Media Round Up: June 23, 2025
Jun. 23rd, 2025 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryHere's so thoughts about things I've been reading and watching recently:
The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon by Grace Lin— Read out loud to the kid. I loved Grace Lin’s other MG books so I was very excited for this! It was very charming. As always I enjoy the author’s illustrations. I enjoyed having Chinese mythical creatures in a modern city. I don’t love it quite as much as some of the author’s other work, but it was good and worth reading.
The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann Leblanc— I heard about this novella from a WisCon panel on recent trans SFF. It's about a space cheese maker who finds out the asteroid that houses her cheese cave is about to be yeetted into the sun. She is one of many people who is a copy of an original human, including the person she sells her cheese to and the woman she goes to for help. This book was maybe not as weird as it was presented to me, and some of the politics are exactly like current earth queer community debates. Still I loved all the details about food, and the bits of community building that were present around the edges of the story.
The Truth Season 3 cases 6 and 7— This is labeled as two cases but it's really one very long case! I was a little disappointed to have to wait a week for resolution. This case also featured some upsetting queer phobic violence as part of one character’s backstory. But there were a lot of fun things too. They fought zombies with bubble guns!
The Treasured Voice Season 6 ep 1 — I started watching this while I was waiting between episodes of The Truth. It’s a singing reality show featuring people pairing up to sing songs. It’s got Liu Yuning! I’ve only seen the first episode but it seems pretty chill so far though there are some judges who make negative comments.
Maiden Holmes— More crossdressing girl media! This is tropey and fun. It’s about a crossdressing woman official who solves mysteries. I like that the FL is friends with the 2FL who does not crossdress and uses her knowledge of poisons to help with the mystery solving. Also I did not realize that Zhang Linghe is in this, but I was happy to find out that he was.
I thought that the romance developed kinda fast, it went from “we just met” to “we are in love but can’t be together because Problems” very quickly and I would have preferred more relationship development. Still the main couple are very cute!
Also, the show acknowledged that queer relationships are a thing! I kept being surprised every time someone was like "but are ML and Fl gay?" I'm not used to cdramas admitting gay people exist! Most of the time they do talk about queerness like it's a bad thing but The 2ML was all “Oh you are in love with another man? Sounds rough, but I support you!” witch was sweet.
There's also a bit about other women who are crossdressing for their careers and changing the law to allow women to be officials. I thought it was unrealistically easy but still nice to see. Also it would have been nice if we actually got to see some of these women instead of just hearing about them.
I liked that the show clearly on the side of the genocide survivor and that she's trying to preserve her culture as best she can.
(CW: Attempted sexual assault, magical disability cure, Character pressured into drinking, wuxia typical racism, suicide)
The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon by Grace Lin— Read out loud to the kid. I loved Grace Lin’s other MG books so I was very excited for this! It was very charming. As always I enjoy the author’s illustrations. I enjoyed having Chinese mythical creatures in a modern city. I don’t love it quite as much as some of the author’s other work, but it was good and worth reading.
The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann Leblanc— I heard about this novella from a WisCon panel on recent trans SFF. It's about a space cheese maker who finds out the asteroid that houses her cheese cave is about to be yeetted into the sun. She is one of many people who is a copy of an original human, including the person she sells her cheese to and the woman she goes to for help. This book was maybe not as weird as it was presented to me, and some of the politics are exactly like current earth queer community debates. Still I loved all the details about food, and the bits of community building that were present around the edges of the story.
The Truth Season 3 cases 6 and 7— This is labeled as two cases but it's really one very long case! I was a little disappointed to have to wait a week for resolution. This case also featured some upsetting queer phobic violence as part of one character’s backstory. But there were a lot of fun things too. They fought zombies with bubble guns!
The Treasured Voice Season 6 ep 1 — I started watching this while I was waiting between episodes of The Truth. It’s a singing reality show featuring people pairing up to sing songs. It’s got Liu Yuning! I’ve only seen the first episode but it seems pretty chill so far though there are some judges who make negative comments.
Maiden Holmes— More crossdressing girl media! This is tropey and fun. It’s about a crossdressing woman official who solves mysteries. I like that the FL is friends with the 2FL who does not crossdress and uses her knowledge of poisons to help with the mystery solving. Also I did not realize that Zhang Linghe is in this, but I was happy to find out that he was.
I thought that the romance developed kinda fast, it went from “we just met” to “we are in love but can’t be together because Problems” very quickly and I would have preferred more relationship development. Still the main couple are very cute!
Also, the show acknowledged that queer relationships are a thing! I kept being surprised every time someone was like "but are ML and Fl gay?" I'm not used to cdramas admitting gay people exist! Most of the time they do talk about queerness like it's a bad thing but The 2ML was all “Oh you are in love with another man? Sounds rough, but I support you!” witch was sweet.
There's also a bit about other women who are crossdressing for their careers and changing the law to allow women to be officials. I thought it was unrealistically easy but still nice to see. Also it would have been nice if we actually got to see some of these women instead of just hearing about them.
I liked that the show clearly on the side of the genocide survivor and that she's trying to preserve her culture as best she can.
(CW: Attempted sexual assault, magical disability cure, Character pressured into drinking, wuxia typical racism, suicide)
