Arts & Culture

I started experimenting with SeedVR2 just to upscale a manhua-drama character I liked.

A cleverly interwoven timeline and a somewhat shallow exploration of death and lifespan.

Devoting yourself to something over the long term—even if it is an impractical dream—is a pretty good choice.

A game about finding one hundred hidden cats in a still illustration. They come in all shapes and sizes; each one lights up when found and answers with its own soothing meow.

Starting from a video about blending with the dust, this reflects on Han Li's Dao heart, character writing in A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality, and letting go of the self.

A few book-finding sites I use regularly: Z-Library, Anna's Archive, and Kox.moe.

Notes from exploring a mod that adds AI chat to Congyin, the protagonist of the Steam Pomodoro game Chill with You: Lo-Fi Story.

In my anxiety on the train back to campus, an animal's perspective gave me a good dream.

A film about literary romance, surface-level compatibility, and the passage of time.

Starting from Hua Jiang Hu: Tian Gang, a reflection on what makes a story feel complete.

The mortal-life realizations in Renegade Immortal and the secluded life in A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: two kinds of mortal hearts on the path to immortality.

Reflections on the manga and television adaptation of The Long Ballad

A rabbit and a prisoner: two tunnels, two kinds of freedom.

A letter about You Are My Glory.

On fading feelings, new encounters, and the work required to sustain an emotion.

On running, focus, freedom, and resistance.

Reading notes on Wang Xiaobo's A Maverick Pig

Sanmao and José, a desert restaurant, and a record of their marriage.

Reading notes on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short-story collection, recording passages and impressions worth returning to.

Notes on Forbidden City Cop: its familiar kind of love and its use of light and composition.

Thoughts after A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella: the value recognized only after loss, and Sun Wukong's human side.

Thoughts after finishing Vampires' Melody: romanticism at its most extreme.

Thoughts after Pandora's Box: love as a theme, smallness, and the scope of a work.

On Frieren’s sense of time, and whether what passes is insignificant or precious.

Thoughts on The God of Cookery: a bowl of rice that marks a change, and breaking past appearances.

Thoughts on Gold or Shit, pursuing success, and improving oneself.

On coughing up blood, awareness of death, and personality change.

Reading notes on Natsume Sōseki's The Poppy: attention, drama, and the frankness of human nature.

Thoughts on Young Babylon, Bai Lan, interesting people, and being nineteen.

Reading thoughts on Love in Yushima: the innocence of geisha and a love that remains pure.

Thoughts on Fanfic: androgynous beauty, flaws, and resonance.

Thoughts on *Three Days of Happiness*: death, encounters, and ultimate concern.

Thoughts on Flowers Yet to Bloom and the images it completes from Zi Bu Yu.

The turning point Hesse explores through Frau Eva is worth revisiting again and again.

A style I love: it showed me that twenty-first-century Chinese literature holds more than pain literature and realism—mono no aware, for one.

A ten-year dream of Yangzhou: the people and moments in Fengxin Tower.