Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

Comments

[geraineon]

Extended reading block, so I've mostly been rereading old things, listening to audio dramas I already know (well, there's a new episode of Married Thrice audio drama!).

[aurumcalendula]

I finally got around to starting volume 1 of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish - I'm almost halfway through and I'm really enjoying it!

[geraineon]

Yay! It's still on my tbr, haven't touched it but hm, maybe. My brain hasn't been wanting any serious reads lately.

[duckprintspress]

yay I'm glad you like it! It makes me smile; I'm excited for vol. 3 coming out in a couple weeks.

[hazevi]

Was in the mood for esports so I clicked open FOG by Manman Heqiduo! It's like angsty mysterious for the first quarter and then seems to be like just winning games, being OP and fluff which is a nice change for me hehe, not much else to say.

[lunarriviera]

oooh i've been eyeing this one ever since i finished kaleidoscope of death. do you like the translation you're reading?

[hazevi]

Hey, I read the original Chinese version, so I don't know about the status of translations, sorry~

As far as I can tell there is translation of it floating around on CG but I cannot vouch for it. Just clicking in to the last extra out of curiosity I saw a tense inconsistency that usually screams to me this might be edited mtl, so proceed with caution I guess. Sorry again :/

[lunarriviera]

ah yes, CG is generally extremely MTL lol. i do have an epub floating around which i'm sure is an ill-gotten gain but i haven't even loaded it yet, so not sure about its tl either. no worries tho!!

[llonkrebboj]

Alas. I remember the days CG were just starting out and known for their quality for a short while. Guess in the interests of expanding, they also started letting editors of machine translation join? :(

[geraineon]

I think CG is very much a scattershot in terms of quality because there are so many projects and so many translators/editors now, so yeah, probably because of the expansion

[geraineon]

That sounds nice! I really liked AWM: PUBG, so FOG is on my TBR~

[hazevi]

Yep I liked it even more than AWM so I think it's definitely worth reading!

[geraineon]

That's great! looking forward to it~

I really liked AWM: PUBG audio drama, so I think that elevated the novel for me XD

[duckprintspress]

ooo this is all good to know. Qi Zui and Yu Yang have been living in my head rent-free since I finished AWM: PUBG...

[llonkrebboj]

I've been on gushiwen having essays and letters of people from Tang Dynasty read to me in 文言! Utterly shook by how much more understandable these are when there's a real life person reading it aloud.

(Getting desperate for my yuletide canon review 😅)

[geraineon]

/eyes emoji/ someone reading out Tang Dynasty poems? that sounds nice!

[larryhammer]

Wait, gushiwen has recordings? ‼️‼️

[llonkrebboj]

At least the app version does! Pretty much every entry I've clicked into has an entire human reading it aloud xD sometimes with music!

[silverblade219]

Finished erha volumes 5 and 6! I had skimmed a weirdly compiled fantl and the mtl back when there was a large publication gap between volume 2 and 3, but had skipped over some sections so the

vol 5 spoiler?

the immediate aftermath of Song Qiutong and Nangong Si wedding falling apart

was surprising to me lol.

Also just started Sha Po Lang, it has been interesting so far.

[geraineon]

I have zero idea what the spoiler is XD

How does the fan tl compare to the official tl?

Glad you're enjoying Sha Po Lang!

[silverblade219]

Even though I skimmed the fan tl, I don’t feel like I read enough of it to compare (was mostly just looking for things that I thought were unclear in spoilers). But I am enjoying the official tl, it reads smoothly to me.

For Sha Po Lang, also reading the official translation.

[geraineon]

I've read that 2ha's official TL is one of the better ones from Seven Seas. Good to know you're having an enjoyable time with it~

[duckprintspress]

I'd be inclined to say it's a better one, yeah, especially considering that a solid half the book was never actually translated and we all just read an edited MTL after chap 160 (out of 310)

[lunarriviera]

randomly started reading the ultimate blue seal (in e.danglars' usual brilliant translation) and wow it sure is a novel alright. i'm at chapter 21 and still not entirely sure what's going on but i've laughed more than once so hard i had to put it down.

has anyone finished it? can you warn me how many knives i'm about to encounter? because it's p大 so i just assume they're incoming—

[geraineon]

I remember there are people here who have read the ultimate blue seal!

hopefully they see this and respond XD

otherwise, you can make a new post to request for warnings?

[neuxue]

Put most of my reading list aside for the last few months because I was trying to speedrun another language by reading childhood favourites in translation, for reasons that I swear made sense at the time.

Jury's still out on how well that actually worked but either way I'm back to my normal (read: also chaotic) reading list.
So I'm trying to catch back up with 焚情/To Embers We Return which I am very much enjoying, and can hopefully now just binge-read because I'm far enough behind that I'm pretty sure the author will finish it before I catch up.
And I'm midway through a reread of 烈火浇愁/Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire because with so many new things to read why would I not go back and reread a favourite instead.

[geraineon]

Oh, what language are you trying to speedrun, and what stories are you reading?

I've been rereading a lot of things because I've been a little stuck in not being able to read new things lately...

[neuxue]

Trying not to dox myself but it's the local language of a place I've recently moved to - it's fairly closely related to a language I do speak, hence trying to just consume a bunch of vocabulary via reading (and eavesdropping on coworkers) and hope that'll see me through.

Anyway, thus far I've read His Dark Materials (my go-to tbh), several of the Percy Jackson novels (I'm too old for this to have been a childhood read but it is a fun time and available in translation at my local bookstore), The Hunger Games (neither a childhood read nor a favourite but, crucially, written in first-person present tense and simple sentences), and then happened across a translation of 三体/The Three-Body Problem and thought the translator's notes looked interesting so figured it was time to abandon all reason and do technical scifi vocabulary. This will serve me well in day-to-day conversations I'm sure.

And yeah I know the feeling of turning to a reread rather than something new - what have you been rereading?

[geraineon]

Three Body Problem in another language sounds like a challenge! Jia you with the language immersion~

I've been rereading Married Thrice to Salted Fish (there's a new audio drama episode recently, so I went to listen to it and then I went back to reread). I've also been rereading plenty of fics (mostly Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint fics).

[ehyde]

Still reading Smiling Proud Wanderer, not much to add since last time (I got distracted by animorphs fanfiction lol)

[geraineon]

How far are you into Smiling Proud Wanderer?

[douqi]

80% through In Love with a Substitute, still quite liking it, but am ready for the author to amp up on the over-arching meta plot. This final world is a xianxia world, and I'm enjoying it less than the previous worlds, because it's one of those deliberately edgelordy settings with 'everyone is out to get you' 'your power level dictates everything/might makes right' vibes.

[geraineon]

ahaha, I find xianxia worlds in QT to be quite boring generally (along with rich bastard CEO type setting... but if that setting delivers the melodrama in the way I like it, then I will eat it up like the fast food it is)

[llonkrebboj]

O: I hardly ever encounter xianxia worlds in quick transmigration xD but the fun in them is the worldbuilding and there's hardly ever time to do it in the space of the 20++ chapters of a QT.

Period settings and scifi/apocalypse are best for sick MC QT (which is pretty much all I read anyway) LOL

[geraineon]

I think I've seen xianxia worlds... about three times?

I went on a QT binge at one point but I don't even remember what I read because they all blurred together (this kinda shows the quality of the worldbuilding right? XD;;)

[duckprintspress]

I finally finished Rose and Renaissance by Zhi Chu, and the extras were basically all unnecessary if cute fluff. I really enjoyed the main story but coulda happily done with way less extras. I'm gonna keep it in mind for if/when I read more by Zhi Chu.

I also read the official print Eng version of I Ship My Rival x Me. I'd already read this twice on Bilibili so absolutely no new ground was tread, lmao, but Niangzi is still a ship that makes me smile, Wei Yanzi especially is just such a sweet idiot.

[geraineon]

I've not read that though so many people I know have read I Ship My Rival x Me. XD seems like a good fluff story to read.

[duckprintspress]

it's very soft and low-key. I've not actually read the whole thing (Bilibili died before the manhua finished - no idea if it's finished now, for that matter - and I bought it in Chinese and so I'm determined to read that instead of a fantranslation, because the language isn't very complex, but Time) but I have every reason to think it'll stay as gentle as all the parts I've read are (they'd gotten together by the time I had to stop...)

Wanting to read the ending is part of why I kept writing it as the manhua I most wanted on 7seas surveys, and why I was excited when they picked it up. :D

[larryhammer]

While looking for something to start, I picked at random Empress Running Away with the Ball! (娘娘带球跑了！) by Luo Xiao Xi (罗小西). So far I'm ... meh 🫤 The MC's retorts and schemes are not as bulletproof as the author seems to think, and the extra short chapters make the story flow choppy. Somewhat amusing, and I'm interested to see how the extra love interest will be disposed of -- the author is trying to set up a triangle outside of the MC's official marriage, but set up too many flags on the one who'll eventually win out for any real tension there.

ETA: Wait, and this translation isn't finished? Why did I even download this!?

[geraineon]

Oh no! I hope it didn't end at a horrible cliffhanger with no more translations.

[larryhammer]

Translators are still active, but they’ve gotten only a little more than a quarter done (long c-novel is long). Why did I even look at this? I hate reading unfinished things.

[geraineon]

Ah, I hate it when that happens too! It's different if one went in with the expectation that it's not finished yet, but if you're expecting a complete story and then left hanging... =(