pengwern

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 08:28:30 GMT

( excessive journal navel gazing, wow. rank incompetence + risky behaviour + kink but all in unrelated and autobionattering ways, why did I spend five paragraphs on vorkosigan first other than the bit where I ao3 dove again recently )
also gregor/ekaterin is a crackship that works so well

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Sat, 29 Jan 2022 02:27:07 GMT

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Fri, 17 Sep 2021 02:10:06 GMT

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Mon, 09 Aug 2021 17:27:16 GMT

Baseless claims I would need to do a lot more research on but that I'm throwing here for later:
Oscar Wilde's Salome or Green Knight influencing the kiss in Lu Xun's Mei Jianchi/Forging the Swords” (Zhu Jian 铸剑) (1926).

CW for fairytale gore:
(short rundown on Lu Xun: one of the most famous republic era literati and revolutionary writer, the story is a retelling of a mythological story where a swordmaker is inevitably killed by the king he forged a masterblade for bc swords = weapon development, but this guy made two swords and his son has the other as he grows up for his revenge -- only to meet some guy promising to fulfill his revenge if the son will let himself be beheaded, to be taken along with the other sword as a gift to the king. Dark stranger goes to court, promises the king entertainment if he provides a cauldron full of boiling water (cauldrons being significant objects in ancient bronze age culture) and tosses the head in like a little light garnish, whereupon it sings sweetly in the swirling waters; the king approaches and is beheaded by dark stranger, who beheads himself as well so that all three heads spin around in a death match within the boiling vessel. And finally when they all sink to the bottom, spent, the horrified court fishes out fragments that cannot be identified and everything is eventually buried in the same tomb) I read this when I was eight and went @_____@ somehow I am not the most horrified at this story in the collection!

there's a lot of precedent for "let me bring the head of your enemy to you as a token of my sincerity" in cn narratives/history - see all the stuff in the Three Kingdoms era, or even the pre-unification times where some guy will literally say "let me borrow your head" to someone else (apocryphal)

BUT kissing does seems....not...to be a part of it? not so much no homo, even, it's just that kissing isn't a motif in general unlike lays or medieval (european) customs, which is what makes it interesting - I need to compare the description in the story to Salome. Time matches up...? The story is very clearly allegorical, and I see articles talking about how the three dead men represent the oppressed, the rulers, and agitators like Lu Xun himself (the dark stranger introducing himself with a pen name that Lu Xun once used), where nobody makes it out alive _(:з)∠)_

Quote from the story to compare - I don't know if there's some other (western) modernist work also involving kisses that I might be missing as well.
“呵呵!”他一手接剑，一手捏着头发，提起眉间尺的头来，对着那热*的死掉的嘴唇，接吻两次，并且冷冷地尖利地笑。
"Heh!" He took the sword in one hand, grabbed the hair in the other, and lifting Mei Jiancun's head up, kissed twice the warm lips that had died, and coldly and sharply laughed.

...man looking at Lu Xun again it definitely reads....like...more western tinged? In the way his vocab and possibly even sentences are formed. (Classical and vernacular but historical chinese have grammar and other stuff that makes it difficult to translate directly.)

(Side note that there was a hilarious part in Lu Xun's memoirs about him learning English and German:
him learning english: 几乎四整天是英文：“It is a cat。”“Is it a rat？(Almost four whole days of english.)
这回不是It is a cat了，是Der Mann，Die Weib，Das Kind。.(This time it wasn't It is a cat)

*(lit, hot dead lips in YOUR menacing wolf filled forest)

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Fri, 06 Aug 2021 06:59:36 GMT

Remembered about that one space opera webnovel....that had a number of descriptors to made it stand out.
1) The friends to foes to honey trap and honey trappee/simultaneous lord and rebellious general to lovers to satisfy my entire soul. Just incredible. The deadly faceoffs between their wills...I looked up after five chapters to start raving about it. Dubcon all over, but it was scorchingly intense. (ymmv obviously)
2) at which point (chapter 6) it started on its second noteworthy aspect, ON SCREEN LOVE NIKKI LET'S PLAY. For, I think I counted, at least 6/87 chapters? There was later a showdown that involved competing in Love Nikki as though it were an e-sport??
???????
??????????????????????????????????????????
Fully accurate and memeable pastiche too.
3) which then at the 60% mark vrooshes down the tired trope tracks of the space opera genre and cnovels in general. ...thing is, those tropes include: the Empire and the Federation*; a return to monarchy that makes sense only for historical genres; insect people invasion and mecha to battle them, but also fantasy RPG kitchen sink for whatever reason, and for the generic cnovel elements, your typical race of cannibalized enslaved mermaids. ,,,,,,,,,,,
4) and finally its title, Sweet flavored Alpha, and the cover, a pink confection with molangs and rows of dancing desserts, which is what you'd expect for a pure fluff bakery setting fic. [F R A U D I N A D V E R T I S I N G]
I had a GREAT time.

Summary and quotes later - I am off to pluck their current anthology wip, Thanatos x Judge of Hell, the two wuchang psychopomps falling in love after a shot from Cupid, Love god x Ocean god (this makes more sense with a cn web term naming people with lots of admirers sea kings who keep many fish in their fishery), and Lucifer x Morningstar (as the term for selfcest goes, narcissus romance, bless)
*(I think descended in fandom lineage from the anime legend of galactic heroes?)
link two
This author 浮白曲 also did a duology of sweet gods/powers-that-be dating, and also an apparently amazing generic historical foe-xxx novel that I haven't devoured still because I am a cowardly pudding, even though this author is nowhere on the level of stabs as some people (将进酒 author I am staring at u)

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Wed, 03 Mar 2021 06:43:15 GMT

gonna mumble here where no-one will judge
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tumblr import posts 1/?, on perfume

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 10:45:27 GMT

tumblr user garden-ghoul asked:

okay honestly the idea of INVENTING a perfume by consulting a tarot deck is a really interesting one

YEAH this is such a fun concept that my mind promptly froze. Should it be based on what the card depicts, what the card means, or the reading as a whole?

Card depictions: That’s easy enough - there are several plant based decks, and I have two myself. (you might like to know that The Tower in the jonasa jaus tarot is a corpse flower.) Not to mention all those roses, lilies, pomegranates, wheat, desert siroccos, and flames both holy and infernal that you get on the regular RWS deck.

Given how the majority of RWS cards feature people, that makes tailoring scents to each even simpler – perfume briefs can apparently be dumb things like a two toned ribbon, and I can come up with something right now for blithe innocents dawdling over thin air, rose in hand: aldehydes, a sweet citrus like orange or mandarin, white florals, a lemony rose for the lemony narrator that surely lurks in the background, plus a touch of musk for dog. Will it smell good WHO KNOWS but there seems to be established associations for most commonly used notes, and it’s easy enough to extrapolate from there.

Card meanings: It can’t be too hard to figure out accords that smell like strife, effort, regret*, worldly triumph, false temptations, or stealing several swords from the circus**.

*anything with violet leaf **Dzing plus something metallic

I think I like the concept of basing perfumes on an entire reading the most! You could shape it around the person/scenario being read for, or you could map past/present/future to top/middle/base notes.

So I drew…Death, Nine of Swords, and Ace of Cups. uh. Drastic change, anxiety over something legit, and the font of emotions. Death is a very Kel phoenix which is also on fire. 9 of swords has thunder and lightning and stormbirds that seem to circle around you, and a raven on a shoulder. Ace of cups is sleek goldfish and a cup with sapphires……………this is basically Brezan……

With those as top/middle/base, this would start with an ephemeral note that burns off in seconds, move on to some nauseating thing, maybe with ozone, then finally linger at an ok aquatic haze for hours afterwards. By most accounts, secretions magnifiques is like this? Vanishing florals that goes to displeasing body odours, whose drydown is fine. :( There are so many distressing cards…a world of SM type perfumes……

:( the problem is that I care about tarot the most as a fictional device then as a way to encounter and collect exquisite palm-sized paintings with actual....readings a distant third
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To have a picture of the bottle on my blog is all I desire of Vol de Nuit, because goodness knows it’s not the perfume itself. I must be anosmic to something in the composition because I’ve tried three times over now, in EDT and in parfum, and there’s this…VOID when the thing parades past my olfactory bulb.

Two minutes after the spray, nothing. All I get is heat from where my nose is squashed on the back of my hand, recognisable as the ‘existence of a perfume’, and lasting for hours, but no actual notes.

Hesperidic notes with aldehydes prepare you for take off, as the bitter galbanum and cold narcissus is pillowed on a trail of orange blossom, vanilla musk and orris powder. This represents the cool of the midnight sky and the wispy random clouds as the plane breaches through. In the midst of uncertainty comes a velvety comfort, as the powdery iris-driven accords take over.

where

Not the galbanum, not the orange blossoms, maybe some of the aldehydes, more like hot air from the exhaust fan, and the wind whipping it away.

I tried other stuff later and those were fine. is my nose broken >:<<< so let’s just go back to the bottle which is basically half a split edible peridot like the ones in the Silver Chair that's also escaped from the set of CLAMP's beloved manga Clover

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crocordile asked:

tell me about míriel and perfume, pls, or use the cards to tell me what I should buy for my father on his birthday

Numenorean perfume traditions: g o s h

Late Numenor would probably have synthetic compounds, just like the ones we have right now. irl there’s a trend for “marine” fragrances built on synthetics - think of every awful male cologne titled Refreshing!! Sport!! VERY MANLY!!! which is hilariously late Numenorean, and so I doubt that Tar-Miriel would get to have her nice all-natural unguents – Sauron probably took over the holy gardens where they used to plant the best roses, jasmines, everything. Hope you like smoky perfumes!

An existing perfume for her off the top of my head is Iris Silver Mist. Silver, so silver that people attach scifi ufo to illustrate their reviews all the time. Made of an overdose of synthetic compounds - the story goes that the perfumer in despair and desperation put in every last iris chemical he had.

But without synthetics, true iris extract is one of the most expensive ingredients around, something only royalty could afford*. And once I disentangle the scent from images of perky silver jumpsuits, my actual association is……when you’re in a supermarket and they mist their leafy vegetable section…green growing things, cut down for consumption, but still organic forms where all else is boxy mirrored fluorescent squares.

(does Sauron even have the power to bend chemical molecules to his will after getting dragged onto the island)

numenorean perfumes I must think on some more. and chemistry please point me at headcanons of molecules and Arda and if Maiar powers can interfere crocordile *I'm generalising bc I can't find a source you are talking about tar miriel not feanor's mom right because I may still choose silver but I'm not sure that chemistry advancements in Valinor had gotten that far when she was there would they even have had a perfume industry soon after the crossing not a great idea to be heavily scented while hunting/gathering....? maybe one of her friends would bring lovely flowers to her while she worked on textiles? or she smells like cotton or mulberries or wool?? idk

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excitable reread liveblog

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 07:33:53 GMT

The (definitely dubious consent type) twist in 星际奶爸 Space!Number One Dad by 袖侧 was....so delicious, g o s h (spies and deep cover agents and an entire cauldron of identity drama) and the dynamic -- I'd try slapping it everywhere but do I really need to see other characters re-enact it, when the originals are already this wonderful @_@

This novel is....exhilarating. satisfying. The scope goes far beyond the blurb, AND it features the line "help! what to do when there's always hunks volunteering to bear my children!"

( (Spoilers for a novel that doesn't have a translation but really should) )

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Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:40:10 GMT

Impressions of MXTX's three novels which I read a while ago, from...... an incredibly spoilt child who can read raws, sorry XD I'm meaner simply because there are more options available /o\ I will however read them again at some point! Eventually! At least HOB. Once all the (many) warnings are noted, Heavenly Official's Blessing is the one I could recommend.

Possible spoilers?

Scum Villain: Generic. I don't doubt that it caused the continued popularity of teacher/pupil where the pupil is the initiator. Some days I couldn't skim the list of new releases without seeing infinite revamps on the same setup. There was however a nice chapter in the epilogue where the writer of the fic comes to the conclusion that "he did love this world of his," freely, with joy, even if it's been trying to murder him for nearly all the time since his transmigration into that world - a rather meta reflection that I would expect more to see in fic than in the canon. And of course the fanworks have been A+++ given the millennial nature of the MC, meaning infinite memes.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: solid, with the intricacies of all those plot threads coming together, but it does a bunch of things I don't care for -- she loves flashback sections in a way that I do not enjoy, I wasn't hugely invested in the theme of reputation/infamy and all the grief that brings down upon you, even if it was well done, and I'm really not into pushy/overbearing gongs -- lan wangji slides towards that end of the scale. But the set pieces (Yi City, the statue) were fun, as it's not particularly common to see suspense/horror done effectively in cultivation novels.

Heavenly Official's Blessing: HUALIAN INVENTED LOVE I put off reading this for quite a while given the summary (a demon king stalker) and how the other two MLs were, but Hua Cheng, after centuries of obsession, ends up managing the feat of paying attention to the needs and desires of his beloved. Placing them above his own intents actually that's not super great for him but this is tragically rare in the romance section, let alone anywhere else. Not sure about how the parts about belief and everything hangs together - it seems to...help facilitate the incredibly iddy bits where ML swears all the romantic oaths, like dying in battle \o/ (when one partner is a ghost, does willingness to die for someone circle back to being their reason for existence? Hua Hua will find out for his highness!)

The supporting cast is full of charming people, and I was very fond of the side plots (with comedy gems like calling the person you intend to arrest because she was (until a minute ago) the coordinator of all away missions). She kept me invested in most of the threads in the present day - you have the typical revenge cycles, and forgiveness bestowed with an open hand, tangles of debt which can't be resolved by any of the parties involved, and precious tiny revenants cooking inedible scorpion snake casseroles -- Each early case of the week led back into the showering of dog food in the adorable romance of someone who was believably eight hundred years old, battered, and optimistic, and the mysterious hot ghost who loves to troll the rest of Heaven.

You can actually see mxtx's skill grow over the course of three novels! There was only maybe one part towards the end where I felt it dragged a little. ... In addition to, as always, the interminable flashbacks. It's not simply that I can't deal with switching back and forth between two plot threads, but having seen examples that worked for me (priest, in Silent Reading*), the fatal flaw here was a) we had enough clues/summaries to get the gist within the first few pages, and b) the protracted and agonizing fall from the height of glory into an abyss constantly being dug deeper is not...enjoyable....for me to read........especially when I'm much more invested in seeing how they solve it. There were of course some enjoyable bits ( spoiler )so they aren't entirely redundant, but .....fleshed out flashback sections at the fifty percent mark which only added characterization and details to what we could summarize in a few sentence.............. author pls. Leave it for the prequel.

*I guess what Silent Reading did was - priest set up the mystery so that each tiny sip of flashback did actually serve to move the plot forward?

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Mon, 13 Jul 2020 07:20:37 GMT

Something that 。。。。does relieve me at times in the cultivation genre (the daoism myth/legend fantasy genre) is how it's mostly consistent that the actual villain is the tian dao (the order of heaven/the universe, or the great chain of being), or the true xian who have ascended and become gods. striving against heaven is a common theme, plus the unavoidable corruption of everyone at the top, and it's especially noticeable in myth fandoms/ships like the erlang shen/monkey king or the hilarious out of thin air (appeared on screen one time) dragon dad of ao bing/heavenly emperor (not visible, mentioned like twice (a canonical mythological figure ofc) in the most recent Nezha movie fandom.

(the ships that english fandom reverts to when presented with minimal canon: two white guys, one snippy, one long suffering
the ships that cn fandom reverts to: dark fic with IMPRISONMENT of an entire tribe and GRINDING you LOYAL SOLDIERLY SUPPORTER down out of PARANOIA (卸磨杀驴 finishing the milling process and killing the donkey who provided the labor, 鸟尽弓藏 hiding the bow once the birds have all been hunted, I can think of 4-5 proverbs off the top my head about this situation) I did laugh.
when it comes to non-magical situations with emperors they don't ....actually that's somewhat separate from the trope I mean to talk about)

But while the emperors are malignant it's often the noncon sexy type of evil (see common tropes of ten-twenty years ago), whereas in cultivation novels the tian dao is nearly always vile and nonredeemable, impersonally evil, hypocrisy overflowing in every move they make, yet cringing in the face of the wild will of humans/the protagonist.

Transferring the things you can't get away with with humans at the top of the pyramid to fantasy >_<

Of course, I'm mostly reading in the '女频/by women for women' genre and fics from the more recent part of last decade, and not the stuff by guys for guys 男频, but I think the "my fate is mine and not heaven's" is pretty consistent (especially in the thousand chaptered stuff over there）。

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one line notes on priest novels

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 11:39:32 GMT

Just remembered why Lie Huo Jiao Chou/Inferno Quenching Sorrow/(translation link) was one of the most breathtaking webnovels I had the infinite fortune to read last year, and I should...do a liveblog this time, now that I don't have to wait for updates.
(By Priest who did Guardian and Sha Po Lang, which I think are the two books western fandom is more familiar with? I've rampaged through most of her other works too, and enjoyed them!)

No Public Harm, No Pollution was the contemporary wuxia I didn't know I needed (actually I didn't need that much millennial angst about jobs, housing, relationships in this cold world, ties to the past like ball and chain, debts both financial and moral, ...and so on at 3AM which is why I stopped for several months, but the payoff was worth it.) I'd rec it if the translation wasn't abandoned, but after Lie Huo I think it's probably the best of her works.
Mo Du/Silent Reading is the detective/serial killers one with flashbacks I didn't want to skip ~~unlike MXTX~~
Can Ci Pin/Imperfections is the space opera I read while the Ruin/future housing pav was ongoing (and sideways explaining the random red wine cabinets they seem to require against the chilly ipod color palette (??)
the executive dysfunction one was surprisingly.......arrow to the knee/mood, despite a bit I disagreed with about the medication, but for a webnovel I was very satisfied.
The historical steampunk Sha Po Lang felt unevenly paced, but which also....increased its resemblance to a chronicle of a real war. Campaigns that drag on, internal reversals, the times when everything seems to happen and crush your brave protags, the random people and threads that wander in and out...I'm glad I didn't have to follow it through updates, though.
Guardian was an enjoyable urban fantasy, but it's not the best place to start with her works or with webnovels in general.
Shan He Biao Li, which I'd localize to King of Infinite Space, was the random adventure thriller story, with lots of timey-spacey shenanigans, and a made up ethnic group which I....don't know enough to side-eye.
Liu Yao/The Revitalization of Fuyao Sect is one of those webnovels that does the unexpected thing of allowing bad things to happen to protagonists. Not just the appealing ones like getting one's heart's blood drained, but actual setbacks! Incredible. Webnovels are a genre where 'Sue' as in Mary Sue is a valid trope descriptor so......(Also I remember the little shimei getting named Water Puddle by her loving shixiongs. Realism is so hard to find.............)
Qi Ye and Faraway Wanderers are her very early works, and tbh they show the age by being generic wuxia fics.

I'm very fond of priest's jokes and her voice, and her ability for landing solid, stunning finales is undeniable! Her flaws might be....pacing? This is hard, especially with translations. Also her plots get rather convoluted at times, which is fine for repeat reads but not most webnovels where people tear through the archives.
I'd recommend Lie Huo over her other more translated works because now that I'm looking at the lengths, they do seem to be trilogy sized when traditionally published. It's also easier imo to follow than Guardian with all the kitchen sink underworld mythology references. But of course Lie Huo doesn't yet have a delicious show with chicken-swords and idiots burning out the back of their sweaters with flaming ~~hot~~ wings and beauties reviving from sealed tombs yet.

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resolutions,

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:54:49 GMT

figure out what my tumblr passwords are, something I've put off for literally...months.....
figure out kanzashi
try resin curing!
sort, print Japan photos
touch my inks again, at some point - cute cake of green sumi ink + three jars of pearl ex. dear bottle of gum arabic, two thousand miles away, how I do miss u
chandelier sweater: finish gauge swatch, measurements, ...yeah this might get put off another year
go over all my decks and sift out the interpretations I'm fondest of!
one avatar a day, as a sop to what I've oxygenated in LN
download/briefly review the cnovels I liked
finish a fic. one fic. any fic.
what other craft materials hoard have I neglected. right, embroidery.
which also requires drawing skills >_<
maybe this is the year I learn to sew filmy but non-polyester cotton fabrics for hanfu???

ok wow this ink cake is very lime

last one: quilling
......and beading
AND my small mountain of origami paper, heck

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Fri, 04 Oct 2019 03:55:19 GMT

ruritanian romance as early precursor to transmigration-into-royal-shenaniganry fics?
(also apparently transmigration novels was a thing in china in the eighties, even, before the internet.)

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Mon, 30 Sep 2019 05:30:47 GMT

There's a few hours left on the Oriens Tarot, and I'm fairly sure I won't get it, since animal themed tarots do not Spark Joy* even if jewel tones on velvety black and free shipping all the way from Australia + kickstarter discounts/holographic edges/tarot cloth. ............ ...

I may get a print of the Star, if it's available, because the art is glorious (but not all to my taste :<). Oriens feels like an evolved version of the Arcana game's diegetic tarot deck, also on my list of potential additions for ages since it falls into the exact same category.

Came across the Herbcrafter's Tarot -- again not quite for me, but it's a charming dense colored pencils style. Probably won't get the Botanica tarot either ;-;

None of those matter, however, since I found the recent Tarot of the Golden Wheel, which hit me in the aesthetic with a fireball *\o/* As someone with a Lenormand cobbled together from Ivan Bilibin's art (of Ivan and the Firebird fame), this deck has found the perfect spot of sufficiently (~~non RWS clone~~) novel content and art just stylised enough to use. And the COLORS. WAIT I THINK this is the set since the author is the same. comma, SCREEEEEEEEEE (They finished it! There's one partial deck settled. I'm so happy aaaa)

Other decks I've acquired recently: Tragically I had it sent to my last address so I'll have to wait for someone to visit from home before I can...have....228 love nikki suit cards in my hands............(if nothing else I can use them to divine costs of future events. "O cards of miraland, how many diamonds will I need next week? Will four gods ever come on their own time if at all? when will I get to rob the worst fire chicken's house for his outfit???" etc.) ...angry blood flooding my ventricles, they have a new lot up with my favorite suits. hopefully...the seller will be kindly and let me know of a way to buy them???

The Golden Wheel makes up for Crane Zitherist and healing agarwood not being in my clutches ;-; At least I have those ridiculous pixels in game T____T

*at this Late Stage of deck collection I'm literally making excel sheets with every card and ticking off the ones I find congenial for use vs the ones I don't. A deck that I'd get can only have a few I don't care for, although I do weight some cards differently -- hermit, hanged man, stars moon sun, page of swords, or ship, stars, fox in lenormand.

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because I read less wild stuff too

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 07:54:44 GMT

I'll never manage to make a single post here if I wait for full reviews to appear, so some cn webnovels from jjwxc that I'm currently following:

The adorable Changan Bistro (no translation :<) is finished, scatter flowers \o/ A Tang dynasty gourmet novel where the MC makes her way out of being a palace attendant and sets up her own restaurant business. Belongs to the 市井生活 genre, lit. life in the city markets, or fic about running businesses (pretty much the coffee shop genre, just historical). There's more focus on her franchise and delicious food than in coffee shop aus, but the cute customer to slowburn flirt with and the found family that MC gathers, those CAN be found here! along with a slight assassination plot and the redeeming of her father's name.

I'm really very charmed by the author's style + grasp of classic texts, and of course the loving food descriptions. The pining (on ML's end) and mostly lighthearted banter on MC's end was excellent! Benefits of dating confucian scholars is flirting via philosophy ;> An example: they used that sensual quote from Zhuangzi where "It's better for two fish to forget one another in the rivers and lakes than to depend on each other for survival by wetting their companion with foam in dried springs," and MC points out that to part in freedom they'd have to...have done the other part first ;> ;> ;>

C Language Cultivation: SCREEEEE T_____T the forty meters long knives is dropping on us today. Even a cute meta nod at hello world was not enough to distract me from the part where MC is deciding to ( spoilers )

Palace Intrigue Counterattack Livestream: this fic never fails to hang the reader off a cliff. Their plots tend to go haywire later on, as the secret identities turn into a twenty car pileup, but the beginnings are always fun and we have a while to go yet!

There was another fic I subscribed to but it's not a great time to read about an emperor grooming one of his officials to accept his romantic advances, especially when it's the notoriously paranoid, bloody handed Yongle. Their Yinzhen x strategist one was better but :\ Like I was following this one because......of the author....It's the nature of the romance genre, obviously, to present some relationships that makes the reader queasy, but -- I could have a whole post on 君臣 (sovereign x official) relationships because it's a loyalty kink that's not common in western media. I'd also have to plaster huge warnings over a good half or more over the stuff I've seen, some of which is terrible from miles away in orbit and other which...require the protracted ignoring of stuff that made me as a reader uncomfortable because it's probably going to end up in a happy end, surely? :\

After the late emperor passed: by the author who wrote my beloved [Lu Xiluan's seven ex/con bfs and one she didn't arrest] updating randomly still ;-; The beginning was so full of hijinks and hilarity! Then we hit the past and the plot has been heavy serious defend the nation against invaders without and treasonous officials within, with a huge body count. This has a lovely sovereign x minister in the emperor and her childhood best friend/high noble/general too, which I could love more if not for how I've forgotten everything that happened earlier.

I'm starting to get why the Qidian novels can go on for thousands of chapters of dreck (sorry dudes but it's the majority) now that I have daily updating fic in my reading list. What the daily reader wants is have a dose of these characters and setting on the regular, whereas plot progression results in much wailing and gnashing of teeth when a cliffhanger happens (like Vlad I generalise from myself and adhd brain wants everything now now NOW). I can't compare this to any experience of reading fanfiction since (besides the free vs paid thing) it's rare to find fanfic of this novel sized length that updates in similarly sized chunks, also I avoid wips -- I should probably be thinking of Dickens, if anything.

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this is NOT going to be my brand (raises flag :<)

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 06:48:33 GMT

I haven't read this webnovel yet but wanted to share as many places as humanly possible: a fic where the main pair can have snex (snail/snake sex)

( Read more... )

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Sun, 25 Aug 2019 06:35:27 GMT

today in not-great-translations of poetry from the shijing:

手如柔荑，肤如凝脂，领如蝤蛴，齿如瓠犀，螓首蛾眉，巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮。

hands like tender sprouts
skin like solidified lard
neck like roundhead borers
teeth like gourd seeds
cicada temples moth brows
lovely smile dimpling held
beautiful gaze pupils clear
--国风·卫风·硕人 Guo feng, wei feng, shuo ren [Odes of Wei, - uh, tol/buff lady]

ngl I feel it's probably better to go straight for the scientific names, bc then at least it sounds wacky but in a consistent way (in context, some of those are regularly seen phrases today, it's just 'neck like the crooked larvae of longhorn beetles" that's tripping me up) now that I've checked two real translations, they kept the larvae \o/

more context: description of the wedding of noblewoman Zhuang Jiang, a princess of Qi who married to Wei, and a poet as well - she has five works in the shijing. also this passage is......one of THE classical....descriptions of beauties, given the pedigree from the book of poetry..........................................

............anyway I'm most upset about the hands like soft baby cogongrass plants. do they mean...snappable? not yet full of chlorophyll??

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culture chomped on: cultist simulator, love nikki, ink mountains and mystery

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 03:41:31 GMT

Cultist Simulator

Mostly complaints about not feeling enough pressure that playing it seems the simpler option, which happened with Sunless Sea. At one point I got close enough that opening the Peacock Door seemed a possibility, but then my former compatriots put Constable Sinombre behind bars thanks to how I had him put about half the available recruits for his cult away in the early game. w h o o p s

Love Nikki, or, why in the world did I protest the sorting quiz when it put me in Andan*, subtitled, came out shipping two best enemies playing sexy games of chess on a mountain as usual

Play experience:
The art is incredible, and increasingly extravagant, but I can't call it an amazing dressup game in good conscience. Came here for the classical chinese dresses (and I've surely spent enough for at least one real set of quality hanfu) but while I don't feel bad, since I'm used to buying attractive pixels, the items on LN aren't that flexible in use -- movable background items are nice, but the default skin tone being light (10 unique non-white makeups out of 273 total in game), plus the clipping issues and how you can't freely layer the non-movable clothing items -- it's frustrating. (From the bottom of my heart: Small items that allow your pictures to be smoothed out are critical!...) I'm also disappointed by the faces/makeups -- if only the eyes and mouths were separate. It looks like the artists aren't paying attention to how the faces work at phone size rather than in closeups on the HQ pics, and there are honestly some terrifying faces with what looks like bloody maws ;-;

*Spending Money To Solve Problems**, the Andan Way!

**the problem of not having pretty things

On plot:
I hear that games that begin with light silliness and expand into a [tackboard of strings meme] aren't uncommon? LN could...have done with it earlier. Up until ch 15 the game dragged, prompting players to skip the plot, so when the fun melodrama finally began you get complaints about too much tapping.They finally started using the mechanics to bolster the action after ch 15, which was fun. (Also \\\o/// STAIRS OF SORROW FINALLY A PICK AND CHOOSE HELL but a hell where I still love most suits, tragiquelly, so there goes 10k diamonds) Anyway I've had this image as my desktop for a week. World as chessboard I'M FAR TOO SUSCEPTIBLE.

-- I'll admit I loled when reading about the chapter fifteen spoiler. Like nothing does drive home that it's a chinese game than,,,, ~~swords forged by sacrificing people~~ rehashing the national trauma from nine hundred years ago (I'm not over the Jin invasion of the Song dynasty either given the knock-on effect on the later dynasties BUT LIKE) Invaders from the North taking a city and forcing the inhabitants to flee, which causes the capital to flee? A scumbag in the military hierarchy dragging his heels in sending reinforcements, leading to a broken siege?

.......unfortunately as a webnovel consumer I am exactly the sucker pandered to by writers dropping a generic historical chinese power intrigue into the middle of ten million floofy pink lolita dresses.

On ships:
...Along with all the other conspiracies running merrily along in Miraland, there's a plot tangle in the China-expy. Unfortunately I...have a ship manifesto in me, for the fancy dragon and phoenix themed family heads (which makes them as good as married through mythological symbolism alone....)...........I ship baizhu 20% setup, 25% That Chess Game, 25% Bai Yongxi's personality, and the rest for their fashionable sprites next to each other.

Script for their romantic mountaintop date, under summary. It is customary to use dragon and war metaphors in weiqi, but this mini visual novel bit was intense as hell even in translation, and the translator was good. They picked sexy dragon proverbs out of the I Ching for the section headings! "Leap in the Abyss", "Dragons War in the Wild", and so on. I enjoyed the pacing of item drops during the mini story, whose descriptions provided commentary from a bamboo growing on the charred temple overlooking their game, and on BYX's character.

Just -- Bai Yongxi is the dragon (themed character) most to my taste that I've found so far. He appears in chapter seventeen when I'd already gotten to play with his free model (brief moment of mourning for past me who assumed it was Nikki who'd get to wear his azure dragon court robes ;-;) My face when it turned out he has a personality! ... He looks like the bog-typical restrained confucian gentleman. That blank face, those solemn perfect brocades. The staidness represented by the regent of the empire, also the head of the most orthodox family. He doesn't have that brutality that you get sometimes with dragons because he's too much of a junzi gentle as jade, so that wildness got funneled straight into ambition for reform. ZYX may be a smirky turkey but even he acknowledged BYX's abilities, placing the stability of Cloud into his hands, when BYX himself would like to drive them into the wind rather than be the steady helmsman --- and in return:

Romance! <Also, Bai Yongxi's hair was definitely, totally, absolutely pink like his cousin Bai Jinjin's before stress (ZYX) turned it white. Pink hair BYX forever.

Nikkimi is canon, so is best girl Yue Qianshuang x Zhu Ruosheng. Gallant general and her strategist!! They eat the tangyuan Yue made at New Year's <3

...........There was a tumblr post about how games should be enjoyable during the play process rather than only for what you get. Playing Cultist Simulator is not enjoyable - someone said it could be renamed "societal lifestock simulator" which, too real. Constantly running down on money and the ability to deal, flailing through a tabletop of things to check up on that constantly refreshes itself into a messier state, while having to concentrate on talking to people beyond that ---------- I have fifty decks of ominous cards irl! I can put Karol Szymanowski's Nocturne and Tarantella, Op. 28 on repeat by myself!!....

I want delicious words, but they also have to be acquired through the game (I've seen Frangiclave but was too optimistic about my patience). Bought the phone version where I could take screenshots to my heart's content, at which point I hoarded them without ever taking another look _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_

Love Nikki I also play without using my acquisitions - forty percent of total clothes in five months, which means I haven't touched the majority of those items HOWEVER what LN replicates is....the emotion of buying craft supplies, which as we know is totally different from using your craft supplies. Constant tiny hits of pleasure when I finish making a piece of clothing. Amazing. You can tell I've played like one game in my life ever.

To conclude, not saying I'm a vampire but why are there so many decorative crosses everywhere I didn't actually want a catholicsona simulator, greatly yikes @ the treatment of '''Wasteland''' which is an exoticising mess, not that the generic Europe state is better when they had a city called Heidi, I hate the gachas, the English server needs to bring the scores of free/inexpensive events over rather than sucking our blood dry without giving us Blood Moon {ETA the awful capitalists at Elex decided to give us blood moon this sdfjkhf morning, aka one full month ahead of schedule, and, don't play this game and recharge like I do >:<}, also I went on weibo for this game and oof I remembered why game comments are bad.

Ink Mountains and Mystery

Played this in the winter -- a point and click puzzle game with lovely aesthetics. TBH wandering through grand estates, gardens, and underwater dragon heads is all I want out of a game. It...counts as mise en abyme, when you have representations of paintings nestled inside another, with these paintings being portals to chapters in the game itself? I'm very susceptible to media based on another older work that credits the original creator at the end, and Wang Ximeng died at twenty three with the final painting his only surviving work. Here in this thousand miles of rivers and mountains he has all the time in the world to paint, free as an immortal, while outside the painting the golden age crumbles in the hands of his instructor the Song emperor Huizong (the one that lost the empire). They ride off into the sunset on craneback!! I CRY EVERY TIME. (Also susceptible to floaty bendy immortal-like cultured artists in the Wei-Jin style like Master Miaoshan >.> His best ideas were thanks to two pancakes he cooked for his senior ;-;)

I would probably rec this? It's free! (collab with the Palace Museum in Beijing), if a bit finicky, and so so pretty. Trembling sepia parchment-sky in the distance, pigment spirits going 'kronk' in the foreground, pipas plinking away, the occasional giant salamander and celestial drought causing lovers and rain deer god forming taiji diagrams out of the earth.

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CN webnovel genres I've read and care about

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 05:28:56 GMT

First, a link to tags on the fiction posting platform JJWXC translated by tumblr user firstchaptertranslations! Some are settings, some are fandom, some are types of relationship or dynamics.

I personally care mostly about historical settings that have people in flowing hair and robes because I am exactly that shallow, and so will broadly divide them here into four categories: the authorities, jianghu, myths/legends, and common life.

Jerks at the top of the pyramid:

Palace Intrigue/宫斗: Centered on the Inner Palace, where the immediate family of the emperor lives, and mostly about the conflict within the harem. As other people also live there, such as the crown prince, other imperial offspring, dowager empresses, and the occasional emperor emeritus, I'm using a more expansive term. Examples include Tale of Yanxi Palace, Legend of Zhenhuan, Princess Returning Pearl
Romancing the emperor/嫖皇帝 (Not an actual term): All relationships involving the emperor. (Several teary paragraphs about how difficult it is to find non-awful emperor x minister/general/wangye removed.) One okay example is this cute and short emperor x fox spirit fic, also the author's other hilarious emperor x awkward rpf writer who slandered the length of his dragon root as long enough to wrap around his waist. (More petty beeping about how bad smut scenes get T__T)
Political Intrigue/权谋: this could be split into further subcategories, depending on the focus - members of the royal family, an official in the civil government (朝堂), a general on the martial side of things, secretive sects, etc. Nirvana In Fire is a great example, or Hero.
Estate intrigue/宅斗: Great families of historical China lived together on the same estate, and the conflicts between concubines and the children of the family are just as fierce and stifling as the Inner Palace. Dream of the Red Chamber is probably the ur-estate intrigue novel.
I've also trawled for fic that deal with women as officials, which tend to include crossdressing a la Mulan. Some are “you can be the male heir we don’t have”, when it comes to members of nobility and royalty. Some have them move up the ranks after passing the meritocracy exams. And some are women as ministers outright, like my absolute favorite [Promotions Bonuses and Dead Reverse Harem], or [Seven love interests that Lu Xiluan arrested and one she didn't], subtitled [Yikes, I still haven't gotten over Terezi Pyrope, a Lu Xiluan and Three Seagrass story]. (It doesn't have a translation yet T___T However please note that Baidu Fanyi is a much better machine translation app than google translate for chinese.)
sub-sub-category: Meritocracy Examinations Fic. It's relaxing to read about people doing well on tests \o/ What it says on the tin: scholars passing the national exams for getting into the bureaucracy. Every so often there's a scrap of classical humanities knowledge that's pretty much the mental equivalent of mashing up mcnuggets to make an awful omelet, but I end up knowing more than I did before, so, \o/

Jianghu/江湖/The pugilist world

I'm placing both cultivation and wuxia novels in this category, as they share some similarities in the societal set-up: far away from the imperial/central authorities, sects and groups abound, along with wandering swordsmen, mysterious hermits or eccentrics, and the odd sweeper.

Wuxia: A more familiar term to western audiences, where people zip around midair totally not because of wires, exciting leveling up opportunities are to be had once you fall off a cliff, and something something wacky stuff about meridians mean that you can disrobe for healing sessions. ...lbr wuxia is halfway to fantasy already, unless it's a low tech one and all you have for flavouring are the blood feuds and bitter entanglements of favors and debt. Jin Yong pretty much revitalised this genre for the modern era, and a modern setting version is [No Public Harm, No Pollution] by priest.
Cultivation/修仙: Cultivation/xianxia stories are Daoism fantasy in the way that vampire stories and works like Good Omens are Christian fantasy. The main purpose is to meditate, practice, and seek opportunities to improve yourself in order to level up in immortality, which can be done under the guidance of a shifu who may be part of a sect/group. You can find demons, ghosts, animal/plant/mineral/location/inanimate object spirits 妖/精/怪, as well as 仙 immortals, as well pure benevolent spirits 灵 around here. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and Scum Villain's Self Saving System are both cultivation settings, despite variations in the world-building details. There are fusions with modern or future settings, such as [My five elements lack YOU], or this excellent [C Language Cultivation] I'm following, where the main character levels up through coding! And venture capital! .... (Brief soapbox: generic-spirits/demons ought to be translated into fae, because spirits are more 灵, while demons are 魔, and fae conveys the nature connection better than spirit.)

Mythology:

Cultivation has connections but is not identical to myth fic, as the former rarely uses 'canon' characters from mythology sources, such as the Classic of Mountains and Sea, Investiture of the Gods, Stories from a Chinese Studio, and Journey to the West, although that's not really what differentiates them to me -- mythology fic are the ones with angsty romances doomed by the fates, or ancient beasties in the modern world, or crackfic involving unreliable spirits and yet more unreliable gods. I would place Heavenly Official's Blessing here, along with that one show with the grape spirit Ashes of Love?, and the (based on a plagarized work) Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, which ripped off the melancholy, atmospheric m/m work Peach Blossom Debt by Dafengguaguo.

Everyday life/布衣生活 (lit. plain clothed lives, in contrast to the brocades of nobility):

Away from the centers of power or the unfettered jianghu, people still have to make a living, and so you have the stories about farmers tending their crops, scholars planning to take their exams, widows labouring at their small businesses in the cities, or random hunter households in the mountain who end up taking in a mysterious wounded figure and tending to them for weeks, before, on a night with wild winds and no moon, a group of assassins come to....and there it slipped back into the other three categories, whoops ;0

All of the above are set in either real historical China or a generic pureed version of the same.

Other settings I've read in:

Urban Fantasy: Guardian, my beloved Lie Huo Jiao Chou/Inferno quenching Sorrow
Escape rooms: Individuals are pulled into pocket universes and required to battle bosses and find a way out without dying in the process. Mostly horror. Examples include Death Kaleidoscope, Global Exams
Narcissus fic水仙: Selfcest, mostly involves time travel and/or rebirth. I've only read one fic in this but it's such a charming name, even if translating it into english removes a layer of allusiveness since it's using the name of the flower.
Republican Era China: end of Qing Dynasty to second world war

Settings I don't care about:

Modern day:

Entertainment circles: Acting, music, livestreamers, internet celebrities. I ship My Adversary X Me was adorable.
Billionaires
School (from high school to universities)
E-sports: The King's Avatar is supposed to be the paragon of this genre, but, it's also more than a thousand chapters long and I don't have that much life in me.
年代文 Decade/era fic. Everything from the fifties to the noughties. (Set in China, mostly transmigration/rebirth)

Future:

Space AUs, including mecha: So much boring ABO T__T Most of the modern genres, with a thin layer of Space! slapped on, with some space empires and insect aliens. Whenever I think about reading one I remember Three Body Problem is still on my TBR list at which point I slink away. However I did see a space lawyers thing that was...good..... Priest's Can Ci Pin/Imperfections was a solid space opera.
Zombie apocalypses: Elemental based mutation/magic and evolved ‘zombie kings’ are a staple.

Other:

Western Fantasy
self insert fic for MCU and other fandoms
Animal transformation: Cats, foxes, and pandas obviously, but hamsters are also popular for some inexplicable reason, also silver tailed mountain tits, no wolves that I can recall, apparently dolphins?
Mermaid AUs: ...... I saw a generic pre-unification Spring and Autumn era one with a head of state turned into a mermaid and being found by her enemy head of state once, and that's the only way you'll get me to look at those.

Additional setups that may be combined with all of the above:

Gourmand/美食: The only one I've seen in western works is in Dzur from Dragaera, where Vlad describes his meal at Valabar in sumptuous detail, with at best tenuous connection to the plot. Kinda like an entire novel's worth of 'storytime before a recipe' strung together! Fantasy Farm cracked me up every time they put narrating the plot on hold so MC could focus on making a delicious dish. There's also Palace Full of Delicacies, where the imperial family are werecats and MC is a fish chef.
Transmigration/穿越: Someone being transferred to a different setting from their original one, mostly historical ones and in-universe books. They can do so as themselves, as a new character, or as the spirit taking up the life of a pre-existing individual, who may be dead or alive. (Sometimes you get the original character recovering their bodies after a transmigrator fucks their life up.) Popular genres include Qing Dynasty transmigration, probably the root of all these; book transmigration, in which someone gets plunked into a plot which they can follow or disobey as they will; and quick transmigration, where the individual only stays a short time in each setting/AU, like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.
If it's the historical time travel type, there's a tendency for them to import shit like gunpowdersaltextractionsoapcornpotatoeschilipeppersadvertisementschemesalcoholdistillationimprovedbowsnovels all in the same book, which now reads like an essay by someone in junior high: "And Here's How Potatoes Alleviated The Problem of Crop Failures." "If Only Our Nation Had Made Preparations Earlier." Prime Directive? Butterfly Effect? Can those be cooked with hot pot. >_> No expansion of the social effects of copy-pasting the next thousand years or so of technological advancements beyond the superficial. And to think that I used to secondhand cringe at the summary of 1632.
Rebirth重生: Someone who dies (probably in pieces) gets to go back to a time before everything went wrong
System系统: Deux ex machina for making the main character follow the plot. A typical system can be one where regular joe MC is required to fulfill the plot of a character in a book, or to accomplish a certain type of task.
Mary Sue and Refreshing 爽: it doesn't really register any more ;___; With transmigration, rebirth, system, and gold finger (aka advantage buff), it's rarer to find a fic where the author doesn't have their thumb on the scales in their protag's favor. Most of the time it's more like a Hannibal crime scene of arms on the scale >-<
Villain Redemption反派洗白: subcategory of transmigration/rebirth/system popular these days - you can't move without hitting one of these.

As an example of trope smorgasbord, I'm currently following a Book transmigration/Animal transformation/Broadcasting System/Gourmand/Cultivation/Political Intrigue/BL romance entitled [Transmigrating into the Villain Tyrant's Pet Crane], in which our brave MC gets transmigrated into a book in which he is the cranefucking tyrant...'s pet magic crane. Luckily, he has a System to help him gain powers! His task: run a cooking channel. As a crane. In a thinly veiled version of pre-unification China, where resources like food are scarce, and the emperor is being puppeted by an evil magic chancellor. MC has to contend with all of those in addition to the buddy he picked up on the run, who seems to have a growing crush on him, who also lives in the palace and never appears when the emperor is around.....

It's actually pretty fun! And this is where webnovels are today, I guess? Tropes being infinitely combined without infinite diversity, since most of these works are being serialised on website where you have to pay for them, and authors do chase markets. See the flood of shou shizuns vs their terrible disciples they raised, following in the wake of works like Scum Villain. You could honestly fill a generator with the titles commonly used. Mostly I've read works posted on jjwxc, which has majority female reader base. In contrast, Qidian is supposed to have mostly male writers? Novels over there are ridiculously long and.......very much not to my taste. I'm fairly satisfied with where I'm looking for works. Gongzicp is another site, and Saowen, and Longma for explicit works ~~you'll need brain bleach for~~.

Next post I complain about the lack of fic that isn't awful in the palace shenaniganry genre.

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Fri, 24 May 2019 07:47:29 GMT

( sinosphere online censorship )

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Tue, 26 Feb 2019 05:42:32 GMT

hey vass I finally tried gris clair! something about the accord existing apart from the lavender - the tonka, or maybe the amber plus incense - drops it into meat, with the lavender perched on top blending oddly with the slice of loin. as such I can’t connect it to Gregor, not unless he’s been pulled to a cookout in Ezar’s gardens right from his morning shave. (it’s obviously Miles and Ivan’s faults! and it’s happening in the morning because one of them had a shred of rational thought, which claimed that setting fires in the Gardens at 4am was likely to result in a security shutdown rather than delicious burgers.)
this is part of a ten sample pack and I’m near resigned to not loving serge lutens. Vetiver Oriental I’m counting on you.

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Twitter perfume impressions, part 1

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 00:01:29 GMT

Something I did with the cut worked until I tried to make edits, at which point it sprang out of control like Feanor leaping into a Finwion argument.
( Violets, Pinrose, Hermes, Prada Infusions, L'Artisan, Miscellany including Bandit: )

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Sun, 10 Feb 2019 04:47:42 GMT

tumblr is disintegrating pixel by pixel and it seems prudent to relocate, so while I can't drag twenty million pictures of vase/demon lords over here, I can put content into categories on my own blog, TWITTER. My account there is collapsing under an onslaught of MXTX fanart that I have to laboriously open from discord, and we hates it (tumblr the company), precious.

twitter: PROS has likes, reblogs, text conversations, low posting activation energy. CONS no tags, hideously public, I hate ads!!!, apparently you aren't supposed to comment on art while retweeting it? but I want to express my emotions QAQ
discord: PROS easy to lurk and post on, CONS One Fear (social anxiety), disjointed interests which means that notifications are useless, stepping into conversations is a cirque du soleil routine over gnashing gears
Dreamwidth: PROS tags, long text blocks, appears shelf stable, comment chains with icon switching CONS kinda clunky (?), not much of a commonplace book -- actually it's exactly that and wow is it a slight inconvenience. Energy for posting takes at least a month to accrue - I've had this page open for a whole week QAQ also this was supposed to be about perfume QAQ
instagram: I haven't figured out posting and being on there caused my enamel pin collection to bloat, I loathe the square format and the video updates,
tumblr: PROS everyone was there QAQ I liked curling up in my collection of cities and treasures QAQ pictures could be opened and saved without being crushed, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, how do I download my 150k likes QAQ. CONS free pvp zones \o\ everything else /o/

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Card deck inventory

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:39:06 GMT

Tarot:

Tarot Nova (tiny!)
Shadowscapes Tarot
Homestuck Tarot
Morgan-Greer Tarot
Student Tarot
Prisma Visions Tarot
Ostara Tarot
Byzantine Tarot
Rider-Waite-Smith (probably a prop but hey it was literally $4 at halloween spirit)
Hobbit Tarot
Illuminated Tarot
Marigold Tarot
Tarot of the thousand and one nights
Cosmos Tarot
Bharata Tarot (majors)
Alexander Daniloff Tarot 2012
Born in the USSR (majors)
Jonasa Jaus Tarot
Night Vale Tarot
Neon Moon Tarot
Tarot Nova fullsized (still palm-sized though)
Zerner Farber Tarot
Tyldwick Tarot
Silhouettes Tarot
Visconti Modrone Tarot
Vertigo Tarot. ~~Maybe in another few decades they'll rerelease the thing, in more durable cardstock?~~ bless ebay

Oracle/Lenormand:

Fantod Pack
Dixit Revelations
Dragon Age Inquisition poker decks
Floret Oracle
Silson Lenormand
Chelsea Blue/Red versions:
Mystical Lenormand
Tessarae Charms
Clow Cards (probably knockoff lbr)
Malpertuis Lenormand
Fatima Oracle
Russian Fairy Oracle
Open Portals playing cards
Olde Fae Card Game

Playing cards:

Tang Poetry/Song Verses/Filial Scenes/Fuchun Mountain paintings/Dream of the Red Chamber/Journey to the West/those plastic ones
Dedalo Omega
Lunatica
Russian Folk Art / Russian Folk Art limited edition
Little Atlantis Night
Art Nouveau deck Bijoux
Art Nouveau deck Perle
Bijoux Nouveau Gemmes

Tarot Apps:

Golden Thread Tarot
Tarot Mucha
Liber T Tarot
Ostara Tarot
Luminous Spirit
Mystic Monday
Tarot Sampler
Seventh Sphere
Scrying Ink
Deviant Moon
Epic Tarot
Paulina Tarot
Byzantine Tarot
Mystical Tarot

Decks I'm waiting on from KS:

Dreamer’s Arcana (apparently the person ran? not sure what happened with her.)
Blood Moon Tarot (still waiting, love the pendant necklace

Decks about to be acquired:

Fairy Tale Tarot, Yoshi Yoshitani, now completed
Lubanko Tarot (kickstarter pending)

Decks I'm contemplating

Joe Sparrow Tarot (nice chariot/hermit/
Ladystuck Tarot (I went through the Act 6/7 tarot and while they finally had the right Fool (the character who STARTED this million word epic as a blank slate, associated with clowns and freedom rather than, you know, death, resurrection and dubiously useful self-sacrifice!!) I still prefer the ladystuck version)
Everyday Tarot
Urban Tarot (?)

Decks yet to be finished:

fyodorpavlov's Tarot
Botanica Tarot (when will he bring back the pins)
MASA September's newer works

Decks impossible to obtain:
I got both Silhouettes and Vertigo, my collection is complete.

( Read more... )

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Sun, 25 Nov 2018 17:09:16 GMT

when will the generation ship lenormand deck I want spring into existence fully formed
(when you have 6 cards out of 36 about communication, a bunch of plants, and a ship - what else could it be)

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