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Current Mood: apathetic
Crossposts: https://cashew.insanejournal.com/1891399.html

All my fandoms have been a huge letdown

So, was out of town visiting a friend for two weeks. Haven't been able to check in with DW due to only having a phone and trying to type on phone browser is...less than ideal. Over the course of the two weeks, ended up binging on the third season of 《唐诡》(aka Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty), a semi-fantastical mystery drama set in, you guessed it, the Tang Dynasty.

Firstly, I genuinely enjoyed Season 1. Is it something I'd recommend? Eh... only in the context of current period dramas are shit and this one is semi-passable and uses decent grammar that doesn't feel "too modern" all the time. The mysteries are somewhat entertaining and despite the semi-fantastical setting (there is a heavy reliance on "weirdness" that isn't always explainable), the show definitively states ghosts are not real, which is kind of important in a good mystery. But also animals don't work like that, but whatever, I've given up hope when it comes to accurate portrayal of animal behavior in fiction. 😓

Secondly, despite my enjoyment, the show is not without problems and there are very, very many cringe moments. Yet, because it's directed at a domestic audience and unapologetically Chinese, I just keep giving the show a pass for the cringe. Like, is it xenophobic against foreigners? Yes. On the other hand, given the last 150 years of Chinese history...it's also kind of understandable why the xenophobia exists.

Thirdly, the latter seasons get worse and worse. Second season was mildly enjoyable if featuring way too many cryptids. Third season, which I just finished binging these past weeks while out of town, was... well, it's kind of straight up bad. None of the set up were paid off in a satisfactory manner, the main characters got sidelined for one-shot characters, plus the mysteries leaned way too hard on the horror aesthetic and just didn't have any real mystery pacing. The final arc was so deeply disappointing I'm still trying to find the words to properly describe how much it fails at being a mystery.

And yet.

Despite everything, despite all the crap, I suspect I'm going to end up watching season 4 and 5 (which have already been announced). I mildly hate myself for it. This is clearly my new fandom, but I'm so resentful, because it started off strong enough that I had hopes it will improve. Instead, what I got was an increasingly terrible series that simply cannot sustain the expectation of success.

This is possibly why I've been diving into D&D. Because despite my general dislike for D&D settings and annoyance with a lot of the game mechanics, at least I can take as little or as much as I want from the source material and simply do my own thing with it. And honestly, I just never expected solo D&D to take so very long. But also, because I needed a change of pace because working on my own game has been feeling a bit like running in a hamster wheel.

Sometimes I question my decision making.

Crossposts: https://tanithryudo.insanejournal.com/556260.html

Entry tags:

Hoyo games and recent politics

Recently, the HSR forums/reddit has been abuzz with rumors that the upcoming entire 4.0 storyline is in danger because it's JP based, and is getting self-censored due to the recent political climate. The fact that announcement of the 3.8 patch infodump (scheduled for tomorrow) also came with the note that drip marketing for 4.0 won't be included, with no dates given for the delay...isn't helping.

Not sure what this means for the game as a whole. Like, we can't exactly hope that the politics side will die down over the course of the 3.8 patch. We also don't know if the original 4.0 story/setting was entirely or partially or only tangentially affected. So, I guess a lot is up in the air and just...wait and see is all I can do.

( HSR rant )

( Genshin update )

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.