distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)

But also: new year, old fics.


I've been trying really hard to keep myself busy with writing since I finished Recovery. As previously mentioned, when I started the writing hiatus that ended up lasting two years, I wasn't sure I would ever come back to writing. Now that I'm excited about it again, I'm eager to keep the train chugging along as best I can.


I'm a solid 6300 words into a Sam/Jess/Mike Until Dawn fic that I'd quite like to finish, but it's taking some time because it's porn. I am deeply rusty at writing sex in general, since that's a muscle I had to train and not one that came naturally to me, but I also never really got a handle on how to write AFAB genitals in sex scenes. I've tried several times and only succeeded once. The success was What We Write in the Shadows, so it went great, but writing one fic is not the same as knowing what I'm doing. This means that I must turn once more to YouTube sex ed videos for research. But I'm lazy, so I don't want to do the research.


Instead, I am procrastinating writing one fic by working on another...few. I've got quite a lot of WIPs that I abandoned in 2016-2019 for essentially no other reason than that I thought I would get back to them sooner than I did. I'm happy to report that I've read through a good number of my fic documents from those years and still enjoyed what I wrote, which means they'll be a lot easier to finish than if I discovered I hated and needed to rewrite them.


As a youth I was an aspiring novelist, but as I grew up, I discovered that I don't enjoy longform writing very much. There's a reason that writing a 24k word fic took me out for two years, and there's a reason that most of my fics don't run longer than 10k. That said, some of my old projects that I still care about finishing are long ones, and that's kind of scary!


I'm currently spending my time working on an AU for Caste Heaven, a BL manga that peaked in 2016 and ended in 2021. I'm not going to pretend that I liked the original work very much, but I'm also not going to pretend that I didn't get deeply invested in the protagonist and his mother, or that there weren't good pages in the terrible chapters.


The first part of this AU, Gilded, is already up on my AO3. I think the fandom for that series was most active in 2016, which is frankly in large part to me and my good friend Ciara posting a fuck ton of fics around the same time because we were constantly talking about the series. I got a lot of really kind comments on that fic because of when it was posted, and I am afraid that I'm not going to get the same kind of attention since so much time has passed. Alas. 


But the project still means a lot to me! I'm not usually the kind of person who follows trends in entertainment (FE3H was a huge exception), so I'm okay with the idea of not having a lot of attention on this fic, even if I would prefer otherwise. I still intend to finish it one day, regardless of whether that's this year or not. All that said, I sure do hope this is the year!


This AU has always been beloved to me. Before I got into Until Dawn, this was the recovery story I always wanted to write. The original manga is, uh, trauma porn and then a really weird ending where a victim falls for his abuser, for some reason? But my AU is about getting revenge, realizing that life goes on once you've gotten it, and slowly rearranging your life until you find peace. I pulled out the two most important relationships in the original manga--the caustic protagonist and the very first friend he's ever made, and the caustic protagonist and his mother who would absolutely kill to protect one another without ever mentioning the sacrifices they've made--and made the whole fic about that.


I left off in 2019 with a full 20k unposted words of this AU split into three documents and a very thorough notes document, all of which has stood the test of time. Can you imagine if I thought they sucked?? I'm going to do my very best to finish it this time! This is also my first project with real OCs that actually matter, so I've got to try to give them personalities and flaws and whatnot. It's a good fic, and I want to do right by the concept.


Here's to a new year! I hope I can keep up the pace I've been writing at for the last couple of months, because I've really been enjoying it.

distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)

I read through [personal profile] rionaleonhart’s 2022 fic roundup and thought “That would be a fun thing to do, except that I’ve only written one fic this year. Maybe I should do it for all of my time on AO3 instead!” So here’s a fic reflection for almost all of my time as a serious fic writer. (I really started in 2011, but I didn’t start posting on AO3 until 2013.)


I changed some of the references to “this year” to do a big picture summary. I left one in, though!


Number of fics written from 2013 to 2022: 

47. I have 51 on AO3, but I’m pretty sure that all four of the L.A. Noire fics I posted in December of 2013 were reposts from the L.A. Noire Kink Meme, which I wrote for in 2011.


Fandoms: 

By number of fics: Fire Emblem: Three Houses (10), Aoharu x Kikanjuu (8), L.A. Noire (7), Caste Heaven (4), Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (3), Until Dawn (3), Les Miserables (3), Gintama (3), Hatoful Boyfriend (2), Godsfall (2), The Yogscast (2), Yuri!!! On Ice (1), The Flash/Legends of Tomorrow (1), Supernatural (1).


In chronological order: Les Miserables, Supernatural, The Yogscast, L.A. Noire, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, Hatoful Boyfriend, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, Aoharu x Kikanjuu, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi again, Caste Heaven, Yuri!!! On Ice, The Flash/Legends of Tomorrow, Godsfall, Until Dawn, Hatoful Boyfriend again, Gintama, L.A. Noire again, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Until Dawn again.


Best title: 

What We Write in the Shadows is my favorite by far. Bernadetta’s a writer! They’re roleplaying vampires! I love What We Do in the Shadows! I’m a genius.


Worst title: 

Inevitability // Change, also by far. Frankly, I didn’t care much about titling this story, to the point where I couldn’t even choose between two single words for a title. But to be fair to me, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi isn’t a good series, so writing for its main pairing didn’t instill in me a lot of love.


Best first line: 

She knew from the first moment she held him that her son was the most beautiful person she would ever see.


This one’s from Gilded, which is about the mom of a BL protagonist. She appears in under 5% of the manga and she is my favorite character. This opening line took me right back into the mindset of the story immediately, which did not happen when I read the rest of my opening lines. Most of my opening lines feel a little utilitarian, even if they’re punchy openings.


I have also always loved the opening line of Recovery chapter 2, which I don’t think qualifies for this since it’s not the opening line of chapter 1, but I will share it here anyway:

They make it off the mountain, but they don’t come back whole.


I always knew this would be in the overall fic summary as well. It just really encapsulates the Until Dawn survivor story, which is to have PTSD and fail to cope with it.


Boy did I have to look at a lot of old fics for this one! )


Here’s to a decade of trying my best to write fic! I hope the next decade is full of improvement and works that I continue to love.


distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)
 

I don’t know when I became fond of Jess, because I don’t think it happened after the first playthrough I watched, but I really like Jess! I think she’s really cute. Her initial charm point is when she and Mike have that snowball fight where you can just dominate Mike. The goofy little roleplay they do where Jess pretends to be a southern plantation girl or whatever is really cute because it’s so… not what I would think a popular girl would do. It’s very silly and nerdy. I also like that everyone correctly chooses to hit Mike with a snowball instead of kissing him when given the option.


There’s frankly not really anything interesting about the whole Mike vs. Matt, Jess vs. Emily fight scene. It’s just heterosexual teen drama, and while I understand why it’s there, it’s very boring. I think the dialogue option where Mike tells Jess that she “brings out the worst in Emily” is half of the truth: Jess and Emily bring out the worst in each other in this game.


The scene where Josh hands Mike and Jess the key to the cabin, though? When Jess says she thinks Josh was hitting on her and then gets genuinely excited when Mike jokes about inviting Josh to come to the cabin with them to fuck? Amazing. Love the idea of Jess being a virgin who is nervous about having sex for the first time but also kind of down to have a threesome. I also like the idea that even though Mike is the one who’s dated around the most, it’s Jess who’s more adventurous. I think it suits Mike to be more conservative and get pulled along to more exciting ground. Also, I want him to get pushed around by women because he’s clearly into that.


The entire walk to the cabin is really good Mike content, Jess content, and Mike/Jess content. It’s where you can start to wring out Mike’s charm points, but it’s also the prime time to see what Jess is like, since it’s the last time we really see her pre-trauma. I’m not a fan of pranks in general, but I’m especially not a fan of pranks for this group of people. For that reason, I fucking hate when they scare each other on purpose during the walk up to the cabin. That said, every other piece of dialogue is really cute. I like it when Jess teases Mike because it shows that she’s not so hung up on him that she just accepts everything he does. Also, Mike deserves to be made fun of.


Once again I must recommend not opening any gates as Mike so Jess will yell at him and tell him he pooped all over his pants. Amazing content, truly. I love that she’s out here running for her life and still has room to be frustrated that her boyfriend is being stupid.


I’m also glad that Jess has one of the extremely rare moments when someone shows a modicum of responsibility for what happened to Hannah and Beth. When Ashley talks about it, she refers to it as “what happened last year,” whereas Jess properly acknowledges that the prank is what got Hannah and Beth killed. Which is obviously true. Since Mike and Jess were two of the most central figures in the prank, it’s an important conversation for them to have. The actual words they say aren’t a great look for them, but from the performance, it’s really clear that Jess does not feel good about what she did.


The scene where Jess gets pulled through the window in the door is truly the single most frightening moment that has happened in any Supermassive game, and I’ve seen full playthroughs of Until Dawn, Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, and The Quarry. There’s only one moment in House of Ashes that even comes close to the level of fear that the Jess scene induces, and nothing else is in the same ballpark at all. The shape of her body in that window just looks so wrong. It looks like her whole body is broken, and I was shocked that she didn’t just die immediately when she first got grabbed.


What really clinches Jessica as a good character to me is the change in her attitude after she gets dropped down the elevator shaft and wakes up in the mines. First and least importantly, I love that one of the first things she can do is try to hit Matt with a shovel. (Get him, girl!) But what actually matters is the fact that her entire attitude changes once she’s hurt. She doesn’t mess around, she doesn’t tell any jokes or say anything unnecessary, she just tries to survive.


Jessica’s credits performance is another one of my favorites. Emily and Matt mostly talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter, which has always annoyed me about their personality and writing, respectively. On the other hand, Jess talks only about survival. There’s so much weight in the fact that she ignores the police interviewer’s question and doesn’t ask if Mike is okay; she asks if he lived. Jess has an almost instinctive understanding of just how dangerous this mountain is for them, and she only needs one encounter with a Wendigo to get there.


Jess has a maturity about her that I think she usually doesn’t let show because she’s too busy with her hot, popular, mean girl persona. It has interesting implications post-game. Will she keep playing up that part of her personality? Will she become more serious now that she knows there’s more out there than regular teen drama? Will she handle her PTSD well, or fall apart like Mike and Sam are likely to do? There are a lot of ways you can take Jessica after the game, but I think she’s most interesting if she does become more serious.


The depiction of Jess in “the balance book” is really good. I have a lot of fondness for the moment when Josh looks around at all of the drawings Jess has made out of trauma and realizes they’re not all just monsters.


I am newly fascinated by the idea of Jess undergoing a classic Big Chop once she's satisfied with her therapy progression and ending up with a fluffy bob a la Kristen Bell afterwards. I think it would be really cute :)

distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)

[Sam, Chris, and Ashley voice] I want to get off Mr. Josh’s wild ride, please!


There’s a lot to Josh that’s explicitly covered by the story of Until Dawn, but there’s so much about the year between lodge incidents that’s implied, and I want to start there because it’s just as insane as the shit he actually does.


Josh believed his friend group to be responsible for the disappearance of his sisters, and he kept hanging out with them for a full year after it happened. Hating them the whole time, planning a truly unhinged revenge scheme that must have taken a huge amount of time, money, and commitment. There’s technically no evidence that the friend group stayed tight after the disappearance of the twins, but no one really talks about how long it’s been since they last saw each other, just that it’s weird to come back to the mountain after a year and/or without the twins.


To me, the weirdest thing about Josh’s big Saw games plan has always been how little of it focused around the people who were most directly responsible for Hannah and Beth’s disappearance. Ashley is the only victim of Josh’s “game” that actually had anything to do with the prank; Sam and Chris weren’t involved and were unduly punished, whereas Mike, Emily, and Jess all got off scot free somehow. I wonder if maybe it was only ever about Sam and about pushing Chris and Ashley towards each other, and if revenge was just Josh’s excuse for how out of control the plan was. It’s really scary and sad how unhinged he is about his friends (or “friends,” depending on how you feel).


There’s a page in Hannah’s diary that’s very, very sad where she says that she didn’t realize how sick Josh was until he had to be hospitalized. It’s so crazy to read knowing everything Josh did and how hard of a time he’s had with treatments. The fact that he could be completely falling apart and one of his sisters, who he lived with, didn’t even know? That says a lot about his behavior and his ability to act like nothing is wrong. It explains why everyone came back to the lodge for the anniversary of Hannah and Beth’s disappearances. It can’t have just been guilt because of how few of them seemed to feel guilty. But if they stayed friends with Josh after his sisters disappeared, if they kept hanging out with him and going through their regular high school and college lives like Josh’s entire world wasn’t destroyed because of a mean prank his friends pulled, well. Then there’s more than just the guilt to bring them to the lodge again, there’s also the obligation of not letting a friend down (again).


I’ve always found it really upsetting that Until Dawn is pitched as a story in which you can save all of the characters even though you really cannot save Josh. There’s no cure for becoming a Wendigo in canon, so that’s a permanent transformation that does not count as “being alive” as far as I’m concerned. It feels quite a lot like he gets punished for being the most mentally ill character, and that feels terrible. That boy has enough problems without also being doomed to die.


I didn’t know very much about antidepressants when I first watched a playthrough of Until Dawn, but I have a non-zero amount of knowledge now. It sucks big time that Josh is apparently chemically resistant to SSRIs and SNRIs because those are the more modern antidepressants. Between the older technology of MAOIs and the higher dose they had to put Josh on, I’m not surprised that his health didn’t actually improve. It’s not that I think his doctors did him dirty or that I think Josh didn’t go off his meds (he may have, I don’t know), but I do think Josh’s problems are just bigger than his doctors are prepared to handle.


The other thing that’s wild about Josh is how little we see of his friendship with Chris. It’s basically only present at the very beginning of the game, before they get into the lodge. After that, it’s all Saw games and being angry for perfectly legitimate reasons, and then they never share a scene again. The one thing Chris and Josh’s friendship really has going for it is the fact that Chris seems to be one of the few people who knew already that Josh had a mental health issue. I’m assuming it was a secret, though I wouldn’t put it past this group to be told that one of their friends has a serious health condition and for everyone but Sam to just brush it off.


In conclusion: Someone please get Josh a new storyline branch, some proper medical help, and new friends who don’t like pranks. I like him, and I want better for him than this.


distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)

Our girl Sam got such a fucked up last name. RIP

I got into horror as a genre after I first experienced
Until Dawn, so Sam was actually my first final girl. I say this with nothing but affection: Sam is boring, but she’s so likable. I don’t mean she’s boring as a character–like everyone, she’s been through enough shit to be interesting by default–but as a person, she would be boring. Especially in this group of assholes who prank each other to death. But she is also their heart and their conscience, so they need her desperately.


I honestly think it’s really cute that Sam lacks humor but is obviously the kindest and most caring person in their group. There is truly no way in hell that she is close friends with any of the popular kids in their group (you know, the ones who were most directly responsible for killing her best friend?), but I bet they all know that they can come to Sam for anything if they really need to.


It means something that Hannah was Sam’s best friend, not anyone else’s. It tells you about Hannah, even though we barely see anything of Hannah’s character aside from her big crush on Mike. If Hannah was Sam’s best friend, that means she must have been kind. That means she must have cared about things, because Sam wouldn’t be best friends with someone superficial or mean. We get to see how caring Beth is during the prologue, which is why you immediately understand what a loss it is for her to have died. It’s different with Hannah, who you only get to know through sad journal entries that aren’t even really about herself as much as they’re about Mike and Josh. A lot of Hannah’s personality is understood through her connection to Sam.


I always appreciate how clear-headed Sam is, even when faced by terrible terrible news. She’s always known who was at fault for Hannah and Beth’s disappearances; she may even have forgiven them, for all we know. At least she doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, which is impressive. She doesn’t freak out about Emily’s bite. When she realizes Mike is in danger, she goes after him. She saves him from a Wendigo attack (twice). Honestly, I think the emotional work is harder than fighting off monsters in a lot of ways. 


Knowing that Sam is a final girl and knowing that she can’t get physically hurt in a way that matters until the very end of the game, Sam kind of has it easier than most of the group over the course of the game. It’s still incredibly physically exhausting to run around scared and have to climb huge ass rock walls, but at least she’s never at risk of getting her eyes gouged out or her jaw ripped off. But the night at the lodge is the end of “easy” life for all of them, 


Some of the most brilliant scenes in the game are Sam scenes. The entire final sequence with the Wendigos is an absolute masterpiece from start to finish, and that’s a big part of what makes the game so good and so memorable. But as far as acting goes, the single best moment in the entire game is Sam’s first section of the credits where she talks about Josh and not needing therapy. It’s just a few lines, but it says so much about the year before and the state of her mind. The way she talks about Josh is full-on tragic; she’s in mourning, she’s been betrayed by someone she loves, and she believed that she was getting closer to him the entire time that he was plotting this whole revenge scheme. It changes her, and the consequences of that are immediately clear.


There’s nothing that beats the execution of Sam’s “I said I’m fine” line. It’s so obvious that she’s not fine, and it really sets up what the rest of her life with PTSD is going to be like. Initially, Sam doesn’t seem like the type who would refuse therapy if she needed it, but she also doesn’t seem like the type of person who would stoically take a monster (who used to be her best friend!!!!) screaming in her ear over and over while she slowly makes her way to safety. Sam contains multitudes.


It’s not like she’ll stop being the conscience of the group, but she goes straight into burying her trauma with the kind of commitment that only Sam can manage. And because it’s Sam, you know she’s going to be successful in burying her traumas and pretending she doesn’t need help, which is only going to affect her negatively. She seems like she would be too smart to fuck up her life this way, so everyone is going to believe that she’s carrying on the way she is because it’s actually better for her. And they are going to be so very wrong to believe that.


I think that Sam will be okay eventually. But I also think that Sam will have a lot of really hard, self-sabotaging months or years ahead of her while she’s in mad denial about how bad her PTSD is. Of all the cast of Until Dawn, I most believe in Sam’s ability to have real friends who actually care about her. That said, I hope those friends are able to be there for her in the way she’ll need them to be.

distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)
I recently finished the long Until Dawn fic I’ve been writing off and on (emphasis on the off) since 2018, and I think I may actually be done with writing Until Dawn fics now. I thought I was full of ideas, but it turns out that most of them were just ideas for that fic. I’m quite proud of how it turned out, so if you want to check it out, that would make me very happy. :)

Recovery | M | 18,453 words | 5 chapters

Since I’m no longer writing fic for this game (apparently), I thought I’d do a write-up of what I think about the game and the characters. It’s truly one of my favorites, right up there with L.A. Noire (a game I am truly obsessed with and also have another long fic planned for). Until Dawn is a great movie game with some really excellent writing, characterization, and acting choices. Let’s get into it!

We’ll start with my dearest Mike, who has a lot of charm despite being intensely unlikable for the first three chapters of the game or so. His introduction is doing a super shitty thing that gets two of his friends killed, and his first appearance after the prologue is him doing a shitty jump scare on Emily and Matt. How have these kids not learned to stop pranking each other?

I have a couple of very distinct memories of the first let’s play I watched of Until Dawn (played by Dodger dexbonus and Sam strippin), one of which is them seeing Mike scare his friends and immediately asking “Can Mike be the first one to die?” And I agreed! Mike sucks. But also, I love him.

I have figured out how to extract the maximum amount of charm from Mike, and it makes it really fun. That dude is goofy. He’s the action hero of the group for sure, but he also says things like “that scared the blue outta my jeans” and “fuck nuggets” and he gets scared by shower curtains. The number one recommendation I can make is to be sure not to open any gates when Mike and Jess are on the run right before they reach the cabin. That way, Jess asks him what he’s doing, Mike screams “I don’t know!!” a bunch of times, and it’s hilarious.

It really adds a lot to his character if he’s really panicky and scared of the forest and cabin at the start, because it makes it way more obvious that he’s really Having A Time once Jess gets taken. Mike really quickly becomes committed to maybe dying in pursuit of revenge for Jess, and if you get to see that he’s not always like that, it adds a lot of depth to his character. Yes, he is still the piece of shit who got Hannah and Beth killed, but he’s also the little baby who got scared by a bird in the woods. It’s a nice contrast.

I also think it’s good for Mike’s character to get his fingers caught in that bear trap. There’s this breed of white cishet male character who really benefits from a severe injury like this, and Mike is just one of them. It’s so obvious that he’s never had a hard time before in his life. He’s smart, he’s charismatic, he’s athletic, he’s popular. He’s had an easy time of things. Get Mike’s hand caught in that bear trap and the easy days are over for real. It’s something really good and tangible for him afterwards too, when Mike is inevitably destroyed by PTSD and no one believes there were Wendigos on the mountain. If there weren’t monsters, then explain this! [waves around a hand with three fingers] This also works if he saves his fingers and has a gnarly scar instead.

The one thing about Until Dawn that I will not forgive is that when Sam and Mike go into the water near the end, Sam says “It’s freezing! I can’t feel my fingers,” and if you cut off Mike’s fingers, he somehow doesn’t say “Neither can I”??? This is a crime.

I have recently become fascinated by the exchange you can have if Chris asks for the gun when they meet the Stranger:

Chris: Uh... let me have the pistol. 'Cos you can take whoever it is through sheer good looks. And muscle and all that... Just, I should have the pistol!

(If Chris had not hit Josh in the shed:)
Mike: Well. When you put it that way. Alright, here.


Is it more embarrassing that Chris tried to charm that pistol away from Mike by calling him hot, or that it actually worked?

One of my other favorite “easter egg” type of Mike moments is right before the final sequence, when the miner Wendigos come into the lodge and Sam has the choice to either lock the door on them or run after the group. If she does nothing, then Mike comes back for her. I think it’s a nice little touch. Mike is committed to having as many people survive as possible; he just doesn’t care so much if he is one of them.

Mike is potentially at his most interesting after the events of the game, when he has mad PTSD. This is kind of what the entirety of Recovery is about, but the short version is that men like Mike spiral into alcoholism when they have big time problems they don’t know how to handle. Wendigos, especially a Wendigo that used to be your friend until you were so mean to her that you killed her, are obvious nightmare fuel. Throw in my favorite bad coping mechanism of sleeping with random women because having another warm body in bed keeps the nightmares at bay and there you have it! The perfect broken fictional man, according to my own special recipe.

I like the idea of Mike being this absolute mess of a man after having coasted through life with such ease until he was 18 or 19 (depending on when you think his conscience got him). That’s good character growth. It’ll make him a better person once he gets into therapy.
distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)
Freezing Cold Hot Takes, aka blogging about Call Me By Fire season 1 only after Call Me By Fire season 2 has finished airing.

“Who are you and why are you long-form blogging about this show that ended a year ago on Dreamwidth of all places” no one, and for fun :)

I’m Vietnamese-American who did not know a single one of the Call Me By Fire contestants before watching the show, which meant that James Lee and Nathan Scott Lee speaking in English to each other sometimes was an absolute godsend early on. It also meant that “If There’s Still a Tomorrow” was my very favorite cover produced during the show, but I’ll get into that later.

The music was really good and the performances were, on the whole, very fun, so I still think about the show quite a lot! I’ve watched a lot of other material with the geges in it, which my friends call the Call Me By Fire Extended Universe:
  • Call Me By Fire season 1
  • Call Me By Fire PLUS season 1 (no subs just vibes)
  • Night in the Greater Bay season 1
  • Braving Life season 1
  • Get Smart, Dad!! (Paul Wong, Nathan Scott Lee, and their daughters were on this)
  • Call Me By Fire season 2

I plan to write longer posts about specific songs or geges I have stronger feelings about and to cover the rest of the show in episode round-ups. Will I stick to that plan? Who knows!

Everything I know about these 33 (or 32, or 31, depending on how many pianists you want to censor) geges is what I’ve picked up from a) CMBF and CMBF Plus, b) the Call Me By Fire Extended Universe (all the CMBF spin-off shows like Boyhood, what little I could understand of Afternoon Tea for Brothers, Night in the Greater Bay, and Hot Life and Hot Life Plus), and c) Google.

It was very hard to try to learn how to tell these [checks notes] 32 geges [checks notes again] I mean 31 geges apart. I had to memorize their names and faces and also try to figure out how to read the hanzi for their names despite knowing exactly zero Mandarin, but boy did I figure it out eventually!

I’ll basically be calling everyone what they’re called in the English subtitles, so here’s a list of what I’ll be calling everyone and their names in Mandarin, in the order that they appeared in the CMBF theme song:
  • Julian Cheung (Zhang Zhilin, 张智霖)
  • Jordan Chan (Chen Xiaochun, 陈小春)
  • Chen Hui (陈辉)
  • Cannon Hu (Hu Haiquan, 胡海泉)
  • Vincent Zhao (Zhao Wenzhuo, 赵文卓)
  • Edmund Leung (Liang Hanwen, 梁漢文)
  • Welly (Zhang Qi, 张淇)
  • Shawn Huang (Huang Zheng, 黄征)
  • Jerry Lamb (Lin Xiaofeng, 林曉峰)
  • Michael Tse (Xie Tianhua, 谢天华)
  • MC Hotdog (热狗)
  • GAI (Zhou Yan, 周延, but surely everyone has called him GAI his whole life)
  • MC Jin (Ouyang Jin, 欧阳靖)
  • Key.L (Liu Cong, 刘聪)
  • Bridge (布瑞吉)
  • James Lee (李铢衔 but we all know he wouldn’t respond to his Chinese name because it’s not his name and he couldn’t read his name in Mandarin yet)
  • Nathan Scott Lee (Li Chengxuan, 李承铉, Lee Seung-hyun, master of pinyin)
  • Kido Gao (Gao Hanyu, 高瀚宇)
  • Henry Prince Mak (Mai Hengli, 麦亨利)
  • Owodog (敖犬)
  • Liu Jia (刘迦)
  • Li Xiang (李响)
  • Max Zhang (Zhang Jin, 张晋)
  • Andrew Yin (Yin Zheng, 尹正)
  • Jerry Yan (Yan Chengxu, 言承旭)
  • Leon Zhang (Zhang Yunlong, 张云龙)
  • Liu Duanduan (刘端端)
  • Unhenry (Henry Huo, 霍尊--we called him this to differentiate him from Henry Prince Mak, the Henry we cared about)
  • Pax Congo/Xiaobai (Bai Jugang, 白举纲)
  • Terry Lin (Lin Zhixuan, 林志炫)
  • Li Yundi (李云迪)
  • Ricky (瑞奇)
  • Paul Wong (Huang Guanzhong, 黄贯中)

My favorite member of this cast is Ricky by far, but I would trust Max with my life and I like Pax Xiaobai very much. I think the most important development on the show was James learning to like making music again after what happened to his hand, and the most fun developments were every lifelong friendship that formed as a result of the program (Andrew + Ricky, Ricky + Paul, Leon + Jerry Yan, MC Hotdog + Vincent, etc etc).

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distantattraction: Cropped panel of Momo from Yatamomo by Harada, colorized (Default)
distantattraction

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