Weekly Chat

Yeah, a day early this time. It's not a mistake - I'll be away the whole weekend with probably very little time to post/read in between, and only return Monday around noon.

The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?

Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
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From:

dancing_serpent

So, I got gifted a ticket for the M'Era Luna festival this weekend. It's all very last minute, but I'm super excited. Right now I'm in between packing my stuff and tidying up my flat a bit for my cat sitters. I'll drive up tomorrow morning really early, and will likely be too busy enjoying the bands to hang around the internet, so be prepared for even longer delays between my comments. XD

But yeah. My week got slightly derailed into a pretty awesome direction.

I finished watching White Cat Legend. I liked how it all came together, and I'm only a tiny bit miffed about one specific death. Definitely a solid watch with plenty of shipping potential and re-watch value.

Added four more episodes to Mystic Nine (8/30). Still liking that one a lot, and not just because William Chan looks super sexy in tight leather and boots. *g* There was some great interaction between Fo Ye and Wu Laogou, and I'm already shipping them together.

Oh, and I got sucked into another reaction series. Someone on YouTube watched MLC, and I'm already 20 episodes into his videos. He's both annoying and interesting, mixes up names and characters and seems to think shixiong is another word for shifu, but he's invested in both DFS and LLH/LXY and his commentary can be pretty funny.

From:

donutsweeper

I haven't had time for Mystic Nine yet but I am loving all the gifs and everyone's looks in it. Whomever was in charge of costuming deserves a medal.

From:

dancing_serpent

Oh, yes! The costumes are amazing! I love that they kept the styles from the first series, too.

From:

emeraldarrows

I hope you have a fun time at the festival! :)

From:

dancing_serpent

Thank you, so far it's been pretty good. First day is done. I'm in my tent and am preparing to go to sleep. Still a lot of partying going on around me, though. :D

From:

emeraldarrows

Sounds nice! :)

From:

thispatternismine

Oooh I've always wanted to go to M'Era Luna! It looks so much fun. Hope you're having a great time!

From:

dancing_serpent

I love it a lot! I've been there 15 times, though I just ended a ten year break. XD

From:

aurumcalendula

That sounds fun!

From:

dancing_serpent

Hot, dusty, exhausting, but also a lot of fun!

From:

libitina

White Cat Legend - I was miffed by more than one death. but I'm glad you stuck with it and enjoyed it!

YAY for festival tickets! That's amazing. I hope it's a great time!

From:

dancing_serpent

Ah, yeah, I should have specified that only a tiny bit miffed about one specific death referred solely to the finale. I honestly feared a way higher body count after they killed off so many of the supporting cast once the mid point was reached. :-(

I had a fantastic time, although I'm completely wiped now. I've been back for three hours now, have unpacked, showered, and the first load in the washing machine.

From:

libitina

Ah! Yes. That death. HOW DARE THEY!!

From:

dreamy_dragon73

I hope you're having a good time.

If we are thinking about the same death, I was miffed about it too. Highlight for spoilers! *And it killed my prefered ship for Li Bing.*

Re Mystic Nine, I totally agree :) Plus lots of other shipping possibilities :)

From:

dancing_serpent

It was super exhausting, but I had a great time. Things like that let me feel my age and lack of fitness. XD

We're very likely thinking about the same death. Definitely one of my favourites, too.

I'm so looking forward to watching more Mystic Nine now that I'm back!

From:

emeraldarrows

Just mini dramas:
The Cloud Is Gone the Hibiscus Remains - started off very well but got boring after a while. Still, I loved seeing these two paired up again.
Predestined Meeting - enjoyable. I always like the FL.
The Great Queen - a unique and interesting twist on the "FL transmigrates from the real world into a fictional one". A bit confusing, though.
Whispers of Southern Song - starts off like being dropped into the middle of a drama, so a bit confusing, but I do like the focus on Chinese opera.

I'm looking forward to and hoping The Road to Splendor is good and gets me out of my bad slump.

Edited Date: Sunday, 9 August 2026 04:04 (UTC)

From:

dreamy_dragon73

I'm hoping The Road to Splendor is good too. Since Ding Yuxi is the lead, I'll try it anyway tho.

From:

emeraldarrows

I love Ding Yuxi but tried two eps and it's pretty but unfortunately not grabbing me at all and I had to really struggle to get that far so I don't think I'll be continuing since I've never cared for any drama I had that impression of the first couple eps of, even when I continued. :/ But I'm in kind of weird place lately where no cdramas are really appealing to me, so it could definitely just be me...maybe I just need a break from them for a bit. :(

From:

dancing_serpent

I'm definitely giving The Road to Splendor a try, now that I managed to finish watching two Ding Yuxi dramas! The pics people are posting on Bluesky are very tempting, as are comments like this one:

So anyone who watched episode 3 of #cdrama #TheRoadToSplendor and resisted after the cliffhanger to buy fasttrack deserves my deepest admiration and all praise and a medal of resistance 👏 👏👏

Colour me intrigued! XD

From:

emeraldarrows

I really wish it had caught my attention since everyone seems to be loving it!

From:

thispatternismine

After finishing The Demon Lord Wants A Vacation I moved on to Mistaken Era, currently being filmed as a drama (Cuo Shi Lu) which sounded right up my alley. FL gets told stories about the evil demonic cultivator who rose to power 200 years ago only to be defeated by a pure righteous cultivator who earns huge prestige from that, then goes back in time & finds out things aren't adding up. It has a slow start (the premise puts the time travel front & centre but it doesn't happen until Highlight for spoilers!*chapter 14*, & it's not exactly action-packed before that), I liked the FL & the way she handled her supposedly cursed destiny, the early glimpses that the supposedly righteous guy who defeated the Evil Demon Lord might not be so righteous, the ML was fun when he finally showed up. But I could not continue & bailed 21 chapters in. It was very obviously MTL. That might have still been something I could deal with in a different book with a more straightforward plot where it's easy to figure out what is meant when something previously referred to in pinyin gets an English translation a few chapters later, & if there'd been some effort to proofread. My rant got long so rather than repeating it here I'll just link. It was one of those sites that tries to get you to buy their special currency to unlock chapters too. The audacity of this shit.

Still excited for the drama, & hoping the adaptation encourages an actual human translator to have a go at this one, especially considering that, at 117 chapters, it's on the shorter side.

Speaking of MTLed novels with drama adaptations getting a proper human translation, I've moved on to a (re)read of How Dare You!?, which did get a proper translation as I'd hoped (it's been around for a while, but as a google doc posted to Tumblr, so didn't get much notice) & I've been meaning to check out for months. It just as good on a second read, & I'm getting more out of it this time around (the MTL was coherent overall but some subtleties were lost, & a lack of scene breaks made for some confusing transitions in places). I've also been editing as I read so it's an interesting experience. The translation was provided as a google doc, which I DLed as an epub, which naturally wasn't divided into chapters. Of course doing so broke footnote links & they needed to be fixed, & there were minor formatting tweaks needed. I might check with the translator once I'm done to see if they want a copy. It's generally not considered the done thing to be offering epubs, but the translator offered it in downloadable version so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From:

dancing_serpent

Still excited for the drama, & hoping the adaptation encourages an actual human translator to have a go at this one, especially considering that, at 117 chapters, it's on the shorter side.

That would be great! What you wrote here about the plot sounds right up my alley - I'll need to keep an eye out for the drama.

From:

aurumcalendula

I finished up The Beauty's Blade and caught up on Dragon Subjugation Incantation, Begging the Heavens in Vain, and To Embers We Return!

imho The Beauty's Blade holds up well on reread (and I caught some foreshadowing I missed before). I would love to see an adaptation of it someday - it feels like it was written with wuxia movies in mind. I'm enjoying the developments in the fan translations I'm following and I'm excited that the romance in Begging the Heavens in Vain seems to actually be progressing (I'd thought it'd been dropped)!

I'm also really excited for the final volume of QJJ getting released next week!

From:

dancing_serpent

Keeping my fingers crossed that you'll get that adaptation!

I'm also really excited for the final volume of QJJ getting released next week!

That kinda shocked me right now! Really, has so much time passed already? XD

From:

tinny

I've been on vacation for a week so I had a very different daily routine, and not much time to watch stuff.

I watched a few more eps of Love Has Fireworks, now on 16/36, and consistently skipping over the second male lead's stalkery storyline. I almost stopped watching when the first male lead suggested he keep stalking her because women like to be pursued. Grrr arrrrgh. I can deal with just ignoring a stupid storyline, but not if the guy I'm interested in is advocating assholeish behavior. Apart from that, I am finally actually interested in how the main pairing will develop. So, not dropping it yet.

Because I was too tired/busy vacationing to continue any of the stuff I actually like, I started Sammy's Children's Day, a Cantonese BL about a college student and a mafia boss/enforcer. It is *terrible* - it feels like they thought KinnPorsche was cool, but then just dropped one of the characters into a cheap script. The direction is full of warm, magical lighting, there is a lot of staring at throats and asses, the mafia boss keeps killing people and hitting/kicking his subordinates (and the love interest) just for fun. I really don't like him. The worst for me is that it's all dubbed in Cantonese, but you can tell that the actor's facial movements don't fit the spoken dialogue. I don't know whether they filmed it in Mandarin, or some of the actors just weren't good enough at Cantonese, or what. In any case, it looks bad to me. I'm still watching it, though (now on ep 3/9), because I'm curious how spicy it will get, and there are only nine eps, so it's not much of a time investment either way.

In Wu Lei news, he did some kind of crossover cosplay for a game and his new drama Jian Lai - I don't quite understand it and was too lazy to look it up. This is him during that appearance. My brain has major problems even recognizing him, especially since that cutout makes it look like there should be breasts. (watch me write gender-swapped Wu Lei...) . I haven't watched the actual livestream of the event yet, just grabbed some pictures.

From:

libitina

first male lead suggested he keep stalking her because women like to be pursued ARGH!!!! Why are some shows like this?

Awww Sammy's Children's Day does start a little (LOT) rough, but I was fully invested by halfway through.

Wu Lei!!!

Happy vacation!@

From:

tinny

ARGH!!!! Why are some shows like this?

Idk! I feel like most cdramas are like that, actually, and I love the few that aren't. I think I've only seen a handful (Nothing But You notably among them). It's sad.

Awww Sammy's Children's Day does start a little (LOT) rough, but I was fully invested by halfway through.

That's a good sign. I guess one just has to ignore the whole ott violence from all the mafia people. It's way too violent for me, overall.

Wu Lei!!!

More plot bunnies! \o/ /o\

Happy vacation!@

Thank you! <3

From:

libitina

I don't know. There's definitely a large number of them that are. But there are also many that aren't. One of the things that made me feel in love with cdramas was encountering fairly early in my watching several dramas that skewered that expectation and very clearly laid out a) that the female lead might like the ml but she didn't *need* him, and b) that "if something is intended to be for you, it will be. And if something is not to be yours, it never will be." ...so stop being a creep about it.

Re: Sammy's Children's Day - well the violence doesn't change. There are some episodes with less, but it generally stays violent the whole way through.

I looked at the MDL page and couldn't figure out which project Wu Lei was promoting. Do you have more info on that?

From:

tinny

One of the things that made me feel in love with cdramas was encountering fairly early in my watching several dramas

I probably watched the wrong ones then...

I looked at the MDL page and couldn't figure out which project Wu Lei was promoting. Do you have more info on that?

Some vague ideas? But I honestly do not know. Here's the whole stream of the event:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yHu36FEnB/

His Jian Lai promo part starts around 1 hour 38 minutes in.

The character he cosplays is called Fuxi Shenggua, but I don't know where it's from. Peace Elite? Game for Peace? I don't have the first clue about video games.

The drama (or maybe the manhua or game?) he promotes is Jian Lai (Unsheathed), the live action version of which he just finished shooting. I assume it will come out next year. But he's not dressed as Chen Ping'an.

I don't know what exactly they were thinking, why he did a Jian-Lai-themed thing in a costume that was from something else...

From:

emeraldarrows

I loved Sammy's Children's Day (imo I enjoyed it from the beginning but it got better as it went along) but the language swap did take a lot of getting used to.

From:

tinny

I loved Sammy's Children's Day

I guess one just has to ignore the whole ott violence from all the mafia people. It's way too violent for me, overall. But I'll keep watching, I think.

From:

dancing_serpent

I hope you had a great vacation!

I almost stopped watching when the first male lead suggested he keep stalking her because women like to be pursued.

Yeah, nope! Why is that such a common thing?

Oh, that's a pretty pic! That white hair looks good on him. I have no problem recognising him, but you're absolutely right, that outfit looks like there should be breasts. *g*

From:

tinny

I hope you had a great vacation!

Still having it, thank you! <3 I see you had a great time at the festival, too! \o/

Yeah, nope! Why is that such a common thing?

Idk! I hate it so much. I'm at the point where I love a show solely for not doing that. (And there are few enough, sadly.)

Oh, that's a pretty pic! That white hair looks good on him. I have no problem recognising him, but you're absolutely right, that outfit looks like there should be breasts. *g*

Idk why I have such problems recognizing him, I think it's the hair color. He has a very recognizable face either way, I have no idea what my brain is doing. The not-breasts are giving me breast plot bunnies. I already have way too many Wu Lei plot bunnies, so it's likely not going to go anywhere, but... oi.

From:

libitina

Just got back from my camping trip, but I banged through and finished Blossoms of Power.

Sooo with the romantic lines, you apparently just have to accept that she is a strong woman with tactical knowledge and the ability to draw strong boundaries and also just accept that she likes being pestered and kissed even when she has said no if you are cute enough.

And that possessive stalking and territoriality is creepy most of the time, but possessive stalking and territoriality is endearing once you are in a loving relationship together.

Which... sigh. But they did work through all of the examples to prove that thesis instead of just pulling it out of their butts.

Other than that, the story was a pretty solid dynastic infighting powerplay with schemes and poisons and backstabbing. 100% excellent cross dressing character who did not start wearing infinite makeup and jewelry when not cross dressing.

Points off for having one woman seriously unhinged just out there putting way more energy into being an evil villain than anybody has time for.

From:

yletylyf

I couldn't finish Blossoms of Power, mostly for the relationship dynamic you mention starting to appear. I was very entertained to read this review of it, though. And yeah, best cross dressing character award goes to this show! Highlight for spoilers! *The scene where she first wears a dress and mows down dozens of enemies is one of my favorite scenes in all cdrama.*

From:

libitina

Guh! Yes, that was so hot! And the look on his face getting to see that - I am so glad that he appreciates everything about her.

From:

yletylyf

I love so much that he showed up, but not to save her. She already did what needed to be done :) Such great writing.

From:

libitina

Okay, I'm not giving this show enough credit. It's that possessive stalking and territoriality is creepy when it's to satisfy your own ego, but possessive stalking and territoriality is endearing once you are doing it to protect and support the other person. Still so much side eye!

From:

dancing_serpent

Okay, that definitely helps! I'm going to keep everything here in mind and continue watching. *g*

From:

tinny

Dang, I love crossdressing, but stalking and possessiveness drives me up the wall, and I already have two of those right now, so I really can't take on another one. *sigh*

From:

libitina

Yeah. There are so many other shows, so it's no loss to skip this one.

I ended up ranking it an 8 out of 10, which is the level I use for: competent acting and story telling that didn't fuck anything up too badly, but it probably won't end up on any rec list from me unless someone has a very specific request or favorite actor.

Edited Date: Tuesday, 11 August 2026 13:11 (UTC)

From:

dreamy_dragon73

I've watched more of Mystic Nine (16/30). I like what they're doing with the characters in this one and that we get more insight into the background of the nine families. The cinematography and the fight choreography are beautiful and I'm thrilled that I now have three republican-era dmbj dramas to play with.

From:

dancing_serpent

that we get more insight into the background of the nine families

I'm very much excited for this!

I'm thrilled that I now have three republican-era dmbj dramas to play with

So am I!

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