Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post~

For spoilers:

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Comments

[geraineon]

where winds meet still has my full attention but I've started reading 不见上仙三百年/Three Hundred Years of Longing because a discord server I was in was discussing the ... questionable... translation choices in the 7S version.

(I'm reading the fantl instead)

[dayadhvam_triad]

What translation choices? /curious

[geraineon]

Latin, so you'll get stuff like Urbs Caelestia. This is a xianxia novel. I am absolutely not a fan of this choice.

[silverblade219]

Continuing the Chinese Lore Podcast, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Read ahead a bit with the transcripts, because was curious about Zhuge Liang lol. For the podcast itself, Dong Zhuo was just killed -- I ended up really liking Diaochan and was surprised that she doesn't seem to have more scenes after this point.

[larryhammer]

Unfortunately very few women in RTK have any sort of extended presence. Especially the actually interesting ones.

[lee_bella]

Finished 朕与秦王扫六合 (King Qin and I Unified the Six Kingdoms), a self-cest fanfic featuring Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, being paired up with his younger self from an alternate history universe. It's essentially a salvation story about saving yourself. I enjoyed it, and it got me interested in reading up on the real life history the story was inspired by.

[katzenfabrik]

That sounds super interesting! Can I ask where you read it?

[lee_bella]

It's on jjwxc. And it looks like someone is working on an English translation? Novel Updates Link.

[katzenfabrik]

Thanks a lot! Very exciting that it’s being translated, too.

Edit: wow, replying to that comment by email did not give the results I expected. Sorry for the noise.

[geraineon]

a QSH self-cest?! Amazing XD

[aurumcalendula]

I finally caught up on the three most recently translated chapters of Begging the Heavens in Vain!

[geraineon]

Nice!

[duckprintspress]

when I saw this yesterday I was like "nope nothing to share" but I just remembered, I reread volume 1 of the Nirvana in Fire manhua and then read volume 2! The art is so pretty. Some of the translation choices seem a little odd but not unreadably so.

[geraineon]

What are the odd translation choices?

[duckprintspress]

Things like, they chose to lean in on relatively "literal" translations of the way people speak respectfully to the emperor, which most English translations I've read skim over because they read kinda stilted in English. I didn't mind, I think it's interesting/nice to get a more literal sense tbh.

[dayadhvam_triad]

While waiting around for the Five Dynasties/Ten Kingdoms period drama 太平年 to air, I've been looking through stories set during that time and ended up reading 浪淘沙 ft. transmigrator girl-crossdressing-as-guy who alongside her father establishes a relatively stable area of influence under their control while the timeline churns through 4 dynasties/6 rulers in <20 years, before she ultimately takes over in lieu of the Later Zhou. It had some interesting takes on historical figures—idk how I feel about super-chatty enthusiastic Zhao Kuangyin or melancholic dreamer Guo Rong... And it did stretch my suspension of disbelief for many of her subordinates to not know she was a woman for years given that the narrative never showed she was actively suppressing this info and many others DID know. But I enjoyed it overall as a fun read. XD

[geraineon]

Oh, exciting if that drama drops this year.

Super chatty and enthusiastic Zhao Kuangyin XD;;

[thawrecka]

I finished the Seven Seas translation of volume 1 of Peerless by Meng Xi Shi on the weekend; it's fun, and has a lot of entertaining banter and twists and turns. I'm not enjoying it as much as other stuff from the author yet, but I know what I like about their work is often the long character arcs, so I'm fully expecting to love it as much by the time I get to the end.

I've also just started the second volume of the translation of Legend of Exorcism. I feel like I enjoyed the donghua better than I've enjoyed the novel so far, and I'm not sure why. Still, the two seasons I watched didn't cover the whole story so I have to keep reading for that.

[geraineon]

Hm, I've not watched the donghua for Legend of Exorcism. Will check it out.

[thawrecka]

I don't know if it still is on there, but I watched the first season on Netflix. I had to hunt down season 2 on Bilibili though

[geraineon]

I guess I can sail the high seas if I really can't find them. Thanks!

[duckprintspress]

That's good to know re: Legend of Exorcism; I enjoyed the manhua and the first season of the donghua (I wasn't able to track down the second, sigh) and I've really wanted to read the novels for a while, but I'm waiting to have them all, so now I can keep in mind and set my expectations maybe a little lower lol.

(and yeah, I just want to know how it endssssss.)