Media Round Up: I Finished the Things!

I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum So I have four non fiction library books out of the library right now, and the other three are all nature/city books, but I read this one of TV criticism instead. (In fairness this one has lot of holds on it so I can’t renew it like I can the others) Due to cultural snobbism that I’m getting over and auditory processing problems I’m not great at TV, and haven’t watched most of the things reviewed in this book. The author’s taste and mine don’t really line up either -- she likes a lot dark stuff and not much SFF. So I’ve skipped around it this a lot. But I enjoyed Nussbaum’s discussion about how shows about male antiheroes are valued and equally influential but softer shows about women are not. This book also helped me have more historical context for what’s going on with TV now. And there was a long essay about the me too movement and having art that was formative for you but was made by bad people that was worth reading.

Nirvana in Fire eps 48-54 We finished it! We’ve been watching this for so long and now it's over! You know those moments that have been built up slowly over the course of a long work of fiction, and then it all comes together and matters? Well there are a bunch of those in these last few episodes of the drama and its so good! But also there were new surprises even at the very end. This drama was very well plotted! The ending was very satisfying.

Star Trek: Voyager -- This is what R and I are watching now that we’ve finished Nirvana in Fire, its change of pace, but I’m excited. (If you have thoughts on which episodes we should watch and which we should skip come tell me about it) So far I like everyone on the crew except Tom Paris, who keeps harassing women and saying racist things. (Seriously I almost liked him for a minute there before he opened his mouth again) But so far it's very Star Trek in best way a bit goofy but full of people who are trying to be their best selves in difficult circumstances. This long show and we’ll be watching it for awhile but I probably won’t include it in every round up unless I have something specific to say about it.

Heaven Official’s Blessing by 墨香铜臭 This was really long, but I finished it! This a Boy’s Love novel about god and demon, but the gods are relatively low powered compared to western fansty. This doesn’t have much family stuff as Mo Dao Zu Shi had which is too bad, but there were still a lot of characters with complex histories with each other. There where a couple of genderqueer characters though their relationship with gender where not really explored.

Xie Lian, the god or heavenly official, is super cute, especially when flustered. I identify a lot with teen Xie Lian, being all "save the world" and older Xie Lian being very disillusioned. I was like that as teen too. Though I wish saving the common people was a bit more of the focus of the story. I read Xie Lian as having similar low key depression to mine. He has a hard time recognizing his own worth and seem a bit overwhelmed by the world. Hua Cheng, the demon, is just super devoted and romantic. I think this could be creepy, because Hua Cheng is pretty obsessed for 800 years, but I found it mostly really sweet. There some very cute domestic bits, also a fair amount of angst. (Content note: gore, undead, child harm including death, war, body horror causing disease, misscarage/forced abortion, suicide)

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. This novella has lot descriptions of space travel and exoplanets. I enjoyed all the fictional ecology! There’s also a nice found family vibe with crew as I’ve come to expect from a Chambers story.