Can't believe I've churned out enough ZXC things that my Dreamwidth can't keep up, but it looks like I never posted my 曾經我也想過一了百了 (Who's the Murderer 7 concert version) subs/translation here?! It's my first and best attempt at translating a full song, and it's been killing me that Youtube keeps blocking my video for copyright. Turns out it was blocking the video, not the audio, and the solution was simply to... make a lyric video... SO!!!!!!! Here are the original softsubbed video I did for Vimeo, the ~English lyrics video~ I did for Youtube, and yjthecat/fwoopersongs's translation for reference and comparison.

曾經我也想過一了百了 (Who's the Murderer 7 concert performance)

Back in February I made a ~Zhang Xincheng performance cut~ from the Who's the Murderer 7 Spring Festival 2022 concert. Official subs have since come out, but I have very strong feelings about the song.

曾經我也想過一了百了 (Who's the Murderer 7 concert) [LYRIC VIDEO]

Here's the lyric video I created today by importing the subtitle file and freezing the frames from the original video. And then adding, because I could, ~*extra effects*~ including some tacky falling petals, to give the stills a sense of motion. I also applied a gradient layer so the video is darker at the bottom and the subs (in plain white text) are actually readable.

Extra footage and effects are from Videezy (free, with attribution) and Pixabay (free, no attribution required). Some GIFs because unnecessary labor begets more unnecessary promotional labor, you have to milk these things:



I also typed up my translation here on Tumblr so it's all in text form.

Other Notes:

I initially mistranslated 荧幕 (TV screen) as "computer screen" (the original JP the word was パソコン, which does mean computer, and I assumed the Chinese would be the same); I have corrected this with the help of fwoopersongs's translation and detailed translation notes of the same song—you can read it all here on Tumblr, or watch their subbed video here (which also has the Chinese lyrics and pinyin):

Watch on YouTube

泪光中微笑的你: fwoopersongs and I have very different readings of this line haha. I’m not sure if it’s grammatically sensible to read the tears as belonging to the narrator, but this is an assumption I made from context: 1) the last 3 lines felt like they were all pertaining to an outsider reaching in, 2) I thought it was a callback to the first chorus, where the narrator was talking about unstoppable tears.

I translated it as It was your smile that I could see through my tears while YJ/fwoopersongs translated it as You, in that vast sea of people, you smile through your tears, which also makes sense emotionally, especially for Zhang Xincheng’s character in that Who’s the Murderer case, so I’m leaving both options here. (I trust YJ way more than I trust me though, haha)

Found out while doing the thumbnail for the lyric video that I lost most of my fonts during my 6+ months of computer issues (which are still ongoing, but I've rolled back and bandaided my problem). Now I'm sad. :((((((((((

I was getting tired of the chaos of Twitter, so I started a Youtube account for... Zhang Xincheng things. As much as I really miss working on my desktop and having more control over typography and design, this has been a really fun exercise of learning how to do new things and learning a bit about how Youtube works (I always thought the end cards/links were automatically generated, but turns out they are manually activated!). And anyway, I find screenrecording on mobile/tablet so much easier than on desktop.

And while I don't expect anyone, even my fellow enthusiasts in the Anglosphere, to watch all 11 minutes of this cut of his livestream that I put together from my 999 Twitter posts about it, PLEASE APPRECIATE MY CUTE 8-SECOND INTRO (that I trimmed from an edit that I did earlier this week haha).


(The reason I'm moving to Youtube is because Vimeo has a space limit, and I think it's best to keep my Vimeo as my more "artistic" and "creative" space.)

And if anyone's wondering, the apps I use are primarily InShot for trimming and editing and yeeting to Twitter, and Video Captions for captioning. For that compilation vid, I used Lumafusion which I don't actually recommend because it's paid and expensive (one-time fee, no trial) and still doesn't support subtitle tracks, and not fun, and definitely not for people who have no video-editing experience (it's more similar to desktop software, but with fewer features, though specially designed for mobile/tablet). It is excellent for exporting and better for longer videos, since InShot has so limited compression options (it's designed for social media use), you end up with giant files which I almost immediately delete from my phone/tablet.

Honestly I was going to write an entire post about app pros and cons because I have 8934853489 opinions and very specific needs but I GOT DISTRACTED.

Links to my accounts: YouTube | Vimeo

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In other news, I got a new watch, a Garmin Lily:


I originally bought it for the look and size (it's a watch that was especially designed for small wrists and fashionability) with a little bit of wanting to learn more about myself, but I actually... like it a lot?!? In the grand spectrum of fitness watches, this is probably more on the side of casual use, but I've honestly always liked tracking my exercise (with a very lax definition of exercise; mostly I just stretch my back for 10-15 mins) because it makes me feel like I'm doing something with my life. It's also summer and I tend to be more physically active in the summer with the logic of "since I'm already sweaty and suffering, I might as well get sweatier and suffer some more". I've really enjoyed the ease with which I can just doubletap the watchface to let my watch know that I'm engaging in a physical activity, and doubletap to tell it that the activity has stopped, and then I can see how hard my heart has been working during that timeframe (evidently not as hard as I always think haha).

The annoying thing about it is that the Garmin Connect app doesn't work without an internet connection, and the interface isn't great. The primary product is the watch, so it's not a dealbreaker, but it annoys me. XD

Other cons: gesture responsiveness (responsive enough, but only just—and if you turn up the sensitivity it's too sensitive; and not instantaneous), sleep tracking (which I don't care about, but if you do, this watch is very bad at it).

Books

Still reading The Priory of the Orange Tree. ISMM is also back with vol 5!!!!!!!!

TV

Remembrance of Things Past
12-episode drama, centered around Dongbei women in their late 20s and 30s who live and work in Beijing. Thoughts and content warnings here.

Who's the Murderer s6
Although I initially jumped into the show for Zhang Xincheng, this has sort of become my emotional support LARP variety show. XD It's a lot more enjoyable the more you watch it, as you get more familiar with the regular players, the inside jokes, and their relationships. My favorite part is always the final voting of each case where everyone privately casts their vote for who they think the murderer is, and explains their reasoning to the camera. But I got really attached to the regular players, including Sasa, who I initially disliked because I found his humor too slapstick. It's just really fun to see "veterans" be extremely comfortable with each other, and Zhang Xincheng (the new kid) get more comfortable with both the game and his seniors. I also like the cases best when they go ham with the plot. I truly wasn't expecting to see bodyswap, space/time bubbles that led to complicated time mechanics, and aliens, so I'm very delighted.

My favorite S6 case was case#5, with the town of sad people. It got a bit dark (suicide, depression, trauma, and some horror), but the puzzles were satisfying and I felt that the characters were the most compelling, with very funny banter and puns. (Unsurprisingly this is one of the episodes that ZXC is in, and my favorite role for him. XD)

Games

Sadly I wasn't able to play any games during the holidays, but I did get to do a virtual escape room with lunarflares! Would recommend this as a pandemic/remote social activity!

Movember Virtual Moscape (link)
Although it is called an escape room, it's actually the opposite of that, since what we did was INFILTRATE. :D One can do it solo but it's a pain to switch between screens, so playing it with at least one friend is best. To play as a team, you can either enter the virtual room individually and just simultaneously play the game, or have one person screenshare their playthrough. We decided to go the screenshare route because I had internet problems—luna screenshared the playthrough and entered all the solutions, while I screenshared my interactions with a character. You need a Facebook/Messenger account for the interactive portion, but you're not talking to a real person, so it's FINE.

The first half of the game was Puzzles I Did Not Like To Do (decoding stuff, reading instructions, and sometimes Googling—I was very happy to just listen to luna do everything). The second half was a lot more interactive (talking to an AI on Messenger), with Puzzles I Was Happy To Be Part Of (examining sceneries, unlocking hidden doors, figuring out the passwords, choose your own adventure, and some internet sleuthing).

The game design and experience were really impressive, with an effort to be accessible. They had real websites and Facebook accounts that you had to scour for clues, and very cool visualizations that I associate more with console games (luna particularly had the time with her life rotating the 3D object). You alternate between entering answers in the main room, which is a virtual desktop computer, and messaging the results of your investigation to your fictional colleague. For the color-coded portion, there is an alternate chart for the colorblind (we aren't colorblind, but we referred to it anyway), as well as the option to turn on video captions. The Youtube videos only have auto-generated captions, but you get messaged a recap/summary of the information that was in the video.

Gameplay is estimated to be 90 minutes, but there's no time limit. It took us more than 2 hours since there were only 2 of us and my connection kept dropping.

Tools: we used an internet browser for the game, Discord for voicecall and screenshare, and Facebook/Messenger to interact with a fictional character.

Fanworks

I spent my New Year's Eve (and part of New Year's) subbing/translating I Only Have Four Nights with You, the Vogue short film featuring Zhang Xincheng (of course) and Tong Yao, to English. It's a 10-minute adult love story that unspools the present-day established-relationship tensions back to its past promises. I have no basis of comparison for Tong Yao's performance, but I've heard that it was exciting (and confusing XD) to see her in this role! On Zhang Xincheng's part, he was uncharacteristically restrained and introverted—I want to see him cast more in these types of roles where he doesn't have the wholesome protagonist halo.

Watch on YouTube

And a song translation attempt, though incomplete (subbed video on the Twitter link below):

tried to translate the most evocative parts of the version of 曾經我也想過一了百了 (I Also Thought About Ending It All) that Zhang Xincheng covered for Who’s the Murderer! the pre-chorus imagery has been rattling in my head all month pic.twitter.com/798jCMmSSI

— (@halfcactus) December 29, 2021