Ancient Detective babble, crochet and bread

[donutsweeper]

On corvidology's suggestion I watched Ancient Detective (streaming on viki here and youtube here) and is was just.. so good. Easily one of the best things I've watched in a while. It's set in 'ancient' China (mostly 'real world' China, as in, people have amazing martial arts but it's not the flying swords and mystical beasts and whatnot) and the premise is that eight years ago there had been a huge battle that left main character Jian Buzhi wounded with amnesia and a lot of people, including his father, dead. The show has him following in his father's footsteps as a detective, solving cases and trying to find out the truth behind what happened that fateful day. Along the way he meets and instantly befriends Zhao Wohuan, who's just started trying to make a name for himself in the martial world. They go from friends to 'I will protect you with my life' to sworn brothers to this (see gif of Zhao Wohuan talking to Jian Buzhi under cut) in no time flat.

It's 24 episodes of 35-40ish minutes each and very tightly plotted. Characters from one mystery pop up and play roles in other mysteries. Vague comments and asides wind up being important. The acting is good, the effects mostly work, even the fight scenes don't wind up overly long. Characters grow and learn things and interact in ways that make sense with logical reasons for doing the things they do. There's strong female characters. There's a fluidity of gender roles. The idiot ball is basically nonexistent.

Most importantly (for me) it was a complete story. The last episode ends with one of those 'here's a bit of something that could be used as the jumping off point for S2 if we get it' (one of the leads did mention on social media that it has been renewed although that doesn't guarantee anything) but it's not remotely a cliffhanger or anything; episode 24 works as both a series and season finale.

Anyway, highly recommend it. If anyone wants to babble about it with me or wants more specifics on plot or possible triggers just ask (as a result there might be spoilers in the comments).

I finished my most recent 'use up yarn stash' afghan:

45" wide x 37" long

I kind of wish I'd paid a little more attention to the number of rows of each color because it's uneven and irregular but oh well. Afghan! ... And now I need a new project. *sigh*

Also, I don't know if any of you are familiar with bdylanhollis who rose to fame last year for his tiktok viral videos of him baking vintage foods (said videos are often loaded up on tumblr, which is were I found him, and he also has a youtube channel now with several of those as well as a few longer baking vids) but he posted about a peanut butter bread (my tumblr reblog of it with the recipe written out) that looked great and I made it.

It came out quite good - not exactly like a quick bread or yeast/soda bread but somewhere in between and stayed fresh for the few days it took for us to finish it off.

Also, after almost 13 years, I decided to change my default icon. Not sure about the change. We'll see.

Comments

[shadaras]

Ancient Detective keeps moving up my list of things to watch! :D But I gotta finish at least one thing I'm in the middle of before I can try it. xD

[donutsweeper]

I was honestly surprised how much I liked it So I hope you do too once you get to it, but I know what you mean, trying to keep track to too many shows doesn't work too well.

[shadaras]

It's exactly the kind of story I tend to like, so I am pretty certain I'll like it! :)

(...once I finish Imperial Coroner or The Rebel or TLTR...)

[donutsweeper]

Oh, Imperial Coroner, I was debating starting that one soon. It looked quite good.

[shadaras]

I'm having a ton of fun with it! I'm watching with friends, so I'm only watching 1ep/wk, which means it's taking us a while to get through but it's been splendid so far. :) The relationships really sing and the plots are tight and nothing drags out too long.

[donutsweeper]

oh that sounds excellent. It's funny, for decades I only ever watched things as they aired, one episode a week during the season, but now I'm all... only one a week? How do you do that?

[shadaras]

Right? It's such a different experience! Especially since cdramas usually air much faster than one a week, too, so it's not even the original viewing experience.

Mostly we manage because it's the one slice of time we all have to watch it together (via discord streaming, as you do) and it's more fun to watch with people and all experience it for the first time together than it is to binge-watch on our own. :)

[corvidology]

I can also wholeheartedly recommend The Imperial Coroner and for many of the same reasons!

The trailer makes it look like a rom com for some reason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS-40dOWY38&t=23s

But it's actually an excellent mystery where like with AD, mysteries feed into other mysteries with the seamless addition of romantic and comedic elements.

It has great production values, great script and great acting. It's another one I've done a promo for at c_ent if you want further babbling!

[donutsweeper]

I saw your promo write up earlier but chose to watch Ancient Detective instead since it was shorter. It does look really good too :)

[corvidology]

I know Shadaras is watching it one episode a week with a mate but it's a brilliant souffle of a thing from the very first episode and the family and found family dynamics are superb. Half of these characters have been friends since childhood. These people all have each other's backs in a way that's often missing in C dramas.

Like C dramas often have misunderstandings in them that drag on and cause all sort so problems so with The Imperial Coroner you find yourself thinking 'OMG, they must tell X about Y! Why aren't they telling X about Y?" And then you find out that, very sensibly, they already have off screen. :D

[shadaras]

Sometimes they tell X about Y in that scene/the next scene, for a change of pace. xD But, yes! Agreed on all of this! If I hadn't agreed to be watching it with friends I'd've binged the whole thing after the first few episodes. :)

[corvidology]

I like misunderstandings in fic - when they're 'logical' in terms of how the characters interact - so I don't mind them in canon either but when they drag on it gets tedious. While misunderstandings are inevitable, given all the plots and counterplots, these are people who trust each other without reservation so I'm really glad they don't drag them out.

I'm not a binge watched but even watching it with MG who dislikes binge watching even more than I do we still managed to finish it under two weeks. :D

[shadaras]

36 episodes in two weeks sure sounds like binge watching to me! xD <3

[corvidology]

Well, it's an exception that proves the rule! :D

[corvidology]

I'm so happy you enjoyed it! It really has something for everyone and Zhao Wohuan offering to protect his 'virginity' still cracks me up! :D

[donutsweeper]

Zhao Wohuan is just hilarious. He and Jian Buzhi fit together so well.

And Madam Hei Wu!! OMG

[corvidology]

I love the way he just bursts into the room, takes Jian Buzhi's hand away from Zhan Shiqi and sits on the bed! :D

I love Madam Hei Wu and happily ship them with Ye Xiaoxiao!

[donutsweeper]

Oh yes, that scene was SO ADORABLE. And even though Ye Xiaoxiao rode off with the others I assume he's going to go see Madam Hei Wu soon, those two definitely are going to have a wonderful relationship in the future.

[corvidology]

I was talking about shipping Madame Hei Wu/Ye Xiaoxiao as well over at c_ent and linked to this simple vid of them together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRxbo6Hai14

And Calendula, a vidder who hangs at the com (they made the Festivid Yin-Yang Master vid set to Dessa's I already Like You) said they were looking for a song to make a Madame Hei Wu/Ye Xiaoxiao vid!

...I'm assuming you've watched The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity but just in case you haven't, it's brilliant!

[donutsweeper]

Yes, I watched Yin-Yang Master: DoE last week, very very good! Although it didn't leave me with a lot of fannish feels. Wonderfully enjoyable though.

Ooh, that vid was great. I hope Calendula succeeds in finding a song for their vid, this poor tiny fandom needs more love.

[corvidology]

I was actually surprised by how strong my feelings are about Bo Ya/Qing Ming but then they have a lot of the qualities that draw me in to a pairing including the 'us against the world' thing.

I hope so too as her YYM vid was so good!

My fandom loves tend to be small but Ancient Detective is one of the ones that really surprises me as I would think it would draw a bigger fanbase than it does, particularly as almost everyone I know who's watched it, loved it... but most of them have no fannish feelings about it.

[donutsweeper]

I was honestly surprised when I went to AO3 to look, so few works!! It's so slashy and there's multiple different couple possibilities. Yet crickets. So weird.

[corvidology]

Me too but then that's been the case for most of the C dramas I've fallen for where I assumed even if they were small there might be at least, say, 500 stories for them and no. There are so few stories I have them all on an RSS Feed because it's depressing to keep checking on them manually.

[donutsweeper]

I wonder how much becomes self-fulfilling prophecy- like someone's thinking of writing something and pokes AO3 and looks and they could write for MDZS/CQL and its ridiculously huge (30k+ works!) audience or Guardian and it's big (8k+ works) audience or even Yin-Yang Master:DoE and it's tiny-in-comparison 300 works audience or... Ancient Detective and it's one lone page of works. Not that people only write/create for the eyeballs, but which fandoms have prompts, which are they seeing in the feeds, which do they see gifsets and meta for, which get requested for exchanges etc etc etc. I get it, but still. SIGH. I was hoping for lots of fics when I went searching.

[corvidology]

The weird thing is that in many cases there's lots of chatter, gifs, pics, etc on Tumblr but no fic.

I mean, I knew The Silent Criminal would be a tiny fandom even though it's such ridiculous OOT slashy fun and only 13 x 35 minute episodes long - I was still expecting more than four stories - but a mate told me she'd seen lots of gifs and pics for it on Tumblr.

Mates on Tumblr have also told me they've seen lots of pics and gifs for Ancient Detective.

I totally get that people would prefer larger audiences for their work and to be fair to them I think the C dramas based on BL novels have a wide reaching appeal but still... While I don't do Tumblr, I am used to thinking of a fandom's presence there as being related to the amount of fic that gets written for it!

Now with The Imperial Coroner I wasn't so surprised as I think a lot of viewers are happy with the canon M/F ships which usually doesn't lead to much fic being written.

[donutsweeper]

I hunted a bit on tumblr and found some for Ancient Detective, but not a lot? A few were really nice gifsets though. Supposedly there's going to be a second season so maybe that'll draw people back in and get more stuff created for it.

[corvidology]

Most of the lovely gifs I have of them a mate found for me on Tumblr.

Fandom zeitgeist remains a mystery to me a lot of the time.:D

Oh, and if you're still in the mood for something short, The Silent Criminal is very entertaining!