Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

Guardian/adjacent
For someone with an oral fixation (me, that would be me) this show is a blessing and a curse.
"Shen. Wei." before and after. And some more after. 😭
Duality of man.

Got home from Costco yesterday and within an hour two, two!, lightbulbs went out so I'm headed back to MENARDS again this morning. They open at 6:30a, but I'm procrastinating with tea and internet. I know it's better to go earlier because fewer people = less risk but my brain is still morning fuzzy and I don't trust myself to drive yet.

I used to be one of those morning people who jumped out of bed ready! to start! the day! I'd be out of the house and headed to the gym by 5:30, even in the dead of winter. I miss being that person.

The second episode of Sleuth happened last night and oh my god Tang Fan "observing" Sui Zhou's "firm hips and thighs" ????? 😂 goss I wished so hard we were watching together in person so we could've rolled around on the floor about that together instead of me doing it alone in the middle of my living room. Also the scene where Sui Zhou backs him up against the wall in the alley and says he's too delicate, that the Iron Market people would take him apart. Ready for Wang Zhi to start exhibiting personality traits beyond smug asshole with loyalty kink.

What's a reasonable time to wait before I call back the moving company about my broken bed piece? 

Guardian/adjacent:
Fanart: Chibi Luo/Luo. Art Deco Luo/Luo. Held and being held. Bubbles and forehead kisses.
I saw this gif of Zhu Yilong being pants-wettingly polite for the first time fairly early in my Guardian days and it was def one of the things that tipped me over into full-blown obsession with him.
I feel like they should have fixed Bai Yu's hair but Zhu Yilong's pic is inhumanly beautiful. (oh god he's so beautiful) (so so beautiful)
And for an assortment of beautiful men, may I direct you here.
And on DW: cyberbrain  has info on Zhao Yunlan's apartment layout.

LANGUAGE. (English is just The Worst language. It's dull and complicated and the spelling is ridiculous)

I watched Sarazanmai yesterday. All of it. And...


It was one of the most (the most?) beautifully animated, engaging, and deeply, deeply weird things I have ever watched in my life. I feel like anyone who sees it should go into it as unspoiled as possible*, so just... if you think you are capable of finding this sort of thing both entertaining and endearing, give it a shot. The judicious use of recreational drugs during its consumption might help or hinder, depending on the individual. Use your best judgement.

* Yes, I actually went in unspoiled for the ending and at one point I thought I was going to start flipping tables.

Thank you naye, for introducing me to what is now one of my all-time favorite things. For years I've sorted people into "would recommend watching the Jump Street movies" and "would not recommend watching the Jump Street movies." I now have a vastly smaller category of "would recommend watching Sarazanmai."

Probably next up on the watch list, Acorn is running And Then There Were None with Toby Stephens and Miranda Richardson.

Twitter:
"My favorite bai yu photos are when he’s full on smiling while my favorite zhu yilong photos are when he looks like he’s ready to murder the next person"

Thank you, naye, for sending me this tweet about ZYL48 & BY48.

Queer Teen Dutch Coffee Commercial

Lola asked for music recs on Twitter so if you're looking for new tunes... (like I am always looking for new tunes)

From Instagram, kazoogrrl sent me the link to Untamed characters as Cards Against Humanity. I about died over Wen Ning. WEN NING.

Made it to the big city yesterday to see Tanhaji which was kinda racist (given the plot, I was expecting that going in, so no surprise), but beautifully fulfilled the reasons I went to see it: Very Pretty, Good Music, and Well-Shot Fight Scenes. If you can overlook the cringe-worthy portrayals of the lower-ranking Mughal soldiers (which I would absolutely blame nobody for not being able to do), it's enjoyable. Especially the fight scenes. Hollywood really needs to take some notes from Asian cinema when it comes to action filming. I am so tired of rapid cut shots, y'all. So, so tired.

Temporarily stalled out on the History 3: Trapped roleplaying fic. Because I'm an id-driven idiot, it only recently occurred to me that, idk, these guys might have some feelings about, uh...corrupt cops dallying with gangsters? LOLOLOLOLLLLLLLLLLL, like, come on Manka. Jesus. So now I'm chewing on whether I want this to go in an angstier direction than I'd intended or have them realize late, too, share an awkward laugh and have ... some sort of happy sex after that? Option A is very on brand for me, and would absolutely make for a better story, imo, but I started this as a respite for the utter angstfest that is currently The Deconstruction of Hei Pao Shi. sighhhhhhhhhh

Which, speaking of:
Da Qing was silent and subdued when they returned to the apartment. He curled up in Zhao Yunlan’s lap while Shen Wei brushed his teeth before sleep. When it was his turn, Zhao Yunlan had to lock him out of the bathroom. His piteous mewing continued at high volume until Zhao Yunlan finally finished. Through the half-open door, Shen Wei heard him groan as picked up the cat, complaining of his weight and muttering endearments into his fur. Their bedroom door clicked shut and Shen Wei rolled away from the door to lie on his side, back hunched against empty air. He pulled the pillow closer and tried to convince himself he was looking forward to his first experience on an airplane.

stultiloquentia mentioned "Berkeley School classical vs jazz musicians" AU in a comment from yesterday's post and I was like ooooo! A fusion with Our Shining Days! (YouTube link) And when I looked for the movie on YouTube (where I watched it), I realized IT'S ON NETFLIX NOW!

Y'all, if you haven't seen this movie yet, I can't recommend it enough. I've seen it twice and would happily watch it again. It's sweet and happy with, like, minimal-to-zero angst.

As asya_aya said on Twitter, "Harper's Bazzar ships it."

Now that the conference is over, mckitterick has time for tourism before he teaches his writing workshops. He sends me photos to post on FB, which...it's fine. It's fine. It's a good thing I'm not a jealous person. NGL, tho, it does sting that I had to install Chinese spyware WeChat on my phone so we could communicate (he got a burner phone for travel but noooooooooo I had to install this shit on my beloved Galaxy 6). Petty insult to minor injury is having to post the photos to FB so his friends can follow his exploits. But it's fine, it's fine. Whatever. He said he found something for me that he's pretty sure I'll like, but I know Bai Yu is in Germany so it's not that.

Went to the gym yesterday and rolled out for a long time when I got home. Wow my hips are tight and my quads are a mess of knots. I'm weak enough that holding part of my weight off the foam roller serves as upper body workout. I might've pushed too much, tho, because about an hour after my shower I was so tired I couldn't even make it up the stairs to my bedroom and had to take a nap on the couch. No gym today. I have a fitness goal now, which is helping my motivation--perhaps helping too much, judging by yesterday's overdoing it. But! it'll get me off the couch today for some yoga strengthening poses at least.

Finished The Untamed last night. I enjoyed the show but didn't emotionally attach to it like I did Guardian. If mckitterick wants to see it I'll re-watch with him because if he needed help with names and explanations for Guardian, whooo buddy The Untamed is gonna be a zillion times worse. I might become more invested on a second watch, but I don't think I'll be reading fic for it. I will watch the follow-up movies, though, if I can. I was thrilled that my favorite secondary character survived to the end! Not saying who it was because spoilers, but if you're interested, shoot me a message. I fell for him in the first five seconds of his screen time and spent the remaining episodes waiting for him to die and when he didn't, it was a lovely surprise. TBH, I expected a much higher body count of named characters by the time the credits rolled.

They went all in on making the final villain as bad as possible, didn't they? I actually paused it and said aloud the words "is this really happening?" because...jeeeeeezus (for the record, it was just me and the cat at home). IDK if Chinese productions work like western shows, but can you imagine the table read for that reveal? o_O Wow.

Ughhhh I woke up super out of sorts. Maybe I'm still hungover from Meatpocalypse, idk. I'm anxious and sad and blahhhhhhhhh. I do not like these emotions and I would like to exchange them for something less itchy, please.

At least I had a good writing day, yesterday. 1,500 words of People Having Difficult Discussions. Good times!

I'm nearly halfway done with The Untamed but the latest fuckery with people getting banned for supporting Hong Kong is making me feel gross about consuming more Chinese content. No ethical consumerism etc. etc. but ugh. I just... *sigh* Is anyone else dealing with this or am I being one of those Annoying People At Parties? Here's a list of companies who have complied with China's censorship requests regarding Hong Kong.

Spent an hour today trying to write the next (literal) fucking part of Ghost Story (I'm alllllmost in the home stretch, y'all! It's nearly Spring Break!) and I'm gonna scrap the whole scene. It's not telling the right story, you know? I'd like to use it 'cos tbh it's pretty fuckin' hot if-I-do-say-so-myself but because of Ghost Story's (obviously) weird sex logistics, it's not like I could use it in a future fic. I might see if I can get it to work for a later (unplanned) sexy scene. Dogs know I've done that at least once already in this fic and I doubt anyone will mind. If someone actually does, well, scroll bar's to the right.

Okay, self. Time to write some fuckin'. Once more, with (the right) feeling.

ETA: Thanks, Tumblr, for occasionally coming through on shit like this!

Found out via Tumblr that History 3: Trapped is being released on disc! Can anyone please help me navigate the Chinese-language website to order? Or maybe first, just tell me if there's anywhere on the order page that says if the DVDs are Region 2 (US) compatible? Also, I'd like the Blu-Ray instead of DVD and maybe it's just the DVDs that are available for pre-order at the moment (which looks like might be the case)? Help!

The vast majority of my Tumblr dash (on desktop) is blocked Good Omens tags or notifications of notes from my Twitter screencap about how everyone's dash is getting spammed with Good Omens posts. Seriously I paged down ten times to get to a post that wasn't one of those things, and it was something I'd already reblogged.

I think I'll be doing most of my Tumblring on my phone for a while since the app doesn't give you notes notifications. It's still funny to me (it's only at about 7k notes), but now I understand why people delete their mega-popular posts.

Note: I absolutely intend to watch the show, I just haven't had time to find a way to see it without giving Amazon any $$$. If someone's got a reliable download site suggestion, I'm all ears.

My most popular post on Tumblr hit 100,000 notes at some point this week. If I'd known it would take off like that, I would've been funnier.

This morning I went on a walk! finally! and of course! the high school track at the end of my block no longer has public access. I'm not sure if this is a temporary thing (there was some construction equipment nearby) or if they're just tired of old people using it in the mornings. So I walked around the neighborhood. Didn't feel like the exercise I really wanted because the sidewalks around here are bumpy and disjointed from old tree roots but oh well. It was intentional movement! And I probably need to start slow, anyway.

I intended yesterday to be an Art Day but various obstacles presented themselves (the final defeat was a complete absence of newspapers that I use to line my workspace). With luck, the Burgomaster will remember to pick up a newspaper for me while he's running errands this morning. We'll see. I might have to just tear out pages from one of my glue magazines and tape those down instead.

Based on this highly persuasive gifset I watched the first episode of Black Mirror's new season, "Striking Vipers" and got so much more than I bargained for. I don't want to spoil it so I'll just say it's Real Good.

Speaking of convincing gifsets, Deputychairman and I agreed to watch Lucifer. Anyone here watch it?

This evening I'm hanging out with a couple grad students, one of whom graduated and is moving away and right now I'm waiting for the repair person who will, I desperately hope, be able to finally fix the god damned dryer.

Since I'm on vacation next Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, today's my last Monday at this job. Weird. My life is going to change So Fucking Much and I don't have a way to process it yet.

Talking with mckitterick about my job-bullshit feelings this weekend, I told him I haven't really thought about it much because honestly I don't know for absolutely sure that it'll happen. I mean, it's like 99.9% a sure thing that I'm out of here, but my life is just So Fucking Weird (people who haven't been around a while, seriously, my life is just so often ...*confused hand wave*). I feel like there's no point spending the mental energy required to emotionally digest the change until it has Actually Happened.

I am the person who, when people who know me find out Weird Shit Happened, their usual response is "Oh, of course that happened to you." Of Course!

Found out on Friday evening that my lambs, getting no satisfaction from their complaints directed to the Dean or the Provost, sent off a bunch of letters (real actual paper letters) to the Kansas Board of Regents (who govern all Kansas state-run universities). My precious darlings, god they're fighting so hard and I tear up a little when I think about their efforts too much so MOVING ON NOW.

mckitterick and I finished Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House yesterday. I was so worried it was going to go off the rails like American Horror Story but it didn't! It had a good, intimate, meaningful ending and I just... *chef's kiss* Why are simple ghost stories so hard to find? Like, stop with the Biblical/Apocalyptic shit in the final quarter, already (I was so angered by Hereditary I still can't talk about it rationally).

We also watched the first episode of Guardian again, using the downloaded version from YouTube (that someone made easily available here I don't know who but they are an ANGEL). You know, just to make sure it worked. Talking about it afterward, I mentioned a plot point that isn't made explicit in canon but is obvious when you read between the lines and it made mckitterick so sad he had to lie down. This fucking show. I also received my order of stickers, postcards, and bookmark (it says "Worth it"--my heart!) from AvenueX's shop and they are so adorable. I wish the face stickers were on more durable paper but I still love them. No idea where I'm going to put them though. I used to put all my fandom ephemera on, you know, my office walls so anyone who saw and recognized stuff could know I was a more than willing participant for conversation about it. Now, though...Hm.

Another thing to think about later when it's Real.

ETA: Big News! Was sending a music recommendation to extrapenguin and discovered that Starset just today announced the release date for their next album! September 13, 2019. And they'll be touring again! FUCK YEAH.