#Chinese-English Design Books

[twilightrocksfanfic]

I got a Chinese copy of twilight

So I am just going to casually drop the lore that I learned Chinese while living in China at sixteen (and on and off ever since) and recently moved back here. And today I acquired a copy of twilight.

I had been thinking of getting one just for shits and giggles and I found this used copy for roughly 2€ so I said why not.

Might be the most random book in my collection now.

[its-not-a-pen]

--Written Chinese vs English--

[ID: A comic titled "Evolution of Written Chinese vs English". On the left, emperor Qin Shi Huang holds up a scroll and angrily points an ink brush at the viewer and shouts, "There should not be seven different ways to write 'horse'. Starting today everyone will use the same characters-- or else!" On the right, William Shakespeare laughs gleefully while holding a skull and quill and exclaims, "The first rule of English is to have fun and to thine own self be true!" Every word uses a non-standard spelling. Below the cut are full versions of the the panels and a blank version of the Chinese one. End ID]

I'm fascinated by the evolution of chinese and english "spelling." I grew up on hard-to-read Ye Olde English, and assumed all languages were like that. Imagine my shock when I discovered the chinese language had been standardised since 221BC, and I can read words written in the Han Dynasty.

full versions:

notes under the cut

For much of it's history, the English language played it fast and loose with spelling. (No one can spell things wrong if no one can spell things right!) Standardisation only began in the late 15th century as the use of the printing press spread across Europe.

I thought the best person to show this carefree attitude was the Bard himself; Willy Shakes. We have six surviving examples of Shakespeare's signature, and none of them are spelled the same way twice.

In comparison, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, standardised the writing system as early as 221 BC. He had conquered the six warring states and decided to do away with their writing systems. This made the administration of a centralised government easier, and it served as a demonstration of his absolute authority. The writing on the book* is "horse", and "torn apart by carriage".

**That scroll he's holding is actually called a book in Chinese, it is made up of bamboo slips, like a big sushi mat!

All designs are available on redbubble: I thought it would be fun to include a blank version of qin shi huang, so you can write stuff on him.

[anerdwhodraws]

Here's a design for the Ka-Riu, an acid spiter from japan from Naomi Novik's series Temeraire (my gods how much I love those books)

A few thoughts on this design:

It has 3 talons on each legs because from the lil resaerch I've done, the main difference between a chinese and a japanese dragon is that the chinese one have either 4 or 5 talons where the japanese one only have 3.

Same for the somewhat long body, japanese dragons are usually more serpent like than chinese one.

Japanese dragons are usually asociated to water, so the crest are supposed to ressembe a fish, and the lil nose nodlle (I don't how to say it in english) are based on the koi fish, and it will be the case for all of my future design for japanese breed.

Still on the crest, I put a lot of them for it to look like some sort of fire, as Ka-Riu is describe in the mytologie as a crimson dragon, somtimes made of fire.

Anyway I'm really happy with how this turned out, and will totally do more dragons from these books, perhaps even create some breeds myself (probably japanese ones)

[shijiujun]

A Summary: The Spirealm | 致命游戏 (Kaleidoscope of Death 死亡万花筒 Live Action) & Why You Should (Eventually) Watch It

Talk about the most short-lived drama release ever, not even totalling two hours if I recall. Creating this summary as I've seen a handful of confused friends, so here it goes!

It's going to be a long review because I sped through all 78 episodes and only properly watched the first two doors, but I got you. You'll get both the brief book rundown and the drama parts!

If you just wanna see the bromance (LOVE) parts please skip to section 4!!!!

1. Overview

Title: The Spirealm (kinda awful I'm sorry it's a mouthful) or 致命游戏 which means fatal game

Adapted From: Danmei (BL) Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

Novel Prints: There are GORGEOUS Thai, Vietnamese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions printed, AND Singapore publisher Rosmei has signed the license for the ENGLISH version, probably going on sale this year (preview is here). You can still access fan translations by Taida on I think wordpress and someone else on Tumblr sorry bad memory (they did half and half each) if you'd like to read it for context. It is one of my FAVE danmeis EVER and I am a die-hard OG book fan, check out my full danmei review here.

Total Episodes: 78 (20 minutes each with the exception of last episode which 10 minutes, with several BTS not that I think we will get to see all of them yet)

Where to Watch (LOL): Erm considering that iQIYI China AND International took the episodes down, there is no legal way to watch this, BUT thanks to some cnetz with super fast and great wifi, we managed to get ripped HD versions without subs. iQIYI is very hard on copyright though, they've taken down several subbed and unsubbed versions already on YouTube, but you should type the titles of show into Twitter and the top tags will tell you where to access the raws and very little subbed episodes, that may also be taken down at any point. I have the Chinese raws but as it's hosted on a cloud, I had to pay to access it.

Main Characters: Lin Qiushi & Ruan Nanzhu/Ruan Baijie (in the novel) and Ling Jiushi & Ruan Nanzhu/Ruan Baijie (in the drama)

Produced By: iQIYI so for SURE they won't film it fully BL even if the original is, but I've seen enough bromance cuts

Main Actors: Xia Zhiguang (Ruan Nanzhu/Ruan Baijie) + Huang Junjie (Ling Jiushi)

2. Summary

Book (drama follows closely if not removing the supernatural premises): Lin Qiushi, a designer, opens the door to his home one day from inside and sees 12 iron doors outside. Confused, he opens one of them and arrives at a snow covered village in the mid of winter, and meets Ruan Baijie, who's a pretty, unusually tall and whiny/timid woman. They realise that they're in a horrifying door game, and they'll have to find a door and a key to get out, while battling a long-haired, human-eating deity. They, along with a few others, have to survive day after day until they get out, and on the first night, two people have died in gory ways. Ruan Baijie and Lin Qiushi partner each other, and despite seemingly timid and crying all the time, she saves Lin Qiushi a few times mysteriously, and Lin Qiushi finds himself trusting in Ruan Baijie.

They get through the door together and when they leave successfully, Lin Qiushi realizes that the people who died in the door will die in real life by some freak accident too - car accidents, forced suicides, a robbery gone wrong, a lift trapped in the air and going ablaze, and more. That night, Lin Qiushi wakes up to see a super handsome and tall Ruan Nanzhu at his bedside and this man feels familiar to him, but he can't put a finger on it. All he can think of when Ruan Nanzhu says his name is Ruan Baijie (ahem he would later find out who it is of course). Ruan Nanzhu takes him to his mansion in the suburbs where he meets a group of other people just like them, who're forced to go through the doors for survival. Ruan Nanzhu then invites him to join Obsidian, his organization.

Through various doors, Lin Qiushi grows and supports a super intelligent and powerful Ruan Nanzhu, falls in love with him, gets through many many scary doors with him and some of their other team members, makes friends, loses them to the cruelty of the doors as they ponder over what the door means, and what being alive/dying means.

And at the end of it, at the end of of it all, when they're all good and living their life, Lin Qiushi also finds out what Ruan Nanzhu's secret is, and the lengths to which Ruan Nanzhu went to, just to be with him.

Drama: Ling Jiushi is a VR game designer who gets pulled into a game, and he meets Ruan Baijie (in his male form) right off the bat (SO NOT CROSSDRESSING I AM SAD). All the parts are actually the same as the novel, albeit with the game setting and Ling Jiushi and Ruan Nanzhu's identity adjustments to suit the game premise. Most of the other doors and their lines are the same, just that the ending is a bit more confusing than it could be. There's a big bad as well and they actually show the opposing organizations when in the novel, these other organizations aside from Obsidian didn't even actually have a face or goal to them.

3. Characters

^ Them in the book (based on manhua that never got to go live LOL) (RNZ/RBJ left, LQS right)

^ Them in the show (LJS left, RNZ right)

Ruan Nanzhu/Ruan Baijie: MY HANDSOME CROSSDRESSING INTELLIGENT ALOOF BUT WHINY (WHEN IT COMES TO LIN QIUSHI) SASSY BOSS!!!! He's super mysterious and super thick-skinned too, and all he wants is Lin Qiushi's attention the moment he meets him. He's intrigued by Lin Qiushi's calm and his brains and the way he handles things, and has a lot of trust for him right from the get-go. This is also shown in the drama itself. As the leader of Obsidian, he cares a lot for his team members and his friends even if he doesn't show it most of the time, and the last thing he wants to do is lose Lin Qiushi, and he would do ANYTHING for Lin Qiushi, ANYTHING!!! Just look at him whining:

Ling Jiushi (Lin Qiushi): In the novel he's super calm, has quite a lot of brains, a little bit of a blur in the beginning but he's super smart as well. Worries a lot for Ruan Nanzhu and is also a loyal friend to some of his only friends, and feels a lot when he loses them. Falls gradually in love with Ruan Nanzhu in the novel, like they just belong together. In this drama, Ling Jiushi holds that same trust for Ruan Nanzhu, but in demeanour he seems a bit more like a klutz and and not as cool as he was in the novel, but I guess it's acceptable. Literally like the only thing he loves more than RNZ (maybe) is his cat Chestnut LOL and RNZ is NOT really happy about that but Chestnut LOVES RNZ

Yixie and Qianli: CUTEST TWINS ;-; WHO TREAT RNZ and LQS as their big brothers LOOK AT THEM BOWING AND RNZ/LJS like parents LMAO

A handful of other characters who will keep turning up and get your hearts ;-;

4. ALL FAVE BROMANCE MOMENTS + TROPES

THEY TOUCH EACH OTHER A LOT LIKE HOLDING HANDS AND TOUCHING FACES, PIGGY BACKING?!?! DID I MENTION FACE TOUCHING

WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP THEY HELP EACH OTHER WHEN HURT OR GET HURT FOR EACH OTHER

AND WHEN THEY WAKE UP IN BED THE OTHER IS AT THEIR BEDSIDE

AND DID I MENTION HE FEEDS HIM IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

AND THAT THEY DATED UNDER THE FIREWORKS LIKE THE NOVEL DOES NOT EVEN HAVE THIS SHIT

AND THE KABEDONS

AND FINALLY RUAN NANZHU RIZZ OMG

5. Settings

They REALLY OUTDID THEMSELVES. THIS JUST FROM DOORS 1-6:

THEY LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THE NOVEL DESCRIBED!!!!

6. Overall Thoughts

PROS: This was NOT a cheap production, I'm telling you, they followed the cases very well and there're a lot of super recognisable lines, if not ALL of them, even if they changed the cases a little. I think they did it because in the novel originally, the author DOES leave a lot of details hanging like someone dies and you know he had a background and there are some shady things happening but the author NEVER actually goes into detail. So the drama did their best to cover these loopholes, even if it felt a little awkward at times. Money went into settings and attires and every damn thing, this looks EXPENSIVE. And if you've ever imagined each door and the bosses inside in your head, you might have felt chills go down your spine because damn did they really colour the book's settings for me (despite its differences). DID I MENTION that Xia Zhiguang really got the damn memo and he was a passable Ruan Nanzhu/Ruan Baijie who knew how to turn on his BL eyes. PLUS they really did some of the character deaths really well - they're technically some of the biggest parts of this story so ;-; (not two main of course)

CONS (maybe): They did away with the supernatural/horror premise and replaced it with a GAME premise, which means that there's a scientific element to it and the try to explain away stuff with the game, including the ending. I don't 100% get the ending, but the feel/vibe is about the same. Might not be for hardcore reader fans tho! They skipped out on a couple of doors, some of which were my faves, but it's fine, it's long enough LOL. They give away/explain some of the clues and surprises super early which means you don't get that added boom at the back as well. Despite that, I have to say they tried to round up the loopholes from the book as much as they could and give it an explanation while tying elements/conspiracies across doors (probably also to save cast fees LOL). And as always it's not a solid ending, it's an open confusing one, and even more confusing than the book itself because THERE IS NO CERTAIN HAPPILY EVER AFTER WITH HUBBY for it (there is in the book tho, they live together happily every after). Secondl,y, I'd say HJJ's acting is a bit stiff and OOC compared to the novel, but Xia Zhiguang really made up for it.

-------

HOPE THIS HELPS YOU GUYS!!! But I guess if you need subs it's going to be a long LONGGGG ride, considering that iQIYI doesn't seem to be going to be able to put it up anytime soon CRIES.

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Alt text is so incredibly useful when it comes to speakers of other languages. I follow a bunch of fiber artists from different parts of the world, Ukrainian fashion designers and Chinese antique garment collectors and Iranian university professors of textile art history. There are discussions happening in different languages, and resources like books and scholarship, simply not available in the English or French I know.

And a lot of them never even use the Latin alphabet a lot of the time! So sometimes I can photograph a book page or screencap an Instagram story and get my phone's OCR to give me text to paste into Google Translate, and I can sometimes use a Cyrillic keyboard to type out what I'm seeing, but but as soon as something is antiquated or handwritten or viewed at an angle, my goose is cooked. I can't even get the original phrase to try to translate at all.

Unless there's alt text. Because alt text gives me exactly the data I need in the exact right format to take to a dictionary and get the gist of what's going on.

It makes me reconsider how my own content is accessible or inaccessible not just to blind or visually-impaired people, but people who aren't perfectly fluent in English. Because I and a lot of my friends are native English speakers who usually only speak 1-2 languages total, I'm prey to assuming that everyone in my intended audience is like us. That of course everybody can easily process English text, whether it's printed or written in cursive or using some antique calligraphic hand. And of course, that's not true. Now when I look at my analytics for my business's rare medieval name, I occasionally see translation site traffic where people in Farsi or Ukrainian or Chinese have translated me in return.

The curb-cut effect is a wonderful thing, I think. The primary reason I've used alt text is a good one, and it also turns out that it's really useful for a lot of other people too.

[crookedbranchbooks]

The Remembrance of Earth's Past - Cixin Liu

April 14, 2025

Full cloth case binding with design in heat transfer vinyl.

These books consumed me for the two weeks I spent working on them. Every day I would get home from work and open photoshop to work on the cover designs for hours each day. Once I had a strong vision in mind of the color scheme and concentric circles motif, I couldn't stop. The front and back covers of each book depict some of the most iconic moments and imagery from the series, but in an abstract enough way to not act as spoilers (I hope). The quotes on the back were chosen to best represent the themes of each book. I'm particularly proud of the pyramid on the spines.

Materials: covers - 2 mm grey board spine stiffener - paperboard covering material - linen bookcloth in black, white, and red vinyl - siser easyweed vinyl in black, white, and red

endpapers - marbled jute fiber paper endbands - linen bookcloth rolled over twine bookmarks - 1/4" satin ribbon edge painting - black, white, and red acryllic paint

Cover Design: Designed in Photopea. English font is Poppins Extrabold, Chinese font is Droid Sans. My original sketch:

Potential ideas for the back of the three body problem:

Digital mockups:

[croded]

Hopefully Mostly Accurate Translation of the Link Click Art Book Interview with Director Li Haoling

thank you very much to @yingdu-lover for the initial post+tag and also the interview!!

I made a chinese transcript of the entire interview and goddamn it was 4 Google doc pages long 😭this is going to be a long post but let's go :)

Blue text=interviewer, white text=Director Li (small text=little translator notes. don't worry they won't pop up too often :))

About the production team and production process

Q1. The main production team of Link Click is an internationalised lineup, can you introduce the members of the team and their usual responsibilities to the readers?

---About Link Click's main production team's structure, I am the screenwriter and director, the executive director is (Zhang) Yuxia, his position is equivalent to the assistant director. Our work distribution is I mainly work on content creation and overall control; he leans more towards communicating, interacting and executing the created content. The members in the country (China) also include Studio LAN, who have overall control of the production process. Their work includes Chief Producer, original design, mid-term character modeling et cetera. Besides, there are also our colleagues in the Japanese branch taking part in and leading the post-production work.

As for the pre-production process of the show, INPLICK-laoshi* from Korea was in charge of the character design. She is a very well-known illustrator. On the art aspect, since we have previous cooperation experience with Shinkai Makoto-laoshi's* team, the process was quite enjoyable, and we established a long-term cooperation relationship, so this time we also invited Tanji Takumi-laoshi* to help with the art supervision and design; whereas Tenmon-laoshi* is in charge of the music. This is roughly our team configuration.

*In the original interview, Director Li added -老师 to the ends of the names of these other creators. Much like Japanese's sensei, this is used as an honorific, used to indicate respect. I don't think there's an English equivalent for these honorifics, so I kept them in rough Pinyin 🥹 I'll keep it like this for the rest of the translation too

Just now you said the assistant director was Yuxia-laoshi, is this the same person as Yu Xia from episode 2, "Secret Recipe"?

Correct. Actually there are a lot of character names in the show that are the same as our friends at work. But in the real world, Lin Zhen and Yu Xia are two guys. They're college classmates.

*Director Li says 工作里的小伙伴 in the part that says "friends at work", and 小伙伴 directly translates to "little partner", so it's like a bit cuter? lol :') also noodle lesbian name lore?!?!

Q2. Sounds like the team atmosphere is quite relaxed, can you further introduce how the usual work atmosphere is? And how is the state/condition when communicating with overseas teams?

---Because Link Click is an original donghua, so there is a higher freedom in the creating process. Like the part with using the names of work friends as character names, I also think it is more relaxed this way, and more meaningful. As for communicating with overseas teams, because we have a greater experience in cooperating with overseas teams, the process is quite smooth. For example, we have had several indirect cooperations with Tanji-laoshi from the Shinkai Makoto team. At the time, we mentioned that we wanted to do some new challenges and content, and they were willing to take part in it, they also thought it was something new and were very interested. The more novel it is, the more enthusiasm they have to give it a try.

Q3. Going back to Link Click, what was your (Director Li's) original intent during the creation of Link Click?

---At first it was because I saw a photo one time, that time I thought the people in the photo were particularly happy, but the person looking at the photo was not that happy. At that time I felt that photos were quite a unique thing, through a piece of paper, it connects two different worlds, different states of yourself. Because of this feeling, I got the idea of using photos as a base for a story's script, and then from there, I thought about if I could go back to a certain scene or time in a photo, what kind of feeling would I have. I took the thoughts I had while trying to figure out this kind of feeling and expanded them further, and it slowly formed into Link Click's overall story.

Q4. The impression that photos give us is mostly warm, so how come you thought of using a theme that carried some suspense to fill in each episodic story?

---If we're talking about only setting an ability that can enter photos, I imagine there definitely isn't a shortage of similar themes, so I wanted to include an even more interesting setting.

Take the point of entering a photo to change the past and save the future for example, there are actually many ways to travel through. When setting the plot, my first thought was to separate/disassemble this ability. The more imperfect the ability, the more it can create changes and plot conflicts. Like how we see that even though Cheng Xiaoshi can enter photos, but he doesn't know what will happen in the photo, so him inside the photo will become an unstable factor; whereas Lu Guang is outside the photo, he can see what is about to happen in the photo, but he has no way of completely controlling Cheng Xiaoshi's actions. Both of their abilities are imperfect, so they must cooperate to sufficiently utilize each other's effect. I expanded the later plot based on this point.

Additionally, about returning to the last through photos, that itself already carries many elements of suspense. Everyone probably has had this experience before: you're all smiling when the photo is taken, but the you at the time might not actually feel like smiling, deep inside. In that photo, everyone looks very happy on the surface, but maybe there are different thoughts in everyone's hearts. It's actually quite interesting. To me, this is also a kind of suspense - what's the real meaning behind the photo?

So a conflict between appearances and the inside?

That's right. What's truly beneath those appearances, the process to unearth this in itself will carry suspense, I suppose this is also a main point that I abided by when I designed the story to go towards suspense. This is one of the reasons. Another point is that there are very few donghuas in the country (China) that use a suspense theme, I wanted to try to break through, and do a fresh theme.

Q5. Link Click is in the form of an episodic show, with every episode having a different story, what is your original intent when picking stories? What is your starting point?

---Some stories were already thought out, but actually every story was not "picked out", but instead expanded from several angles. For example, the story of "Farewell" (s1e5 T_T) first had a narrative inspiration: everyone says going back to the past is to change the future, but if you went back to the past and made changes, only to find out in the end that nothing had changed in the future after all? I will assume this situation: it changed, and yet it didn't. As long as there is this hypothetical, there will be a lot of plot conflicts. The emotional level will also be very high. I think this is a plot core for having something interesting happening, and the story "Farewell" sprouted from this point.

Let's take another example of the special episode, "Marrying by Contesting". It originated from a story I read before. At that time there was a news report, saying that in a certain place, a girl was banned from something by her family*** and gave up her whole life. After reading, it left a deep impression on me, something like this actually happened, so I used it as a main theme to create. And the episode about kidnapping, "Aunt May" as well, I hope that through this donghua I can not only show entertaining content, but also embody some social value.

***GUYS IM SO SORRY for this part, the word was NOT eligible in the picture of the interview log 😭the closest (and only) thing I could think of when I saw that blob of pixels was the word 锠, but the phrase 禁锠 had no meaning. I looked it up. Nothing. 禁 means ban, so the general meaning of the sentence is that the girl's family banned her from something and she gave up on her life. I don't know what they banned her from 😭 so sorry once again

Q6. From the OP and ED, we can see that Link Click's art style is quite intense, how did you think of using this kind of style to make a donghua?

---About the style of the OP and the ED, the earliest intention was to create a sense of trendiness. I invited many teams to work together with, like INPLICK-laoshi, her art style can give people the impression of trendiness. Aside from characterization, the backgrounds were also considered to be stylised a bit, and not just done in a realistic style, because a realistic style will make it look heavy and serious. I hope that the backgrounds can be made to have more personality, more tactile, with a more artistic effect, so I discussed it with Tanji-laoshi and the artistic design done with this target in mind had a stronger drawing sense.

Q7. In the episode "Marrying by Contesting", a quote by Edward Weston appeared, and we understand by communicating with the team that there is a quote in the beginning of every episode, what is the purpose of this setting?

---Because we're making a theme based on photos, so I hoped to take the quotes of world-famous photographers and pick appropriate quotes for each episode, it's mainly an expression of form.

When I saw that line I felt quite moved, I was touched.

Yes, we had this intention. The intentions of animators making animations are the same, people who like the content often have this kind of empathy, we all hope to unearth the differentness of the world through our content. Just like how war photographers are willing to give their lives to document reality, to be able to capture that moment in time with your own life, that spirit is quite a great thing.

Q8. We heard that the donghua had been accepting fans' commissions since it began airing, and the donghua also showed everyone's submissions and story collections, like the Time Photo Studio really exists, can you talk about the purpose of this setting?

---This was the first thing we thought of. We could really open a Time Photo Studio and find real-life stories, restore them, help people complete their commissions. I think this is rather romantic. We have also been doing this continuously, collecting everyone's stories, be it in the mini-theatre series (it's The Daily Life in Lightime chibi series!) or in the later plot, we'll show them in future parts. The saying of "breaking the fourth wall" might be a little cliché, but it does indeed have the feeling of breaking "the fourth wall".

About the characters and the setting

Q9. This question may have been asked quite a few times on other occasions, how did you (Director Li) decide on using a double male protagonist setting like with Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang?

---As I mentioned earlier, I wanted the powers of the protagonists to be imperfect. The abilities must be split into two halves and be distributed to two separate people. This is the first point. Secondly, we had discussed at the time, if it were a male-and-female setting, putting the two characters together will have one problem: should we give them a romantic storyline or not? Later on we found that this problem was too complicated/troublesome, and couldn't be resolved well no matter how we tried to do it, and there were things to consider in every aspect of the matter. So in the end, we ended up with the double male protagonist setting that we have now.

Regarding Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang's personalities, I mentioned it earlier as well: Cheng Xiaoshi is an unstable factor, since he can enter the photos but doesn't know what will happen next, whereas Lu Guang is a stable factor. The two of them must partner up and complement each other, then only can they utilize their abilities perfectly.

Q10. About this female character Qiao Ling, how did you (Director Li) adjust the character relationship between them and the interaction atmosphere?

---The audience has always cared a lot about Qiao Ling. Although she doesn't get much screen time, her existence is still very important. To express the kinship* between two boys, this isn't much of a problem, but to make these two boys open their hearts to each other is not as easy. I want to set a link that allows there to be emotional communication between the boys, such as Lu Guang wanting to know how Cheng Xiaoshi sees "me" (Lu Guang), Cheng Xiaoshi wants to know how Lu Guang sees "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), how is Cheng Xiaoshi's thoughts towards "me" (Lu Guang), how is Lu Guang's thoughts towards "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), all these thoughts can be converted and conveyed through Qiao Ling.

*(sorry in advance for the long tl note) this "kinship" might be more of a "tacit understanding", which is 默契 in Chinese. I don't think there's an English equivalent that sounds as good, so basically 默契is where people work together so well they don't even need to talk to each other to do something together. Think something like maybe you and your best friend turn around to high five each other at the same time without looking, or when you do the same action (e.g. tilting your head a certain way, saying something, closing a book etc.) at the exact same time in the exact same way. That's 默契 :) in cxs and lg terms, it's them passing the ball around to each other flawlessly and dogwalking the rest of the court without even really looking at each other or communicating verbally. They just do, and they work together seamlessly without even trying. 默契 babyy

Is it equivalent to Qiao Ling between them balancing their views towards each other, balancing the relationship between the two of them?

It isn't balancing their relationship, but rather she is a path for their communication. The communication I mean is core communication between hearts.

Is it the more sentimental/emotional part?

Yes, for example episode 10, where Cheng Xiaoshi possessed Xu Shanshan and listened to Qiao Ling talk about how Lu Guang saw him at the time. This kind of trope can only be conveyed and converted very well through her.

Q11. Among all the characters, who do you (Director Li) like the most?

---This is like asking which of your children is your favourite, it's kind of difficult to choose. You ask which one I like, I can only say I like them all; but saying I like them all, this answer seems kind of boring. I'll be honest, I still like them all, they each have their special characteristics.

Then let's talk about the points of the three main characters that shine/stand out.

Cheng Xiaoshi is righteous, and he's very genuine. He's a very naïve person, and naivety is commendable. In the current society, naivety is becoming increasingly scarce.

Lu Guang is calm, knowledgeable, and very smart and mysterious. He's a rather perfect male image.

Qiao Ling cannot simply be said to just be a "girl next door", instead she has more of a big sister image, and can hold the trio. While she has a rational, strong side, she also has a very soft side, the future plots will also bring out these virtues of hers.

Q13. You (Director Li) seem to have a soft spot for the word "light"(光), what meaning does the word "light" represent? Outside of the donghua, what does this "light" repose?

---"Light" is a symbolic hope, or maybe energy, giving people an uplifting feeling. Personally as a practitioner of animation, the reason I chose such a difficult job was because this job could bring people some direction and light. I also think I'm a little delusional* when it comes to this aspect, the people watching animations usually aren't very old, planting a little bit of light in the hearts of children, I think this is the lovable part of animation and the value of its existence. So at the time I kept bringing up "light", including many characters' names have something to do with light, the theme is also related to light, it all comes from this kind of thoughts.

*he says 中二. which is basically chuuni, for chuunibyou (中二病) and is usually known as "delusional disease" or "8th grade syndrome" but the gist of it (though I think yall know what chuunibyou is 😭) is that he's calling himself delusional here lmaoo

Q13. During the process of creating Link Click, what were the parts where you felt the happiest?

---The happiest part is still the good overall creating atmosphere. The creation of Link Click began in 2019, at that time I had the rare chance of creating without much concern, purely creating for the sake of creating. So Link Click getting everyone's approval in the end is partially because that time the conditions for creating were good.

Q14. Can you reveal some details about Season 2, some details that everyone wants to know.

---Season 2 is mainly suspense. The storyline of pursuing the culprit was a very large tension/cliffhanger in Season 1, Season 2 will definitely go through this tension/cliffhanger till the end. I saw a lot of viewers wish to keep some things from Season 1, such as the episodic stories, and some portrayals of real-life stories. So I'm also thinking of a way to satisfy the condition of Season 2 being suspenseful and following a main storyline while also adding these elements into it.

Will it be more angsty* than season 1?

As the audience, are your expectations wishing for it to be "angsty*" or not "angsty*"?

It's hard to say, this mentality is quite dilemmatic.

Personally, I think a lot of Season 1's content was real-life things, so its "angst*" is an "angst that hits close to home*", akin to the regrets in real life. But in Season 2, since it has a storyline of pursuing the culprit, so some parts with emotional concentration will be different from Season 1, the feeling of "angst that hits close to home*" will be weaker.

*(hoo boy this will be a long one) so the words they are using here are Chinese internet language/slang: 刀, which means knife/blade, is used to mean something that makes your heart hurt when you read it. Yknow, like cxs dying! Chen Bin falling! Chen Bin's wife walking down the funeral hall in her wedding dress! S1e5 in general! That kinda stuff. That's 刀. It makes you cry, it makes you hurt, it makes you sad. So I ended up using "angst" with the definition of the fanfic term here since that was the closest thing with that meaning. With the "angst that hits close to home" part, he used "贴肉刀" which directly translates to "knife that sticks to meat" and like... basically it's blade that cuts you deep (emotionally) because it's something you've experienced? something like that? the closest thing I could think of was "hits close to home" :') sorry this particular section is so confusing. its like 50% chinese slang

Q15. One last question, say something to the readers that are eagerly awaiting Season 2, increase the anticipation.

---Just like the creating process I mentioned earlier, I wish to be able to tell a beautiful story in a quiet, peaceful condition. I also hope the viewers can be more calm when treating/regarding this work, whether everyone likes it or dislikes it, I accept it all, but sometimes the feelings of the audience becomes a form of pressure on the work. The original intent of this work was to present it in a quiet, good condition, so I still hope that in the future, everyone can maintain a level head towards Link Click.

Thank you, Director Li. Thanks for all your hard work.

-interview end-

that's the end of this VERY long post! :'D translating is kinda fun ngl

I tried my best to keep it as accurate as possible, forgive me if there are any mistakes :') (especially the "girl was banned from something by her family" one... ooh. I am on my knees apologising for that one I am cringing at myself)

and also sorry for the longass translator notes in the middle of some segments... I hope it didn't disrupt your reading too much 🥹

[peekofhistory]

Hi! I really like your blog for the historical facts and the really nice statues and paintings of hanfus! I literally come back here whenever I'm designing outfits for my OCs and I just really really like learning about the ancient Chinese world. I really wanted to ask where these pictures and maybe the information on the timeline of the hanfu's come from. Any book or website is fine.

Also, how did most maids in waiting to a noble person dress?

Hi!!

Thank you for your kind message, I'm very happy that the information here can help you 😃❤️❤️ I love getting to share Hanfu with others who also appreciate its beauty!!

For maids in waiting, China differed a lot from the west. From what I understand (and if this is wrong please let me know), maids/ladies in waiting were often from nobility themselves, or had some family background, sent to assist the Queen or someone of a high rank. Historically in China, maids (either to the royal family, to nobility, or just to a rich family) are sold into this role so they themselves come from no/very low family background. Of course, in a complicated system like royal court there would be ranks in the servants as well, but they would not bring in a daughter of the nobility to serve the Queen or Princess.

As for their outfits, this would depend on the time period and who exactly they're serving. For example, maids in the court would dress differently than maids to a nobility. Here are some murals I found that depicts maids/servants. Overall their outfits and hairstyles are simpler than their masters:

For the photos in my posts I find them all over the internet 😃 Once I decide which garment(s) I'm going to be focusing on for the post, I Google/Baidu (Chinese search engine) search for images of the garment on unearthed artefacts. Then I go looking for where the artefact was found and where it's located now (some ppl don't label it, and then I have to play detective T__T). Sometimes I'll also search on Red Note (Chinese app/website) or Bilibili (Chinese youtube) for information as well.

For the timeline, I'm not sure which information you're referring to. The dynasties? I kind of just...know the dynasties from learning about Chinese history ^^;; You can also find it on Wikipedia, Wiki has a general overview of all the dynasties if you're interested 😃

As for books, the main book I'm using right now is this one:

中国历代风流服饰

It touches on some of the main garments in each dynasty and is a nice starting point for anyone just starting to learn about historical Hanfu. Unfortunately it's only available in Chinese.

I also got these two books a while ago that are also very helpful (but also only available in Chinese, there's a lack of any English books regarding Hanfu T__T).

[selfieignite]

Selfie (2014) - Easter eggs & trivia

Selfie (2014), starring Karen Gillan and John Cho, is a modern adaptation of My Fair Lady (musical film) / Pygmalion (play).

Eliza Dooley = Eliza Doolittle

Henry Higgs = Henry Higgins

Freddy = Freddy Eynsford-Hill

Doctor Who connections

Karen Gillan was in Doctor Who with two different roles. In 2008, she played Mira the Soothsayer in the episode, "The Fires of Pompeii" and in 2013-2015, she was Amy Pond, a companion to the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith.

David Harewood also appeared in Doctor Who as Joshua Naismith in 2009.

Karen is Scottish and David is English, but both use American accents in Selfie.

Two Prues

There are two actresses for Prue. The first image is from the pilot, which was shot separately from the rest of the series. Prue #1 was played by Genevieve Geoghan who was also a production assistant.

In the following episodes, Prue #2 was played by Kelsey Ford/Ledgin (second image) who became a permanent part of the book club.

Fan shout-out

During the broadcast, fans were entered in a drawing if they live tweeted about the show. Some lucky winners were featured in episode 7: “Here’s This Guy.” (not all pictured) The cast was live tweeting too!

Also, if you see a Doctor Who reference, it’s most likely a fan’s screen name. I also recognized the costume designer’s handle towards the end of the episode, so there might be more crew members listed.

Real life details

Charmonique's actress, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, also went to Yale University in real life and that detail was mentioned in episode 4, "Nugget of Wisdom."

[x]

Episode: Nugget of Wisdom

A Red Dalek toy was featured in the background, which is a villain character on Doctor Who. 

Episode: Never Block Cookies

John Cho's real life wife, Kerri Higuchi, was featured in this episode. She played Michelle, the fill-in barista who was flirting with Henry Higgs.

In the same episode, co-workers assume Henry has trouble with intimacy or dating. He reads The Counterlife by Philip Roth, which has a character also named Henry who is impotent because of his heart medication. Both have the same name and intimacy issues.

Episode: Perestroika

There is a reference to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Eliza Dooley mirrors Holly Golightly as she opens the door. Audrey Hepburn plays Holly and also Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. The book club in the next scene shows that they were having a Breakfast at Tiffany's birthday theme party for Bryn.

Karen Gillan wore a wig on Selfie. Since she had to shave her head for the role of Nebula on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel had the Star Wars costume department make a wig for Karen using her real hair.

In the Selfie pilot, she wore two wigs: one wig before the makeunder scene and another wig with her real hair after the makeunder. Karen used her personal wig for the rest of the show.

[x] [x]

Chinese fandom

The show got more popular on Chinese social media around 2021. Better known as 再造淑女 (Remaking a Lady or Reinvented Lady). Fans created video edits, fan art, and even English study guides using episode scripts. Selfie is somewhat similar to Korean and Chinese dramas, where the romance is more of a slow burn.

There's a Chinese meme (山猪吃不了细糠) that literally translates to "A wild boar can't eat fine bran." It means that someone who is rough or unrefined (like a wild boar) doesn't appreciate or can't handle something delicate or refined (like fine bran). This suggests that a person is not suited for something subtle or sophisticated, or that they can’t appreciate finer things.

A similar English phrase would be "Don't cast your pearls before swine." It's more or less implying that we should not waste good things on people who will not appreciate them or that people who didn't appreciate the show did not have good taste. Many Chinese fans are still sad that there isn't a second season or real ending to Selfie.

Representation matters

Keli Lee was the executive vice president of Talent and Casting at ABC who helped cast John Cho in Flashforward (2009) and Selfie (2014). She also helped find projects for Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy), and more actors.

She also found David Harewood for the character Sam Saperstein, which was originally written as a white Jewish man, but Harewood gave a brilliant and funny performance.

[x]

John Cho is the first romantic Asian male lead in a U.S. romcom series.

Selfie executive producer/director Julie Anne Robinson also had to fight to cast John Cho. She also worked on Bridgerton and Doctor Who.

Julie Anne Robinson: I cast John Cho in Selfie. So that role was imagined as a white upper class Englishman like Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. And it took a really long time to persuade top to bottom of everybody in that chain that John Cho is a perfect choice. And I still love that show and John Cho was the perfect choice, but it’s, you know, it’s sometimes, it’s hard to- If you have a very clear idea of how something should be, it’s hard to kind of get past that.

[x]

@the_doolio jewelry

Different necklace designs of Eliza's username were featured in the show.

Social media

The character Eliza Dooley was on Twitter and Instagram while interacting with fans. Cast members were also active and live-tweeted during episodes. Sometimes either the official show's Twitter account SelfieABC or Karen Gillan would hold contests and give away prizes. At one point, I think they also had a Vine account.

Two pilots

There are two alternate pilot endings as well as openings. The original version was on ABC and the alternate version was on Hulu. Before the show aired, they posted the full pilot episode of the alternate version (if I remember correctly) on Twitter, which was rare at the time.

New skills

It was John Cho's first time riding a horse.

[x]

Set design drafts

There were plans to have a gym at KinderKare Pharmaceuticals and a Chili's restaurant scene.

[x]

From the writers

26 episodes were originally planned. Also, eps were slightly out of order.

Ending for the fans

Karen Gillan created her own ending to Selfie at conventions.

That's all I could find. If you notice any other interesting info, let me know!

[dailyjameshunt]

Hello! I’m a new fan who recently became interested in James Hunt, and I really appreciate the content about James that you share on your account! For the past few months, I’ve had a question about James that I haven’t been able to find an answer to😩, and I was hoping you might know something about it. The topic is a little sensitive, and I sincerely hope it won’t offend you.🙇‍♀️ In any case, thank you very much for all the work you do in organizing and sharing information every day!

I heard about this from Weibo (which is a Chinese social media platform): It was said that during the program "The Grand Prix Night of the Stars"(I think it's the program that James played trumpet🎺), James Hunt unintentionally excited one of Shirley Bassey’s makeup artists (who was a gay ). The makeup artist even said that James was a popular figure in gay magazines. I have tried my best to search for more details and also contacted the blogger who originally posted about this incident. Unfortunately, she said that it happened too long ago and she no longer remembers the source.

Thank you again for all your efforts in collecting and organizing information! The more I learn, the more I feel that James is such a complex and fascinating individual.💓(P.S. I used translator, hope I didn't say something weird)

Hello! You did not say anything weird, and well done for reaching out in a language other than your first language. I only speak English, and I admire anyone who has any command of more than one language :)

There is one little thing that your translator has done! In English we don't say someone is "a gay", we say they are "gay." It is used as an adjective and not a noun!

As it happens, I DO KNOW ABOUT THIS!

The story is from a book called Memories of James Hunt, which is saved on the Internet Archive (archive.org), and it is on page 195.

It was on the night of the Grand Prix Night of the Stars in 1976 when James played the trumpet, and Doug Darnell, one of Shirley Bassey's wardrobe designers (whose work is now in the V&A Museum in London - he was a big deal in his own right) was moving through the corridors behind the stage and encountered James. Doug was carrying Shirley's dress and said "excuse me, please" and James smiled at him as he moved past. James was apparently wearing tight trousers and a shirt with several buttons open, but photos from the night show him in a t-shirt.

Doug, like any sensible person, almost fainted and ran back to the dressing room to tell Shirley he'd just met James Hunt. He added "No wonder the gay papers voted James Hunt No.1 dream boy for years."

Apparently Doug had heard people say "anything on legs and Hunt is chasing it, without waiting for the hounds!" (This is a pun on Hunt's last name, for anyone who isn't familiar with the extremely barbaric and ugly British sport of fox hunting. People on horses hunt foxes with packs of dogs known as hounds. It's gross. When James owned a farm, he banned it on his land. But it's a fairly standard joke and just means James had a reputation). When Doug told Shirley he'd met James, she joked that she'd seen him first so he was hers.

Of course, in the book, this is all written in a recognisable tabloid-newspaper style, where James met Doug in the "dark, narrow corridors" behind the stage, and they were briefly "in a crush," that Doug "almost fainted", and James obviously "appealed to both sexes." I don't think it's implying anything, but many people who grew up in Britain in the 90s (as I did) would recognise that style of writing. It's very melodramatic!

I have done a little bit of googling looking for gay publications from the 70s that might feature James, but haven't found any. Queer history is a whole area of study and unfortunately, because queer people were marginalised, a lot of material relating to queer lives was destroyed or didn't survive.

James also appeared in a TV comedy sketch show written and presented by Kenny Everett, who was gay and whose sexuality would have been known at the time James appeared on his show. I think it's fair to assume from this and other evidence that James wasn't judgmental about gay men. Attitudes were different then but James seems to have generally been quite liberal and accepting.

Thanks for the ask and for your kind words about the blog ❤️

[asagirisfavpen]

Theory time!

Could Noami actually be the 3rd Akutagawa sibling? So first of all, there's this official art

Why are Naomi and Gin together in this official art? Especially since they basically melt into each other?

Then there's this Akutagawa's og design:

And he has a mole in the exact same place as Naomi. (Ignore the poor quality I took the pic from Google)

But that's just an official art and a character design, both made by Harukawa, not Asagiri, so they could mean nothing. So here comes on the stage no other than irl Akutagawa!

And here I'll give you a smol part of one of his autobiographical works, "Death Register"

He had two sisters irl. One of which is represented in BSD through Gin. And the other one who doesn't appear. And according to my theory, is Naomi.

But why would Naomi, who we know is based on Tanizaki's book "Naomi" be Akutagawa's sister? That doesn't make any sense! Well, lemme once again bring on the stage irl Akutagawa, this time accompanied by irl Tanizaki

Irl Akutagawa and irl Tanizaki were beefing.

And that's all the connections I could find between them.

But do y'all know how Asagiri loves opposites? Well, in case you didn't know, irl Akutagawa was writing literature about the past, he was reading old Chinese books and things like that, while Tanizaki was writing about the modern world, he was promoting the future and the modernization of Japan, opposites.

So uh yeah, that's pretty much all I have, plus my delusions. Keep in mind I'm not 100% sure of anything here and English is not my first language so yeah. Lemme know if there's any mistake

[rigelmejo]

The Nature Method

The nature method textbooks were designed to be read, and if you knew a similar language you were meant to rely on cognates and the pictures to understand the whole textbook. The lessons would gradually introduce new words (around 3000) in context, and new grammar.

I want to share something awesome! A girl tried out the same nature method textbook I did. Her video is short so I recommend just checking it out:

She also linked the nature method resources in her summary, which I will paste below:

Nature Method books (English, French, Italian, German): https://drive.google.com/drive/folder... Similar books for Spanish (for online viewing): https://archive.org/details/pocopocoe... https://archive.org/details/allspanis...   / irish_via_the_nature_method   Audio (English, French, German, Italian): ‪@freetongue‬ Shoutout to Free Tongue for providing all this free, quality audio! French Nature Method playlist:    • Le Français par la Méthode Nature  

I read half of Le Francais par la Methode Nature, years ago, and it helped push me to being able to read graded readers I had and then eventually anything I picked up in French. I loved the book. I loved learning to read BY reading in the language immediately, learning a language BY doing stuff in the language immediately. I love learning through context, so I loved the style of these nature method textbooks and wish there were more modern ones being used. Lingua Latina for Latin is the only nature method textbook I'm sure is still being used in some classes.

I ended up finding print copies of the French version, the Italian version, and a similar styled book called the All Spanish Method.

I used the audio of Le Francais par la Methode Nature made by Ayan Academy on youtube, like her, to work on my listening skills a few years after reading the textbook. I still would like to both finish reading and listening to this textbook. I feel it got me to B1 level and then I just kind of jumped into reading other stuff I was interested in, and my reading skills improved but none of my other skills did lol.

If you like the style of the textbook, I really recommend these nature method textbooks. If you use them, using them the way she describes she studied them in her video is probably the best way. I just read and listened, and it helped my passive skills but I definitely want to go back and do the production exercises one day.

Be aware they're OLD textbooks, 70+ years old at this point, so some information and words may be out of date. I partly read the textbook when I first did because I was curious what differences there were in an older textbook, what things they taught differently, how they spoke about history and values, which is why I have a big collection of old textbooks at home. I'm into looking at that kind of stuff.

(I once had a horrifically bad chinese textbook from right in the middle of the simplification of characters, so some were simplified and some weren't, and the textbook only had a whopping 100 words it taught which really upset me... on the other hand I have an amazing Chinese Grammar textbook from 1930 that uses 了 only ever pronounced as 'liao' and only uses nin for you, but it's grammar and hanzi explanations are some of the clearest I've ever read).

Well the nature method textbooks were used most from 1920s - 1960s, and the older ones are often the Direct Method (mislabeled by someone as Nature Method) which involved a lot of dialogues in the target language but were not necessarily designed to be understandable without a teacher. Nature Method textbooks are designed to be understandable without a teacher, with just the context of the textbook and visuals, and assume the student knows a similar language to the target language already (so it assumes students know Spanish or Italian or French or English or German already).

Nature Method textbooks usually have more context and cognates in the beginning chapters. Direct Method textbooks usually have plenty of dialogues, and sometimes plenty of pictures to teach the words, but ultimately assume a teacher is teaching many words and grammar and so grammar is not explained in the context of long form stories like it is in nature method. I like Nature Method more. Direct method is okay, Poco a Poco is an example of a direct method textbook. Le Francais par la Methode Nature is an example of a nature method textbook.

Anyway I love the nature method textbooks, I wish some newer textbooks were designed in a similar way.

[nyerus]

TGCF Audio Drama Season Two Releases on May 26th! 🎉

I'm a little late to the party, but very happy to share the news that the next season of the marvelous TGCF Audio Drama has been officially announced for May 26th! It will be available on MaoerFM/Missevan just like season one!

The first two episodes will drop simultaneously on May 26th, with the remaining episodes most likely releasing weekly for a total of 18 episodes. We will also get at least 4 mini-theaters (short bonus episodes).

We will have more info soon, so stay tuned for further clarifications! Here's a link to the original announcement on weibo.

There is an official trailer up on MaoerFM to listen to already, and I highly recommend it! Judging by the content of the trailer, season two will cover the first flashback arc, the whole of the Black Water arc, and up to the start of the Mt. Tonglu arc. So that's the entirety of webnovel Book 2, and a significant part of Book 3! (Not to be confused with the volumes of the various translations!)

Please note that the Audio Drama is in Chinese only! It is possible and very easy to listen to it with English MTL subtitles, however, until fan-translations catch up! I don't recommend it for new fans, but fans who have already read the books will likely be just fine after getting a little used to it!

Additionally, unlike the manhua or donghua, the audio drama is based on the revised version of the novel! If you do not know what that is, please check out this post where I've gone over that in more detail.

I have old guide for how to make a MaoerFM account and purchase the AD here. It is still mostly relevant, however there is now the option of using GooglePlay for Android users! This works in the US and many other countries, but of course is going to vary by region.

I also have a guide on how to turn on the MTL subs and how to deal with the barrage/scrolling text on the website here (twitter post).

Hopefully I'll be able to make a new guide soon, but for now these may be of service!

Please do buy and support the Audio Drama if you can! It's made by a very passionate team who have been doing their best to make it a very accurate and faithful adaptation! The voice acting and sound design are absolutely fantastic, and it's super affordable--only a couple of bucks per season! It's possible to pre-purchase the new season already, as well as tip the team directly via the app so please do so! 💖

[meichenxi]

@sirenofthegreenbanks @doitinanotherlanguage

RIGHT!!!! you guys get it!!!! there are some very talented translators out there but english is just NOT really designed for easily translating the nuances of greek or other more case-heavy languages!! languages like german and finnish are way better! the subtle differences in word order, emphasis, fronting etc just don't really work with a language as case marking-impoverished as english that is so reliant on word order to show syntactical relationships - less free word order also means less flexibility which means less freedom in interpreting sentences that run over multiple lines, especially if it's a poetic translation and you want to even attempt to keep the metre - most metred translations of the iliad etc in english suffer so much from this. also german has such a long history of engagement with the classics and I love a lot of the older translations - they feel vast and solemn without being 'bombastic and pompous' as you said. it sounds like such a stuffy opinion to have but genuinely. I feel so vindicated right now.

re chinese, I have read some of the first mdzs book translated into german but otherwise not a terrible amount? it didn't occur to me to do so, to be honest, because the linguistic impetus for wanting to read a case marking-heavy language translated into another case marking-heavy language isn't really there. I can see why that might have an advantage in german - again the flexibility of word order helps - but to be honest classical chinese and german are so far apart that the same motivation for doing it for me isn't there. I'm curious now, so is there anything you recommend in particular @sirenofthegreenbanks ?

I have however read some chinese tang poetry translated into french and I much preferred the english. both german and english have such a rich vocabulary of highly specific germanic root words that don't require any adjectives or adverbs for modification - compare that to french where they often will say someone 'ran quickly' or 'spoke loudly' versus a single word encompassing those meanings. that doesn't mean the poetic expression of french is less, just that it doesn't suit the VERY concise, dense and incredibly meaning-rich, often even polysemous, nature of classical chinese. so I can absolutely see why german would be a good language for translation for chinese in that respect - although I still imagine the best languages to read classical chinese in translation, except for modern chinese, would be vietnamese, thai etc.

[guess-i-do-art]

If anyone wanted to see all my designs for the UDM students, here they are! Whenever I draw them I tend to age them up to like 13 years old or so? Also I don’t care what you say I’m gonna headcanon all the characters as queer and neurodivergent

Nory: upside-down Fluxer, bi, half black half white (canon)

Elliott: Freezer and weak Flare, pan, white

Willa: upside-down Fluid, bi, white

Andres: upside-down Flyer, bi, Latin American

Pepper: Fierce, lesbian, Chinese (canon? She’s described as Asian-American and Phan is a Chinese last name)

Bax: (MY BOY ‼️🫶) upside-down Fluxer (I also headcanon that he’s an upside-down Flicker as well, with the whole being able to turn stuff into stone thing from the second book. Originally it was a side-effect but as he got older he learned to do it on command), aroace, half Indian and half Filipino

Marigold: Fitter, pan, Spanish (I also headcanon she can speak English, Spanish, and ASL!)

Sebastian: upside-down Flicker, gay, white

I hope you like them all! 🫶

[llotuspetals]

Twenty One—my Creepypasta oc

|✮ Real Name ─ ???

|✮ Proxy Name ─ Twenty One

|✮ Nickname ─ Tee

|✮ Gender ─ Female

|✮ Sexuality ─ Bisexual

|✮ Pronouns ─ She/Her/Her’s

|✮ Birthday ─ April 21st

|✮ Age ─ ???

|✮ Age of death ─ 16

|✮ Place of Birth ─ England, Edinburgh

|✮ Nationality ─ Chinese

|✮ Scars ─ a cut on her left eyebrow, the proxy symbol carved into her left shoulder

|✮ Languages ─ English, Chinese

|✮ Height ─ 5'7

|✮ Eye Color ─ one light blue and one navy

|✮ Hair ─ black with blue highlights

|✮ Skin color ─ really really pale

|✮ Jewelry ─ two bracelets, one silver with a lotus carved into it. One braided blue and black bracelet

|✮ MBTI ─ ISTP

|✮ Zodiac Sign ─ Taurus

|✮ Scent ─ Metal, jasmine flower, rain.

|

|————🪱__ About __🪱————|

|

| ✮ Status ─ Alive

| ✮ Species ─ Half human half demon

| ✮ Relationship ─ Single

| ✮ Touch ─ Loves physical touch from people she’s close to, but hates it in general

| ✮ Fears ─ needles, vomiting, loud or high pitched noises

| ✮ Story Role ─ Side Character

| ✮ Working for ─ The Slenderman

| ✮ Work ─ Proxy, medical staff

| ✮ Proxy mark ─ left shoulder

| ✮ Items ─ dagger, balisong, scalpel

| ✮ Parent figures ─ in a twisted way, slenderman

|

|————🪐__ Favorite __🪐————|

|

| ✮ Favorite color ─ blue and black

| ✮ Favorite hobby ─ knife throwing, singing, reading, writing.

| ✮ Favorite artists ─ Arctic Monkeys, Cigarettes After Sex, Mitski.

| ✮ Favorite animals ─ Snake and crows.

| ✮ likes — tea, rain, books, music

| ✮ dislikes — loud or high pitched noises, small talk

|💙 `˚₊·͟͟͞₊☆࿐ Design

————————————————————