Media Round Up: Lot of Feelings
Apr. 8th, 2021 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofglorySpoiler Alert by Olivia Dade— A romance novel about people who write fanfic! When April posts a selfie of herself in cosplay and is fat shamed, Marcus who plays one half of her OTP and also is secretly a fanfic writer, asks her out. I liked that Marcus had dyslexia and still read and wrote for pleasure. It’s fairly rare to see that in fiction! And I enjoyed the online fan community they are part of too! But I felt that the ending was rushed. I wanted them to talk things out a bit more.
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch— I’ve been excited to read this book for a while! I liked the author’s other book about tea, and the subject matter is very relevant to my current fandom interests. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s not all happy loving couples, though there are some of those in here. There’s lots of details about imperial favorites who met bad ends, as well as few who didn’t. And stuff about prosution, and also rape. Oh, and top/bottom discourse, because apearly that’s everywhere and everywhen. *sigh* This book is birds eye view that focuses on the written record which is very scanty in places, so it's a good introduction to the topic, but I sometimes wish a bit more was known. The conclusion about contemporary gay life in China feels a bit out of date given that the book was published in 1992. But it would be interesting to read an updated version. (Content note: rape, child sexual abuse)
The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities, 1840-1920 by Ben Schrader — This was the pick for my urban planning book club, but I didn’t get very far with it. I found the way it was organized confusing. I rarely like history books that are organized thematically rather than chronologically. I think it's very hard to do well. Also I think I needed a bit more background in New Zealand geography for this, I kept getting confused about which city was which. However despite the fact that I had only read two chapters I very much enjoyed the book club’s discussion of this.
Meng Qi Shi Shen – Cinderella Chefep 1-3— The latest donghua my group watch is watching. This was recced as “Gordon Ramsay in ancient China”. The main character is a chef who gets transmingated into a wuxia setting, where she is forced to marry a bandit. (Who is very pretty, and mostly nice, but some of the way he treats her still makes me go “oh dear”) However there’s lots of cooking and yummy looking food! And that lovely thing where the characters monologue about how good the food is!
The Moon Brightens for You episodes 15-20 — I’m more and more wishing I had a friend who had seen this to talk about it with. It’s definitely more chill not to be watching the latest thing, but I’m having so many feelings and no one to tell about them. If you are interested in a swooshy coming of age story with a female lead and lots of scheming, consider checking this out!
There’s been quite a tone shift in these episodes, the early episodes where very light hearted but these episodes go into some devastating events, and once they take you there they really make you feel them. So really awful things happen and then there’s just an episode of dealing with the emotional fall out.
This show also loves over the top very specific poisons. There’s so many of them and they can feel a bit silly. There’s one that makes your heart hurt when you feel intense emotion! It’s great!
(spoilery content note: child death, parental death, suicide, grief)
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch— I’ve been excited to read this book for a while! I liked the author’s other book about tea, and the subject matter is very relevant to my current fandom interests. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s not all happy loving couples, though there are some of those in here. There’s lots of details about imperial favorites who met bad ends, as well as few who didn’t. And stuff about prosution, and also rape. Oh, and top/bottom discourse, because apearly that’s everywhere and everywhen. *sigh* This book is birds eye view that focuses on the written record which is very scanty in places, so it's a good introduction to the topic, but I sometimes wish a bit more was known. The conclusion about contemporary gay life in China feels a bit out of date given that the book was published in 1992. But it would be interesting to read an updated version. (Content note: rape, child sexual abuse)
The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities, 1840-1920 by Ben Schrader — This was the pick for my urban planning book club, but I didn’t get very far with it. I found the way it was organized confusing. I rarely like history books that are organized thematically rather than chronologically. I think it's very hard to do well. Also I think I needed a bit more background in New Zealand geography for this, I kept getting confused about which city was which. However despite the fact that I had only read two chapters I very much enjoyed the book club’s discussion of this.
Meng Qi Shi Shen – Cinderella Chefep 1-3— The latest donghua my group watch is watching. This was recced as “Gordon Ramsay in ancient China”. The main character is a chef who gets transmingated into a wuxia setting, where she is forced to marry a bandit. (Who is very pretty, and mostly nice, but some of the way he treats her still makes me go “oh dear”) However there’s lots of cooking and yummy looking food! And that lovely thing where the characters monologue about how good the food is!
The Moon Brightens for You episodes 15-20 — I’m more and more wishing I had a friend who had seen this to talk about it with. It’s definitely more chill not to be watching the latest thing, but I’m having so many feelings and no one to tell about them. If you are interested in a swooshy coming of age story with a female lead and lots of scheming, consider checking this out!
There’s been quite a tone shift in these episodes, the early episodes where very light hearted but these episodes go into some devastating events, and once they take you there they really make you feel them. So really awful things happen and then there’s just an episode of dealing with the emotional fall out.
This show also loves over the top very specific poisons. There’s so many of them and they can feel a bit silly. There’s one that makes your heart hurt when you feel intense emotion! It’s great!
(spoilery content note: child death, parental death, suicide, grief)
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 05:18 pm (UTC)