Magister of Misery

I got three fantastic gifts under my tree! What a great season of fandomtrees <3

Title: Breakage and Repair by china_shop
Fandom: Guardian TV
Ship: Chu Shuzhi/Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Words: 5.2k
Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives (Eventually), Angst with a Happy Ending, Presumed Dead (actually dead but comes back to life), Forgive me I killed Da Qing (temporarily), Loyalty, Chu Shuzhi’s self-worth issues, Getting Together, sharing is caring, food as a love language
Summary: The Envoy is back, he’s alive! Everything is better—brighter—as it should be. Regrets on Chu Shuzhi’s part would be an utter betrayal, unworthy. Chu Shuzhi knows the score. He was only ever first aid for Zhao Yunlan. Only a prop to keep him going. They’d never talked about what they were doing, and Zhao Yunlan’s heart had always been faithful. He’s worn the Envoy’s pendant twenty-four/seven.

Title: Till You Make It by trobadora
Fandom: Guardian TV
Ship: Shen Wei & Zhu Hong
Words: 3k
Tags: Handwavy Post-Canon Era, Everyone lives, Yashou Politics, Yashou High Chief Zhu Hong, Mentorship, Networking
Summary: Who else could she ask? Not Zhao Yunlan, who was part of the whole mess. Not the elders of any of the three tribes, when they were the ones who needed convincing the most. Not the Haixing minister, who had every interest in fostering good relations with the Yashou but no experience and no standing with them yet.

Title: fallen/saved by MistressKat
Fandom: Deja Vu by Dreamcatcher (Music Video)
Ship: Jiu/Yoohyeon
Words: 300
Tags: Character Study, Introspection
Summary: The dream demands a price.

All of these are amazing, absolutely nailed both my prompts and my id, and then added so much more on top I wouldn't have dreamed of <3 I cannot recommend you check them out enough!

Hi! Haven't gotten around to updating this blog in a while :') time passes quickly when you're busy!

Life Update

I celebrated my birthday at the end of October, the first time I invited the entire (maternal side of the) family to my place since I moved in last November. It was fun, but quite a busy time, between baking cakes and cleaning everything up. I was glad I took a couple days off work before and after, or I would've been *really* stressed.

Among other things, I got the translated Guardian novel Vol. 1, a crotcheted lil dragon and new kitchen towels with a cute black kitten & pumpkin design :D!


(I invited some coworkers and friends for a second party, that's why the buttercream cake shows up twice!)

Work's been busy, too, with two co-workers calling in long-term sick. Hopefully one of them will make it back in December to ease the workload again, especially at this particularly busy time of year. Flu's going around as well - I caught the cold early on but managed to push on for a couple weeks, but finally caught the ear infection the kids are all trading between each other (that's what I get for helping out in the daycare section of the job RIP) so now I'm on sick leave. Fingers crossed I can go back to work on Wednesday, but right now it's not looking too great just yet.

The cases at least are interesting? One of mine is getting to the final stage, in a positive way, which is great to watch. Another of the new cases is a difficult nut to crack, but I'm hopeful to establish a good working relationship with them.

Dreamcatcher

They just put out a new short album! I'm very happy with all the songs on it, even if the fandom seems divided on the title track OOTD (it *is* a departure from their usual style, but in a very imo predictable way. They've been leaning into this style as far back as Odd Eye, with BEcause being the major exception. It's still very clearly uniquely Dreamcatcher in vibe and sound, with experimental mixing of genres into what otherwise might be Just Another Mainstream song. And the BSides have at least two very cool songs with more of a rock/metal vibe for any disappointed fans to make up for it imo.

I'm very interested in the whole... "fakeness" of the MV and concept. Like, they took a typical girl crush concept with a very retro vibe rather than high-glam-fashion and then the main dance outfits being those leather-jacket white top combos? It makes for an interesting visual, especially with all the car driving and motorcycle straddling. The "bts"/"editing" style of the MV also gives it a vibe of robotic/in progress - which really leads well into the surprise ending of the members going dead-eyed and killing the camerawoman. I'm excited to find out what the narrative idea of this Villains arc will be! But taken on its own, the message to me seems to read how fake the industry is, how robotic the girl groups, and Dreamcatcher ones more breaking out of expectations (as they have done since they rebranded Minx into Dreamcatcher).

Rising is absolutely my favourite of the songs tho, it's so catchy, and the whole "Ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-rising" is GREAT :D Shatter took me a bit to get used to - I immediately liked the melodic soft parts, but wasn't quite sure of the contrast to the "Bang It On Me" chorus. It's a very metal song in the same vibe of other woman-lead metal bands I love, while still uniquely Dreamcatcher. Definitely looking forward to learning the dance choreo to it and OOTD! (Though I'm still behind, I haven't even touched Bon Voyage and Demian yet *sobs* I need more time in the day!)

Exchanges

I signed up for fandomtrees - here's my tree! I requested three Kpop MV canons (Dreamcatcher's Deja Vu & Vision, and Loona's love4eva), three cdramas (Guardian, GYADL, and Love Between Fairy And Devil), the short (not quite indie) game "Song of Nunu" (a League of Legends story) and the DnD tableplay "A Crown of Candy" from Dimension 20.

I finished my gifts (and now, edits) for the ficinabox exchange, though I have some ideas of how to polish up one of them a bit more. I'm torn between picking up pinch hits, finishing any of the treats I started, or working on my other assignments.

Because I'm also signed up to fffx and yuletide_admin. For the first, I'm 2k into the story and have a strong idea of what I want to do with it; for the latter I just did a canon review to refresh my memories of the canon and am still brainstorming ideas. There's so many options, and I want to do all of them! :( why does the day only have 24hrs (and why do I have to spend so many of them at work, grumbles)

I've also been writing some more on my posted WIP In This, As In All Things, which I hadn't meant to put on pause for so long, but, well. Life happened *shrugs*. I'm gonna get the next three chapters done before posting (chapter 5 is close to done and I got a decent chunk of 6 going already), and then I need to figure out what I need to happen so I can wrap it up. It's always been one of the more vibes-focussed fics I've written, and the things I wanted out of it (confrontations of older!Weilan with Zhao Xinci) don't seem as plausible anymore now that I'm writing it. Or at least, the two different things I have in mind are vastly different in tone so I'll have to pick one over the other, le sigh.

Gonna try and post more again (and share my thoughts on Song of Nunu and Love Between Fairy And Devil, since I finished those two now) and soon!

Dreamcatcher is my fave k-pop band hands down and their new album rules.

I've been listening to the tracks up and down to the point where I've been so productive writing because I would rather listen to their songs than watch videos/streams or listen to podcasts. And obviously, I have opinions which I wished to share.

In no particular order or coherence:

1) I am so happy for the girls that they all got a solo track each on this album. It's great, and I'm going to learn all the dances. The songs are pretty solid too, although we'll come back to this in a hot sec.

(If you're not familiar with the kpop industry, it's pretty important for members of a group to establish themselves as solo artists while with the group for their future career, usually only the fan favourite or strongest singers get some. Dreamcatcher giving all of their members the chance is pretty rare, especially since they're 7 people. Some of them had solos before this, and almost all of them have done covers of various sorts, but this is a Big Deal.)

2) THEY WON THEIR FIRST MUSIC SHOWS!!! First and Second Win BABY!!! They placed first in MBC M’s "Show Champion" and in SBS MTV’s "The Show" with their title track Maison (a song about global warming). Their very first win in five years.
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10) The Maison dance looks less complex than some of their other choreographies, a trend that's been on-going for a while now (BEcause seems very easy too on first look... and really wasn't that hard to learn overall tbf), but holy shit is it FAST! I've been able to reliably dance along at 75% speed for a week now, having added it to my practice roster the moment their choreo video came out. But, fuck me, I tried it on full speed yesterday for the first time and it's ??? how do they MANAGE to SING at the SAME TIME what the fuck. They manage to pull this off with such precision and grace, and then it just feels like they fast-forwarded the whole dance once they got it down. I'm impressed.

10a) My favourite part hands down is Dami's rap showcase, like. Damn, girl. The move-set is really unique and fun, and perfectly on theme. Kudos to whoever choreographed this because I *love*. Dami's always been known for her variety in dance moves during her rap parts, but this? A+

10b) My other favourite sequence is Sua's alternate last chorus. It's energetic, fast, and breathtaking in the most literal sense, I have no idea how she pulls off singing at the same time, like. WITH WHAT AIR??? After already spending nearly 3 minutes on a fast af choreo! It just goes to show what an awesome dancer-singer she is, and I really can't wait for her solo track's choreo to come out so I can learn that, too.

Anyway, I'm excited :D and might end up titling some fic after the lyrics xD