still think about the main actor all the time, and his characters still occupy a lot of real estate in my heart.
♥ I've written reviews on MyDramaList for some of them.
♥ I've posted fanfic for some of them.
♥ I'm still writing and/or thinking of writing fanfic for all of them. I have several WIPs I'm currently actively working on.

So, please forgive me for not making a new post, but linking you to those entries. Fair warning, though, they're all members locked to c_ent, because they contain links to the, uhm, less than official sites, where you can watch or download. *cough* The reviews on MDL are public, though.

Now, can I interest you in checking out the xianxia drama Noble Aspirations (Legend of Chusen)? It's all about what's good or evil, and doing the right thing even though it's hard. Or maybe you're a fan of spy shenanigans, so you might consider the Republican Era drama Sparrow? Maybe you don't like costume dramas, but what about the modern military drama The Glory of Youth? Follow the young recruits of the Rocket Force through their military career. Or dive into the complex world of undercover cops and drug wars with the modern drama Day Breaker.

I'd love to have more people to talk with about those. The fandom presence is very tiny so far, even one person more counts as a huge win. *g*

I know it's taking me a long time to post my travel report of this year's trip to Scotland, but it's coming, I promise. I actually uploaded the pics to DW today, so that part at least is prepared. And for a start, I managed to post the Old Pulteney distillery tour to my scotch_single_malt comm.