estirose

[estirose]

Another drama for Marco Lin Fan! The English text on the title card/graphic says "Excellent Women", don't know if that's random text or the actual English title. Translations seem to indicate it's possibly in the mystery genre, with a women's detective agency at the forefront.

Have no idea when this is going to air; hopefully it doesn't get held back as much as Yu Yuan Ling/Love Rewritten, which finished 2 years before its airing.

She hasn't mentioned this on her Weibo yet (the only post in 2025 is the announcement that she isn't with TOV anymore); I found it by accident. Still, a fifth drama for Marco! Maybe someday she'll stop getting the "special guest star" (aka idol) designation on her acting roles.

(Pictures from the drama's Weibo)

Edit: looks like she posted about it finally, the day after I made this post!

[estirose]

Both Lu Keran and Lin Fan no longer with TOV

So, apparently Lin Fan followed Lu Keran in splitting from TOV. She posted on the 19th of last month but I hadn't been paying attention to her weibo (she hasn't been posting much, I checked back to see if she'd posted anything in regards to Yu Yuan Ling/Love Rewritten since the promo post last December - in fact, that was her last post before the announcement on June 19th). Both made the allegation that TOV hadn't paid them the money they were due and I think both were represented by the same law firm. (Lu Keran left a couple of months ago.)

It's safe to say that Fanxy Red is gone, sadly. An Junxi (Roy) hasn't posted anything about leaving, but she's the only one left of FFC-Acrush/Fanxy Red. Her weibo still mentions TOV/Fanxy Red.

I'm kind of not surprised by this news as TOV's been promoting their new boy band YOUTOVE. I'm not even seeing anything for Hazel Chen/Chen Yiwen (who was on Youth With You 2 with Lu Keran and Lin Fan) or any of the other female talent.

I'd say I was devastated, but I think the writing's been on the wall for a while now so not surprised but still sad. I know Lu Keran's promoting herself, I think, and I would not be surprised that Lin Fan will be doing the same.

[estirose]

Marco Lin Fan in Yu Yuan Ling/Love Rewritten

Marco's been in a couple of dramas (four of them so far, all with English titles containing the word "Love"). Right now Yu Yuan Ling aka Love Rewritten, which she appears in as a supporting character, is on Tencent's costume drama channel (under the English title only, though the original title is in the description) on Youtube free for anybody to watch - though this may have geographical restrictions that I don't know about.

She appears in... I'd say about 40% of the episodes? Her character's name is Wu Liuqi, and Liuqi seems to be the main servant for the male love interest. (I forget if they specify her character's gender; I'll have to watch again. The original webnovel character was male, I believe.) The episodes are very short, only 10-15 minutes per episode; 25-30 episodes total.

Here's her in her one costume for the entire webdrama:

It's an interesting change from her other webdramas. In "My Piggy Lover" she was a pet shop owner with a secret; in "Love in the Hotel", she was a version of the male love interest (woman pretending to be a man, but still an incarnation of the male love interest - yes this is a very cracky webseries). In "Love Trap" she was the female love interest's contract for their secret spy/assassin ring (and got tons of costume changes).

[estirose]

One of my fics on AO3 seems to attract more fanart scammers than any other of my fics.

If you're not familiar with what a fanart scammer is, it's simple. There's a scam on AO3 where someone offers to make you fanart for a fee. If you're lucky, you'll get some AI generated crap.

(Obviously never hire me to do AI art!)

If you're unlucky, the scammer will hold the 'art' hostage in a version of what's called the "advance fee scam" where you have to pay fee after fee after fee, and never get the product you requested.

(I will note that one occasionally runs across a genuine fanartist that is clueless about the fact that authors should come to them with offers to collaborate and not vice-versa but do make their own fanart, charge a reasonable cost for their labor, and give the art to their client. But these seem to be uncommon and either quickly educated about etiquette or driven out.)

AO3 is obviously doing their best to curtail the scam, but scammers are persistent and adaptable. The current version I'm seeing is the scammer at first making a generic compliment about the fic (on occasion obviously using ChatGPT or similar to spit out a summary to make the comment seem realistic, but this is rarer), and then when the author replies, offering to move to another platform such as Discord or Instagram to discuss a possible commission or similar. Mostly because AO3 is very much noncommercial and cracks down on commercial solicitations on the platform, but also likes scammers about as much as the rest of us, which is to say... not at all.

Anyway, many years ago I wrote a single, solitary fic for a fandom called +Anima. +Anima is a 10-volume manga with a familiar storyline - people with powers most others don't have face discrimination, band together and look for a place that will accept them. (That is sadly all I remember about the plot of the manga as I stopped reading it over 15 years ago.)

+Anima also has the misfortune of being the first fandom under Anime/Manga, which is the first actual AO3 category and so more than the average amount of fanart scammers start there. I'm not sure I've ever gotten a fanart scammer on anything except my sole +Anima fic! (edit: I actually have, on a My Time at Sandrock fic, but that's it) Looking at the comments of other +Anima writers shows the same thing - multiple offers for paid art. (One of the most recent as of this writing has a conversation very similar to ones I've had with scammers.)

I've genuinely never had a comment on this particular work that didn't either turn out to be a fanart scammer.

I sincerely don't like disabling comments on fics, because I genuinely enjoy the conversation. Even if it's a fandom that I've long abandoned like +Anima, there's still some joy to be shared with another person about something that you once enjoyed. But I fear I'm going to have to with this one, just because I am so tired of people who hate having an honest living and would rather trick other people out of their hard-earned money.

[estirose]

Various Fantasy Life i things

Yes, I've put in a preorder. On Steam. I use a Steam Deck so I'm less concerned about the kernel-level anti-cheat (that should work on Linux) but it is something to think about for Windows users.

I bought the non-Deluxe version because:

I don't really care for any of the bonuses (the only thing I'd want is Yuelia's costume, and that's not worth paying extra for)

Because of the combo of Windows game running under Steam Proton + Easy Anti-Cheat (the kernel-level anti-cheat I mentioned earlier), I want to see if there are early reports from other Linux/Steam Deck users who bought the extra stuff regarding issues. (I run Linux on my day to day machine so getting it early to try on non-Steam Deck would also run into the same issues.)

Hopefully Level-5 will take notes from their previous cross-platform release and configure the anti-cheat so that it works for us Linux/Steam Deck folk on day 1!

Anyway, Level-5 is of course releasing a lot of video stuff, now in languages besides Japanese! The latest two have been the intro-level quests - woodcutter in English and alchemist in German. Woodcutting seems to work pretty much the same as the original game, the Alchemist crafting (and probably all the crafting stations) minigame uses two of the original controls (the hold button down and the tap rapidly) but substitutes the third control (tap when the circle is in the center) with a actual stirring-type motion. This makes sense on Cook/Alchemist - be interesting to see how it's handled for the other crafting Lives. They're supposed to put out eight videos and there are 14 lives, so who knows?

(An earlier video displayed part of the Artist life, and it looks like a pottery wheel on the left will use the same mechanism. Be interesting to see how they handle Tailor since the 3ds stations were cut/sewing machine/hand-sewing - and two of them used the same tap-when-circle-in-center mechanism.)

[estirose]

Starbrew Cafe

This is a freemium merge game that I've been playing a lot of the last few days.

It has an interesting (though still kind of threadbare) story, game doesn't throw ads (apart from its own items) at you unless you choose to see ads. If your board is getting full, you can sell items.

Thoughts and notes under cut.

Story: You are the new owner of a cafe, taking over for your aunt. Your job is to clean up first the cafe, then surrounding areas (of which there are at least 20). The plot unfolds along the way in little bits and pieces.

Gameplay: The usual merge objects game. You merge objects to serve customers, who require various things. For obvious reasons, the more complex the order is (that is, how many things you have to merge), the more "coins" you get towards advancing the plot.

Premium currency: Gems, though you can also get the standard special offers related to the current challenge.

Friending: This is an unusual game where you're not invited to add all your RL friends; instead, you're assigned a pool of other players that you can 'serve' who give you gifts that can be used towards prizes.

So far I'm in chapter 6 and have unlocked the following:

A coffeemaker. This dispenses either coffee or magical drinks, which have different merge trees.

An oven. This dispenses either bread or cupcakes, which again have different merge trees.

A fridge, which dispenses grocery bags. These bags can be merged to form a shopping cart, which is used for the next device.

A grocery cart, which dispenses egg salad sandwiches. You can only get a limited amount of sandwiches before having to merge items for a new grocery cart.

A cocoa plant, which dispenses cocoa beans. This only dispenses every 15 minutes, but you do not have to spend energy to get cocoa items (though you can watch an ad or spend gems to speed up the plant).

A shovel to make sandcastles. Yes, people do order sandcastles in this game, don't ask me why. I suspect based on some of the surrounding squares that it will eventually dispense a line of seashells/crustaceans.

[estirose]

Love Trap (2024) - Lin Fan screencaps

I promised I'd get these done. I got a bit sidetracked by the news of Lin Fan's friend and bandmate Lu Keran ending her contract with TOV - don't know if she signed on somewhere else or what. That's something for another post.

But here we go with a bunch of Love Trap screencaps of Lin Fan. She had a small but substantial role as the main female character's contact/handler/friend. So of course she had a ton of costumes/undercover roles. She appears off and on, probably a minute or three every 2nd or 3rd episode (most episodes were 12 minutes long including theme and credits - the entire series is a bit under 300 minutes in total). Tried my best to get clear screencaps, but in some cases she just did not freeze frame well. (Also I tried to avoid any spoilery bits, but there might be some minor spoilers.)

(Romance and hawt kissing scenes do little for me but I did like the plot in general, the 2nd male love interest is awesome, and it came to a nice end.)

As of today, episodes 1-5 are free and 6-24 are VIP-locked but not premium VIP locked.

[estirose]

Yu Yuan Ling may air in the near future?

The bad news is that it still doesn't seem to have an English title as of yet, but there are new posters, including Lin Fan's. (She has two, both up on her weibo.)

Nor does it have a solid date, though apparently you can 'reserve' for it on the Chinese version of Tencent. (Apparently I need to acquire a WeTV subscription as well as an IQIYI one, blast it - on the other hand, that means I might be also be able to maybe watch Girls Like Us without ads.)

[estirose]

Marco Lin Fan in "Love Trap" (2024) - at least that's what My Drama List is translating it as, the native title is 情陷. It's on IQIYI China, but hasn't made its way with even AI translation to the non-China site (not surprising, it just premiered). She's playing some kind of spy helping out the main female character. Seems to be some kind of web drama. This seems to be the untitled Chinese Republican-era drama that she alluded to on Weibo back in April of this year, though it's hard to tell.

I have an IQIYI international subscription so if this pops up there I'll be able to screenshot more than the 1st ep. It looks like the usual "first episode free to see if you like" deal.

(She's a special guest star again! Also when dramas need a small role gender-bending character she seems to be the choice. She confused at least one Chinese viewer/commentator.)

I'm still waiting for Yu Yuan Ling to actually show up since it was filmed before this, but it's a historical time-travel drama so that might take more time to fit to censors' expectations.

12/20: Up on IQIYI international, same title, so I'll go watch/add more screenshots after the holiday season. I have the lower IQIYI membership so I can only access up to ep 8; hoping this is just temporary and they'll make the rest available to the lower tier after a while.

12/22: A later episode thumbnail confirms that this is indeed the drama she talked about in April; she's in the same outfit as one of her pictures.

[estirose]

I hold out hope that maybe we'll get the first three Fatal Frame games on modern PC/consoles... Deep Crimson Butterfly if nothing else. In the meantime, here's a screenshot I dug out from my hard drive of Mafuyu on his way to meet his first hostile ghost.

[estirose]

theyseeyourphotos (dot com) is a site that shows the danger of AI being able to see and analyze photos you upload to the cloud (it uses a Google API to do the actual analysis). I tried with several of my photos that Google already had and it was able to locate two of them more or less correctly even without GPS coordinates baked in. Most of them ID'd the cellphone I was taking pictures with and the date and time.

(It is an advertisement for an end-to-end encryption service, but still interesting and rather scary on what AI can do with photos.)

For this one, while some details were a bit off, the AI accurately recognized that the glassware was vintage uranium glass (it's depression glass from the 1930s) and mostly recognized the function of each piece of glass - along with a guess that it was illuminated via black light.

[estirose]

1.4 update for Sandrock. Either they've gotten rid of Pen's little early game "stick these Logan posters everywhere" quest or I short-circuited it by passing by Paradise Lost.

[estirose]

Trivia re marriages in MTaS

Did you know, depending on where you are in the plot and who you marry, you may have a different officiant?

Yep!

So, if you marry before the tail end of act 2, Matilda will be your officiant.

I haven't tested what happens if you try to marry at the tail end of that act, when she's in the clinic and the rest of the Church of the Light is all in shambles, but!

Burgess officiates any weddings in Act 3, with one exception. The exception being that he can't be the officiant at his own wedding, so Dan-bi steps in.

(Yes, I completely forgot to have my Builder change into a wedding dress, but it kinda fits as Burgess is also in his standard Church uniform!)

[estirose]

A bunch of pics of monsters

I was playing My Time at Sandrock and my game glitched in a hilarious way. I could see my Builder, but none of the monsters could - and they wouldn't fight back, either!

So what did I do? I took a bunch of pics with the in-game camera. Some of them are with time stopped (because they constantly move even if they're not attacking) but most are not.

Sticking the whole bunch under "keep reading" because I'm fairly late in game. Some of the monsters are very early-game but some are very much not, and some are in spoilery locations.

[estirose]

A few days ago, I posted a picture of one of the mysterious room entrances in the 2nd Abandoned Ruins (in my case, it was on floor 4, but the room repeats in a later layer) in My Time at Sandrock.

Here's another entrance, in the 4th Abandoned Ruins. Yep, it's literally on the ground under a big layer of dirt. I like to clean out ruins (among other things, it's awesome for the XP you need for later combat missions) but I'm always surprised when I run across these. In the first Abandoned Ruins they were always doors, but for some reason they abandoned that (no pun intended) for the later ruins.

[estirose]

I ran across an opening to a mysterious room by chance in one of the Abandoned Ruins. (It's the black area underneath the stairs in the shot.) I don't know if people bother to dig there unless you like digging out rooms like I do. I'd never run across it before!

[estirose]

Various random pictures taken with the in-game camera during missions.