extrapenguin

ETA: All ficlets now on AO3.

A meme, via

shipperslist.

1: Pick five fandoms and list them in alphabetical order.

2: Click to receive a Random Famous Poem. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an e.e. cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and list them in alphabetical order.

3: Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting), using the line from the poem as a prompt. (You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration.) – okay, I just went for "short ficlet", because I cba to count words. Never been one for drabbles.

Fandoms chosen: Couple of Mirrors, Legend of Yunze, Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story, two very short films starring Sheng Wei
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Considering putting the ficlets up on AO3. At least the Miss Shen and the Woman Warlord one. Thoughts?

So I finished watching this on Monday and omg, yes, I like it. (12 episodes, 45 min each, engsubbed on YouTube)

Yan Wei is my fave, my blorbo, my precious little meow meow who can do no wrong. I think the bad-at-human-ing murder dumpling who just wants to become a normal person is amazing and I want her to have all the nice things in life. Xu Youyi is maybe the only instance of sajiao that's worked for me so far, and I absolutely loved the dynamic between them.

I also liked how the various side characters oscillated/changed position with narrative expansion between antagonist and villain. The thriller-y/murder mystery plot was good as well, and kept me engaged throughout.

Spoilers!

Okay, let's start with the one thing that did not work for me: The ending. Though mostly it confused the fuck out of me. WTF happened? Why on Earth would Yan Wei kill Xie Yifan, who is off in Beiping? I understand that for censorship reasons they might not have been allowed for Yan Wei, murderer, to walk free, but honestly that whole stated motivation of "like you, I'm leaving my past behind" ergo turning herself in didn't work – she'd already left her past behind and become a normal person. I'd rather have heard Yan Wei explain her past to Xu Youyi and then have them have the final "no secrets between us" reconciliation-conversation.

(Also I really disliked Xu Youyi trashing her typewriter. Go back to your writing! Maybe start writing books about women who leave shitty men, idk. Just ... keep doing what you love, even if you have a kid now.)

On the major secondary characters, I liked how Jiang Bin (detective dude) alternated between a sympathetic antagonist and an ally of our protagonists', before becoming something of a frienemy to Yan Wei. ("'The one that got away' except Holmes-Moriarty rather than romantic" is not a dynamic I saw myself being into, but apparently I enjoy it!) I also thought the gradual reveal of more and more of Zhou Heng's faults was well done – from just cheating with one person, to a murderer and attempted baby kidnapper.

Also, well, it's set in/around 1931 (internal timeline is ~1½ years; can't recall when in there I saw the newspaper headline). Shanghai will be invaded by the Japanese in 1937. I now want to read a war epic about what happens when war comes back for Yan Wei that I do not have the cultural competence to write.

(And WTF conflict did Yan Wei fight in? She's canonically 20, so born ~1911, and the conflict would've happened in the (late) 1920s. Her comrades are European. Most of the notable fighting in the 1920s that comes up was rebellions/warlord stuff in China, which obviously doesn't fit. I know it's probably a made-up fictional nonexistent conflict, but still. I wanna knoooow.)

Fanwork status: Will vid this. I have three vid ideas already.

Also I think I will want to make myself a Yan Wei icon.

I finished my Liu Yunrui Filmography Starring Sheng Wei and Ai Ye vid! I had 10 sources, ranging from 2:23 to 6:17 long (though mostly around 5 minutes and change). 5 were shampoo commercials and one was an ad for facial wipes. *g* I did not use the hairwashing/shampooing scenes, but there was one source with some very cleavage-y bathing that I felt compelled to highlight.

Tech notes: continued my song-chopping ways. Figured out how to use cleancredits. (Zapped logos off everything, zapped two instances of hardsub.) Installed a new font, Centers George, which is cool and great ... except that the ligatures are done a bit incorrectly, and typing in "RI" generates something that is very obviously "RO". (Dafont's preview doesn't utilize the ligature glyphs.) I thus had to split the text layer in two for both the "filmography starring" and "Blackbriar", which was annoying. Regardless, this was the correct font choice.

Watch on YouTube

AO3

...and with that, I'm at 4/5 for my

vid_bingo card. Time to go to listen to my library of 00's music some more. I did 2000-2004; next batch is 2005-2007.

Because I have nothing better to do on NYE and I'm procrastinating on something else, so. Here you go.

douqi's Sapphic Short Films carrd has, in addition to baihe sorted by setting, some sorting by lead actress. I went through the Yang Yimo (x Yang Fuyu) section yesterday for the next reincarnation vid and figured I might do the same for the other sections to see if maybe, idk, there's more to work with. Note that I just checked who the leads were for these.

王老吉 / 王学习 Wang Laoji
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圣微 Sheng Wei
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圻夏夏 Qi Xiaxia
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I guess I'll spend some time downloading stuff off Bilibili (this downloader should work?) and searching for Sheng Wei + Ai Ye vs Yang Yimo + Yang Fuyu features to see if there's stuff douqi hasn't found yet.

As I have ANOTHER idea for a reincarnation-themed vid (one that I've been thinking about for longer than the Rey Reincarnation – Rey-incarnation? *g* – one), I went through

douqi's Sapphic Short Films carrd's Yang Yimo & Yang Fuyu section to get stuff with the same actresses. I knew I'd have to cleancredits out the Bilibili logo and cut around the hardsubs, but here are the other notes, incl. on which of them actually have Yang Fuyu:

The Young Master and the Tea-Picking Girl: a watermark in the middle of the frame (barely visible, some frames usable ig) as well as song lyrics in variable places (visible). 5min long and very plot-light. (Actually Yang Yimo and Yu Zixuan)

I've Saved You Once Again, Little Princess! 1:36, mostly dialogue-free, very horny, has a slo-mo waist grab/dip going on. (Yang Yimo and Jiu Jing Yan)

The Hunter, or the Hunted?: 19s, but kinda spicy, definitely using this. ...actually, this is 5 videos in one! #4 has a voiceover and thus hardsubs, but everything else is usable. (#5 is solo dancing.) (Note: #1 and #2 are Sheng Wei and Qi Xiaxia, #4 is Sheng Wei and maybe Yang Yimo, no Yang Fuyu)

Fight Scene: 00:51 long, exactly what it says on the tin, no text on the screen, and also the BB logo is on a black letterbox. Amazing. I love this. (Actually Yang Yimo and Qi Xiaxia)

"You Were Once My Light": 2:46 of dark femslash (not just cinematographically!), but some of the shots with no speaking are nice. (Yang Yimo and Qi Xiaxia)

Every Moment With You Is Sweet: 3min, no dialogue/hardsubs. There's a BB logo in one corner and a more ornate one in another, but they're stationary throughout the video. Leads seem to be in a reincarnation romance already; multiple costume changes, present-day section very good for my purposes.

The Young Master and the Pauper: 3min, again song lyrics in variable places. Some might be croppable, but most not. I'll probably want to use at least the dramatic dip, the wrist grab, and the hand grab from this, as well as the definitely not kiss, though, so suffer I shall.

Xiaoshimei's Strategy Guide to Winning Her Shijie's Heart: 2:46 with the most obnoxious hardsubs known to man, but some nice handholding and faking being afraid for an excuse to cling. Def usable.

Three Hundred Years Later: 5:12. Mostly talk-y and thus hardsubbed, but there are some excellent lotion-applying scenes, as well as pinning hands to a bed and definitely a kiss.

Help, I Accidentally Stole My Shixiong's Crush! 4:19 of the adorable shimei and the shixiong's crush making eye contact, gazing dreamily at each other, playing the qin, wound treating, and running through fields – and that's just what didn't have hardsubs on it.

Led Astray by Love: 52:07, so there's definitely stuff in there. I remember some mashing face into boob, bathing together, and waist touching, at the very least.

That's 6 things with the advertised actresses, though one of them is comparatively really long – 52 min vs ~18 total for the others. The intended song, Until Eternity is, like, 4:40 (the orchestral ver is 4:19, but the vibes are not there), so I should have enough footage in there to make a vid :D

ETA: this twitter gif is highly relevant.

I watched s1 and s2 of Legend of Yunze (links to engsubs) and I am emotionally compromised by the ending. The seasons are both self-contained stories, ~1h each, and it's censored GL. Both leads are stunning. Had I been A-Ze, falling down naked on Jiang Zhaoyun, I too would've been desperately clingy and attempted to flirt ineptly. I liked how both of them had hidden backstory and how Zhaoyun's was handled. S1 was a bit breakneck and felt a touch disjointed as a result, but S2 was a marked improvement. The ending is sort of bittersweet, but in a way that leaves space for a third season as well as a plot hook for it.

I downloaded it for potential vidding purposes but that means I need to either a) carefully clip around the subtitles, b) zoom, or c) learn how to use Clean Credits. Urghhh.

Looking at the fansubber's Twitter, I also need to go through the lesbian short films list and see which ones are subbed. Next on my list is Nü Er Hong, which promises both a fucked-up relationship and a happy ending.

(Icon from Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story.)

This time, even subbed by people who are not me! \o/

The Red Witch and Heroine Su (紅魔女與蘇女俠), trailer was linked on Tumblr with a gifset. Then YouTube, knowing me well, advertised 「The love story of Doctress and Miss rabbit (Season 2)」's trailer. (You might recognize the doctor from Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story.) I'm wondering about the app named, Rela – both of these seem to be produced/published by it. It advertises itself as a lesbian social network/dating app all for queer women, though it's in Chinese and I'm 100% certain I'd get even less success on it than I do on Tinder. I guess I'm wondering whether it'd be worth to download just to get access to all these F/F short films – the trailers have engsubs, but idk if the actual content would have any, and I'm not at a point where I can watch stuff without the engsubs. I guess I'll have to google some more...

(Oh, and I fell further down the rabbit hole with 梦里红颜忘凋零，春风依旧 (no subs, mostly silent), woman general × little poison-something??? (someone tries to wed the general's gf and she kidnaps her right off the bridal procession, A+), and a femslash fanvid with Ye Zhao of Oh My General and someone I don't recognize. IDK if it's a crossover vid with miraculous editing or if this actually all happened in the show.)

Witness Now My Wrath, a missing scene ficlet for Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story! I have started the fandom tag! \o/

Current Music: 音阙诗听《寒露》

The one I'm promoting is Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story! It's a 14-minute short film where bubbly and cheerful disciple of a cultivational/martial arts sect Ye Xiaoqi wanders off, gets saved by wandering cultivator Xiao Rufeng, and follows the kuudere sect leader who saved her around. It is ridiculously adorable, the acting is great, and the main characters are hot. It also has long hair, height gaps, and swords! Google Drive folder with engsubs and .flv.

To sweeten the pot, I made some icons, presented here out of order. Some might be spoilery I guess?

(Heart texture by

tinny, hanzi texture by

whitebamboo.)

Do you want 14 minutes of extremely cheesy femslash, complete with falling asleep on someone's shoulder, collisions with boobs, hot looming, and blood coughing? Well, I do! And though figuring out where the hell the clips used in that MV I was obsessed with came from, I found some! Behold: Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story. (Chinese: 教主和小师妹的故事) (ETA: Also in HD!)

Now, that is in Chinese, and while the Chinese is pretty simple, it's still Chinese, and a number of people require engsubs. Thus, in a fit of hubris, I have engsubbed the thing! Google Drive folder with subtitle download. Have fun with Demonic Sect Leader Xiao Rufeng and rebellious little disciple-sister Ye Xiaoqi! (And if you notice something wrong with the translation, please poke me so I can fix it.)

Other trivia:
- The whole production, save extras for that one scene, involved less than 10 people and had zero budget. Director-screenwriter-cinematographer-editor 知竹zZ did it all herself and paid out of pocket.
- They shot some side stories?