tinny

Movies

More than usual, and one even at an actual movie theater!


Blue Gate Crossing
A 2003 Taiwanese coming-of-age movie about a girl who struggles with her sexuality. It was shown here for Pride month, and it was very... harmless? I enjoyed the vibe, and the characters felt very real. But that was pretty much all it was: vibes. The male lead was very pushy compared to her relative quiet (and occasional unexpected outbursts of courage or random teenage decisions), and it's a dynamic I'm not too fond of. But they were both charming enough that I didn't mind too much. A plus was that it didn't make me nauseous, even though there was a lot of riding around on bikes. I also enjoyed sitting in a movie theatre full of Chinese speakers (although I understood depressingly little of their conversations). The movie itself had engsubs, but the dialogue was relatively easy to understand either way. I found a copy on dailymotion, if you're interested. It wasn't a bad movie, but ... compared to Upcoming Summer, which is nominally the same genre, I prefer Upcoming Summer.



The Sound of Silence
Tan Jianci's latest movie, available on viki. He plays a lawyer and son of two deaf parents, who is caught up in a police case involving the community of deaf people where he grew up. I really liked this movie! It felt like an American movie, from the drama beats to the moral of the story. It played with fake-outs and flashbacks, there were neat scenes with drowned out audio, and I thought the sign language was well used (although I don't know any myself, and of course Chinese sign language for sure is its own beast, so I wouldn't know how realistic it was and how good Tan Jianci was at it or not.)

spoilery opinion

The moral is "trust the justice system". Ha. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have questioned the moral if it had been a US movie, but these days I just can't trust their justice system either - let alone the Chinese one. Especially because the movie was all about con artists and people pulling strings behind the scenes, manipulating and bribing people. This would just as well work with the judges, and poof gone is their case. But apart from my mistrust in the system, the movie itself was really well done.

To my own surprise, I really liked Tan Jianci's look and acting in this movie. I've seen several shows with him, and this was by far the best imho.


The disney+ trawl continued with Moana 2. It wasn't bad, although I thought the songs felt forced. The story itself is fine, although I still don't understand why they took the gardener along. But apart from those minor weird parts, I liked it. The coconut monkeys were the best thing about the movie.

TV finished

The Long Ballad and two Wu Lei appearances and the new 2PM concert

I finished The Long Ballad
While the ending is not perfectly perfect, it's good enough for me. I will likely rewatch parts of it, I really like how smitten Ashile Sun is with Changge throughout, and I realized how much I missed the show while I was dragging it out because I didn't want it to end. I'm planning on writing up a review for it, because I liked it so much. It's also on viki.



Wu Lei did a Subway endorsement event in Beijing on June 6.
He had to ride an exercise bike and make a sandwich, among other things. It's about 45 minutes of non-stop praise for him plus of course lots of product placement, but I learned some new vocab, and he talked about his ride around Hainan, which was interesting. You can still see his sunburnt arm. And the video is an official one from the live stream, so the audio is good, and the Chinese subs are accurate. Bilibili link (unsubbed).



I had expected there to be more Wu Lei at the Weibo and Douyin movie nights, but he was barely there. The Shanghai International Film Festival featured an actors Q&A for The Decisive Moment, which stars Wu Lei, and which was both very much fun and embarrassing because a) he was extremely (uncharacteristically) nervous, and b) they told more than one story about him doubting his acting choices and crying on set. Oof. Could have gone easier on him. Anyway, the movie looks like a terrible propaganda vehicle for the Chinese aerospace industry, but they kept toting it as the next Wandering Earth. It will be released in August. I am looking forward to it. The 45-minute Q&A is on Bilibili (unsubbed).


I watched parts of the KPop group 2PM's reunion show "Return" at Tokyo dome. I really enjoy watching them dance, they are still great! The whole show (4 hours) is on youtube here or here. I'll surely return to it because new 2pm content is hard to come by.

TV new (ongoing)

Love Beyond the Grave
After one false start (most of ep one bored me), it gripped me after all. Dilraba Dilmurat plays the ruler of ghosts who falls in love with a mortal general (Chen Feiyu / Arthur Chen). The first eight eps lured me in with how completely unusual her attitude towards people is. She's very inhuman and uninterested in the short lives of humans, not caring whether they live or die. I adore it for the novelty factor! Then it introduced a mystery around his character, and I want to know where it'll go, so that also keeps me watching. I'm not a fan of the child character or the military tactics stuff, but so far they don't take up too much time so the show holds my attention. Overall, the show is strangely magical and the FL and ML are just very cute with each other. The main plot point is that she can borrow his senses, one at a time, to learn what it feels like to touch/smell/see colors/etc. which she usually can't do. In return, she gives him demonic powers. It doesn't make a lot of sense, it's all played for laughs. I kind of agree with AvenueX's verdict that it could all have been done much deeper, and looked for more meaning there - but it never does. Still, people learning new things is always interesting, even if it's an evil spirit learning what things smell like. But I did think that having her gain sense of touch only for him to lose it at the same time was very sad - a lot of wasted porn potential. ;)) Since I knew that more sense swaps were going to happen, it seemed a little predictable and I dropped it for a week or so. But when I picked it back up, it wasn't quite as predictable as I expected. Also, much much more interesting than the Fireworks show, so I will definitely keep watching.



Love Has Fireworks tropey mc tropeface!
It's on viki. I'm watching this mostly because elenothar is such a huge a Tan Jianci fan, and I like talking to her about things. He plays an investment banker, and so does Wang Churan. Both of them have relationship and money troubles, so they have to share an apartment. The acting from both leads is fine, and their comedic timing is pretty good. The first episodes bored me to death, unfortunately. I was warned about the ai-face-replacement of her ex-boyfriend ahead of time, so I wasn't actually put off that much by it. Now I'm on ep 6/25 and the main couple is starting to get a bit more interesting. I'm not 100% convinced by their dynamic, but they're both fundamentally nice people and I'm less bored now. Everything else is pretty terrible, though, and the humor is ott and not my thing.

ranting

I cannot imagine anything more boring for a modern drama than investment banking. Then there's is every trope imaginable: she gets drunk and he has to save her from thugs. Her workplace nemesis tries to splash her with coffee and he has to grab and twirl her to save her from coffee. They're sitting on a couch, looking at a clip on a phone, and manage to fall over each other into an almost-kiss. His mother destroys his brother's video game character by giving away all his loot and weapons. And all those supposedly humorous scenes are accompanied by screeching trumpet music. I have never heard background music this bad. Sigh.

TV continued

nothing, oops

TV (dropped)

I started How Dare You, because lots of people seemed to like it, but it's 80% palace drama and 20% romance+transmigration shenanigans, and that ratio does not work for me. I dipped into some of the later episodes to see how the romance develops, and thought that maybe I'd watch the ending, but I didn't even do that. On the whole, it's not for me.

Rewatches/Watchalongs

My two Nothing But You watchalongs are ongoing. One on episode 36/38, almost done, we're slowing down because now we both don't want it to end. /o\ But when we're watching, we're both sighing along happily because the romantic payoff at the end is just *so good*. The other is on 13/38, we've passed the worst hump, and now it's going great again!

Here's my set for round 43 at icons10in20! I enjoyed making these summery looking icons. I hope you like them, too:

Teasers:


( 10+6 icons )


Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.

Previous icon posts:

Another 20in20 round - round 07 at ships20in20 - where a random subject was chosen, and this time the wheel landed on my The Long Ballad pairing. Some of these were not my fave things (picspam icons omg), but I am happy with the majority of the set.

Teasers:


( 20 icons of Li Changge and Ashile Sun )

Comments are love - and concrit, too. <3 Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. Texture and brush makers: here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

The current round 64 at fandom10in30 is all about colors inspired by summer fruit. There were some really exotic fruits in there, I had fun making them into a rainbow. :D

Teasers:


( 10+1 multifandom icons, Love on the Turquoise Land, Off Campus, ... )

Concrit and comments very welcome! Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

Hannah (Ella Bright), Garrett (Belmont Cameli) and Justin (Josh Heuston) in Off Campus

I was told about Off Campus by a mutual Heated Rivalry fan, and while it has barely anything to do with it, it is another tv show based on a Hockey romance, so I gave it a try.

Is this a rec? Hmmm... If you like YA stuff and/or College AUs, and are into het romance, I'd say yes. It's nothing special, and I don't like the pacing in the last two episodes, but apart from that, I don't have any major complaints. The acting is good, the production values are good. I liked the main characters and their trauma and how it was explored (except for one resolution :/ ). It's peppy, the music is good, there are lots of sex scenes, and I was never bored. I... did not hate it? I'm tempted to make fun of it. :D I'll go into more detail under the cut below.

Does it have a happy ending: Well, it's a Western show, so it's not done yet. Filming for season 2 has already started. As for this season:

s1 ending spoilers

It's a romance novel adaptation, so, yes. The main couple are together at the end of the season. The secondary couples not so much, but I expect them to get more attention next season.

Content Warnings:

warnings

One character has an alcoholic mother. She is never shown, but her problems are discussed.
One character has been roofied and date raped in the past, and still has hangups about sex (and other things). The rape itself is not shown.
One character has an abusive parent who hit them when they were a child and their other parent. The violence itself is not shown. It's heavily implied that domestic violence was the other parent's cause of death.

Where can I watch it? I watched it on Amazon Prime.

What's it about? It's very standard het romance fair, set in a US college: music major wants to be noticed by her pretentious musician crush and strikes a deal with hockey star to pose as her fake boyfriend to make the musician notice her.

It works, but of course by that time she has fallen in love with the hockey jock.

my detailed thoughts - spoilery

* There is nudity and drinking and frat boys all over the place, two on screen sex scenes and two different girls' tits visible in the first episode alone. I especially hated the drinking (I always do, it's not this particular show's fault). What bothered me was that one of the characters has an alcoholic mother but sees no problem with participating in frat parties at all.

+ I really liked how Hannah's trauma about being roofied and date raped in high school was treated. She never drinks in public, she's afraid of letting anyone in, afraid of telling anyone about it because nobody believed her back then. All of this sounded reasonable to me. I also liked that she specifically says that this does not define her, and that she's healed. Of course she hasn't completely healed, but I liked that, too.

+ I felt like male and female gaze are relatively fairly distributed on the show. All the scenes of hockey players exercising are very on the nose. In one scene where Hannah walks into the men's locker room (she does that more than once, actually), they even make it a point to show penises.

+ All the sex on the show is consensual (except the rape in the past, which is obviously presented as *bad* - and it's not shown). Nobody ever pressures anyone else into sex (or anything else) that I noticed.

+ Also, nobody expects the women to take the men's shit. There isn't much misogyny that I could see, everything was pretty equal.

+ The sex scenes in general are well done - similar to Bridgerton. One of them is plot relevant, and I had to smile at how "don't show anything below the neck" it was. :D You can do a lot with just showing faces. Although I must admit that I found that scene quite unrealistic. Not from a physical standpoint, although Healing cock! From across the room! is quite funny too, and reminded me of one of the Heated Rivalry podcasts where they said "you can do a lot with nine inches, you can do it from across the room!" :D I just thought it was a bit too easy, emotionally.

* Apropos unrealistic: that sex scene wasn't the only time in the show that one gets the impression that she had to shoehorn the sex/romance into there come what may. Romance was definitely a story goal that needed no reason to happen. But I guess the majority of plot points still did make sense, so I'm not complaining too much.

+ In general, it's always refreshing to have a Western (liberal) take on attitudes towards sex - I like that so much better than in cdrama. I also like the humor much better than in cdrama. No slomo, no annoying sound or light effects. She did stay in that locker room much longer than necessary, lol, but overall, the jokes landed.

+ I must admit what endeared the show to me was the Dirty Dancing reference. Am I the target audience? Possibly!

* I have nothing at all to say about hockey. I did notice that the way it was filmed was very different from Heated Rivalry. Apart from that, don't look at me. I don't care about hockey and know nothing about it.

* The most taxing thing for me was that all (and I mean literally all) the men have curly or wavy hair. The only one I managed to tell apart from the rest from ep1 was Dean, the only blond one. Everyone else I kept confusing for at least the first three of the overall eight episodes. They all look the same to me. /o\

+ I do like the look of the female main character, she's not a stick insect, and she has character.

* In typical YA novel fashion, all leads have traumatic pasts (see content warnings). The two leads' trauma is treated very well, although I have some gripes about the domestic violence. It is shown really well when Hannah and Garrett visit his father - I thought that whole episode was really well done. Both Garrett's and Cindy's actions felt realistic, and so did his father's behavior. My problem is with a later episode. Garrett's main character trait is that he doesn't want to be like his father, but then he has a violent outburst anyway. Hannah kind of confronts him about it, but then gets back together with him anyway, without any mention of it. And in the same episode, Dean does the exact same thing: he beats up a rival over a woman, and nobody bats an eye. Double standards anyone?

* I liked how everyone hated Justin's lyrics except Justin himself. The way he went and just performed the song even though he knew Hannah wanted it to be her showcase entry was an extremely shitty thing to do, but it was never mentioned. Probably because she'd already decided that she didn't want his lyrics in her showcase anyway? Whatever. But I did like how he took ownership of his contribution. Why should he care what the other characters think? He's a musician with heart and soul, and good for him.

* I'm not quite sure what to think about Allie, Hannah's best friend. I expected her storyline to be wrapped up within the season, but it very much wasn't. I see how her boyfriend does not respect her biggest dream (even though he seemed otherwise perfect) and that is a good reason to break up with him. But then jumping into bed with the yuckiest of characters instead and turning that into an unlikely love story... exceeded my suspension of disbelief. They're not the leads, so I guess I shouldn't hold them to main character standards? Eh. I thought that could have been done better. As it was, it didn't work for me. They may have great sexual chemistry, but that does not a relationship make. But who knows, maybe season 2 will explore that further.

* The secondary characters were a little flat? Tucker's only character trait seemed to be that he likes to cook. A lot of screentime was spent on that, we might have gotten to know more about him than that? Logan was a little better - we got some info about his family, also through his sister - but overall I still don't know what kind of person he is.

* What made me chuckle the longer the show went on was how all side characters always know the exact right thing to say in a crisis, wow. Sooo much good advice, lol. I guess it's a good thing that they don't spout bad advice all over the place? I probably would have hated that. As it is, I just found it a little unlikely, i.e. too good to be true. But overall, I am fine with things being handled well.

* Another thing that made me chuckle was that except for some Thanksgiving trips, the whole thing very much takes place On Campus all the way through. :D

* Even after all that, I still liked it! It's actually even a little deeper than I expected it to be. If it had handled Hannah's and Garrett's getting back together a bit better, I'd be happy. As it is, this bugged me. But I'd still say it's a watchable show.

some caps (nsfw)

The Hockey players - all with curly hair


Hanna and her friend group - look more guys with curly hair!


accidental cuddling


drunk Shakespeare


the sex scenes are pretty good

There's a new round, number 42, at icons10in20! \o/ Here are my icons for it, mostly Wu Lei pics, and the rest is Bridgerton.

Teasers:


( 10+4 icons - Wu Lei + Bridgerton )

I'm happy to receive all kind of comments, including concrit! All icons shareable. Credit for brushes and textures I use can be found here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

I strongly suggest watching the movie first.

Don't click on the spoiler cut here in this post before you've seen it.

Here's my non-spoilery review post of the movie: https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/811203.html

the twist explained - spoiler!

So Zheng Yuxing's secret is that he's gay.

The gender of his crush, DJ Ming, is never mentioned throughout the movie.

In spoken Chinese, the personal pronoun is gender neutral, so that works fine.

Of course, Chinese movies by law have to have subtitles, and the movie makers apparently decided to intentionally mislead the audience by using the female pronoun whenever Zheng Yuxing talks about Ming. I'm not quite sure why they did this. I don't think it was to get around censorship because an offscreen mention of a gay relationship would not be subject to censorship. But maybe they just enjoyed making the audience assume the wrong thing at first, just like with Chen Chen's secret.

Zheng Yuxing's doorman friend at the disco accuses him of bringing Chen Chen as his beard because he was dumped by Ming.

Ming never speaks when Zheng Yuxing calls him on the phone, so we never hear his voice.

The first real clue is when Zheng Yuxing's father tells the other parents that his son would never do anything to Chen Chen. This is slightly annoying, since in a western show/movie, I would expect this to be a normal attitude. In all Asian dramas I've seen so far, this is sadly not the case. Everyone always assumes that all men are horndogs and not to be trusted when alone with a woman. So, in a Chinese movie, this was the first dead giveaway.

The second real clue is when Chen Chen and Zheng Yuxing arrive at the music festival and look at the poster of DJ Ming, and Zheng Yuxing says, "Now you owe me a secret," because even though we don't see Ming's face, Chen Chen does and that alone constitutes knowing his secret.

The third clue is in that same scene, when some girls pass by behind them and say "Ming is so handsome" (帅 shuai), which is - just like in English - only used for men. The English subs ruin this, too, by translating it as "Ming is so cool." :/

All of these are easy to miss, but taken together, they're pretty clear and obviously intentional.

my thoughts - also spoilery

I loved all the "we need to be brave and more honest with ourselves" talks Zheng Yuxing and Chen Chen had with each other, because she unknowingly helped him accept himself. And it's just such a wonderful motto for a movie in general. <3

I loved how everyone is wrong about everyone else in this movie. The teacher is wrong about the kids, Chen Chen is wrong about her mother, her parents are wrong about her, Zheng Yuxing is wrong about Ming. It's so well done.

I still don't know whether Chen Chen originally tried to kill herself in the pool or just went in there to think, and then came up with a better solution than killing herself. The scene at the festival with the lady on the string implied that going to the festival/music had something to do with... saving her life? Or just making her see reason and becoming an adult? I have no idea, that was a bit too symbolic for me. :D

I wonder in hindsight how open and naive Zheng Yuxing is at school. If he felt inadequate or unaccepted for being (secretly) gay, I would suspect him to be a bit less carefree. It's possible for him to be like this, that he really doesn't care about being an outsider, I just thought it less likely, because the movie shows us in other scenes how very lonely he is. For me, it doesn't match with the carefree attitude.

It's almost cut off by the fade to black, but when Zheng Yuxing collapses in the hotel lobby, after his father stands back at first, he then rushes to his side after all. <3

I love how Zheng Yuxing is not at all interested in school or doing well in the exam, and I expected this to be shown as a negative thing in a Chinese movie. But it wasn't. He was obviously very motivated to be the best at music, and he put all his energy into that, rightly so, and in the end he did make his dream come true. I thought that was amazing.

Even after watching it several times, I'm still not sure whether Zheng Yuxing and Ming really were in a relationship or whether Zheng Yuxing was just following around his crush like a puppy and it was never reciprocated from the start. Both seem possible to me. He himself isn't even sure if it was a relationship or if there was a breakup or not. My personal headcanon is that Ming treated Zheng Yuxing like a groupie, probably had sex with him, but wasn't really interested in a relationship.

I'm not sure he really would have kissed Chen Chen - that kiss felt like fan service more than anything. I guess I can see a young guy who's just been told that he's her crush go, 'Maybe I will like kissing her,' and only after that finding out that he really doesn't. But - again - it seems unlikely. He would have hugged her instead. (That said, I am not complaining about the fanservice. I am a fan of that kind of service.)

I wish we could have seen a little bit more about their relationship in the coming years, not just her going to the concert. That felt a tiny bit abrupt, but overall, the movie answered all my other questions, and it felt like a satisfactory ending.

ETA: there's one scene where Zheng Yuxing and Chen Chen post a video on social media from a location they don't want to reveal. Zheng Yuxing says to the camera, "我们在哪里" (women zai nali? Where are we?). This is a tradition between Wu Lei and his fans. He will make a selfie video like that with his fans wherever he has a public appearance. I checked, he started doing that in 2018, so the video in this movie is not the origin of the tradition but rather a fourth wall break.

Movies

I went to see a German movie ("Ach diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke") at the theatre this month, which was good, I can recommend. (Although it is a lot about death, so CW for that. ymmv. I thought it strikes a wonderful balance between sad and funny.) It's an adaptation of the second book of Joachim Meyerhoff's autobiographical novel series. The first one is about him growing up in a mental asylum because his father works there, and I've neither read the book nor seen the movie. This second movie is about him deciding to study acting in Munich. All the roles are excellently cast, especially Senta Berger as his eccentric grandmother. Since it's all set in the 90s, everything looks wonderfully retro (and everyone's smoking everywhere omg). There's not a lot of plot, it's all about him growing into his own, and about dealing with death. I really enjoyed the movie, and I could watch it in its entirety for once without it making me nauseous. Yay!

TV finished

The Company

All done! I really loved this 30-episode show about a time traveller whose time machine is an antique shop. It started out a bit weird in ep 1, but found its pace quickly after that. Watch it on viki here. I'll put the ending under a spoiler cut:

The Company ending spoilers here

I did not like the ending. I mean, they tried to soften it, and it could have been worse, but... I expected something happier. They had all the cards, they could have given them their happy ending - they could even have resurrected his original lover if they'd tweaked it right - any of these would have been possible. Instead, they took one of the ML's memories away, and the other's time machine.

To not make it all that depressing, I guess, they meet again for the first time at the very end. ...How? It's bittersweet at best, and it makes no sense! How did he get there without a time machine?

The whole thing reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and like with everything you've seen done before, the impact just lessens. It worked for me back then, it is still one of my favorite movies!, but here I was disappointed. Pity, because the rest of the show was very sweet and much better than I'd expected.

People tell me that it's supposed to be a happy ending, sending them into a time loop, but imho there are a few points that contradict that. If they wanted to do that, they could have done it more cleanly and elegantly. But maybe I really just misunderstood? Who knows.

Anyway, that dampened my enjoyment of the show just a little bit. I would still recommend it. It's par for the course for cdrama, bittersweet is all you can hope for. At least it's not outright tragic.

Cinderella Closet
I watched this Japanese drama on Netflix - all 12 short episodes of it - within a week. It's about a young woman with little self-esteem meeting a crossdressing man who helps make her more confident by giving her fashion advice and doing her makeup. Uhhh, okay? Of course then they fall in love. It's a bit tropey in places, but it repeatedly does the right things where it counts, like affirm that it's okay to be genderfluid, that he can wear what he wants, that being confident is what makes you beautiful, not what you're wearing, etc. I also really liked both their parents and how they reacted to seeing them together. It packs a lot into its short running time, and I think it got all the important points across well. I liked it overall. He is very pretty in female clothing, too. <3 Watch it on Netflix here.


I watched the almost hour-long cut of the milk endorsement live stream Wu Lei did last week, and thoroughly enjoyed that. It's the usual annoying product endorsement, but I enoyed watching my blorbo. Also, Migaku now supports bilibili, such a game changer! It means I got Chinese and English subs with it, and learned some idioms and the word "volleyball". \o/ (I got Zhu Yilong "oh noes everybody's taller than me" flashbacks when he stood next to the women's volleyball team. :D) I watched it on bilibili here.

TV new (ongoing)

I finally started Wu Lei's Ride Now vlog (the season from 2022, where he goes to a snow field near Ulan Bator and celebrates his 22nd birthday by sleeping in a tent at -25C). The English title has nothing to do with the original title, except for the fact that it's a pun with the word "ride" in it? (The original title 岂有此理 is an idiom, meaning "unreasonable" or "absurd" or "this makes no sense", and replacing the first character with the word "ride" gives you 骑有此理, and I don't know what exactly that means, but maybe something like "biking makes sense"? Idk.) There's no biking in the season I watched (up to ep4) at all, anyway, but there's horse riding, so I guess that counts. It confused me at first. In any case, it's very cute, and Wu Lei's enthusiasm for sleeping in a tent at -25C against the advice of his team is just so very him. Also, I keep thinking about the poor guides who have to lead him through the wilderness while he juggles his selfie stick and doesn't wear his goggles. Lack of self-confidence is not one of his traits, for sure. Unfortunately, the camera movements made me nauseous eventually, so I had to stop after four eps. I'll pick it up again once I feel up to it. I watched it through this youtube playlist of his fanclub, which has engsubs.

TV continued

One more ep of Our Times, the retro Wu Lei show, now on 6/36. He's still cringe in some ways (omg he bought himself a mink coat, what a douche), and I don't quite understand Hou Minghao's character's decisions, but hey. I'm mostly watching for the leads (Wu Lei and Hou Minghao), but I also like the setting. I haven't seen a show this focused on opening up of the business sector in China, and it's actually a period I know a bit about already, so that's interesting to see. It's on wetv and youtube.

I'm finally making headway on finishing my half-finished shows from months ago. First up: A Moment But Forever. I had to rewatch/skim 27 and 28 until I remembered where I had left off, but then got back into it quickly and am now on episode 33/36. It's getting really interesting with people still wanting to kill the ML and the FL trying to save him again and again without giving away her secrets (which the gods have specifically forbidden her from divulging). The evil players have revealed themselves openly now, and it's heading towards the final confrontation. The main draw of this still is how philosophical it is, and how much they're talking about what's right or wrong, about the power of love, and how to shape the kind of world you want to live in. It's quite thoughtful and deep (and the reason AvenueX recced it and I like it (although of course I'm also in it for the romance)). Looking forward to how they're going to wrap this one up. It's on iqiyi.

( the rest - some first impressions and youtube channel recs - under the cut )

I always have fun making Wu Lei icons, so I signed up for another round at celebrity20in20. Enjoy. :D

Teasers:


( Wu Lei - by definition this time :)  )

Concrit welcome! Comments adored! Credit appreciated! Take and use as many icons as you like. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

The current round at retro_icontest is a Random Art Prompts challenge from 20muses, and it was very unusual. The main prompt was to "icon the first thing that pops into your head when you read these 20 prompts". I also tried to incorporate as many of the provided art works as textures. Omg the resulting set is all over the place. :D

Teasers:


( 20+4 multifandom icons, mostly old, rare, and strange :D )

Concrit and comments very welcome! Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.

Previous icon posts: