J.S.A. Lowe > Recent Status Updates

grateful pangzi and xiaoge never had to see lao yang and wu xie fight a rat

[sobbing] guess this might as well happen THANKS TO THE 麒麟之才

sometimes i do wish westerners had any idea how insanely popular this IP is in china. most of the time, though, i'm relieved, bc tbh it feels like many of xu lei's soft inner parts are on display here, whether he realizes it or not. the first 8 novels + sha hai + "ten years later" = the greatest love story never told.

in which xiaoge & pangzi choose discretion over valor: "That guy chasing after me saw it, cried out ‘not good’, and then turned around and ran. I looked at the situation and figured… there was still a possibility that I could defeat [the monster]. But the fire of revolution had to be preserved and I hadn’t yet finished the task given to me by the organization that hired me, so I also turned and ran."

"But how can we, the materialist revolutionary workers of the
proletariat, believe that there are such things as ghost soldiers in the world?" oh Wu Xie i have some bad news to give you

"When I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t have much to bring with me. In fact, all I had prepared was a digital camera and a trowel, which made sense because I was a grave robbing intern anyway." wu xie you hopeless fuerdai i'm literally crying, you should have died 57 times in this volume alone

okay fine KENNEDY i'm fucking starting over. we're fighting now by the way. this is a fight

i always forget how fucking spooky frank is. and how antinomian. i don't know his process or how it is he comes to see things on the page the way he does, but it's singular and tonic and bracing, practically an antidote to everyone's else slavish narrative gestures and political performances. if bidart is performing anything it's just to be deeply creepy and upsetting

continues to wreck me in all the best ways—i cannot believe no one knows this novel, can't believe it hasn't been properly translated, can't believe we have to get the censored panels from winslow's WEIBO, by someone named "jojo" who by their own admission can't read either CN or EN. the scanlation is an dog's breakfast, the art is incandescently gorgeous, the locations & operas HAVE FOOTNOTES bc yaoi is educational!

ugh pierce i cannot believe you are this dialed-out from your own guys. HALLWAY FIGHT SCENE??? turn on your location bro i just want to talk

sad to report the republican era continues to interrupt the makeouts

i can only look at manhua right now bc mom talks to me 24/7 in an unceasing uninterrupted stream about cows and cats and chickens, so i read the same sentence over and over and over and over and feel like i'm going to lose my mind, unless i'm looking at a manhua which has pictures so i can still take in information visually even while i'm agreeing numbly with whatever it is she's talking about now

ngl there's something unsettlingly hot about a 190 cm gong in full dan role makeup? if you have the right opera kinks i guess. which i certainly do not.

YAO QINGSHAN NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO oh we're all gonna die now

still outraged by how beautiful this is and how much beijing opera and republican-era history i'm accidentally acquiring

blonde bitchy ML: [appears] hello i have a horrifying backstory which has left me convinced that i am a monster incapable of love. also at any given time i am carrying 18 grenades, a kukri, and possibly a kalashnikov

me [deadpan voice]: oh. you again.

oh this is upsettingly good even with an absolutely garbage scanlation, i was not expecting winter begonia x farewell my concubine?????

starting to think peach juice might be a metaphor

maybe a week of jury duty will remind me how to read

this translation is enraging, ngl. e.g. "chinese parsley." …really. REALLY.

idk i have about 18 poems from the last ≈3 months but not a single one of them i would call lyric. i'm too stupid for hart crane or berryman just now so thought i would try one of their children.

(this one's not as good as toni natalie's memoir, but i'm reading it anyway bc it fills in a couple of gaps. i need to find some general cult books, too, so my case doesn't wind up just mirroring nxivm precisely, specifically i need a leader who isn't this turkey wing bc he's honestly? kind of an idiot.)

[laughs nervously]: …i'm in danger.

why can't i meet this police sergeant at the club on u-haul night

me on chapter 25: wow this is the worst thing i've ever read
me on chapter 65: hey i'm sorry about your breakup priest but probably it was worth it because it seems to have turned you into dostoyevsky

priest [writes lhjc/ccp/spl with their absolutely bonkers worldbuilding]
me: okay okay cool, this is all very normal and fine

priest [writes slice-of-life about a guy in dongbei going to school and trying to start a business]
me: WHAT TF THIS IS LITERALLY INSANE THIS IS UNHINGED I CANNOT COPE W/ANY OF THIS????!?!?!?!?

who hurt you, priest

why did i not read this years ago, it's riveting and i've wheezelaughed a dozen times. it's like sa ye but the speedrun version, and with priest's bone-dry humor. also comrade xu jin the woman you are?? highkey booking a ticket on air china bc i'm gonna wife you up

problem: just finished priest novel. sad.
solution: start reading new priest novel

idk maybe archfiends are scary but not the sharpest tools in the shed?