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An amnesiac detective in Wuxialand attempts to find out what happened at a devastating battle eight years ago; he woke up on the battlefield with no memory of the events, and has been trying to find closure ever since. Along the way, he solves a series of murder mysteries, meets and befriends a diverse cast of characters, and falls in love with a beautiful ex-assassin.



This series is basically a series of locked-room murder mysteries, linked together by the overarching plot of the main character’s search for his past. There are a number of interesting characters, but they take a very long time to develop – almost the entire series in some cases. The same is true of the plot, which only really gets going in the last ep. This is when many characters (including the lead!) become truly interesting for the first time, various relationships come alive, and riveting plot potential for an entire series materializes… with absolutely no time left to do anything with any of this.



The last ep showed me a drama that I might have *loved* to see. This series could have been that drama, if they’d condensed the first 23 eps down to maybe 8, then had now-ep 24, and then gone on to use the remaining 15 eps to narrate what happens after – with an actually fascinating plot, as well as characters and relationships that have acquired depth, interest and potential.

The drama features two noteworthy organizations that I’d like to mention briefly. ( Mild general spoilers under the cut!  )

Would I recommend it?

Maybe? I do love the roving historians, and the ineptitude of the Ten Killing Gates is good for a laugh. There are some nice bits and characters, and the last ep is lovely. But overall, I have to say that to me, the entire drama seems like a prologue.

Where can you find it?

Ancient Detective is available for download here (hardsubbed).

Have you watched this drama? Do you think it sounds interesting? Would you like to be a roving historian? Let me know! :-)

I wrote a thing!

Title: Dangerous Knowledge
Author: Sylvia / rheasilvia
Relationships: Sui Zhou/Tang Fan/Wang Zhi, Sui Zhou/Wang Zhi, Tang Fan/Wang Zhi, Sui Zhou/Tang Fan
Rating: Mature
Length: 3,931 words
Story Notes: Betaed by solo. Thank you again!

Summary: He will never forgive Wang Zhi for being careless enough to get himself killed like this: by a band of common thugs, barefoot and with his hair undone, in Sui Zhou's house, in front of Sui Zhou.

But then the thug manhandling Wang Zhi laughs, pulling him up short in the middle of the courtyard. He even shakes him a little. "Look what I found in Baihu Sui's bedroom. It's a boy!"

Sui Zhou acquires dangerous knowledge involving the Commander of the Western Depot, Tang Fan breaks new ground for romance novelists, and Wang Zhi is full of surprises.

Guardian has really spoiled me! I find that I am now unreasonably irritated when shows don't give me the intense emotional connection(s) that I want to see... or only in tiny little doses.

Or when they don't give the right characters enough love. 

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. Do better, show. Be like Guardian.

Hmmph. ;-)

Via naye and solo: A lovely new meme!

List six ships using only emojis, and see if people can guess them. I had a lot of fun with this, and since two of my chosen ships are pretty obscure, I thought I'd include an additional one so there's a proper chance of getting six right. :-)



Come play! :-)

Guys. This is my new favorite thing. A love song to man’s best friend: toilet paper.



( It’s in German, so I’ve translated some of my favorite parts under the cut. Enjoy! )

I’ve uploaded a higher-quality version of this song here, in case any of you want to hoard it. ;-)

So I was talking about The Untamed with galaxysoup and, you guys, I've found the perfect group noun for Lans!

A regulation of Lans. :-)


ETA:

A few more clans have acquired group nouns in the comments! Namely:

• An extravagance of Jins (discovered by the brilliant glymr)


• A devastation of Wens (also a glymr creation)


• A valor of Nies (which I think suits all of them!)

None are quite as perfect as the regulation of Lans, IMO, but still. ;-)

My excellent exchange luck has held true! I was lucky enough to receive an amazing story by blathering_kat as my Sundial gift. It's an intense post-canon glimpse at Shen Wei struggling to cope with what he's gone through, all (of course!) while feeling that there's nothing actually wrong; he doesn't need much sleep anyway. Lovely h/c, and an amazing atmosphere, and a perfectly Shen Wei-ish understated intensity of emotion.

Close Your Eyes by blathering_kat

"Tell me what you see when you close your eyes," he whispers into the dark.

~~~

My story was for the lovely enviropony, who (perhaps unwisely? *g*) showed interest in a certain character in her prompts. I'd had an idea involving that character a while back, and, well. This was the perfect excuse!


The Dixing Lord's Virgin Captive. A Romance of Ancient Dixing, set to writing by A Gentleman of Noble Lineage.

The cover depicted a bare-chested man wearing a hooded black cloak, a mask chased with silver, and thigh-high boots over extremely tight leather trousers. He held a swooning woman clad in equally impractical attire in one arm, and brandished a sword with his free hand. The woman was clutching a lollipop, and both figures were buffeted by particularly dramatic gales of wind as streams of lava flowed past their feet.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to confiscate this publication,” Shen Wei managed, sounding slightly strangled in his own ears.

A new romance genre takes Dragon City by storm. Shen Wei does not approve, and Zhao Yunlan is both ruthless and cunning.

It took a surprisingly long time, but solo and I finally finished watching The Untamed. I really enjoyed it! So of course, there is a pressing issue I must adress: NICKNAMES.

For the purposes of clever (?) commentary, solo and I came up with a number of nicknames while watching. We replaced some with actual names in due course, but others stuck around till the very end. ;-) (I should add that few of them are complimentary - but my surprise fave is among those with a really bad nickname, so...)

( Untamed nicknames under the cut! )

I now have a number of burning questions for all of you. Namely:

1. Can you tell who these people are?*

2. Do you have nicknames for The Untamed characters?

3. Why does nobody appreciate my darling properly?

So many qestions!


*If anyone guesses all of the nicknames, I will write a drabble for them. ;-)

ETA: Unsurprisingly, there are spoilers in the comments! Just in case anyone is even slower than I in watching this. ;-)

This amused me the other day. There's some road works going on, and unusual demands are being made of pedestrians because of it! ;-) Clearly, the workers responsible for signage hadn't packed one that pointed in the right direction - so someone got creative. I applaud their ingenuity, and have decided I like the sign better this way around.






(Never has my icon been more appropriate! *g*)

We won a Hugo, you guys! The AO3 was awarded the 2019 Hugo Award in the category Best Related Work - and to me that really does mean that we all won a Hugo. It's our archive, our community and our fanworks.

I am so thrilled that fanworks are gaining more and more mainstream attention and acceptance. And you've all had a hand in that development. Congratulations to you! :-)


In other news, I wrote something! Have an excerpt from my current WiP. (Errrrm. One of them.)

~~~

Da Qing materialized from the shadows around the HQ’s entrance as Yunlan swung off the motorcycle. He sauntered over with a deceptively casual air to brush lightly past his legs, tail waving in studied indifference. “Lin Jing just arrived. He’s upset. You’ll have to threaten him again, I think.”

Yunlan hmmed thoughtfully. “We’ll see.” Da Qing followed him as he pushed the bike through the SID’s doors, parking it in the lobby in blatant violation of bureau rules. The cat was still lingering when Yunlan had kicked down the bike stand and hung his helmet from the handle, so he picked him up and carried him through into the main office. Da Qing allowed it, even snuggling into him a bit when Yunlan held him close. It said a lot about how rough Yunlan must be looking, to be honest. Usually Da Qing didn’t like being carried. Yunlan was glad he was making an exception; the warm weight of his best and oldest friend was grounding, even if his cat’s affection couldn’t touch the cold, hollow loneliness he hadn’t been able to shake.

~~~

I've been waffling about posting this because I'm not terribly satisfied with it, but then I reminded myself that the Sunday Six are about celebrating having written something. And I did write something this week! That's definitely progress. :-)