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Semi- Friends-Only in this case means that I am pretty random about posting publicly one day, under friends-lock another. If you'd like to friend me, feel free. No need to ask! If you'd like to read my locked entries, talk to me. :-)

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Since I haven't been around for years and am currently making some brand new friends, I thought I'd make a post giving a bit of my fannish background.

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So now, Guardian. And also The Untamed! Hi guys! I might be there a while! Blame rheasilvia. Now tell me about yourselves!

About me in general: I live in Scotland with three cats about whom you'll probably see posts occasionally. Other hobbies include language learning and political activism.

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Following this poll, jo_lasalle and I are thinking that we're going to give organising a MDSZ readalong once the English (and German) editions are out a shot. We have a few follow-up questions at this point for those who are interested.

EDITED  TO SAY: some kind souls reminded us gently that not all the volumes come out at the same time, so we're going to have a look at calendars and publishing dates and figure out a reading schedule. Thank you kindly. :)


A few notes on what we're thinking:
theuntamed_mdzs

• We're planning to put the posts up at the comm. (Should issues arise, we can also host them at our own DWs, but we don't expect any ATM.)
• The English translation is going to come out mid-December; because of our own schedules in the run-up to the winter break, if we're the only ones organising it, we couldn't start before early January. Sorry about that!
• We think weekly posts is a good rhythm, but we also couldn't reliably do two posts a week, so the schedule interval isn't part of the poll.
• The posts themselves will be pretty low-frill.
• The comm disallows anon commenting, but Open ID commenting seems possible, so people who don't have a DW account can also comment with a Twitter or LJ account. (Our experience is that people who don't do DW, don't do DW, but, in theory the option exists!)
• Jo will also be reading the German translation in parallel, and will likely make a dedicated thread per post for anything people might want to discuss that's specific to the German edition.
• Commentary and comparison with other translations very welcome! We just wouldn't take point on that because the English and German translations is all the parallel reading we personally can manage.
• - Commentary on the original Chinese also very welcome! We don't speak or read Chinese so we definitely can't take point on that, but any dedicated thread or un-dedicated observations will be received with delight.
•  

The open questions and subject to the poll:

1) How many chapters per week?

Hitting not too fast but also not to slow for the majority of people will be trickiest, hence the poll.

If you have a look at the Novel Chapter Summaries, you'll see that there are 113 chapters, and they are grouped into themes. A theme is usually between 4 and 8 chapters, sometimes more, even more rarely less.

• We could go for a theme a week, which would be pretty easy in terms of organisation and keeping track, but would also mean some pretty uneven lengths. (Just checking the early themes has a variety of 10k to 26k.) Would mean somewhere between 20 and 25 weeks of discussion posts, which is quite long.
• We could generally go for themes, and combine the really short one, and maybe split the really long ones. Again, would mean somewhere between 20 and 25 weeks of discussion posts, which is quite long.
• We could combine themes where they're short and keep the long themes intact, so higher word count per week, shoot for ~12-15 weeks of posts.
• We could go for a general rough word count regardless of themes. (We admit it's been long enough that we read the Exiled Rebels translation that we don't remember if the themes are really reflected in the narrative structure and how chapters hang together)

2) Spoilers or no spoilers.

Would we assume / ask people to pretend that anyone reading along has only read the chapters so far, or assume that by this point nobody is reading this translation entirely unspoiled, i.e. discussion can include mentions of "future" events?

Would we want to avoid spoilers for other adaptations?

(If the general discussion isn't supposed to have spoilers, there could still be a thread that's specifically spoiler-inclusive and labelled thus, but, it does mean more work, and potentially more bitty discussion.)

3) Day of the week that's good for discussion



Input welcome! Anything important we've missed?</poll-26392> [There are currently comment(s) on the Dreamwidth version of this post. | post a comment @ Dreamwidth]

9. A view you hold that you think is rare or unpopular in the fandom.

This took me a while, and then it was so obvious.

It took a while because in many respects I'm quite flexible with my views and the readings I accept. Obviously there are some hard limits (like my views on Xue Yang or Sect Leader Yao) but I don't think they are out of line with fandom majority views. So between that flexibility and me largely agreeing (flexibly) with general orthodoxy, I was really stuck.

But of course, who better to get me out of line with general orthodoxy than chaotic good gremlin Wei Wuxian.

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8. A character on whom your opinion changed over time.

There are a few.

I guess the main one is Jiang Cheng. I really disliked him first time round, even before all the bad shit went down (but more then).

One of the things I never got, because I do have siblings and interact with them, is the thing that eventually jo_lasalle  defined to me as 'bickering'. I do not understand bickering. Me and my sibs, well, at least one, we have disagreements and spent a long time in our youth ignoring each other. But we never 'bickered'. I'm still like 'why on earth would anyone live like this???' So initially I was just constantly thinking 'look, he doesn't even like Wei Wuxian. I guess that was a cultural thing, not in the sense of Chinese culture but general culture which I am not familiar with, maybe a 'solo does not understand people' thing... at any rate it really threw me.

And yes, watching the show a few more times, it's also easier to appreciate the pressures he's under having to lead and rebuild a recently decimated clan. So I give him more slack now and I accept that in his own weird way he loves Wei Wuxian.

Another one is Meng Yao. Don't get me wrong, I still think he needed put down, but rewatching has made me see just how much of what he does is based on fear. He has no status that he doesn't fight for and it can instantly be taken from him, just because of the accident of his birth. People disrespect him all the time. His main aim is to be unassailable, and that's not illogical, given how his life has been. He still steps over too many corpses for my taste, so... I hate his guts but I can see better now why he did what he did.

Finally, Wei Wuxian. Initially I just loved everyting he did instinctively, viscerally, but now I've also come to feel incredibly protective of him and his dumbass self-worth issues; it took me a while to figure out how insecure he is under all that BAMF-ness.

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7. Second most appealing point for a canon divergence AU.

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6. Favourite canon animal

So if I recall correctly, I'm expected to choose between a temperamental donkey, a fat spirit dog, an evil owl, a canary glimpsed once, a slobbering wolf, a vague number of fluffy rabbits, and Sect Leader Yao (a sheep if ever I met one)?

I think it's between the donkey and the dog. Rabbits are cute but otherwise... don't have much agency (sorry, Bigwig, you know I love you). Canary didn't make much of an impression, and the rest are evil.

I have a soft spot for Little Apple, really, and he brings the comedy for sure, but I guess it'll have to be our favourite fat husky. (Sorry, Wei Wuxian.)

ETA Damn I forgot about the chickens. The glorious chickens... otoh I don't like chickens. Okay, done.

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2. Moment(s) when you have really identified with a character.

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So, I have a bad track record with memes, or indeed with any 'running' format where I intend to do a certain number of posts. I stopped doing my Untamed rewatch(along) at ep 20, my fandom alphabet at V, and my 30 days of the Untamed at day 21. (I mean, there were always reasons, usually to do with me getting the feeling that nobody was really interested, but still. There's an unfortunate pattern here.)

But I'm going to give it another try because without something like this, I just tend to not post at all. Or not at all frequently. So here goes jo_lasalle's new 31 Days of the Untamed: the rewatch

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1. Your most re-watched episode

I don't actually know. I've watched the first 2 episodes quite a lot due to getting to grips with background stuff. But the more I re-watched the entire show, the less that was necessary. And then I've had times when I watched only the '2nd life' arc.

I think it's probably a toss-up between episode 42, for that moment on the steps of Jinlintai, and the softness of the night at the Jingshi ♥♥♥, and episode 45 because what's not to like about watching them be the ultimate battle couple, with Wei Wuxian fighting zombies in his boyfriend's underwear?. I sometimes just watch these at random for the feel-good factor.

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Excerpt from the wall of 3500 rules for recent returnees from abroad:

• Self-isolate for 10 days.
• Do not leave your house.
• Do a home Covid test on days 2 and 8.
• Post the Covid test from a priority post box.
• Do not enter a post office.

Excerpt from Covid rules for everyone who lives here:

• Do not travel more than 5 miles outside your area.

My nearest priority post box that is not inside a post office is 15 miles away. I'm trying to figure out how to get there without leaving the house.

(I lie, of course. If I were a nice little Lan I'd be trying to figure that out, and perhaps I'd expend significant spiritual energy achieving it. Being little old me, I'm going to nip down to the post office two blocks from here and pick up some groceries while I'm there.)

Those home Covid tests had to be purchased at a cost of £210 before they'd even let you travel. Someone is making nice money out of the pandemic.

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