Tenth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

I TAKE IT BACK, GO BACK TO FUCKING THE HOUSE!

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/2511.html?thread=3560655#cmt3560655)

Welcome back! Chat fandom, weird internet stuff, creative work, games, books, anything! Meme listens, and sometimes even replies!

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Comments

TV

[(Anonymous)]

Things you watch!

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Remember: when we talk about cdramas, we are holding knives.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Watching this mostly because my friend watched it and is now forcing me to suffer along with her. Season 2 recently came out to rave reviews, and that provided enough motivation to finally push through the absolute cringe that was the first ten minutes of Season 1. Bad CGI, lame stunts, and an entirely unnecessary generic sexy female NPC - it really had it all.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, some cultural background here - if English fiction has Sherlock Holmes, then Chinese fiction has Di Renjie (狄仁杰). He was a real historical figure who served as a magistrate under Empress Wu Zetian, but nowadays, he's better known for spawning a whole genre of action-mystery films where our titular detective investigates supernatural happenings and reveals them to be not-so-supernatural after all.

Strange Tales is the Boruto of Di Renjie stories. The Bi Benjie, if you will.

The series follows Su Wuming (苏无名), one of Di Renjie's students, as he investigates a genderfluid cultist selling vape juice made from kidnapped brides. In the process, he repeatedly bumps heads with Lu Lingfeng (卢凌风), an arrogant young general and detective otaku who is still salty about being rejected by Di Renjie years ago. Our intrepid cast is rounded out by Chicken Guy, who likes to eat chicken.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

I saw Strange Tales and am disappointed it's not actually Liaozhai >_>

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Also was surprised when I looked into the background of all these Di Renjie adaptations. There's a long history of detective fiction in China - it dates back to the Song Dynasty, at least, and the earliest surviving works that directly feature Di Renjie are from the Ming Dynasty.

But a lot of the 'modern canon' of Di Renjie stories actually comes from a Dutch author, Robert van Gulik. Back in the '50s, he translated a collection of Di Renjie stories by an unknown author from the Ming Dynasty, and he was so enamored with the style and substance that he decided to write more of them for a modern audience. These stories then got translated back into Chinese in the '80s, where they got popular, got adapted, inspired more works, got re-adapted, and so on. A new adaptation actually came out last February. It sucked.

Anyways, my personal Di Renjie story is just that I watched the cartoon version when I was a kid and then proceeded to forget everything. 陆小凤 is still my Chinese detective story of choice.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Gotta admit that Lu Lingfeng experiencing one (1) setback in his life and immediately giving up on life is very relatable. Man realized he might have to get a normal job for normal people and instantly told the doctor not to bother saving him.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

> Gotta admit that Lu Lingfeng experiencing one (1) setback in his life and immediately giving up on life is very relatable

Heh, I know someone just like this.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Took a while, but I finally picked this back up.

I left off at the end of Case 1, where our intrepid protagonists arrested some vape juice dealers and got fired in return. We took a quick detour for Case 1.5, featuring the world's most suspicious innkeeper, who just wants to run his Sun Erniang franchise in peace but keeps getting interrupted by imperial officials having dick-measuring contests over their titles and connections. Now we've wrapped up Case 2, where our heroes settled into their new home by investigating a painting where all the subjects are dying under mysterious circumstances.

My friend said that her main complaint about this series is that it's more suspense drama than detective fiction, and I have to agree. This show is at its best when it's just Lu Lingfeng being his uptight and hot-blooded shounen protagonist self and getting trolled by all the other characters, but when it actually tries to solve cases, it really falls short. We get five or six episodes of the characters gathering evidence, but when it's time to reveal the culprit, the real evidence is all stuff we're seeing for the first time. It's also super flimsy, if you ask me. You guys found out this guy is the culprit because he's actually secretly bald? Cool beans, bro.

Yet despite the crucial clues being off-screen, none of the culprits actually feel like surprises because you can pretty much metagame the deductions based on who gets screen time and when. Not to mention a lot of these culprits seem to be big on slipping up and revealing themselves out of hubris, so really, what's the point of all this detective work? Just give me more of Lu Lingfeng getting clowned instead.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

What I have learned, though, is that no one who likes tea is ever innocent. Tea is the mark of a true criminal.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

Su Wuming shaved off his facial hair and instantly became unrecognizable. A far more effective disguise than putting on glasses!

On the other hand, he also looks awful. His little mustache was carrying the looks of the entire show and is dearly missed.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

We backtracked back to Case 1.5 for an episode, which mostly consisted of the culprits telling their respective tales of woe once they got arrested. Your little brother is possessed by a demon, very cool, moving on now.

> SWM: 'Do you know when I first started to suspect you? It was the moment we met.'

What a coincidence! I also suspected this guy from the moment he was introduced. Unfortunately, 'there's no way they'd introduce a named character right at the end of this suspiciously incomplete case unless he's in on it too' isn't acceptable evidence in court, and so we must rely on beating up criminals until they testify.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

I read this as Sun Wukong and was so confused.

Re: TV - Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (唐朝诡事录)

[(Anonymous)]

After the extremely uneventful events of Case 3, Lu Lingfeng is given his own detective position in another city. A day after he arrives, he's called into a fresh murder case where the bereaved immediately starts giving him shit for not already solving the murder.

Truly one of the most relatable characters I've seen in a cdrama.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Can't remember if I said; I started watching Scavengers Reign, because I'd heard good things, but I'm confused; people on the net keep praising the art. Do they have *eyes*? The art style is so ugly and bland and contrastless I find it difficult to watch. All lines are the same width and there's no depth of field, so in wide shots it's actually difficult to even make sense of what's onscreen. I keep legit flinching away, not because of what is depicted, but just because of the dull composition and line-weight. I keep thinking it must be intentional, but can't figure out the reason. In an animated show, why would you make your characters not the slightest bit expressive? (Also all the actors' mics are different; apparently they recorded it remote, and *you can tell*. They're all different volumes and fuzziness! But there's an article somewhere boasting about it, because they were somehow *proud* of what they'd ended up with. I don't have some elaborate audio setup; it's obvious through the TV speaker, and keeps making me laugh when one of the characters starts talking, because she's 10x louder than everyone else and it's like being on a Zoom call)

So, atm, I'm assuming it just got astroturfed to fuck. I only got a couple of eps in, but idk if/when I'll finish it; it's far from the worst thing on netflix, but it's more like watching a hobbyist webcomic than an actual TV show.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Checked out the trailer for Scavengers Reign since I was curious. It has that look to it where the stills look fine but it doesn't look great in motion, imo.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Also, the whole thing about the audio all being recorded remote and not matching up reminds me of Go Go Squid (亲爱的，热爱的), which was originally a romance drama about CS:GO pros but was hastily retconned into being about CTFs because it got hit by the censorship bat over promoting unhealthy gaming habits. If you listen to any of the episodes, you can literally hear where they spliced and re-dubbed the audio with 'CTF' instead of 'e-sport.'

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it messed with my head a bit at first because I was like 'this is the fugliest thing I've ever seen', and then I tried to get evidence, and nearly all the stills looked ok. But it was PAINFULLY ugly to actually watch, i swear.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I have just realised that when people recommend I watch “The OA”, they are not raving about “The OC”.

That makes more sense.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't seen the OA; I know someone who raves about it, but she also thinks Monster is a good anime, so the OA has gone in my "probably a disappointment" folder...

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

After the John Cena memes escaped containment, I've learned about pro wrestling and am now convinced it's bandom for men.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure this belongs in this section.

I don’t have a TV, because I only really watch streaming things, and I watch those as I move around and do things so my phone works best. I watch things I want to watch, and I don’t watch live TV, or TV news, or stuff with ads, because I generally find those boring. This is context. I don’t think I’m unusual in this, for people under 40.

There’s a clip going around of Kemi Badenoch on (I think?) some breakfast TV thing, or maybe it’s supposed to be actual news? And the two presenters are haranguing her for not watching Adolescence. If you’ve not watched the clip, it’s worth watching the longer version, because it’s so weird.

But the thing is, is it? Maybe this is what live TV is all like now. Maybe this is normal for TV news. Maybe it strikes me as alien and bizarre because I’m just not used to it.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I've heard about that, though not seen it yet. Or seen Adolescence. Because 99.9% of Netflix is shit, and all the people mistaking a fictional show for a documentary have put me off.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

This is the longest clip of it I can find anywhere.

https://x.com/ArchRose90/status/1910283441754472894

If I saw this in a scifi dystopian film about a land obsessed with TV dramas, I would think it was ridiculous.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it's breakfast TV. Timestamp 08:45. A big chunk of people are at work or going to work, and the BBC is patronising enough to think that anyone left at home lacks two braincells to rub together. It's the crappy morning thing that's just sliiightly less unwatchable than The One Show. (My friend's mum once got interviewed for that because she had chickens. That was literally the whole story: she had chickens.)