Media Round Up: Forests, Fish and Quiet
Nov. 30th, 2020 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryMedia round ups are an irregular feature where I talk about things that I've read and watched recently.
Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan's Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family's Past, by Jessica J. Lee— I loved this memoir. It’s about nature and Taiwan and family. But also like what places mean to people, and trying to piece together one's family history from scraps, and how the past is both unknowable and known. The prose is utterly gorgeous.
A Quiet Afternoon, ed Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold— this anthology was billed as so stakes and cosy, but not all the stories struck me that way. I find cosy, hopeful, optimistic ect are extremely subjective. There were some stories I liked a lot and some that I didn’t care for.
Frostgilded, by Stephanie Burgis— This was billed as the Epilogue to the Harwood Spellbook, and it was a sweet conclusion to the series, but I’m very sad that it's over now.
Consolation Songs: Optimistic Speculative Fiction For A Time of Pandemic, ed. Iona Datt Sharma— I’m not sure I would have labeled all of these stories optimistic, but I enjoyed most of them. Lots of good people doing what they can to make the world a little bit better which is something I always enjoy.
The Magic Fish, by Trung Le Nguyen—I loved this graphic novel. However it's hard to explain. There’s a frame story about a vitanamese american family, and then several fair tales retellings are embedded in the frame. But the stories are so intertwined and thematically linked that this doesn’t really do it justice, Also the art is gorgeous, and makes really good use of that limited color palette thing that's super popular in graphic novels these days.
(Content note: mention of the murder of Mathew Shepard, forced outing, homophobia)
Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, episodes 35-45— We are so close to finishing this! I feel like I should say something about the austisic character in this show, he’s a bit of a stereotype, and also is abused a lot. So that was uncomfortable. Still really enjoying the main characters and their little found family, even if I want to yell at people about the right of habeas corpus.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 5 episodes 1 and 2 — I have been struggling to watch TV by myself in pandemic times. Which means that shows I want to watch are piling up. So I thought I would ease myself back into it with a show with shorter episodes, and where I am already familiar with the characters. I had to go read some plot summaries of the last few episodes, but I’ve enjoyed this so far.
Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan's Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family's Past, by Jessica J. Lee— I loved this memoir. It’s about nature and Taiwan and family. But also like what places mean to people, and trying to piece together one's family history from scraps, and how the past is both unknowable and known. The prose is utterly gorgeous.
A Quiet Afternoon, ed Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold— this anthology was billed as so stakes and cosy, but not all the stories struck me that way. I find cosy, hopeful, optimistic ect are extremely subjective. There were some stories I liked a lot and some that I didn’t care for.
Frostgilded, by Stephanie Burgis— This was billed as the Epilogue to the Harwood Spellbook, and it was a sweet conclusion to the series, but I’m very sad that it's over now.
Consolation Songs: Optimistic Speculative Fiction For A Time of Pandemic, ed. Iona Datt Sharma— I’m not sure I would have labeled all of these stories optimistic, but I enjoyed most of them. Lots of good people doing what they can to make the world a little bit better which is something I always enjoy.
The Magic Fish, by Trung Le Nguyen—I loved this graphic novel. However it's hard to explain. There’s a frame story about a vitanamese american family, and then several fair tales retellings are embedded in the frame. But the stories are so intertwined and thematically linked that this doesn’t really do it justice, Also the art is gorgeous, and makes really good use of that limited color palette thing that's super popular in graphic novels these days.
(Content note: mention of the murder of Mathew Shepard, forced outing, homophobia)
Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, episodes 35-45— We are so close to finishing this! I feel like I should say something about the austisic character in this show, he’s a bit of a stereotype, and also is abused a lot. So that was uncomfortable. Still really enjoying the main characters and their little found family, even if I want to yell at people about the right of habeas corpus.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 5 episodes 1 and 2 — I have been struggling to watch TV by myself in pandemic times. Which means that shows I want to watch are piling up. So I thought I would ease myself back into it with a show with shorter episodes, and where I am already familiar with the characters. I had to go read some plot summaries of the last few episodes, but I’ve enjoyed this so far.
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Date: 2020-11-30 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-30 08:03 pm (UTC)It's not the best depiction of autism I have ever seen, and there's still a lot of problematic aspects of it, but it was also more understanding than I was expecting as well. So...overall it's kind of a "meh, could've been worse" from me.
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Date: 2020-12-02 05:51 pm (UTC)I've been having trouble articulating what exactly bothers me about Wang Xian, but also I haven't seen a lot of conversation about him. So I agree that it could have been a lot worse. But I wanted to say something about it so people are less likely to stumble on it unawares.