#3. show that getting to the point of reading and watching things in Chinese CAN be accomplished within 1-2 years

[rigelmejo]

A Study Plan for Chinese to HSK 4, then Chinese Content

A study plan to get you to the point you can do something in Chinese, like read novels or watch shows, in 1-2 years.

For Chinese, it is very possible to study HSK 1-3 in a year, then HSK 4 the next year, and then be reading and watching whatever you want by the end of year 2. This could be achieved with a pace of studying around 1 hour a day. As long as you're willing to look up key unknown words to understand the main idea, when reading and watching whatever you want.

In fact, it's possible to study up to HSK 4 in 8 months, this person did it. If you really wanted to study everything up to HSK 4 in that amount of time.

I studied roughly the amount in HSK 4: I read through 800 hanzi entries from an HSK 1-3 Tuttle book (available in many libraries and elibraries for free, alternatively there's a free app Hanly to learn hanzi with mnemonics), all the grammar points on hskcourse.com, cram studied 2000 common chinese words in Ben Whatley memrise decks (anyone looking to do something similar: I suggest doing the first 2000 sentences in Chinese Spoonfed Anki deck, or finding another 2000 common words collection with audio and hanzi), then read a few Mandarin Companion Graded Readers in Pleco app (where I could click unknown words for a translation and pronunciation). I did all of that in roughly 10 months, at ~2 hours of study a day, so not a huge time commitment.

After I could read around ~1000 hanzi, I could move onto reading manhua, whatever webnovels I wanted in Pleco and Readibu apps (I'd recommend Heavenly Path's Comprehensive Reading Guide for more information on how to start reading, and their general site for recommendations at various reading levels), and any cdramas I wanted (using Google Translate and Pleco to look up any unknown words that seemed important to understanding the main idea of a scene, alternatively there's dual subtitle extensions like LanguageReactor that make looking up words easier).

Why aim for HSK 4? HSK 4 has a lot of overlap with the most common words lists, and includes a lot of basic grammar, so either focusing on learning what's in HSK 4 OR a common word list and basic grammar guide, would get you a baseline of knowledge you can then use to start reading/watching whatever you want (if you look up key unknown words).

HSK 4 will get you around A2/B1 level, upper beginner/lower intermediate, and from there you can start just reading and watching things you want. This is the level you want to reach, to be able to start doing things in the language. Once you can do things in the language, it's easier to stay motivated for years, because you can start DOING your goals, and improving at your goals in the language.

You can either look up key unknown words (which unlocks virtually all stuff made in Chinese), or you can continue with Graded Readers (Mandarin Companion, Rainbow Bridge Readers, Sinolingua, Imagin8 Press, etc.), Comprehensible Input Lessons (Lazy Chinese, Blabla Chinese, Xiaogua, list of more), podcasts for learners (Maomi Chinese, Teatime Chinese, Chinese with Shenglan, Chinese with Da Peng, Dashu Mandarin, Mandarin Corner, etc.), and keep using these materials you find understandable until you feel up to reading/watching novels and shows.

If you want to start speaking, HSK 4/2000 common words will give you a good foundation to start chatting with a tutor (iTalki or wherever you can find one), or start doing language exchanges (like on Hellotalk etc.) where you message people and chat with people. You can look up words you don't know, that others say/message to you, and look up words you want to say to others to prepare to talk to/message them, and get lots of practice interacting with people.

Rambling below:

This was my study plan, and it worked great, I could start reading and watching things I wanted by 6 months and then reading/watching some stuff extensively (not needing word lookups all the time) by around 2 years. I've seen many people on reddit r/ChineseLanguage do the Heavenly Path Comprehensive Reading Guide study plan, and successfully start reading webnovels within 3 months to within 2 years. If you're willing to look up unknown words, the timeline for starting novels and shows can be as short as you feel comfortable. My suggestion above to study to HSK 4/2000 common words is just because that foundation will then make reading/watching things significantly easier to start doing, since you'll have some familiarity with a lot of the most common words you'll run into.

After studying to HSK 4/2000 words, expect the first few months of actually 'using' Chinese to feel rough, mentally draining, and you'll be 'reviewing' all the stuff you learned mostly. Especially if you cram studied - the first few months you encounter all those words and grammar you studied in real novels and shows (or in Graded Reading, Comprehensible Input Lesson type materials) you'll just be learning to recognize/understand those words and grammar quicker. So give yourself some slack, do not expect perfection, it will take a while to align 'what you studied' with 'what you can understand and use quickly.' When I started watching cdramas 6 months into studying, it felt immensely mentally draining and I could only handle 5 minutes at a time, it took a few months for me to feel able to watch a full 40 minute episode, and then another year for it to feel easier (and now that I'm focusing on listening instead of Chinese captions, it's again feeling mentally 'draining' to watch with only the audio to rely on). When I started reading Chinese webnovels, it took 2 hours to get through a 4000 character chapter. Then 1 year in, it took 30-50 minutes. Then 2 years in, it finally took 20 minutes to read 4000 characters.

Just because you studied something (or learned it from extensive listening - Comprehensible Input Lessons, or extensive reading - Graded Readers) does not mean it will be easily quickly understandable immediately when you encounter what you studied in other contexts. So give yourself a lot of hours to adjust. Reading itself is a skill, listening itself is a skill, and you'll need a lot of practice to develop those skills and the stamina to do them for long periods of time.

[adachikiyoshi]

Rating (almost) every Cherry Magic iteration

Manga, Japanese Drama, Chinese Radio Drama, Japanese Drama Movie, Thai Drama, Anime

After rewatching (almost) every iteration of the story multiple times, I've compiled a list of my personal reviews for each adaptation (and the manga) and how much I would recommend them, what they each did well and what they might have lacked.

Manga:

Personal Score: 9.5/10 (only because it's still on going)

Objective Score: 9/10

Skipability: 0, you can't understand the whole story without the manga and also, you're missing out.

If you're reading this post, you probably know the plot of Cherry Magic, so I won't explain much about that. Since this is mostly to rate the adaptations in comparison to the manga, I can only emphasize how important the entirety of the manga is to understand cherry magic. Doesn't matter how many adaptations you've watched, I don't think you can truly consider yourself a fan if you don't engage with the manga. It's the only version where everything has the proper time to be fleshed out, especially in regards to Adachi, Kurosawa and their relationship. Toyota's writing as the story goes on is something to marvel at and unfortunately, the adaptations have yet to reach that far to represent it properly. The art progression is also noticeable and even if the art style puts you off at first you can see and appreciate the improvement.

Japanese Drama (2020):

Personal score: 9.5/10

Objective score: 8.5/10

Skippability: Maybe a 2-3, you can still enjoy the story without it but it's worth seeing how the drama influenced the manga.

Arguably the most popular and most successful iteration of the story, the Japanese drama of Cherry Magic deserves every bit of praise it gets. Before I get into the pros and cons, I need to contextualise the environment the jdrama was created and aired in because recent conversations lack nuance on that aspect. The Cherimaho drama was produced and aired on TvTokyo in 2020 and it was the station's second BL drama, the first being the incredible slice of life gay cooking drama, What Did You Eat Yesterday? So, wanting to replicate the success of that, the creators wanted to focus on the human drama aspect of Cherry Magic without, of course, toning down its LGBT themes. And they did exactly that. And they did that very well. The execution, while not flawless, was incredible start to end. The way they adapted the characters into a more toned down environment felt natural, and not too far off from their original characterisation. It's a visual feast and among all adaptations, it has the best and most memorable soundtrack. The strongest point of this adaptation has to be Kurosawa as well as the way more minor characters were handled and fleshed out. The progression of the relationship feels natural and they managed to adapt the manga's fast pace in a way that doesn't feel rushed on film form.

As for the weak points, it all comes down to the second half of the show, which I feel I need to give context for once again: Cherimaho drama was created when the manga was merely at volume 4 (in events, that's their first date) and Toyota had shared with the writing team her drafts for volume 5. So, after the confession, the drama had to create original plot lines which, while not bad, did feel different from the strong beginning of the show. The most complained about is the rushed handling of Tsuge and Minato's relationship, which was to be expected as they had so little interactions at that point in the manga. And, of courss, the thing the jdrama is notorious for: the lack of a kiss scene. Was it disappointing? Yes. But believe me when I say that it's literally not as a big deal when you watch the entire show. The show does not shy away from its queerness and there is nothing in their actions that could be interpreted as platonic. This poor production choice (which we can assume was implemented by someone else, tvtokyo has also removed straight kisses from adaptations for some reason and also it Was the height of covid) should not sully your experience with the show and in no way does it take away from its queerness. This version also features an asexual character as well as a mini arc for them so it's clear that the writers knew what they were doing and they were doing their best and it's so clearly conveyed in the gentleness of the show. It is also evident in the movie sequel, but more on that on its time to review.

All in all, I would say you need to experience the jdrama as it becomes a set point for the manga; the story shifts in the best way possible and it's all thanks to the jdrama and its unpredictable success.

(Though nothing beats watching it weekly during COVID)

Chinese radio drama (2022):

Personal score: 9/10

Objective score: 9/10

Skippability: Above a 6 since it's not really influential but I am not exaggerating when I say you are missing out maybe the best spin on the story thus far.

Cherry Magic's first and best foreign adaptation to date. First of all, we need to acknowledge how bananas it is for a niche yaoi manga to get a chinese radio drama because of its drama's success. Second of all, it's hilarious and incredibly romantic and the best and most creative take on the story. The localisation made for some interesting changes in the story and when it came to original plot lines, they nailed every single one. It's been a hot minute since I rewatched it but it's such a memorable piece of media. It's extremely underrated considering how accessible it is (thank you naina <3). Audio form foreign media may be hard to get into but the radio drama deserves every second of your time. Literally the only weak point I can mention for this adaptation is that it's not a visual medium and it's hard to get used to at first. But the voice acting, the character writing, the music, the manga and original plots— everything was executed near perfection.

Oh and it's just fucking hilarious. Like, extremely so.

Japanese Drama Sequel Movie (2022):

Personal score: 9/10

Objective score: 8/10

Skippability: 0 if you've watched the jdrama.

Cherimaho the Movie was announced on November 28th 2021 for a, later revealed, April 2022 release. And us international fans were able to watch it on November 8th 2022.... And yes, it was worth it! A manga loyal sequel to the jdrama, which had an original ending, was a bit hard to execute so there are points you have to suspend your belief. But this sequel was a nice last peek into the relationship of jdrama Adachi and Kurosawa and a well done farewell to the jdrama franchise. I was especially moved by the tackling of the reality of a long term gay relationship and the way the characters handled it. The movie is essentially split into two halves and both are crucial for Adachi and Kurosawa's development. If I had to mention a weak point, besides one or two scenes, it would be that I would love for certain events and character actions to be more in line with the manga but I am also aware that those changes were made to fit the characterisation already set by the Japanese Drama. Oh and the no kiss thing is still an issue somehow. But again, the rest of the story being good enough makes up for it. Still questionable production choices.

Thai Drama (2023-2024)

Personal score: 4/10

Objective score: 6/10

Skippability: 10, only recommended out of morbid curiosity.

Harsh score. What did the show get so wrong? I will admit being biased against it at first. Right after the movie had just dropped, a new adaptation is announced and almost immediately steals the spotlight. It doesn't help that it's produced by GMMTV, who, along with japanese channel MBS, I consider the most annoying BL factories (with the rare exceptions) for fans and shows alike. I also wasn't thrilled that the casting was decided on a pre-existing couple rather than which actors would fit each individual character best. But I tried to look forward to it, especially since the cast and crew insisted that this was a manga adaptation rather than a remake and that they would go beyond the plot lines the japanese drama did. I had some gripes with the jdrama in comparison to the manga so that was good to hear. After a while, they dropped a few trailers and I decided that my worries were probably for nothing and that the show seemed interesting and we produced. And it surprisingly was! For a few episodes, at least. The localisation is very well done. Adachi's living situation, his transport to work, the work environment— vastly different from the original setting but successfully adapted to Thai culture. This version is a lot more lighthearted on about everything. At first, this was a fun spin. Focusing on its comedy, since it's a strong point of the earlier story. But, as the show went on, that wasn't necessarily a good thing. The strong point of this adaptation was the first few episodes as well as the production quality. It's visually beautiful as far as settings, Tay and Jan go. The runtime being longer kind of worked in their favor, as each episode would cover more ground (with exception ep1 which managed to adapt like 15 pages into 50 minutes). Another strong point is the handling of Tsuge and Minato—although their age gap wasn't properly conveyed, the chemistry they had, even if they were a bit out of character, was fun enough. Unlike the Jdrama, the writers here had a clearer visiom of what they wanted to do with them (and they also had like 7 more volumes of content).

Unfortunately, this is as far as my praises go. The weakest point of this show is its main character. Adachi, in this show Achi, is the most unlikeable protagonist I've seen in a hot minute—and I was watching Ossans Love while this was airing. Generally, he's not even that bad ; but he's kind of run of the mill stereotypical uke archetype you'd find in those manufactured BLs, pretty opposite of what Adachi is. He goes through no character development as he begins pretty much at where Adachi ends and he's just so uninteresting to follow. The actor didn't do a great job either but to his defense, he wasn't given much to work with. Kurosawa's counterpart, Karan was way better, at least but he can't make up for the protagonist. The completely made up heterosexual ship between Fujisaki and Rokakku (Pai and Rock here) was a pain to watch especially since they tried to keep Pai's independent nature from the Jdrama (where she was canonically aroace) which just made her disinterested in Rock's advances until the very last episode where she's suddenly into him–if i wanted to watch a badly paced heterosexual couple I wouldn't be watching a BL, respectfully. But besides all that, I think this adaptation was a wasted opportunity. It clearly had budget and time. But it relied heavily on the Jdrama instead of the manga and well, that's fine for fans of the drama but promising manga accuracy and delivering an even more sanitised version of the jdrama was just a huge disappointment. Why should I relive the japanese drama? What's YOUR take on the manga?

Also to clarify rumours I've seen spread around, Toyota was not involved in the making. The japanese side that needed to approve the script was not directly reporting to Toyota because another company has the rights to distribute the Cherry Magic IP, she wasn't as involved in negotiations and stuff as people claim she was, especially considering she learned of the show's existence a few days before the general public did. The usage of AI art in the drama's promotion despite Toyota being vocally anti AI was also a point of disconnect that left a bitter taste in my mouth. But also I acknowledge that Cherry Magic Thailand exists mostly for Thai fans, probably in a similar way the 80% of my country's tv shows are remakes and honestly good for them, I'd love to have a CM remake in my culture even if it's not "perfect" and I'm sure parts I personally found confusing as changes make sense in a way I cannot understand, hence why the objective score is pretty higher than my personal score.

Anime (2024)

Personal score: 8.5/10

Objective score: 7.5/10

Skippability: 4, cute and loyal enough so it's worth checking out

The much anticipated Cherry Magic anime was something, alright. I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish but it, unfortunately, has some glaringly big problems when it comes to its animation. For the runtime they were given, they were able to include much more than I thought they would and even if the pace tended to be faster than expected at times it wasn't as much of a problem; I love Cherry Magic a lot and I believe its strongest narratives begin after volume 5 or so and I'm glad we had the chance to see a little of that as well. The voice acting is definitely the greatest thing about this adaptation. In most of CM's adaptations, Kurosawa's actor tends to always stand out more but the anime for me is a bit more balanced; both Kobayashi and Suzuki are extremely talented and passionate in this. Thankfully, the same passion is also transmitted in the english dub, which is so fucking funny. A lot of people were disappointed with the last episode, as they fast forwarded some things for a grand finale but I'm willing to let it slide because at least they are self aware about the impossibility of a second season and chose to show some highlights we might not have gotten otherwise. Plus, they're making up with the movie so, we'll see! Back to the animation though, some episodes were criminal to sit through. It's sad because this treatment is likely because CM is a josei bl manga and animation projects like that tend to get the short end of the stick a Lot. That piano BGM *you know the one* was also frustrating at times. And I wish the colors popped a little more, yknow?

Honorable mention: Audio Drama (2019-)

I can't score it because I listened to it once on a bus ride and I'm not even sure I finished it. I'm sure I'll come back to it.

Happy Cherimaho The Musical to all those who still celebrate <3 And if you made it all the way here, don't forget to check the Cherry Magic Masterdoc <3

[vani-ash]

Hi, I'm new here, I've just discovered Jeff a couple of weeks ago. And now I feel like a teenager again with a celebrity crush 😅

I'm very busy irl and I'm slowly working my way through his acting gigs and music videos. As a Jeff expert, what do you suggest a newbe like me should watch/listen to/read/know? I'm a little confused about all the Jeffs :D

a jeff expert 😭

Hi! Welcome!!! ❤️🥰 I hope you understand by asking this you have given me the opportunity to info dump about this man 😭 I'm sorry in advance but here is a (still very long) basic guide to Jeff Satur :)

Acting

I don't know what you have and haven't watched yet but his main show is KinnPorsche (which you can watch on IQIYI) his character Kim is only a side character though.

There are two series you can watch on youtube

He she It (3 episodes, about 50 minutes all together)

Labeled as a horror but it's not really.

Ingredients the series (21 episodes, each aprox 10-20 minutes)

Cute slice of life series about cooking

He just had a movie come out called The Paradise Of Thorns, it is on Netflix in Thailand (and will probably come to netflix in other country's too eventually) so you either need a VPN or other site to watch it currently

Happy Ending

Jeff is currently in the process of making his own series called Happy Ending.

He has made a pilot for it but it hasn't actually been filmed yet and is scheduled to start filming sometime around the middle of this year, and be out around the end of the year.

Vamp

He is also going to be part of another show called Vamp, Also not filmed yet but scheduled for sometime this year.

Wuju Bakery

This was filmed back in 2023, and was meant to come out the same year and then the date got moved twice, something happened and the company that was making it did some shady things and now its unknown if this will ever actually air, but you can still find bts photos and people often reference this show so I'm going to mention it here.(There is also 40 second trailer)

Call Me By Fire S3

Jeff was also on a Chinese survival show called Call Me By Fire S3 (can be found on youtube, there is english subtitles)

Music Videos/Jeffcest

Jeff has been making music for 10 years, (he used to use the names Jeff the Demo and Jeff Garden if you want to look up any of his earlier songs on youtube)

Due to his whole vibe (and specifically his music video for Ghost, which is actually a two part MV continued in his other song called Yellow Leaf)

People started shipping him with the characters he plays in his music videos. This has been labeled as Jeffcest, and each Jeff is a clone, the clones are each named after their respective song titles unless they already have name, pretty much everything about Jeffcest is fan made.

The most prominent of Jeffcest being a character called Sunshine from the music video Dum Dum. (There are 3 music videos for Dum Dum, Thai, English and an Unchained version)

(Ghost and Lucid are two of the other most used)

Jeff has dressed up as Sunshine during a concert and was also just brought back in Jeff's most recent MV called Ride Or Die. (which only came out 5 days ago)

Sunshine has his whole own lore (not fanmade comes from Jeff) which I wont get into here but if you want me to explain feel free to message me :)

Jeffs most popular song is probably Fade (based on the views, 208 million)

But his other most popular song is probably Why Don't You Stay which is an OST from KinnPorsche. There is a Thai and English version.

All of his MVs have an interesting story line so they're all worth watching at some point.

Some songs Jeff is featured in:

Far - Silvy ft. Jeff

แผลเป็น (scar) - bodyslam ft. Jeff

Steal the Show - Shaun ft. Jeff

จำนน (White Flag) - Nont Tanont ft. Jeff

Other Things

Whenever Jeff preforms, wherever he is, it rains. He got joked to be the son of the rain god due to how often this happened, and for Halloween 2023 he held a contest for people to design him as the Rain God. (Rain God is also often used in Jeffcest)

Acounts

Jeff has his own company/studio called Studio on Saturn

Twitter - Instgram

On the last day of the month this account will post his schedule for the upcoming month letting you know when he has any scheduled events.

This Youtube account often posts fancams of the whole event from most of Jeffs events.

This youtube account posts any Lives Jeff does.

Brands

Space Shuttle No.8

Jeff put out his first album last year and it came with a box set (can no longer be brought but I have photos of the whole thing here :)

Pets

This man has so many cats like 20 something last time i heard him talk about them 😭

(And I don't know where to put this but his fans are called Saturdayss or Sats)

i am so sorry how long this is but I hope this was what you wanted and helped 😭💛💛💛

[bug-shroom]

General Dating HCs; Common Side Effecfs

---------------------------------------------------

🌺Marshall🌺

-oh my God. I feel like Marshall falls way too fast for anyone who is nice to him tbh.

-Trusting. If he's dating you. He *trusts* you completely.

-Definitely gets clingy at times because I feel like he has never actually dated anyone. He also seems to be a loner so most any kind of positive attention is going to make him cling but will listen if asked to calm down.

-he gets better and once the honeymoon phase if over with he's very chill and really just enjoys being in his partners presence.

-parallel play. Please just scroll through your phone, or do your hobby, whatever while Marshall does his own thing: Feeding Socrates, reading, or writing in his journal.

-Type of boyfriend to bring you a cup of tea and kiss you on the head. He's such a sweetheart.

-on that same note. Touch starved. He will melt into hugs. He might even nuzzle into your neck because he hasn't been hugged in a long time.

🦋Frances🦋

-Babygirl.

-I feel like she can get anxious but is still the one to initiate things.

-she asked you on a date first, as well as the first one to hold hands.

-Lives for hand made gifts. Even the small bead lizard key chains make her melt. She would love the thoughtfulness of it.

-She will lowkey brag on you if you've recently gotten a raise, promotion, new hobby, anything.

-she's sweet but I also feel like Frances wouldn't say things or bottle up her emotions for one reason or another.

-She would open up with patience and communication. Patience being key.

-She'd be physically affectionate.

-if you have long hair, she's playing with it<3

-will braid your hair while relaxing with you.

-Gives the vibe she would love to be the little spoon.

🧂Agent Capano🧂

-Just to say, I think with the ex-wife situation going on, Capano would be awkward trying to date again.

-Smooth but in a cute, nervous way.

-he winks as a form of flirting.

-Type of boyfriend to kiss your hand.

-You had a date where you watched old black and white samurai movies. Capano tried to do the stretch and yawn maneuver. He accidentally smacked you in the face.

-Makes a Playlist for you to listen to.

-Would show you animals or insects that remind him of you I feel like.

-Harrington probably tagged along on a date at some point, they're a two for one special.

-Being cool with Harrington while dating him is a green flag for him.

-please he will get into conspiracy theories with you.

-One date was just you two making PowerPoints on conspiracy theories and debating them.

🌶Agent Harrington🌶

-She definitely asked for your number first.

-sends you weird/funny memes or something she thinks you might like.

-She's a little autistic, and she stares a little too long sometimes.

-lots of restaurant style dates bc i headcanon her as a foodie.

-not that physically affectionate but does enjoy quality time.

-Will talk to you about most topics.

-I think she would love nature documentaries and watches them alot.

-Chinese take out and chill?

-Will take you dancing as a date. She will do the dip and kiss because she's that cool.

-Capano also tagged along on a date at some point because again, two for one special. You gotta be chill with her bestie if you're going to date her.

[hiiikiko]

more hikkineet reader x ellie please!! they can geek out abt their fav comics and reader shows off her incredibly large and expensive savage starlight collection

𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖 𝕨. 𝕩 𝕙𝕚𝕜𝕚𝕜𝕠!𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣

tlou m.list

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

ellie williams x hikikomori!reader

[a/n]: i love this pairing sm 😭 anyway, this is reader x ellie moving in together (with them nerdin out ofc) also kinda short bc im saving some ideas for a pt. 3 :3

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

୨୧ the first time ellie came over, she’s in awe of your room.. it’s so, well, uh… pink! but more importantly, you have so many figurines ?? the first thing she does is rush over to your bookshelf and stares in awe at your savage starlight figurine collection

୨୧ she goes on about how rare it is to see a whole set (as if you didn’t already know that, i mean, your bank account can prove that) you just nod and let her go on, she’s pretty cute when she gets all nerdy

୨୧ she then wanders around the rest of your room, pointing out your posters and other collectibles and talks about how cool everything is and how much it all cost you (all social etiquette goes out the window when she sees your limited edition, ultra rare, only 5 ever made, savage starlight in the costume she wore one time in edition #179)

୨୧ she also begs to see the original figurine boxes, which OF COURSE, you kept because who wouldn’t?? she inspects each and everyone, noting all the little details and losing her shit when she opens a savage starlight box and the top reads “endure and survive” “so fuckin cool,” she mutters under her breath while staring at it like she just uncovered the fountain of youth

୨୧ (whenever she gets a new edition of savage starlight at the comic book shop, she saves it for you ♡)

୨୧ besides all the pink and fuzzy stuff, she really likes your room! she spends countless nights there until one day you gather up all the courage you have and ask her to move in, before the words even leave your mouth, she’s hauling in her guitar, duffle, and boxes

୨୧ your poor pink room is now a mixture of pink and black… but they compliment each other so well!

୨୧ when unpacking one particularly carefully packed box, she pulls out her figurines! they’re well kept and oh.. all from horror games! (she puts them next to your cute anime ones, ignoring your pleas for her not to because they don’t match, in her head, jason and your super sonico figure are married)

୨୧ she also puts her pc right next to yours (she even lets you decorate it with bows, lace, figurines, etc)

୨୧ while living with you, she actually gets sleep! which used to be a rare occurrence and maybe it’s because of all the soft stuff in your room, or the soothing smell of your perfume, or maybe it’s knowing that when she wakes up, she’ll be surrounded by you, even if you aren’t there, your room IS you, so in a way, she’s always with you

୨୧ she loves ‘corrupting’ your plushies, laughing at how you swat her hand away when she puts a unlit joint or cigarette to their lips (it’s unlit bc you have BANNED her from getting the scent of the smoke on your limited edition gloomy bear plushies)

୨୧ she still punches your stuffed animals when you leave the room and when you come back, she acts like the mom they never had! fluffing them back up and petting their fur back down

୨୧ she loves watching tv with you because you get that commentary is a must! i mean, how could you not comment on how shane did that to rick?? that was a dick move!

୨୧ after your tv dates, the two of you get takeout from a nearby chinese place and on the walk back you discuss what you just watched, it’s the best part of the date ellie thinks, she loves debating povs with you, throwing theories back and forth, and the little jokes you make

୨୧ you’re her pc screensaver ♡

[saintetheldreda]

okay

this one is for all the ancient myth, folklore, urban myth, cryptid and supernatural people of tumblr

i am trying to start a folklore reading group on discord for 2025 covering all of the above categories

every month we pick a category of folklore to read around. categories can be anything. could centre around culture/period/place (eg ancient chinese myth and legend) or individual text (eg the aeneid, the poetic edda) or specific monster (eg vampires) or specific approach (eg theories of myth and their puprose eg joseph campbell)

anything is fair game from aztec myths to angelology to modern urban myths to aliens and cryptids

wed be a reading group but SUPER low key so it can fit in with everyones lives

like. im not gonna assign the same book to everyone to read by the end of the month

use whatever sources you wish - the internet, your local library, buy the specific book you think looks most useful, read/watch fictionalised retellings you think look fun

we can all use our own sources and most importantly we can recommend the ones we find the most useful to the rest of the group to help each other (or just to gush about it)!! < 3

oh and if youre an artist and you want to make art (drawing the monsters/creatures, writing your own adaptation of the story, write a self-insert where you get to shoot the monsters w/ dean winchester or dana scully or smth, writing mothman x reader fanfiction) youll get so many brownie points and everyone will think youre really cool

point is well all be reading the same broader points. so we can chat about it and discuss interpretations and make memes and show love for your favourites or complain about the dryness of your least favourites and there is so much weirdness to make fun of in myth and folklore

every month we will vote on the next topic (dont worry there will be a channel to argue about why your suggestion is the best haha) and by the end of the year well all know so much weird shit itll be great. dont you want every month of your 2025 to be defined by a weird little folklore era

well its about halfway through january when i post this meaning we'll only have half a month for the first one, no time for a vote either so if you want to hop in and start nerding out immediately january is going to be your

~ ancient japanese myth era ~

well discuss sources in the discord if you dont know where to start

but if you just want to join to wait it out so you can vote on next months subject, youre so welcome to

everyone welcome. contribute as much or as little as you like. friendliness and good vibes only!!

also ill be making a tag, "folklore2025" for people to post stuff related to this reading project thing on their tumblr if they wish

discord link below

[mintyxxie]

I've seen it all - Rating all adaptations of Cherry Magic ✩

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Okay, so I tried to hunt down every adaptation of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years Of Virginity Can Make You A Wizard?! and watched them all.....like the chronically online loser expert I am.

THIS HAS SOME SPOILERS.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Ratings:

[If I missed any adaptation lmk and I'll watch it and rate it!]

So here are my ratings (in the order in which I watched/read them):

Manga (The original source material, 2018) [6/10]

Thai drama (2023-2024) [9/10]

Japanese drama (2020) [8/10]

Anime (2024) [7/10]

Japanese Movie (2022) [note: this was a sequel to the J-drama]

Chinese Radio Drama (2019) [8/10]

Important note: I'm not sure if the radio drama and the drama CD are the same thing, just in case I'm going to separate the two. I couldn't find the OG Japanese drama CD with English subs anywhere so if any one knows where to find it then lmk. Not paying 20 bucks because I am below the poverty level (fully embodying the college student aesthetic <3).

: ̗̀➛ The Manga (2018)

My favorite volume cover <3

→ General thoughts:

This might be a little dumb but honestly, I had no idea that this manga was pretty recent. I thought that this was an older 2000's manga. I only found out when I looked up the production year for this blog post LMFAO.

Building on that, the art style is fairly unique and a breath of fresh air from the typical late 2010s manga art style. It definitely gave me nostalgia—but with less secondhand embarrassment. Also my favorite part is MC's emo bangs...when he's an office worker.

I found it fun how they didn't start off the series by glazing the male lead and his achievements (which was done in almost every other version.). This approach made the male lead a lot more approachable in my opinion and lessened the gap between the two.

The manga at the very start is extremely focused on the two main characters. They don't really introduce or highlight other characters until later on. (most notably Fujisaki and with the exception of MC's bestie). Manga is also pretty fast-paced in comparison to the other adaptations in my opinion. This is mainly because doesn't really spend a lot of time building up tension or introducing the characters. If anything it feels like the mangaka was going through every arc/major character interaction as if they were bullet points. You can also argue that the other adaptations are slow-paced in comparison to the manga, but in this household the majority rules.

Not a lot of focus on visual elements (unless it's to show emotion). The background is pretty basic and kept to a minimum which helps keep the focus on the relationship between MC and ML.

At the very start, the focus is put more on the awkwardness between the two characters. It's really light-hearted and doesn't particularly hold any strong tension or emotion. I like that because technically speaking the two of them are experiencing something new, I'm TIREDDD of seeing a character fall in love for the first time ever yet miraculously be an expert at it. The awkwardness of a first love and the inexperience that comes with it is a breath of fresh air when put into the context of two adults.

One thing that I really liked about the manga (and the series in general) is how the MC talks about the ethics of his mind-reading ability and actually feels guilty about taking advantage of it. I appreciate how he also comes clean to the ML. The ethics of these abilities, especially mind reading, is so interesting to me, especially considering how it's usually glossed over.

Also...I really appreciate how the MC doesn't look like a 16-year-old twink. He looks his age, a rare sight nowadays.

The perspective of the male lead is shown pretty early on. There isn't a lot of build-up for the alternate perspective. It felt pretty underwhelming when the ML revealed why he fell in love with MC. In my opinion, it failed to draw out strong emotion from the reader. The part where the male lead gets borderline sexually harassed at work also fell flat. I read it and thought "ok...well...that just happened" and quickly moved on.

[The flat delivery of the more emotional and "heavier" scenes is a consistent ick of mine. The manga does an amazing job of communicating the awkward and comedic properties of the series but completely fails at drawing out heavier emotions from the reader. This could just be a me thing though. I blame this fact on the lack of proper build-up and transitions. The switch between emotions happens too quickly, and the manga lacks proper transition panels, making character interactions seem inorganic. The series generally capitalizes on the "out of pocket" aspect of the character's thoughts and emotions. Everything is so random and unexpected which is what makes it funny and interesting, this however makes love confessions and more emotional scenes fall flat because, in the context of the series, these scenes are NOT meant to be comedic. Trying to blend serious and funny is generally difficult and something that a lot of mangakas struggle with. ]

Anyway, the ML's perspective is always a treat. Just a poorly built-up one. My man is also a whole green forest, I'm so happy that he didn't end up forcing himself on MC and instead respected his boundaries.

One thing that I noticed while re-reading the manga is how expressive the characters are, especially the male lead (finally out of cold aloof male lead jail). His awkward wink was so adorable tbh, a funny contrast to his extremely horny thoughts.

“But Mimi, isn't this contradictory? you *JUST* said that the manga suffers from sung jinwoo syndrome (A severe lack of emotional build-up which leads to extremely flat emotional scenes)!" Before you crucify me allow me to elaborate....

It’s simple, deeper emotions generally require more build-up, especially emotions (and emotional themes) that deviate from the main genre. Shyness, awkwardness, happiness, etc are all naturally a part of the traditional romcom slice-of-life genre. If the main emotion(s) that the reader gets across is light-hearted then the story naturally builds up to it and is something that the reader expects so they come into it prepared to feel said emotions. If you try to introduce an emotion such as sadness in this context then naturally you would need to properly build it up in order for the reader to properly feel and process it since it isn't expected (Even things done for 'shock' value still need appropriate build-up, it would just be done properly.). The characters here are very expressive in terms of emotions, but character expressiveness doesn't necessarily carry along to the reader.

I also love the side couple. Their mutual love for the cat is the highlight of the entire series tbh. ITS SO CUTE.

Anyway, to save you the pain of me ranting about the side couple ima make it short and sweet (look at how nice I am....I might make a separate post just to have a yap fest about them). The build-up towards their relationship was so well-written (dare I say even more than the main couple?). I'm so happy that they got their own happy ending.

→ Rating ✩✩✩✩✩✩

6/10

Honestly, this rating was a tough one for me to give because on one hand, the manga excelled in many ways and this is the original source material so it felt weird to give it a rating lower than its adaptations. However, I have quite a bit of reasons for my ratings, all of which were mentioned throughout the previous section but I'll summarize.

The manga left a lot to be desired when it tried to communicate deeper feelings, the characters felt awkward and the interactions felt really inorganic and flat during the "emotional" scenes. I don't really think it's an issue with the art style itself but rather an issue with the panel handling and management. There weren't a lot of transitional panels that helped strengthen the main emotional panels. I don't know if that makes sense because I don't really know the proper terminology but I hope that gets my point across. This is honestly a big thing because this is a romance slice-of-life manga where the main appeal and point of it is the emotions and the interactions between the characters. It's a very character-focused genre, and in this case where world-building is near nonexistent all the pressure falls on making sure that the two leads have smooth interactions. Which I feel like it didn't meet.

: ̗̀➛ Thai Drama (2023-2024)

Best Cherry Magic promotional picture in my very humble opinion.

→ General thoughts

This adaptation establishes really quickly the difference between MC's and ML's positions at the company. Not only does it establish this fact pretty early on but it also reinforces it quite a bit.

MC's relationships with those around him are a lot stronger than in any other adaptation. He also seems more well-liked and more socially active in his workplace. The intern is introduced pretty early on which is something that I appreciate. The birthday party was SO CUTE OMG. It was so funny and adorbs to see MC awkwardly giving ML a piece of birthday cake even though they never really interacted much till that point. Also, it helped establish a stronger bond between MC and Fujisaki (since she was a part of this small birthday celebration).

There is also the addition of Mrs. Cupid (I forgot her name so that will be the name that I'll use for her, also I think that this was a cultural addition) was pretty interesting. Her role as a mentor/mother figure to MC helped show that he isn't some reclusive hated loser in his workplace.

There's a LOT of emphasis on the relationships between characters in the workplace, which is a notable change when comparing it to other adaptations. It could be a cultural thing? This is my first Thai drama and delve into Thai media so I could be wrong (please don't beat me up). MC here is way more social. The intern is a lot more relevant here and is the reason why MC had to stay overtime.

The ML here is SO MUCH MORE awkward because the series establishes the difference between their positions pretty early on. It makes the difference between how he acts for the company (super put together and cool) and how he acts in front of MC (eagerly & shyly asking him about getting ice cream after the thank-you dinner) so CUTE. This is also something that differs from other adaptations because in the others they weren't able to choose where to eat.

The personality of Tsuge was so different it gave me whiplash. Like a complete 180. He gives off more playful and childish vibes here, starkly contrasting his quiet and aloof OG persona. He's also a lot more straightforward and bossy LMAO.

This and the rest of the adaptations have an advantage. They can use auditory elements to bring emotion to the scenes which I think is something that helps exaggerate events. For example, when ML was asking MC about the thank-you dinner, MC was listening to his thoughts and was very awkward. The typing heard in the background and the lack of background music help bring the scene to life by 1. making it look even more awkward since both ML and MC stay silent for extended periods of time and 2. Reinforcing the comedic office sitcom feeling (not genre because technically this isn't a sitcom).

There was also this arc of the fake boyfriend trope where MC was egged on to be the fake BF of Fujisaki. Honestly, this adaptation brought more personality and life to Fujisaki as a character and employee. The appearance of her shitty ex was an interesting bonus and helped deepen her character.

Honestly, a lot of scenes here changed, it would take me a lot of time to sit down and break down every scene change individually. I have to say that all the changes changed how the series felt and how the relationship between the characters came across. One thing that I have to mention is that not only have a lot of scenes changed but a lot of things are out of order. I'm not really complaining though because it didn't really stick out to me as nonsensical when watching, it made sense why they made the changes and honestly, I support some of it. I'm mildly upset that the scene where the voucher was expired and this ML had to pay was cut off, but other than that no major complaints.

The misunderstanding also dragged on for a lot longer & the way he dramatically passed out??? hello??? It strays off from the original more and more every episode. It feels like I'm watching a different show.

I'm really happy that they delayed the ML's POV. The build-up here was a lot more intense than the original. I really liked how they portrayed the dismissal of ML's hard work and preferences in favor of his looks, kind of a "stay in your own lane and use your pretty face" thing. The portrayal of the sexual harassment towards ML was also a lot smoother, more emotionally intense, and heavier here, a lot more emotional. These changes made the scene between ML and MC a lot more special in my opinion, and made me feel a lot of sympathy towards the ML. He also actually cried here and the scene was a lot more emotional. This also applies to when ML went into detail on why he fell in love with MC, it was really touching. The problem of the lackluster emotional scenes in the original was fixed here.

The side couple also faced a lot of changes, all of which were welcome in my opinion. The series went into a lot more detail between the two from the start, and the personality of Minato was a lot nicer here too. The side couple felt a lot more dynamic and human.

There were a lot of scenes between Fujisaki and Rokkaku, which was interesting, to say the least. I don't know how I felt about that, it wasn't bad, just weird considering the original.

→ Rating ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

9/10

I think that the experience of watching this is extremely different from reading the original material. If we’re accounting for accuracy, this series would lose a lot of points, however if you're just watching this for fun the experience is extremely enjoyable.

I really like how this version communicates the character dynamic between the male lead and the main character. My only ick is that it made the main character a lot more popular than he originally was, thus making the male lead have a crush on him seem less surprising in a way? Also in a way that took away the funny, "I hate my shitty cooperate job and all my co-workers" feeling.

: ̗̀➛ Japanese Drama & Movie (2024)

Bunching them together because the movie is a sequel to the drama

→ General thoughts

The J-drama shows you more aspects of the MC's life and general personality before he got his power. In a way, it showed how lonely he is (via the fact that only his mom and long-time friend greeted him on his birthday).

The drama introduced a lot of characters at the beginning, and it made MC's friend, Tsuge, extremely relevant early on. This part makes the viewer more invested in the side couple and the side stories involving them a lot sooner.

Honestly, though, my favorite part is the little shop owner. In the other versions the place where he gets his lunch is at a convenience store and the only relevant interaction is when he touches the cashier's hand and she starts tweaking over how gross it is. Seeing the shopkeeper side-eye him for always ordering double mayo was really funny to me, and in a way, it added more personality to the world around him and the interactions that he has outside of the main plot (this is something to note because the J-drama shows a LOT of his time outside of the office, something that stands out when comparing it to other adaptations).

The addition of the asshole co-worker was an interesting addition/change from the original. In the OG, MC was the boss who was being an asshat, which is why he stayed overtime, in the case of the J-drama it was actually his co-worker and it was MC who offered to take over the assignment. This change made MC look like a pushover & it followed regular office comedy plots.

Many micro-interactions were also added, which added more depth to their relationship. My favorite example was how the drama expanded on how the MC was touched by ML giving him the scarf (because during that scene MC heard ML's thoughts about how mistreated MC is and how much he appreciates him :3). I also love how it revealed that ML specifically made a traditional Japanese breakfast because he knew that MC would like it. It showed how much ML really cared about MC and how he kept track of his likes and dislikes even without interacting with him a lot.

I also love how ML defended MC when asshole co-worker berated him for 'being unreliable'. He was so passive-aggressive it was so cool honestly. Also for some reason, Rokkaku was shown to be around ML a lot more often and was shown a lot earlier (though he didn't outwardly have major parts till later). Also here MC was given more overtime work, this time because ML heard about it when MC was first given the task he immediately was able to compile data and help MC from the get-go. I really liked this small change because ML improved MC's work-life quality, which was pretty shit. Also here there was no dinner coupon, instead MC did it of his own free will (went to ML running to ask him to get dinner with him, though he was inspired by his co-worker bringing it up first).

Similar to the Thai drama, their dinner date got interrupted by a company dinner :(. Though they never had a chance to be 1 on 1 here which made me (and the ML) sad.

For some reason here MC never gave Rokkaku medicine? Rather it was Rokkaku who offered to go and get some for MC from the convenience store.

The biggest interactions that changed in my opinion were the interactions between MC and his friend, Tsuge. For example, instead of meeting at Tsuge's house they instead meet at a restaurant. His advice to MC was also different, telling him to ignore ML and that what matters the most is MC's feelings, contrary to the OG where Tsuge suggested that MC take advantage of ML's feelings. I feel like this small change in how Tsuge approached advising MC helped reinforce the idea that MC tends to be a pushover who puts other people's feelings above his own (since he felt the need to specifically tell MC to focus on his own feelings). He was also so iconic for telling MC to not fall in love with someone, instead, MC should just get a cat if he's lonely.

The side couple here was also introduced a lot earlier.

Although small, these additions help add more character depth to the main character which makes the experience more enjoyable IMO.

Just like the other adaptations, a lot of the ending scenes were left out, though in this case, they produced a movie to act as a sequel to the drama for the sake of including the left-out material (ML meeting MC's parents, etc). I feel like because of that the movie is a must if you truly want to get the true feel of the ending. Also, a lot of scenes were skipped or smushed together (kind of a 3-in-1 type thing).

They kept edging us with the kiss scene low-key. I'm not even a big fan of them; I just got annoyed by how I felt like a pig on a stick.

→ Rating ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

8/10

Overall, pretty lovely.

I found it pretty interesting how they added things and expanded on pre-existing scenes while simultaneously skipping over and combining original material. I don't really understand why they picked certain scenes over others, well to a certain degree I kind of do but at the same time, there was tons of original material...why add/expand on things unnecessarily when you already have long and expanded upon scenes.

Rokakku's interactions with MC changed a ton here, which is mildly sad.

I like the added mico interactions outside of MC's workplace.

: ̗̀➛ Anime (2024)

→ General thoughts

Out of every adaptation this stayed the closest to the original material. Honestly writing the analysis for the anime was really hard for me because there really isn't much for me to say. It fixed a big issue that was in the manga, and that is the lack of proper panel transition. The reason why I'm mentioning this point here rather than under any other adaptation is because this stayed the most loyal to the original material.

There really weren't any big changes so there isn't much to comment on. However, I set up a split screen between the anime and manga JUST so I could analyze things piece by piece and this is what I found:

After the conversation with Tsuge, it shows MC's walk home his contemplation about this whole thing, and his reaction to his friend being a virgin too. There are also some micro-interactions between the two (MC & ML) that were added, but nothing too different for me to specifically point out.

The scene with the cake guy was slightly changed here in the anime. The anime added an interaction between MC, Fujisaki, the boss, and other employees who were trying to find out what happened to cause the cake guy to get mad at ML prior to MC officially stepping in, something that didn't really happen in the manga. On that note, there were a lot of added micro-interactions between MC and Fujisaki.

A minor change that could simply be attributed to translation is that in manga MC said that he didn't hate the kiss while in the anime he said that it didn't bother him, just a small detail that made me a little sad TT.

There are some minor setting changes here and there, for example, MC originally gave Rokkaku medicine on the bus because he was car sick, in the anime he gave him medicine during karaoke because he was having stomach problems due to being drunk.

Dare I say that I HATED Rokkaku's voice actor, it's the same sound someone makes when they're nose is stuffy/they're not breathing through their nose. It got on my nerves. On a similar note, I feel like this shows how important voice actors are. I'm used to Rokakku having a younger, playful, and generally softer voice which gave him a carefree "he was the popular easy to get along with guy in high school". In the anime though because of his voice actor, his personality came off as "The really simple-minded comedic relief guy that secretly has lore". So interesting to see how even the smallest changes can completely change the impression of a character!

I kinda wish that the hot springs scene remained intact instead of it getting changed into a sauna because the concept of "Water conducting intense thoughts" is really funny. Though it was changed to steam to better fit the setting, I feel like it was an extremely unnecessary change.

The sexual harassment scene stayed really close to the manga but with greater emotional impact, specifically his facial expressions. Though the background music didn't really match the seriousness of the scene, his facial expressions and the general mood of what he was conveying (Since he was talking about how his character and hard work are reduced to the fact that he is good-looking), it's still a marginal improvement. This made me upset because the anime could've utilized more appropriate background music or just not add it at all. My ick with the background music was quickly resolved with the following scene where MC consoles ML after the whole ordeal. This makes me really happy because it, for the most part, achieved what the manga failed to do. Also, I find it funny here how ML specifically thought that the MC is a pushover because he lacks tact.

Flashback/ML's POV also came later than the Manga, thankfully a running theme between all adaptations. The selfie scene also changed, it was a lot less 'appropriate' here (not in a to the reader way but in a context way) because in the original they took the selfie on a company trip while here they took the picture in a random park.

The side couple comes here a lot later too, I think slightly later than the manga, which is weird but it also makes sense and flowed well here. I don't have much to complain about, I did like their interactions here a lot more though. I should also note that their relationship is slightly faster-paced than other adaptations.

The sound effects and OST were awesome though and really helped reinforce the emotional aspects of scenes. This also helped with the abrupt emotional changes in the scenes.

I do have to say that I had very high hopes for the anime because out of every adaptation, this has the most freedom in terms of properly communicating character dynamics and plot points. It can use a range of effects without looking out of place or weird because this is animated. This did NOT disappoint thankfully.

→ Rating ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

7/10

Oof, this was a hard one to rate, I saved it for last.

I don't know, out of every adaptation this was easily my favorite, but lets be honest...there are quite a bit of issues. I think that the main one is the background music for the sexual harassment scene.

"Mimi, why do you care so much about it?" Well, it's not necessarily because sexual harassment is a serious topic (which it is, but not the main reason why I'm so bothered), rather it's mainly because the male lead was venting about how all of his hard work is dismissed just because "he's pretty". I feel like this was a perfect example that encapsulated his main complaint about his workplace and the main reason why MC's actions really touched him. It's really important to his character so seeing the scene not be portrayed properly really grinds my nerves.

: ̗̀➛ Chinese Radio Drama (2019)

→ General thoughts

THIS WAS SO DIFFERENT. Take a seat because a yap fest is about to take place.

To be honest, this is my first time listening to a Radio Drama (yes a lot of first times here, I'm a sad media virgin, all I do is read shitty manhwa, manhua, manga & fanfiction and read the occasional web novel). I didn't know what to expect since the medium is pretty limited since the plot can only be conveyed through voices. This did not disappoint. The voice actors are super expressive and effectively communicate character emotions.

This starts off strong with an appointment with a psychiatrist. MC really thought he was going insane and honestly? I too would shove myself in a psychiatrist's office the second I started hearing people's thoughts. I loved this approach, super realistic. My usual ick of characters randomly manifesting powers in an otherwise non-fantasy setting is how they immediately accept it and adapt to it.

The first change is how he finds out about his ability, by far this is my favorite (touching a co-worker and hearing her cuss out your fellow employees and boss). We unfortunately didn't escape the ML glazing session (yes I get it he's so alpha in the company,,,,I heard the same sentence 10 times already from 10 different sources my brain is FRIED). GOOD NEWS though because MC also got a mini glazing session...ha you thought...the sec mc touched his boss he got brought back to reality (heard a bunch of insults about how dull he is).

The drama CD really REALLY enforces the fact that MC isn't liked by his fellow coworkers, for some reason everyone and their moms take pleasure in insulting him, which is my biggest fear. Imagine you develop the ability to hear people's thoughts only to find out that half of your workplace hates your guts? I'd immediately cease my oxygen dependence.

Also, we're back with the shitty co-worker. Honestly, it's hard for me to tell what is going on because many names changed which would've been fine if the OG plot was completely preserved except it's not. I don't have visual clues so I'm kinda tweaking.

Anyway, now on to the major plot changes:

Rokkaku is now a poor intern getting pulled into random tasks via MC's co-worker friend. For some reason, most adaptations tend to mess around with Rokkaku's character. Also, the elevator scene slightly changed, instead of MC trying to guess ML's crush he immediately reminded himself that he's experiencing a hallucination (which happens quite frequently throughout the radio drama. I think that I can safely attribute this change to the fact that he went to see a psychiatrist the second he noticed his newfound ability. Generally, it takes MC 10 thousand business days to come to terms with his new ability.

MC here is a lot more of a realist, not that he was particularly lacking in the realism department before. It just seems like a more prominent character trait here.

Here MC stays late because of his co-worker friend (maybe I should change his nickname to asshole #2). Also, MC here takes an obvious role in helping teach and instruct Rokkaku. We also get more character background info on Rokkau which I think is pretty interesting. Rokkaku here is a lot more responsible too. Also here instead of simply helping MC finish his work, ML instead offers to do the whole thing himself.

It takes a while for there to be any mention of his 30th birthday. The reason why MC slept over at ML's place also changed. Also I can't get over the scene where ML admits to the fact that he bought a set of PJs JUST BECAUSE HE THOUGHT THAT MC WOULD LOOK GOOD IN THEM???? No matter how many times I watch it I still find it wild LMFAOOO. Also for some reason ML undresses in from of MC and MC points out ML's muscles which is so different from the OG because originally it was because of the hot springs + MC never loudly commented on ML's physique. MC looked like a pervert LMFAO. Also, ML never mentioned that he worked out/kept up with his body for MC, so it made the scene a lot more awkward IMO. ML's house is also different, in here he has an extra bedroom while in the other adaptations, MC slept in the living room.

It was so adorable when ML came over JUST to cover MC with a quilt. Also, my guy was battling demons trying to stay a green flag.

They expanded a lot more on the BBQ scene, which was so nice! I loved seeing the two of them have a normal conversation for once, both gushing over their favorite manga. I feel like this made their relationship progression a lot smoother because in the other adaptations they never really had the opportunity to actually engage in a long and meaningful conversation. Most of the time conversations are very one-sided and awkward since MC is reading all of ML's thoughts thus decreasing the amount of naturally born conversation between the two. Not only do I like it because of their conversation but also their interaction flowed very naturally. This time ML was the one who held on to the vouchers (mildly similar to the Thai ver), thus when it was time to pay it was more so an act of responsibility rather than altruism. They also added a movie date after the BBQ, except MC dipped and ruined the whole moment.

Just like the Thai drama, it would be easier for me to list all the similarities than differences to the manga. I think that in this case, the many changes are easily justifiable because this format (radio dramas or any audio-only mediums) is really limited. Typically creators can rely on visual clues and/or descriptions to enhance character dynamics and interactions. Thus it's natural for the producers of this drama to drag out character interactions and add some to get the same feelings and character dynamics across. You can argue that audio-dependent mediums have an advantage compared to novels but there isn't a novel for cherry magic. You're adapting an audio-only drama from a written-visual medium, which is pretty different. You can easily translate written words to spoken audio but visual cues are lost to translation.

One problem...the sexual harassment scene here was portrayed very similar to the anime. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The background music wasn't as bad but cmon.....

THIS HAS FIRE OPS AND EDS. I love the songs, honestly just listen to the radio drama for the music.

→ Rating ✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

8/10

I really liked this one, again if we're going for accuracy then this would get a low rating, but we're not yahoo!

I really liked how the characters were portrayed, their relationships, etc. I feel like this version really perfected the characters.

I kinda wished that there was more focus on his life outside of the office and that there was more character background info.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Conclusion:

Honestly, my favorite part of doing this whole thing is seeing how culture impacts stories and adaptations. The two that changed the most details were the Thai and Chinese adaptations so it's pretty neat to see how Japanese cultural details were switched out. I think that the office worker environment and interactions between co-workers and the differences between the Japanese version, Chinese version, and Thai version are the most interesting. (yes repetitive but we're not in English class now are we?)

Every version is different, and I loved comparing and seeing how every medium communicates the story a bit differently. There are benefits and negatives to picking a specific medium, looking at Cherry Magic was an interesting case study (I know that I haven't gone into detail on how the specific medium caused changes and instead just talked about the changes but trust I was thinking about it.). I might do an analysis in the future solely focusing on that, but who knows.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

THANK YOU @mil0nes FOR EDITING MY GOD AWFUL WRITING. Hmu whenever you need a kidney I WILL give you mine (if we're incompatible then I'll sacrifice someone for you babe..Just don't quote me in a court of law xx)

If you read the whole thing then tysm !!

I'll probably make one for Semantic Error soon. ^^

[fablecore]

Your post about fanfiction being a rather largely homogeneous group was so on point. When AO3 surveys or case group articles/studies came out showing that majority of the people in ao3 are White Bisexual Women, I wasn’t really surprised! However, I think you can catch culturally and racially where authors may be from, and I think it’s incredibly apparent in Non-Western works specifically in anime and manga that is often set in Japan. I can’t recall the amount of times I’ve read a fanfic that takes a lot of liberties on how culture and behavior operates in Japan, when trying to fill the holes of whatever mundanity lies between the plot and characterization of the story! I think it’s most egregious in original character or reader stories, where even Japanese-like names they may give their lead doesn’t save them from channeling a very western perspective to the story? A lot of anime characters tend to be quiet eccentric anyway that’s not accurate to reality but I often think the understanding as to why is lost on these writers.

It isn’t to say, that it’s bad to write for these stories! In fact I think it’s more to say that anime isn’t enough to grasp your whole understanding of a country and its customs and to write it as naturally as possible. When I read your stories, I don’t think this is an issue at all! What would be your advice to the proper research people should do in order to capture it? Reading books, surfing sites, watching shows? Or is it more? I’d love to know! Thank you!

be curious! read books by japanese authors, watch jdramas, etc. if you need to do quick research on what life is like from the perspective of [high school student, city yuppie, konbini worker, etc], youtube works fine. try to get small details right, like removing your shoes at the front door and wearing house slippers. you can probably find a reddit post about cultural inaccuracies in stories set in japan.

on the other hand, if you want to write a little more deeply, you should develop a solid worldview with beliefs that you can stand behind. i'll never have the perspective of a japanese person. that's fine. the only thing i can work with is my perspective as a chinese diaspora yank with a worldview shaped by living in the heart of empire. even though i'm writing characters who are very different from me, i can still touch on little kernels of truth because i'm familiar with history, particularly what the west has done to the rest of the world and how it affects them today. for example, much like south korea, japan is an american vassal state. we nuked them, wrote their constitution, and built our own military bases all over their country. putting aside the many valid historical grievances involving japan, american interference to keep itself the dominating superpower on the global stage is the biggest reason why lasting peace isn't yet a reality in east asia. an easy way to make your non-western characters feel real is to just have them make fun of america, a beloved worldwide pasttime 😋 (you could also have them exoticize things like american gas stations or american breakfast cereal, which is funny and true to life)

anyway my point is, research is only a part of it. people don't read stories because they want to read about every cultural custom in agonizingly accurate detail, they're drawn to the story. and story is perspective, ideas, images. if an author can develop a strong worldview (formed by 1. lived experiences/understanding of your own place in the world, 2. research, and 3. private obsessions and interests), that will naturally translate to interesting characters who might not be 100% stereotypically [insert ethnicity here] but are recognizably human and behave in human ways.

[saelterlude]

Curious about the lc musical cast heights? No? Well here's a very questionable ranking of the CXS and LG actor from tol to avereg to shmol.

(I swear it was a joke, but then @sgdlr-asdfghjkl took it seriously, and then I took it even more seriously, and now here we are)

Disclaimer! I have no ill intent in making this ranking, all the actors are great. I was just presented with a challenge I can't deny. Also, once again reiterating that these are very QUESTIONABLE.

Without further ado, Rankings!

Teng Chunpeng

Wang Minhui

Ji Xiaokun

Wang Yifei

Cai Qi

Guo Hongxu

Wu Yihan

Ding Xingchen

Cao Muzhi

Bai Zhuoming

Jing Yanqiao

Shu Rongbo

Du Guangyi

Zhu Hanbin

Read how I determine the ranking under the cut.

Take note that most of these were done before February 16, so it's mostly using information/clips prior to the new year's break.

So the first thing I did was made this bipartite graph to show which actors have been paired with who. (Ignore the color-coding, it was for an abandoned plan. Also, pre 16/02)

Cheng Xiaoshi actors on the left and Lu Guang actors on the right.

One thing you might notice, is that some actors have been paired with more actors than others. Such as SRB who have been paired with 4 LG actors, thus I will use him as my initial point of reference.

(If anyone asks, why not DGY with 5 pairs? That's only 56% of the CXS actors, meanwhile SRB got 80% of the LG actors. Also, I have a lot of easy to access SRB clips.)

Then I carefully overlay multiple screenshots of SRB with LG actors to rank them, adding both a DGY-DXC duo and a ZHB-DXC duo so I can finish ranking the LG actors.

Here's an example, comparison of WMH and DGY referenced to SRB.

Next is probably the most accurate and logical part. You know those old math puzzles where you go: A<B, and B<C, that means A<C? Yeah, I did that but with 14 variables (the actors) and 18 conditional statements (the pairings).

If you want to try it out yourself, here you go. Have fun! (again, pre 16/02)

With these, I can roughly guess most of their ranking. Then I use more overlaying photos on top of another to complete and get the ranking you see up top.

That said, let me highlight some problems I faced.

I tried my best, but keep in mind camera angles, video quality, actors' postures, shoes/sole thickness, fluffy hair. This is why the overlaying method is unreliable and this ranking is questionable.

I considered using the photo wall (the one with the donghua shiguang scene, that separated the back and the front studio set) as a point of reference, but I can't determined how far away each actor stood from it.

So i mostly took reference from the final part of 'Guiding Light' where they stood in a line or when theyre standing on the table (rock paper scissors and that song's ending)

Contrary to what it might seem, I didn't use much effort doing this legit (Could've literally asked any Chinese fan for help finding their height but I didn't). So yeah another reminder. THIS IS QUESTIONABLE AND UNRELIABLE.

That said, WMH is apparently 188cm tall (lol he's so tall and cool, he intimidates me)

CMZ, WYF, and JYQ is a problem because they've only been paired with the shortest LGs and they're all taller than that LG. Without overlaying, literally could be anywhere from rank 11 up. Even then I only have 1 reference point, ZHB.

Thank god for 16/02/2024 (very fun, they mix well) performance between WYF and DGY.

CQ originally have this problem too but he performed with WYH on 17/02/2024 (very good perf, will be on my next list) so that helped a lot.

JXK too have only ever performed with GHX which means when I have to compare him to WMH and TCP, the shortest path is 3/4 long, which makes the overlaying even more unreliable.

So yeah, it was really unreliable compared to me ranking all the LG to SRB, who's shortest path is only 2 (3 for ZHB)

ZHB and DGY is really close in height, I have to compare both of them to both DXC and CMZ to find who's shorter.

DXC and WYH have the same problem too, so I watched a lot of their clips from multiple angles to find who's taller.

I can't believe you argued DXC is shmoler than SRB, even BZM is smoller.

That said; WYH, DXC, BZM, CMZ are all so close in height it could very much be interchangeable.

Same with WMH and JXK.

For the love of god, JYQ is a PROBLEM. There's barely any performances much less clips of him so it's hard to find one that fits my requirements (Which is a shame, I like his voice and he's cute. Thank god he post on weibo often). In the end, I have to eyeball it so feel free to question his ranking even more so than the others.

The top 4 (top 6 even) is really easy though, they really are just that tall and easy to rank.

There's a very clear, undeniable, drop in height between rank 3-5, JXK and GHX, as well as between rank 6-7, CQ and WYH.

I know there's a lot of CXS actors in the bottom half but I think if you average them, LG is still shorter bcs WMH is a frickin outlier and the others are average.

Anyway, that concludes this (I swear, I'm very sane) post.

Mild congratulations to Wu Yihan, Ding Xingchen, Bai Zhuoming, and Cao Muzhi for being the very avereg.

Little congratulations to Zhu Hanbin and Shu Rongbo for being shmol, with special mentions goes to Du Guangyi.

Big congratulations to Wang Minhui and Teng Chunpeng for being tol, with special mentions goes to Ji Xiaokun.

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[yumeka36]

Black Myth Wukong

I finally finished my (mostly) all-bosses playthrough of Black Myth Wukong. Since a lot of my favorite streamers were playing it, and it looked intriguing from the trailer, I wanted to give it a try once I had my fill of the Elden Ring DLC. It took me a month to beat the game (I only had time to play about 2-3 hours a day).

Overall, I enjoyed the game immensely. Give me a game with really cool and creative monster designs, plus pretty, scenic areas to explore, and I'm happy! The combat is really fun too - the mix of spells, melee attacks, transformations, stance styles, etc, gives you such a variety of ways to play. Plus the fact that you can respec anytime removes the pressure of committing to one build. But honestly, I kinda stuck with the same build the whole game, lol. I focused most of my skill points on health, defense, attack, Immobilize, and Pluck of Many, as well as putting all my Mind Cores into the same, plus mana. This got me through basically all of the game with relative ease. Actually, either I got overpowered or the game wasn't that difficult for me, since by mid-chapter 2, almost every boss was a first or second try victory for me. Only exceptions were the Loongs and few chapter finale bosses and secret area bosses who took a few tries more. Then there was Erlang, who took me at least 30+ tries over 3 hours and was one of the hardest bosses I've fought in any game (coming from someone who's fought every boss in Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, and the Dark Souls trilogy). So yeah, don't want to see that guy again anytime soon.

The only time I respeced a bit was to put more points into four banes resistance against Erlang. But I was also dumb and didn't realize there was a Drink to restore Qi, which was what I really needed to get rid of his shields with the fan vessel. But I still died a few times even after figuring this out, so I think he's just a really difficult boss.

While I enjoyed the heck out of the gameplay, unfortunately I couldn't follow the story/lore well at all. Obviously this is because I know close to nothing about Journey to the West or Chinese mythology. So while I understood the basic premise of finding Wukong's relics throughout the land, everything else as far as who the characters were, what their relationship is to Wukong and each other, and why they're doing what they're doing, was totally lost to me. Even after watching a "story explained" video, it's very clear that the game is a true sequel to Journey to the West, and you're guaranteed to be lost about most things if you haven't read the book. But the fact that I still enjoyed the game despite this just shows how fun it is. If I enjoy the gameplay mechanics, not being able to follow the story isn't that big a deal to me. Also, the animated music videos between each chapter were amazing. My favorite is the one for chapter 3, which was so well choreographed but also deliciously horrifying.

Like I do with most games, I wanted to make sure I beat every boss and explored every area the game had to offer. But I also didn't want to follow a walkthrough religiously either (which is something I did in my early days of gaming with the Dark Souls games). Other than look up a boss list and where to find them, I played the game mostly blind until around chapter 4. I was upset when I realized I had missed key things in chapter 3, which was being able to fight the Apramana Bat and Rat Captain bosses, as well as attain the Auspicious Lantern curio from the Lantern Wardens (I did fight a couple of them, but then decided to avoid them once I got yeeted off the cliff, lol). So from that point on I carefully checked IGN's walkthrough as I explored each area. Thankfully those were the only two bosses I missed during the rest of my playthrough. But damn, does this game have so many hidden secrets! I can't imagine anyone finding all the bosses/secret areas without looking it up online.

I guess that's one complaint I have about the game...maybe the secrets are too secret? Like I said, I don't know how a player is expected to figure some of these things out if playing normally. Maybe some more hinting about how to access the secret bosses and areas would have been nice, even if it's just some NPC dialogue or more elaborate item descriptions. I also don't like that they hid an essential thing like armor upgrades behind a questline that's so easily missable. A couple other minor issues I had were forcing cutscenes in the middle of fights and your character being way too prone to stagger with few ways to increase Tenacity, resulting in many wasted mana and focus point attacks (why is Tenacity not part of the skill tree?) But again, these were just minor issues and took little away from my overall enjoyment.

So yeah, I highly recommend Black Myth Wukong if you like fantasy adventure games focused on boss battles and various combat styles.

[fff777]

reaction to chinese practice with the dreamies on dream x dream! i'm excited heh

aw renjun laoshi and chenle laoshi

i guess they're both T as in mbti thinking T?

trying so hard not to laugh

with students jaemsung

chenle giving renjun a challenge already by asking too many questions heh

chenle let out a little squee, so cute hehe

i wonder who did the powerpoint lol

chenle saying things wrong on purpose to incite the crowd

jaemin says chenle's showing his understanding when he purposely gets everything wrong lel. but also i do think 3j in general have a decent level of listening proficiency when it comes to mandarin and they can kind of tell when something sounds right or not.

why does he look like he's preparing to confess to renjun laoshi

no for real why do they look like characters in a romcom drama, mischievous student and studious TA hehe

i feel like jaemin is reciting what he says in concerts

aw renjun astonished by his little bub jisung

i feel like for jaemin, he still speaks mandarin while thinking of korean grammar because he tends to not say the verb after the subject

jaemin catching on that sentence structure in chinese is similar to english which is true.

awww renjun being the kind of teacher who gives his kids stickers

jisung catches on so quick, recognizing renjun's name in hanzi :3

jisung recognizing 色 in 音色 but knowing that it means colour, and jaemin completing the puzzle that the sentence is about his vocal tone

demonstration of the sentence

korean does also have the advantage of some words and phrases sounding similar to chinese

lol they're moving on to the tones next and jaemin deadass was like bro?? shouldn't you have taught this first???? and he's right

and chenle being like nah dude that was just a proficiency test, now the actual lesson starts! lol

having way too much fun with the tones

jaemin pronouncing 久 the way mark pronounces 九 ^^;;

when chenle praises jisung 😏

they're practising their pronunciation by speaking into google translate and seeing if it recognizes the sentence

while reading the tongue twister, renjun messed up a bit and chenle pointed it out but renjun was like 老師是對的 and jisung understood it and renjun is once again shook <3

now time for chenle's class

LMAO JISUNG flirting with the teacher already are we ;) why are both these classes so romcom coded

chenle's teaching slang

getting in trouble uhuhu

he wants to be strict

so 電子榨菜 means watching things while eating

omg now they're going over the lyrics of chenle's new song and he's getting nervous hehehe 你也有今天啦

i didn't know this song was an ost on someday or one day though

renjun: *raises hand* chenle: let the others answer, i know you'll be right renjun: how do you know i'll be right? lol stop playing

whenever chenle calls jisung 'jisungie' 🥰🥰🥰🥰

LMAO chenle had to remind renjun to write his name. i feel like renjun often forgets to write his name on things too.

the guys reluctant to smash the 招財進步 gold piggy bank because it's cute :3

now jaemin and jisung have to speak in mandarin and chenle and renjun will have to guess what they're saying

lol they didn't teach the lv sound so jisung is so ??? at 旅行

jisung started 我們一起 and there was a viral song called learn to meow 學貓叫 that started 我們一起學貓叫 so renjun started to sing it but only renjun and chenle got it for obvious reasons lol

jaemin reading can the english way ^^;;

it does really feel like jaemin has been working on english and is reading the pinyin the english way

jisung getting a hug for being good at mandarin <3

LOL the notebooks are blank!! i thought they were workbooks

jisung keeps calling chenle 大哥

this was cuuute :3 low key wonder if it's because of sm's new push into the chinese market again lol. i did always know that dream was decently good at chinese :P

[stoopid-turtle]

made-up thoughts about dd's gender presentation

Okay, the gender post! Honestly, dd's gender presentation is something I think about a lot (ok, I just think about everything dd-related a lot), so here's a post about it. A couple disclaimers on the way down though.

Gender is weird

Um, so gender is complicated and deep. I'm not gonna delve into that too much. Just know I'm not saying much about dd's gender identity, because that's too speculative for me and I don't tend to analyze how people might feel their gender inside.

So this is all about gender expression or performance. The way he presents himself to the world. This includes stuff like clothing, ways of talking, makeup, mannerisms, etc. Anything we can see when we watch him.

For those more into the advanced gender convo, yes yes, gender is a social construct and there's nothing inherent about, say, a tuxedo that makes it a "man's" outfit. Fully onboard with that. But for simplicity's sake, let's shortcut to acting as if we buy into how society genders random stuff so as to recognize that a tux is "male-coded" by just about every society in the present day. Everybody swims in these waters, and they perform their gender with the understanding of how their society assigns these arbitrary gender assignments, so let's just deal with that for this convo. /obligatory gender theorist disclaimer

East vs West

I'm in the US, and I fully recognize that there are different norms for gender in Eastern cultures. A lot of the things that read as "feminine" to Western eyes is more neutral in the East, such as long hair or makeup. (I've read a fantastic tumblr post that went into this in-depth but, alas, I can't find it now. You will notice throughout this post that I am extraordinarily bad at refinding things)

On top of that, idols, in specific, often have quite feminine stylings to Western standards. In the East, the vibe I get is that idols are seen as more androgynous (though still threatening to some forms of masculinity).

I can only speak from my own very westernized perspective, so take it with as much salt as you want. I reserve the right to change my mind about everything later, anyway.

Basically, I have 3 main points here, starting with:

1. DD's early styling was more femme than he would ordinarily gravitate to

There's a moment I think about a lot. This one, specifically, set a month and a half after UNIQ's debut. The band is on a Chinese talk show and the host enthuses about them.

(also, baby DD rapping Love the Way You Lie is just....well, it's a thing that happened) (some US context: Love The Way You Lie was an Issue Song pointedly about domestic violence with Rihanna - an artist who had been a victim of a highly publicized dv assault - as the chorus singer and Eminem - a rapper with a history of misogynist lyrics (with a song about murdering his ex-gf) - doing the rap. It had a weirdly sexy music video with that lotr guy and was also a thing that happened)

DD is 17 years old here--a baby--and he's, frankly, adorable. He notes that he's been training for 4 years (I'm so curious about what idol training looks like, tbh), which wows the host.

But the part that I think about a lot is when the host expounds at length about how beautiful and like a girl dd is. DD has a girl's hairstyle (i've had that exact hairstyle at multiple points in my life), and the host says at various points that he's "more beautiful than girls", that girls will envy him, that he is very very pretty, that if she were a man, she would fall in love with him. The basic upshot here is that much is made of his feminine looks, and I get the vibe that his styling is more femme than typical, even for an idol.

At the same time, I think about this moment of dd in a dance competition in 2011, before his debut. DD's main passion has always been dancing, and he went into hiphop dancing, as shown here. He also attempted breakdancing while younger, though an early injury apparently kept him from going that route (I swear I've heard this somewhere, but can't find where. Link me if you know).

DD was interested in the more macho-types of street dances. Hiphop isn't as dominated by men as breaking is, but it's still has more of a masculine culture than jazz or, you know, waacking.

I think a lot about a kid who wanted to spend his life dancing, who went through idol training to debut as the femme maknae of a group. It was a weird fit for him, and I think his movement away from that initial look reflects that.

At the same time, I want to go back to something I find significant about his talk show appearance.

When asked who is most popular among girls, everybody (dd included) points to dd. (A bandmate also jokes that dd is most popular among men). A 17-year-old kid who just debuted a little over a month ago with a femme style is already getting fawned over by fans and older female hosts. However weird it could be, it's gotta be a huge ego-boost at a formative time to get the positive feedback to that look.

I think (and putting on my speculation hat here) that this is important for dd's performance of gender as he gets older.

Which brings me to the next main point:

2. DD enjoyed his more feminine idol look bc he knew it made him attractive

I suspect dd came to some acceptance of the more femme styling (once he moved away from the white peony look) primarily because it got him so much fawning.

I imagine idol training goes into how to create a public persona for oneself, especially given how much idols are supposed to reveal of themselves. Letting fans feel that they're getting an intimate look at the real person, while still maintaining the privacy of their actual personal life, is a skill, and I expect it's second-nature to dd at this point given how long he's been in the industry.

This isn't to say that dd's fake or that the dd we see publicly isn't "really" him. But it is a carefully presented version of him that intentionally keeps his private life private.

There's really 2 periods where we probably see the most authentic, unfiltered dd: the early UNIQ days, when he was still getting the hang of the ent industry (though that's complicated in that he was also young and under pressure to perform a certain way and had not developed the skills/experience/cache to set limits, hence him doing a lot more cutesy stuff that he refuses to do as he gets older); and the bts footage for CQL, as he did not expect those to be so widely seen. Even the unscripted stuff like DDU and SDC allows for some intentional presentation of himself in a way the more candid bts moments did not.

That's a bit of a digression, actually, but it's important because I think this public persona, especially the idol persona, is more femme than dd would normally style himself (as in, how he would style himself if he weren't an entertainer). The result of this is that we see some contexts, such as the CQL fanmeetings where dd wears women's outfits, where that idol style is intentionally deployed. Part of the point of fanmeetings is fanservice, and dd's feminine presentation, linked as it is to his idol image, is wholly about pleasing the fans.

There's reason to believe that dd was never too much into those stylings because he intrinsically enjoyed them. He's said multiple times in interviews that he prefers going without makeup. This isn't too telling because, hey, makeup can be uncomfortable to wear. Especially stage makeup.

But there's an interesting compilation of interview clips where dd reveals his complete lack of even any interest in makeup, referring curious interviewers to talk to his makeup artist and explicitly associating makeup with women (I have looked everywhere for this. I swear I saw this compilation on YouTube but now I can't find it. This is unfortunate bc this particular video really made me think about dd's gender presentation). And of course, his attempt to do someone else's makeup was...adorable. This is not a guy who wears makeup for the joy of it. He wears it because it's part of his job.

This isn't to say that dd looks down on it. Not at all. We only have to look at his defensiveness of the idol look to gg during the bts to see this. I don't think he's at all bothered by makeup. He just accepts it as part of his career.

(I have a completely made-up story in my head about how gg's preference for no-makeup dd was a major romantic thing bc it's gg liking the real dd, not the idol persona that everybody else fawns over. And how, once dd realized that gg was paying him a compliment, it gave him big feels. This story is definitely not real)

This all is gonna lead me to my last main point:

3. DD's probably okay taking on a more masculine style now bc it fits more how he would naturally dress himself

Like millions of other people, I really dig the idol look. When I was doing my initial dive into turtledom and read about some of the Chinese censorship of idols in recent years, I was initially put out because...idol!dd!

(Ok, as a queer person, I also have big solidarity feels and stuff, but that's a whole digression)

But then I began obsessively watching browsing dd stuff on YouTube and I came around to thinking that while I love and miss idol!dd, I don't know that dd is too shook up over it.

In my view, dd sees that type of styling as a role to put on for certain performances. Now that it's out of style, so to say, he switches to something else. It goes along with some other career transitions he's making, such as focusing more on film. I think this may just let him go with a more "natural" styling (basically, how he would style himself if he weren't a celebrity).

(I do think he likes dyeing his hair fashion colors, but that's not necessarily gendered. He's had plenty of dyed hair looks that are still masc)

When I think of things like that...well, I still personally miss idol!dd because that look really works for me. But I'm not bothered on his behalf because I don't know that he feels particularly constrained by the idol crackdown (at least with regards to no longer being able to present with an idol style; there are other aspects of the politics that may feel constraining, but that's a whole other digression). If anything, it provides a good reason for him to move away from idol-dom in his career (which he'd have to do at some point as he ages).

To wrap this up, I've felt horrendously guilty that the first photo on this tumblr wasn't even of dd or gg, so i'm gonna end this with a photo of idol!dd. I'm not gonna say it's my favorite look, because it's just cruel to make me pick a single favorite. But this is one I think is pretty.

[catch-me-hello]

Debut’s Plan – Episode 6:  New Characters Emerge

It’s a good thing I don’t work in K-pop.  My picks rarely make it into the final group.  My favorites on this show aren’t doing well.  A survival show run by me would have to be called Debut Duds, and the band name would be No Future.  I’d probably have to fit an ampersand in there somewhere, but you get the point.

So with that cheerful intro, welcome to Episode Six!  Our trainees will be doing Plan 4 today, which will be Expression.  We’re going to see a lot of acting in this episode.  Let’s do this.

We start with our trainees gathering at the main dome, where they find a classroom setup. 

Our Starnouncer appears on the dome to greet them.  It welcomes back Park Seong Hyeon, who missed Plans 2 and 3 due to illness.  He’s recovered and says he is determined to be in the Top 7 this time.

Our trainees learn that Plan 4 is about Expression, and they are now in acting school.  One of my picks, Park Won Bin, is actually an art major in college who studies acting, so he’s got an advantage.  He’s not the only one.  Baek Jun Hyuk was a child actor.  And an incredibly adorable one at that.

Our acting teacher for today is popular Korean actor Eum Moon Seok.  Right away, I’m enjoying this class.  Our teacher makes the point that K-pop idols are at a disadvantage, having to express emotion in a 3-minute song that K-drama actors have several onscreen hours to express.  Plus, actors don’t also have to concentrate on singing and dancing.

Our trainees watch clips from famous Korean movies and K-dramas.  These are the clips they will be performing.  I’m fascinated with Eum Moon Seok’s teaching techniques.  He shows them how to unleash the full power of their voices, find the context of each scene, and get into the characters’ heads.  I would pay to take acting classes from this guy.

The trainees start performing their scenes.  Jang Yong Hoon, Wu Hao, and Lee Woo Ju give impressive monologues.  I may not understand the language or know the original scenes, but I can feel the emotion through the computer screen.

They also do a great improvisation exercise when a prop phone doesn’t ring when it’s supposed to, so our trainees have to keep their monologue going until it finally rings.  As there survival shows for aspiring K-drama actors?  I’d love to watch one of those.

I’d be fine with the class going on for the rest of the episode, but Eum Moon Seok has a gift for the trainees before he leaves.  It’s a script for a K-drama written for this show.  It’s called Imperfect Game.  The trainees are going to audition for the roles and film it.

The synopsis is this: 

Once aiming to win the national high school baseball tournament, the Woojoo High Baseball Team dreamed of winning the Phoenix Flag.  But after a scandal scattered its members, the team is on the brink of disbanding.  A new transfer student appears, hoping to restore the glory of Woojoo High, and begins gathering the team members again.  What will be the fate of the Woojoo High Baseball Team?

If this show came up on my Netflix suggestion list, I would totally watch it.

Seven of the 21 trainees will be cast in lead roles.  The others will be supporting role characters and extras.  The trainees will have five days to rehearse for the lead role auditions.  This will be especially hard for the Japanese and Chinese members, who will have to read, memorize, and deliver lines in Korean. 

Let’s pause for a quick tangent.  Park Won Bin is wearing an eye patch in this episode. 

I’ve seen trainees wearing eye patches in almost all of these survival shows, and I thought it must be a popular fashion statement in Korea, because not all of them could be getting that many eye injuries.  But then I did some checking.  Yes, sometimes it is a fashion statement.  But most of the time, they really are getting eye infections.  Idols wear makeup and colored contacts so often, their eyes are prone to irritation and infections.  Idols may also wear eye patches when recovering from double eyelid surgery.  Ah, the perils of staying beautiful.

Back to our show.  The scene that everyone wants to do is one with a fight scene in it, and the trainees doing that one really seem to enjoy rehearsals.  A lot of aggression is being worked out here.  I hope no one gets hurt.  Park Jun Hwan, the trainee who originally wanted to be a baseball player, is really connecting with his character.  The whole rehearsal process is mesmerizing to watch. 

Meanwhile, the foreign trainees struggle to read their lines.  We get a great moment when 14 year-old Lee Woo Ju has to explain the Korean word for “agony” to his Japanese scene partner Haru.  He says, “Imagine you got eliminated from this show.”  That’s all he needs to say.  Haru immediately gets it.  Lee Woo Ju turns out to be a great acting coach for both his non-Korean scene partners and should probably try that as a career if K-pop doesn’t work out for him.

During rehearsal week, the Starnouncer calls them back to the main dome.  Another acting coach is coming in to help.  He strolls in, casually dressed in sandals and shorts, which throws everyone off a bit.  This is acting coach Kim Si Hoon.

The only person I can find online with that name is a Korean baseball player with the NC Dinos, so I don’t think this Mr. Kim is a celebrity, other than being on this show.  Still, he has an impressive resume.  He has a Master’s in Acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.  And this man is not fooling around.  “You need to think of yourselves as actors, and I will treat you like actors,” he tells our trainees.  “Not being good at acting isn’t the issue.  But doing it half-heartedly is a problem.”  The trainees all stand up a bit straighter and look more alert.

Our trainees are told to remove their socks and go barefoot.  I really hope that floor has been scrubbed.  We already have one trainee with an eye infection.

The trainees walk around barefoot and are told to pay attention to their feelings.  “What are you feeling?” Kim Si Hoon demands in a booming voice.  “My feet hurt,” mutters Lee Woo Ju. 

This acting coach is like a drill instructor, clapping a specific number of times for each instruction.  He has them do exercises like pairing up, standing close together, and not breaking eye contact for several minutes.  As an introvert, this looks like total hell to me.  But then something very interesting happens.  After having them stare into each other’s eyes, Kim Si Hoon claps three times and tells them to start saying their lines.  When they do, they are fully immersed in their characters in a way they weren’t before.  They’ve been transformed.

They go on to do exercises in movement, voice work, and imagination, and I am really enjoying this.  I’m getting acting classes from experts for just the cost of my Viki subscription.

Before we know it, D-Day is here.  It’s Audition Day for the lead roles in Imperfect Game.  Our board members and judges gather to watch them through a video feed.  The choreographers are not with them this time.  Instead, Kim Si Hoon is joining them.

One by one, the teams take the stage and perform their scenes.  First up is the fight scene, which takes place in a classroom.

I am so caught up in these performances and don’t want to pause to take notes.  The trainees are immersed in their characters, and I’m immersed in the performances.

I am curious about one thing.  This classroom scene begins with a student walking in to see another student asleep at his desk.  The light is shining on the sleeping student’s face, so the first student sits in front of him and uses his hand to block the light.  This is a scene I remember vividly from TAN’s “Walking on the Moon” video.  Taehoon is the student asleep at his desk, and Jooan walks in, sees the light on his face, and closes the curtains to block the light.

When I first saw the TAN video, I just thought this was just a romantic scene.  But now I’m wondering if it’s based on a famous scene in a Korean movie or K-drama.  This scene, used in this music video and again on this survival show, is way too specific to just be a coincidence.  If any of my readers know, please speak up in the comments.  If it is a trope, I’d love to see the original source.

Next up is another confrontation/argument scene, where we learn that one of the baseball players had suffered an injury that may be related to the scandal that pulled the team apart.

Jang Yong Hoon’s performance brings me to tears.  He has trouble with expression when he sings, but as an actor, he shines.  Same with Seok June, who gives a powerful, believable performance.

I’ve been waiting anxiously for Hanu’s turn.  He’s been working so hard with the Korean language and trying to sound like a native Korean speaker while at the same time giving the scene the emotion it demands. 

He’s amazing.  The coaches love it.  They ask him to do it again in his native language, and it’s fascinating to see how he physically relaxes into the role when he’s more comfortable with the language.  When he’s done, one of the coaches asks, “Should we change the script to Japanese?”  Something tells me Haru just won a lead role.

Fellow Japanese trainee Kaira is up next, and he faces the same challenges.  He’s always shown great expression in his performances, so I’m really looking forward to this.

It’s a small part, but the coaches say he speaks like a native Korean.  He overcomes the language barrier to impress the coaches with just a few lines.

Park Won Bin has the hindrance of the eye patch, but he shows so much passion in his monologue.  The coaches can’t take their eyes off him.

Now we come crashing down with a very uncomfortable sequence of events, which we get in a flashback.  Trainee Kim Min Jae has a real struggle with Plan 4.  He’s just not good at acting, and since he’s a perfectionist, he wants to give up since he can’t do it perfectly.   Remember when we first met our acting coach Kim Si Hoon, and he said, “Not being good at acting isn’t the issue.  But doing it half-heartedly is a problem”?  Well, Kim Min Jae’s rehearsal in front of the class is worse than half-hearted.  He’s barely trying.  And Kim Si Hoon is NOT happy about it.

In front of the entire class, the teacher makes Kim Min Jae bend over, stick his tongue out, and say his lines loudly enough for everyone to hear.  I’m dying a million deaths for him.

As horrifying as this is to watch, it does seem to work.  When Kim Min Jae stands back up, he looks completely broken, but he’s able to say the lines with expression.

Then he breaks down in tears in front of everyone.  For several agonizing minutes, everyone just watches him sob.  This is so hard to watch.  Finally, everyone gets up to hug him, and I think we’re supposed to see this as a healing and heartwarming ending.  I’m emotionally exhausted at this point.  This has been an intense episode.

The flashback ends, and we see him do his final audition on D-Day.  He looks drained  The coaches applaud his effort but say he was too low-energy.  All I can think is, leave him alone.  Lord knows how many hours he’s going to spend in therapy because of this.

The auditions are over.  Now the board and the coaches need to assign the Top 7 roles so we can film this thing and see who makes up our new Top 7.  They are:

Park Won Bin, Chu Yoo Chan, Jang Yong Hoon

Baek Jun Hyuk, Haru

(A special note about Haru:  He did so well that his character, who is supposed to be from America, is changed to Japanese instead.  The coaches loved his performance that much.)

And finally,

Jang Jyu Hyun and Seok June

We end with some clips from the resulting K-drama.  The clips are not translated, so I don’t know what’s going on.  But thankfully, Park Won Bin’s eye seems to have healed.

We get a reminder to vote for our two favorite NewKids (I really don’t like that name) at newkids.co.kr.  Can we write in a vote to change the name?  Starship, you came up with badass group names like Monsta X and Cravity, and now you show up limping to the party with the name NewKids?  I can come up with better names using the online K-pop Group Name Generator.  Even The Eye Patch Crew would be a better name.

Whatever.  I need sleep.  From the previews, it looks like next week, we’re going on a road trip.  See you then!

Road Trippers.  Even THAT would be a better name than NewKids.  Geez.

[glitterdustcyclops]

saw @swirlingflight do this and thought it's been far too long since i talked incessantly about myself so why not!! (lmao)

Favourite colour: always mint green but right now especially that perfect shade of baja blast blue, which is the color of summer to me

Last song: The Worst Pies in London from the 2023 sweeney todd revival because it's like the only thing i want to listen to right now

Currently reading: literally just finished the re-release of For Real, which i think might be in the running for my fav alexis hall book? it's definitely tied between that and the arden st. ives series. i love the way it kind of plays with and interrogates the Tropes of bdsm erotica/our assumptions about Power and how that plays into dom/sub relationships. and like, they do a kink scene involving a lemon meringue pie and an anal hook, what's not to love.

Currently watching: a mix of dropout shows obvs but also this chinese drama my mom's been watching called the double, it's on netflix now with english subs so i gotta catch up to her so we can watch it together.

basically, our main character is set up by the evil daughter of the emperor to get caught in bed with another man, and so naturally her husband buries her alive, a totally proportionate response. she wakes up and crawls out of her grave & is rescued by a rich daughter of another government official who has been exiled to a convent as punishment for a crime against her step mother she didn't commit, together they hatch a Scheme to get revenge on their respective evil bitches

i'm only 3 eps in but it's compelling

Currently craving: gosh idk...oh wait. my mom said tomorrow we're going to get our weekly boba now that a kung fu tea opened down the street from my house, so i guess i'll go with that

Coffee or tea: tea. always tea forever. like i think on a good day i drink more tea than i do water at this point.

Tagging: as always, anyone what wants to, consider yourself tagged! and tag me so i can see your answers because i'm nosy~

[kiatheinsomniac]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇-𝐔𝐏!*˚ .♡⋆ˊˎ -

𓆩♡𓆪 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄!

❝For Valentine's match ups <3 (Hi! I think one can not fully appreciate all your works. I find myself returning to them from time to time and I still keep enjoying them. Hope you never run out of inspiration.) So, let's do this: appearance: 175 cm / 75 kg, egg shaped face, deep brown hair reaching to the shoulders, light brown (grey-brown)eyes, pale skin with cheeks being rosy most of the time. A little chubby along sides. gender: female age: 27 sexuality: demi-sexual, bi, leaning more, but not only towards males personality traits: kind, empathetic, observant, creative, playful, sometimes a bit nosy without meaning to, touch-starved, a bit of a overthinker, tidy hobbies: reading, writing, singing (though mostly alone), dancing (again, mostly alone and just my own way), listening to music, walks in any weather, drawing, roleplaying games, mushroom foraging, cooking, learning new recipes likes: sunrises, sunsets, thunderstorms, chinese cuisine, making my own mandalas, foxes, crows and ravens, mythology, fairytales, spring, snowy winter, silence, sounds of nature, movie soundtracks dislikes: noise, arrogant people, bullies, hyppocrites, drunkards, muddy-grey rainy winter, temperatures above 27°C, mosquitos, fandoms: Tolkien, Kamisama kiss❞ anon

ੈ♡˳ 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐄!

♡ he might not show it initially but Tomoe is really drawn to your kind and empathetic nature. He's much more jaded and so you bring to light a worldview that he's almost long forgotten.

♡ he's fond of your interests in cooking, immersing yourself in nature and learning of mythology. He won't explicitly tell you but he's very fond of watching all your reactions to things he tells you of the world he's apart of and some of the things he's seen.

♡ you appear to be more of an introvert and he's fond of that as he doesn't want a partner who's going to drag him away from the shrine and his duties there too often.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐀 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄?

♡ he might be reluctant to leave the shrine most of the time but he knows that a change of scene can be important and exciting and so he reserves a private booth in a chinese restaurant (one of those with the sliding doors so your meal feels more private than the typical open setting of a restaurant).

♡ he chose this particular restaurant as he did a little research around the area and found that this particular place serves both the most authentic and best tasting food. He orders an array of small dishes to make sure you get to try everything you want. He might act annoyed if you want some of his food too but he'll really happily share.

♡ after eating so much, he's sure you just want a relaxing evening and so you stargaze together back at the shrine, wrapped up in coats and blankets to keep you warm as he points out stars in the sky to you and can't help but think about how much more beautiful they look when reflecting in your eyes

𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: thank you so much for the compliments! I'm so happy you enjoy my works so much <3

missed the match-up event? try ships instead! ☾ ⋆ ﾟlike my work? why not: ∘ buy me a coffee? ∘ comms. ∘ taglist ∘ follow/reblog