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>*

Note: I genuinely do not understand why my posts are not being posted even though I got the confirmation that the community has been updated with a new post, and this keeps happening. Is this happening to anyone else?

Comments

[thispatternismine]

I breezed through Offering Salted Fish to Master (aka When Destiny Brings the Demon) in a few days, as it's a pretty short book. I was wondering how closely it matched the drama, & weirdly it was very close, but also not? There are a few differences like Highlight for spoilers! *the snake gaining human form much later & that form being a child, the whole thing with the ancient demon lord trying to regain a body not being a thing in the book, & the fake sect/settlement (though that's based on a scene in the book at least), & the baby that shows up as a character post-timeskip,* but mostly the drama stayed pretty close in terms of overall arc. If I didn't know any better I'd think someone watched the drama & knocked together a quick summary. It had some funny lines & it was nice reading the FL's thoughts on stuff, but ultimately I like the drama better, because the novel is definitely barebones & the drama filled in a lot.

I read the new SVSSS extras now the translation has completed, & I have to admit my feelings are a tad mixed. Overall I liked it. It was fun seeing the characters getting up to wacky shenanigans, & as someone whose fave character is SQH, I really appreciate him having a name now (can we please have an actual name for MBJ as well though, MXTX?). But I found a lot of the new lore sucked some magic out of the story. My thoughts are kind of long & rambley so I'll just link.

Currently reading Salted Fish Ascension (being made into a drama, Live Long & Prosper, with Dylan Wang as the lead). Rough plot summary: Guy strives his whole life to become a great cultivator but faces disaster at every turn. After dying he finds out this is a story & he's just a prop who's here to set things up for the actual main character. Gets a chance at a do-over & goes 'screw the cultivation world - I'm gonna chill out & plant crops instead', while using his knowledge of the future to avoid drama. Cultivation world becomes fascinated by him, desperate to figure out what his deal is. I'm up to about chapter 20 & finding it super funny. The translation I'm reading is definitely MTL, but it's at least one where an actual human has gone over & fixed any issues, & it's readable & easy to follow. It's only apparent in the lack of translator's notes & the occasional times where it's clear a character is punning on another character's name & I'm missing out on the joke. And it's not like there's an alternative, at least as I can find (searching for anything involving ascending or salted fish brings up so many results, & using the drama title just brings up Start Trek stuff, & then there's google being shit on top of that). It's good enough that I can deal with it, even as someone who hates MTL.

[aurumcalendula]

I finished rereading Reading the Remnants the other day - imho the second half definitely has less momentum than the first half, but I still really enjoy it.

I started reading Outrageous yesterday. A woman who tends to unintentionally fade into the background and get ignored by people suddenly gets a System (and a Protagonist Halo) by accident and is tasked with romancing an actress. I'm only three chapters in, so I'm not sure what I think of it so far.

That's weird (re: posts)! I'm not sure if that's happened to me yet - I'll keep an eye out if I see anything about it.

[geraineon]

It only happens for posts on this comm and not on my personal journal, which makes it doubly weird I guess. Gonna see if it happens again this week.

Oh, Outrageous is even finished! Nice.

[duckprintspress]

I am plowing through Peerless and enjoying it so much; I started the last English volume yesterday evening. Fuck, I just love how MXS writes politics so so so much.

I'm still making progress on ISMM in Chinese; now that I'm into the later parts of the story, the fact that the edition I'm reading MUST have been censored for mainland China publication has gotten really, REALLY, hilariously obvious. Like. idk how someone reading this version would even know they're in a relationship at this point in the actual story. By this point in the manhua they have literally had sex. I've got less than 50 pages left and I've been reading roughly 3 pages a day, so I'll be done in early December unless something wonky happens. :D

I am developing The Plan for how I'm gonna approach what I'm gonna read next in Chinese, and even tho I'm worried it'll be stupidly hard, I'm tentatively leaning toward Global Examination (I have read an entire fan translation, the first vol of the official English, and I've read the manhua in both English and Chinese, so it's not the dumbest choice...). Curious how censorship will butcher this one, lmao.

[geraineon]

I do enjoy all the MXS I finished... which is just two, so I really should read more.

Jiayou for the CN practice.

[duckprintspress]

I've read 3 - Thousand Autumns, The 14th Year of Chenghua, and now Peerless, and enjoyed all three very much. I think I've only got two authors I've read as much or more by? MXTX and priest. Lots of people I've read 2, very few I've read more than 2, lol. Wait no! Also Fei Tian Ye Xiang. But. yeah. def want to read more MXS. She's giving priest a run for the money on "favorite danmei author."

[lee_bella]

I just love how MXS writes politics so so so much.

Same here. I kind of wish she would write another court intrigue/historical politics danmei novel, but alas.

...the fact that the edition I'm reading MUST have been censored for mainland China publication has gotten really, REALLY, hilariously obvious.

That's a bummer. I heard that with danmei novels, versions published outside of mainland China have a better chance of being uncensored.

[duckprintspress]

oh nooooo are none of her other books political? whyyyyyy

re: published outside mainland China, the problem is that thus far the only options I've really found are either published in mainland China, or published in Taiwan. I can't read traditional (yet, I def plan to work on it once I feel I've got my simplified stronger) so I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money on Taiwanese editions. I do have a few (all my MXTX is from Taiwan) but... yeah.

[lee_bella]

I think she's written other political intrigue novels, but those are either BG or non-CP, not danmei.

[duckprintspress]

oooo. that makes sense. and would be fine with me, honestly, I love a good political novel enough that I'll forgo a CP for one, lol.

[ehyde]

I'm finally reading Stray by Nian Zhong, which has been on my list for a while but Nian Zhong novels are so *long* I have to space them out (...long being relative; I think this is somewhere between TGCF and erha).

This one's a western-style fantasy! I think it's actually the first western fantasy cnovel I've read. Our main character has either acquired power from a demon or possibly has been a demon all along; knowing Nian Zhong, I'm guessing the second.

I also saw that my library acquired ebooks for a few more seven seas translations! But not the ones I'm most interested in, so I gotta see about how to request more.

[geraineon]

Also putting my bets on the second, demon all along.

What are the newly available titles?

[ehyde]

Legend of Exorcism, Dinghai Fusheng Records, Copper Coins, Case File Compendium, and I think a couple more volumes of Ballad of Sword and Wine.

I'm interested in some of those! But I was hoping they'd get Love Between Fairy and Devil, and the last two volumes of Yuwu

[duckprintspress]

ah, nice!! I love the first three on those list (I haven't read BAB or QJJ yet)

[lee_bella]

IMO going into a Nian Zhong novel requires a fair bit of patience, and seeing as Stray is her longest novel... (I needed to take a break from Stray midway through because I felt like I'd been stuck in that world for a long time -- not that I disliked the experience or that world.)

[silverblade219]

I finished rereading SVSSS! One random scene that stood out in vol 3 to me was the realization that Highlight for spoilers!*the systems never issue Punishment like some fanon suggests, it places limitations at times but otherwise only gives or takes away points. SQQ buys the Punishment in order to avoid being deported back to his original world after getting a Game Over due to one point value going below zero. While it is not actually a death sentence like he thinks in the moment, according to the new extra; I think he was still right for the wrong reason - I don’t see him being able to continue being SQQ if he didn’t act quickly and do that.*

Also I forgot that Highlight for spoilers!* SQH verbally refers to the “Original SQQ” in order to differentiate from the current one during his “Call me daddy!” speech to Mobei-Jun in vol 4. Also, MBJ had to promise to cook for SQH at the airplane extras, and now in the new extra he had to do the clingy pathetic crying after crawling out of the computer like Sadako. He has to be so annoyed with the intricate human courtship rituals lol.*

I continue to really like the new svsss extra

[geraineon]

Human courtship rituals are annoying even for me, a human XD