Oh, I wish, for once, we could stay gold

1.

The tree across my window had its first full bloom of the year, the first along its street to turn gold. It shed its flowers two days later, of course, but it felt special, like it was just for me hehe. And hopefully it will bloom several more times before summer ends. :")


2.
It was a long weekend for us and I had so many plans for it: catching up on sleep, catching up on Justice in the Dark, finishing I Am Setsuna, finishing all the episodes/movies I started and forgot to continue, journaling, etc... So far the only thing I've managed to do was game a little, GIF a lot, and finally sub ZXC's latest song, which confirmed for me that Resolve has been misbehaving as far as subtitles are concerned... I should probably check if there are any later versions but I'm afraid that any potential update might make the program stop working!?!?

Watch on YouTube

3.
I actually have been having a lot of complicated thoughts about Anglo cfandom since Justice in the Dark has me drawn back into various fandom spaces (mostly because I dump my GIFs on Tumblr and Twitter) after a long time of only being present on Youtube which was its own can of strangeness.

The drama itself has been... fine. I'm not the best judge because I watch raws (bc there's a provider that has added CN subs... And sometimes it's nice to read bullet comments haha) and can only understand so much... And I'm not particularly invested in the adaptation's plot... And I skip-watch all the parts that stress me out... It tracks fairly close to the novel, but I'm not sure how cohesive it is to an audience who is unfamiliar with the original—a lot was obviously cut (in the sense that scenes are conspicuously missing), and a lot of transitions feel janky, but the emotional storyline between Pei Su and Luo Weizhao has been kept intact. Their relationship is progressing at a different pace, which for me is interesting? For now, at least! Like it's sad that the gay got cut out, but I don't mind this version where Pei Su is still some level of antagonistic towards LWZ (not yet flirting), maybe because I'm just a casual Modu fan. XD

(A little nervous about seeing any SEA rep here since I remember mentions of it in the audio drama, but I'm not sure the universe has a concept of SEA, other than being filmed there.)

Zhang Xincheng's acting seems to be well received across various audiences, but I'm weirdly... indifferent to it (the reception). I guess it's not that weird when I've seen (and have been following) most of his body of work and I tend to avoid the fandom/Weibo side of things; from my POV, watching his performance in a drama he filmed four years ago and was partially released two years ago feels more like a puzzle piece sliding into place... Like obviously I think he was cast well and put a lot of effort to build a character that is more interesting than usual... I just don't do fandom the same way anymore, I guess? My relationship with cdramas has changed, idk. Still enjoying! But from a quiet and more neutral distance. ^^;