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

[duckprintspress]

About 2/3rds through The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish last volume. It actually hasn't been as agonizingly kidfic as I was afraid it'd be!

[geraineon]

That's good to hear!

[dayadhvam_triad]

Still following 穿越成宋徽宗公主, which regularly kills me every other chapter update with its surreal/dark/absurd humor sprinkled through (otherwise somewhat-to-super depressing) srs plot. Also here to drop recs for two complete novels that I recently finished:

海豚沉没时 by 匹萨娘子
Modern-day suspense thriller about a woman whose relationship with her fiance is... complicated, I really don't wanna say more without spoiling it but it is oof good and also rage-inducing. If you enjoyed priest's Bridge Tower or the cdrama A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower, you may enjoy this. m/f but not at all a romance. [no tl]

穿进赛博游戏后干掉BOSS成功上位 by 桉柏
this novel was recced to me by a relative some time ago, I finally got around to reading it, and holy shit! now I Get why this became a big hit during its '21-22 serialization. Speaking as someone who doesn't naturally gravitate toward the genre, I got sucked into this excellent unlimited flow story that incorporates cyberpunk, Cthulhu, and Fourth Disaster elements with a compelling female protag & ensemble cast—and very well-paced too, as the narrative switches back and forth between realities (couldn't help but compare the writing to that of ORV as I read, and for all that I love ORV imo it really suffers from pacing and bloat issues). It's labeled yanqing but basically reads as gen; I think I'd need to squint with a 100x magnifying glass to catch any romance at all. [complete tl see foxaholic links at novelupdates]

[geraineon]

Humor sprinkled through a depressing story makes for good breather!

I did enjoy A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower! Now I'm intrigued with no CN skills to read it XD

... and the second rec too. ORV??? I really enjoyed ORV as well and another ORV with female protag and ensemble cast is like, woah. Hopefully it gets picked up for official TL someday! (ORV novel now has an official TL, which I'm hoping to collect)

[dayadhvam_triad]

See my reply below that it's not unlimited flow per se, I just wasn't thinking when I commented earlier XD; And I had ORV in mind mainly because it was my fave of the stories I've previously tried in the genre (+ similar genre-adjacent types), but I just wanna clarify it came up more so for contrast than for comparison:

spoilery details

Kim Dokja and this novel's MC are VERY different personalities and deal very differently with the dissimilar multiple-lives abilities they gain, ORV is meta-flavored unlimited flow initially masquerading as reverse isekai while this novel is back-and-forth isekai with system/mission elements and reality bleed, ORV has Constellations watching everything on the Star Stream while this novel has an internal game beta testing forum limited to the participating gamers reacting belatedly to news they learn once they're back in the "real world"... etc. etc.

[sam_gardener]

穿进赛博游戏后干掉BOSS成功上位 by 桉柏 Thank you for the rec! I've been meaning to read an unlimited flow story so I guess this is going to be it. Just now read the first 3 chapters and the translation is good. :)

[dayadhvam_triad]

I hope you enjoy it! Although on second thought unlimited flow is not an accurate label and I should've used something different, I just typed that without thinking b/c it gives me the genre mood vibes, if that makes sense orz. So it's technically not unlimited flow b/c

premise spoilers

the characters aren't going to different scenarios, they're forced to keep traveling in week-long stints to a "game" that's actually a technologically-advanced alternate reality, and the focus is less on completing system-assigned missions (which are few and far between, though they exist) and more about not being captured and killed/imprisoned by the different factions in that world once they become aware of these mysterious invaders calling themselves "gamers"

For an actual unlimited flow story you'll want to try something different /facepalm

[sam_gardener]

oh well I'm hooked now :) I did intend to read ORV at some point anyway so it may still end up being my "first actual unlimited flow story". I really wish I could read as fast as I did when I was younger, my virtual TBR stack of books is so tall it would topple over and crush me if it materialized.

[liliacs]

I haven't been reading as much cnovels as I'd wish because of rl reasons, but I have a couple of reading-adjacent questions to ask if that's okay!

1 - Does anyone have advice for finding smut scenes the author posted elsewhere and then took down? Usually, finding smut scenes that were posted on JJWXC then removed seems pretty simple, but I have no idea how to find ones that were originally on Weibo or Lofter or somewhere else.

2 - How does JJWXC order the comments on the novel page? I feel like before, you'd see the newest comments regardless of chapter, but then it turned into newest comments on the last chapter. But then the other day, I clicked on a book and it had the former format. Does it just depend on the author? And is there any way to change the format? Asking because I prefer the former format to the latter and I don't like the change.

[geraineon]

Of course that's okay! If you don't get responses, feel free to make a top level post with these questions too, to get more eyes on them.

[aurumcalendula]

I caught up with chapter 41 and 42 of Seeking Immortality in Vain and chapter 5 of Lost and Found. I'm I'm loving the political intrigue and slow-burn chemistry in the former and I'm curious how things play out in the latter (it honestly feels kinda like a psychological thriller at the moment, but there don't seem to be tags to that effect on Novel Updates).

[geraineon]

Novel Updates not having a tag for psychological thriller seems like a miss... I'd love to be able to filter for that. There is a thriller tag, but not for psychological thriller, so probably a lot more broad than wanted.

[aurumcalendula]

That does seem like a miss. tbh I meant more w/r/t this particular entry not having a thriller tag last I checked - I'm not sure if it's because it doesn't apply (and the vibe I'm getting is a red herring) or because the person who made the work page didn't want to spoil things.

[halfcactus]

Justice in the Dark (Modu cdrama) has picked up steeply in the second half. It took me like... 5 days to get through the latest ep just because there were soooo many feelings. And some interesting adaptation choices in last weekend's eps that skirt around the censorship but make it abundantly clear that 1) the characters slept together, 2) they're using the interrogation room to have a conversation about their relationship. I'm pretty excited to rewatch the whole thing with English subs.

Book-wise, I have started yet another book even though I already have like... 2 other books I'm actively reading and 3 I put in the backburner. I'm also now on the epilogue chapters of my fav manhwa Goldiluck the Black Kitten and my feelings (and tears) continue to accumulate. 🥺 I really hope there's gonna be an English print publication, though the chances are very slim.

[geraineon]

How did they adapt Modu to skirt around censorship? (I have yet to start watching... maybe I really should make a friend watch with me to get over my tv watching block XD)

That manhwa title is so cute! (can always try to request! ... I remember sometime back seeing a post on how to submit requests to most publishers doing tl for manga/manhwa/light novels/webnovels. Shall see if I can dig it up!

[halfcactus]

The only reason I've been keeping up is because they've only been releasing 2 eps / week and I already saw the first 8 years ago. ^^; In ep 21, the LWZ and FD have this big heart-to-heart conversation and the next day it looks like FD is wearing LWZ's jacket??? Like it's obviously not his usual style and LWZ is wearing a new jacket that day. XD Anyway, big "they slept together" vibes.

And the episode about Feng Bin and Xia Xiaonan (the bullying case), Tao Ran made a comment about how even people in romantic relationships couldn't trust each other—this was an episode where FD and LWZ's tension and trust issues were the central focus which basically spelled out that FD and LWZ were in a similar relationship (romantic). It was very interesting!

(Also there was a glorious kabedon scene where LWZ can't help but look at FD's mouth. XD)