forestofglory

Media Roundup: Onward!

2026-02-26T23:56:52Z

I’ve gotten back into the habit of going to the library once a week on the same day (Monday) to return stuff and pick up my holds. (This is also the best way I’ve found to get myself to return my books on time now that the library got rid of late fees) I keep thinking “this week the stack of new things will be smaller” but it never is. Surely I’ll run out of graphic novels I want to read that the library has at some point? But I’m glad it's not yet.

In other news I have now read more books this year than I did all of last year, which is pretty wild! Like sure they are all short things but I’m just reading so much more than I was few months ago and it’s really nice.

Red Threads by Ila Nguyen-Hayama—A graphic novel about a 15 year old girl in Tokyo who is invited to attend a magical school. This was very cute and charming if a little heavy on the info dumping about Japanese folklore. I really liked the main character's friendship with another girl at school.

Lumberjanes, Vol. 8-14 by N.D. Stevenson and Shannon Watters, et al.— I’d read up through Vol 10 years ago, but now I’m at stuff I haven’t read before. Still very fun!

Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy by Chynna Clugston Flores et al. —A crossover between two very fun comics both featuring teams of teens who deal with supernatural mysteries – I enjoyed it a lot! I wish there was more time for cross team interactions but it would be hard to fit in and keep focus on the story

Animated Batman—It’s nice to be into media that my kid also is interested in. She doesn’t watch anything with subtitles, but she likes Batman. So I’ve watched a handful of episodes of the 90’s animated Batman with her. (I started from where she’s gotten to before so not at the beginning) In terms of Bat-fam its not doing a lot, most of the kids/sidekicks aren’t in this and those that are aren’t around much (though I’m told they show up more frequently latter on) However the show itself is very well crafted! I’m impressed with both the animation (the style! The attention to detail) and the storytelling

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Media Roundup: Bits and bobs

2026-01-27T16:47:38Z

Well I haven’t gotten very far with my pile of graphic novels from the library, and in fact I’ve put holds on even more of them so the pile is only getting bigger. But did finish enough things that it feels worth posting another media roundup.

Goat Magic by Kate Wheeler—Another graphic novel, this one with very cute goats. The art for this one was so cute and charming. I did feel a little bit frustrated with the politics, where there was some confusion about bad people vs bad systems. Also the romance kinda came out of nowhere (It didn’t help that I thought one of the main characters was like 12) Still a pretty fun book overall.

The Two Towers—Watched this with the kid and R, who as mentioned have recently finished reading the books. It’s fun to discuss the changes between the book and the movie with the kiddo! Also I forgot how good the armor details are in this! However a three hour movie with some chatting is a lot for me – at the end I was hitting sensory overload and needed to go sit somewhere quiet by myself for a while.

The Legend of the Demon Cat (2017)—I watched this movie with my group watch. It’s about a cat demon but also features Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi and various other historical figures. It was really good, though I’m having a hard time explaining why. It has a really big emotional range – some bits are creepy (and there is a bit of gore), some bits are sad, but some bits are really fun. And Bai Juyi’s character in this is great!

Unboxing Libby by Steph Cherrywell—My kid’s school is doing an optional book club, and this was the most recent book. I’ve been reading the books along with the kid and this is the third book this year. It’s about robots made to be kids toys who end up being used to simulate a human community on Mars. I really liked it! the friendship stuff was complicated and good!

Remember how I was all like “I guess I don’t read much original fiction anymore but I’m at peace with it” in my post about my 2025 media? Yet somehow I have read 10 books this month? They are mostly graphic novels which are quicker and easier for me, but still books are books. I don’t really expect to keep this up but it's nice for now.

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Media Roundup: Sequential Art

2026-01-17T18:27:37Z

Here’s another Media Roundup after not months and months! Hopefully I’ll be reading and watching things other than fic a bit more often and thus post these media roundups more often than I was.

I seem to have gotten into the habit of reading a lot of graphic novels in December and January. I currently have a big pile out from the library – and I’ve read a few of them, and hopefully will get around to even more of the pile.

Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology by Angela Hsieh— A very charming graphic novel about two girls on an adventure. Featuring charming art and very cute geo fauna! (As a Mandarin learner I did find the almost but not quite hanzi characters a little bit frustrating)

The Pale Queenby Ethan M. Aldridge—Another YA graphic novel, this one featuring an f/f romance. I really liked the fae in this book – they were a good mix of beautiful and scary. The art is also lovely!

Crush of Music— I’m still watching this very slowly, the subtitles have mostly been better for the last few episodes –so that’s nice. I’m enjoying seeing Liu Yuning and Zhou Shen interact in this – at one point they played the kazoo together!

Various Batman ect comic—So I mentioned in my 2025 media review post that I accidentally acquired a new fandom, that fandom is batfam. This is embarrassing for me because for years I've been prone to what R calls “the Batman rant” where I complain that punching people in the face is a dumb way to reduce crime rates. Plus I just feel like superhero comics are a space that's pretty hostile to me and my values. But apparently if you give me fic about a family of 3-8 adopted siblings finding each other/bonding and don't make me think too hard about the moral foundations of the universe then I'm willing to suspend my moral disbelief.

Anyways I got sucked in enough to be curious about the source material and have been reading stuff on hoopla. I'm fairly impressed with their comic reading interface too, it has a nice flow. (It doesn’t play well with my RSI issues but then neither does turning pages) The actual stories vary in quality, but some of them are surprisingly good. Even the not very good ones are surprisingly more-ish. I’m bringing a lot of emotional investment in these characters from my fic reading which also helps make the comics more engaging.

The Cross-Dressed Union—I thought that if my media theme at the moment is comfort that I should really start a new crossdressing girl drama since that's a big comfort trope of mine, So I asked around for recs and started this drama about an arranged marriage between a crossdressing woman and crossdressing man. It sounded fun but so far I’m pretty meh about it. I think my biggest problem is that the ML is the main character, and for these kinds of stories I prefer more focus on the FL. Also it's not doing enough with gender

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2025 in Review: Media!

2026-01-08T18:25:50Z

Time to reflect a little on the media I read and watched in 2025. My reading goal for 2025 was “Reading Joyfully”. I think this worked out ok – I started out putting a lot of pressure on myself about it and stressing out, but then I backed off and used it as an excuse to think about how reading fits into my life these days.

I was somewhat hoping I could get back to really engaging with new to me SFF, and for the most part that didn’t happen. There were a couple of weeks in there where I was sleeping way better than I generally manage these days and I read several new to me books! It was great! So I think part of my problem is that I’m just not well rested enough to engage with new to me stuff very much. Which is sad, but pushing isn’t going to make me happy either.

Then after the thing with the flood damage, when the whole house was a mess, I was struggling to focus on much of anything. I ended up just reading a ton of fic, so much fic.* Which has been delightful. The comfort of the same thing again but different this time is really not appreciated enough by critics. This reading phase has been very joyful!

In 2025 I read even fewer books than I read the last several years (57) but unlike the last couple of years I don’t feel bad about it. Which was the real point of my reading joyfully goal. I’m more at peace with who I am as a reader these days and that’s really nice, even if I might never be the same kind of reader I was before the pandemic happened.

Another trend that defined my 2025 media was crossdressing girls. I love, love, love the trope of girls who disguise themselves and boys to go out into the world and do things that they wouldn’t be allowed to do. This is a trope that English language media hasn’t really been doing much with recently, but luckily for me it's popular in Asian dramas. It’s such a comfort trope for me, and I decided to really dive into this trope and watched many dramas featuring it. (And read a couple of books too)

I also continue to watch many silly Chinese reality shows, another thing that I find relaxing. Media has really was a source of comfort for me in 2025.

In terms of goals for 2026, I’m going to continue to not have a numerical goal for total books. I find those more stressful than fun. Having a theme for my media last year worked out really well though so for the first quarter of 2026 my media theme is going to be “comfort” . Then I can see I want to keep that theme or change at the end of the quarter. I also want to push myself a bit harder on reading Mandarin so I’m going to make it a goal to read six graded readers this year, which feels very doable.

*Me, very stressed out: I’ll just read this cute sounding fic in a fandom I’m not in. It will be relaxing. Me, several days, and I don’t know how many fics in that fandom latter: I guess I have a new fandom now, opps?

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Media Round Up: Loose Ends

2026-01-02T18:24:54Z

It’s been ages since I did one of these! But I haven’t been reading or watching much that I want to talk about the last couple of months. I read a couple of things that I just don’t have anything to say about, and a ton of fic which I never include in these round ups. And I’ve watched almost nothing – not even mini dramas

But there’s couple of things I did want to talk about and I thought it would be nice to post about the last little bit of 2025 media before I start a new running notes document for the new year.

Crush of Music—This Chinese reality show is the one thing I have been watching recently. Crush of music is a show where songwriters demo original songs and then through a mildly gameifed process are matched with a singer (or two) who then performs the song. It’s the second season of Melody Journey, but I have no idea why the English title is different (the Chinese title is the same) It's a really fun low stress show and features some of my favorite singers! (Liu Yuning and Zhou Shen) I can't really rec the show though because the subtitles are very very bad -- I'm just watching anyway even though I can only understand about half of what people are saying. But it turns out that not understanding the show makes for very slow watching

Off Menu: A Graphic Novel written by Oliver Gerlach drawn by Kelsi Jo Silva—Cute YA graphic novel in D&D-ish world. It’s about a cook called Soup – kind of a coming of age thing with lots of cooking and community. Very Charming!

The Fellowship of The Ring— R has been reading LotR to the kid, they haven’t quite finished but they are close enough to done that we watched the 1st movie. I’ve never been huge into LotR but it was fun to watch – so many classic lines! I did kinda find myself wishing that the characters' names would show up on screen the first time they appear the way they do in the cdrama I watch. NZ remains very beautiful!

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DecRecs 2025 days 22-26-31, The End!

2026-01-01T16:52:25Z

Happy New Years Everyone! Here's the last several days of DecRecs recs. I have once again recced all the Decs! The last few days I've been really tried and it was bit of challenge to rec stuff but I did it!. I hope you found something to enjoy in all these recs

Day 26
You know how I watched a bunch of crossdressing girl dramas eariler this year? One of them was Sungkyunkwan Scandal - a classic kdrama about a girl who crossdresses to attend an all male school - I liked it a lot!
Anyways after I watched I went to see if there was any fic on ao3. And there was quite a bit most of it centered around a side m/m ship which i hadn't thought much about while watching the show. But after reading the fic I ship it!

This is all a run up to today's #DecRecs which is a fic for that ship!

dark under the lamp by wakeupnew

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127289/chapters/68916450

I really liked the characterization and how the it added magic elements to the setting in way that felt very natural . Also it's just a lot of fun! (and I think you could read it without knowing the source material)

Day 27
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about the cool campaign game R and I have been playing: Earthborne Rangers!
It's a solar punk game where you play rangers whose job is to wander around and help people and nature.
Your characters are represented by a deck of cards each. There are some very fun abilities. My character has a pet ferret, and I can summon a friend! R's character can talk beings on walks to bond with them!

Day 28
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about rotating teapots.
These are really clever gadgets that work pretty much like a gaiwan but with less wrist action which is great for people like me who have hand problems! They also might be good if you find the whole gaiwan thing a bit intimating!
Here's a picture of one so you can see how it works better

( Read more... )

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DecRecs 2025 days 22-25

2025-12-25T18:26:54Z

Day 22
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about Saint Cavish a Chinese food youtube channel run by Christopher St. Cavish
https://www.youtube.com/@saintcavish
I'm always a little careful about media by white dudes about China but I was intrigued by the series of videos where Italian chefs visit "China's Noodle Homeland" -- which turned out to be really good! I've since watched a lot more of the channels videos
The videos are thoughtful, never treating the food as too weird or exotic and do a good job of putting stuff in context both historical and with regard to modern China

Day 23
Today for #DecRecs I want to rec fancy seam finishing for sewing projects! I mentioned in an earlier rec that this year I've been sewing a lot of garments for myself. For all of those I've used either french seams or flat felled seams and they are so nice to look at and so stratifying to make!

Day 24
I had PT this morning and it wore me out so for #DecRecs have a pretty picture

https://www.tumblr.com/hisiheyah/794758124462637056/as-the-leaves-on-the-trees-change-with-the

I guess I can link this to the whole year in review theme of this year's #DecRecs by saying that this year I started a tumblr account -- I still don't understand tumblr culture so I just follow people I know and reblog pretty pictures

Day 25
For today's #DecRecs I want to share some of my favorite songs so far form the Chinese reality show Crush of Music which I'm part way through watching having just finished episode 4

Crush of music is a show where songwriters demo original songs and then through a mildly gameifed process are matched with a singer (or two) who then preforms the song.
It's a really fun low stress show and features some of my favorite singers ! I can't really rec the show though because the subtitles are very very bad -- I'm just watching in anyways even though I can only understand about half of what people are saying
Anyways on to the songs! Here's Liu Yuning having the best time rocking his heart out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThwZSs1MTqo

Zhou Shen singing with cute children!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBlR8iSsrTc

I am constantly so impressed with Xue Zhiqian's stage designs (also featuring cute children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h29GaZroe4g

There's two version of this song and I can't decide which one I like better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkxr0uqhgHs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO9kRZ3JsKw

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DecRecs 2025 days 11-17

2025-12-17T17:44:39Z

I intended to wait less time before cross posting these. Oh well, it's here now

Day 11
So I'm not sure how big the overlap of people who know about Mo Willems Pigeon books and Nirvana in Fire is -- but if you are in that group you owe it to yourself to read "Don't Let the Strategist Plan the Party" by aegtx
200 words of pure delight!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/67708406

Day 12
I'm enjoying how this year #DecRecs has been turning into a mini low stakes year in review project for me as I focus on reccing things I loved this year.
And this year I have watched a lot of chinese reality show so today I want to talk about The Truth season 3!
The Truth is show where participants play and game that's like a very elaborate cross between a murder mystery dinner party and an escape room. There's puzzles and mysteries and tunnels to crawl through
This year they really leaned into my two favorite things about the show -- the costumes and the group dynamics!
The costumes are so much fun! Wildly over the to, colorful and with fun themes! And this season featured even more of them than last season with at least one set per case!
Here's the cast in one of my favorite sets

And the teamwork! In season three they manged to have the same six people in all but one case: Bai Yu, Jin Jing,
Dilraba, Liu Yuning, Zhang Linghe and Zhou Keyu. So several people I like by themselves -- but the whole group together is great! loved watching them tease each other and think through problems together!
Quick content note: many of the offscreen backstories involve upsetting things like child death or queerphobic violence. They also at one point discover a (fake) skeleton of a child in a suitcase.
I had so much fun watching this show! I don't usually watch things as they air but I eagerly awaited each new episode of The Truth Season 3 and watched all the behind the scenes extras!

( Read more... )

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DecRecs 2025 days 6-10

2025-12-10T19:35:41Z

Here's the last several days of DecRecs!

Day 6
I am sick to day but I don't want to miss #DecRecs so you are getting an old favorite "Fandom for Robots" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

It's a delightful short story featuring fandom, friendship and robot pals!

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/fandom-for-robots/

Day 7
I'm still not feeling great today so another old favorite for #decRecs "The Witches of Athens" by Lara Elena Donnelly is one of my comfort reads. It's everything that I want cozy SFF to be. Featuring sisterhood, coffee shops, and queer romance

http://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/the-witches-of-athens/

And since I mentioned cozy SFF this seems like a good time to link back to the piece I wrote about cozy SFF earlier this year -- "Domestic Labor and Community Building Rec List"

https://ladybusiness.dreamwidth.org/2025/05/29/domestic-labor-and-community-building-rec-list.html

Day 8
Doing a little better today so I want to talk about my favorite drama I watched this year for #DecRecs
Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung! It's a historical kdrama about a young woman who becomes a historian -- one of the people charged with writing down everything that happens in court for the historical record. It's so so good!

Things I love about Rookie Historian:
*It's thematically about history and why it matters!
*Young women succeeding at traditionally masculine jobs
*female friendship!
*it depicts but doesn't endorse monarchy
*The ML is a princess coded chaos mupet and I love him

Day 9
Since I just posted and annotated bibliography todays #DecRecs has to be Zotero!
Zotero is a free citation manager! It's great! I'm not an academic and am not writing papers for publication but I love it!
I have a lot of PDFs and they aren't always easy to sort through, but Zotero make it easy for me to find things! I can tag them and search.
I also love that I can drag and drop and Zotero will pick up any meta data!

Zotero is a great tool for fic research. I've used it to create bibliographies for several fics now (including an annotated bibliography for my most recent fic)
I generally create tag for each fic as go along and it makes it easy to find stuff again.

Day 10
Today for #DecRecs I want to rec Intergalactic Mixtape! This a SFF newsletter that my friend Renay started this year! It's got links to interesting articles and reviews, smart thoughts and recs! It's joy to get it in my inbox every week!

https://buttondown.com/intergalacticmixtape

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Media Round Up: Short things For Low Focus Times

2025-10-06T17:34:15Z

Things have been very chaotic around here recently and I’ve been struggling to focus or watch things for long. Also emeraldarrows recced me a bunch of mini dramas which were perfect for my state of mind. I seem to do much better at actually watching the ones with slightly longer episodes (around 15 min as opposed to around 5min), plus it really helps to have a rec list since it's really hard for me to figure out which mini dramas I might like.

A Familiar Stranger—This mini drama is about a woman who is forced to swap faces with another woman and take her place in an arranged marriage. There’s some tense moments in here but most of the focus is on the romance, which is pretty cute.

Content Notes

pregnancy, suicide

The West Wind Is Strong—Mini drama about a woman who pretends to be a princess to marry the ruler of the steppe nomads and learn about why her father died. As with many Chinese dramas about steppe nomads its pretty racist.The last couple of episodes are choppy and rushed and kinda confusing

Content Notes

racism, sex where both people are drunk

The Reign of Feng Yi—Another mini drama! This has a similar premise to Dominion and Devotion: a woman raised from birth as a man becomes a puppet ruler and fights for power. But its much more light-hearted. This was cute and fun! (Content note: attempted rape)

Wow the World ep 5-18— This travel reality show was also a good fit for my current state of mind, it's cute and fun and not a lot of plot to follow. I ended up watching so much of this that I have to wait for more episodes to be available on youtube. I especially liked the bits where the cast cooked together.

Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 12-32— This was a soothing show that I was watching when I didn’t have lot of a brain, because even though it's not very good I enjoyed the various badass women. But it took a turn! Upsetting things happened and I stopped finding it soothing. So this is on infinite hold.

Content Notes

pregnancy/ abortion

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Media Round Up: Mixed Feelings

2025-09-20T16:32:40Z

Somehow I always go for long stretches without much to say about media and then finished several things at once, and suddenly its time to post here again.

Dominion and Devotion—Instead of watching any of the dramas I’ve already started I watched this mini drama (24 15 min episodes). I’ve had mixed luck with mini dramas but I enjoyed this one! It’s a crossdressing girl drama with enemies to lovers and political intrigue! The premise is that the FL has been raised from birth to pretend to be a young weak prince, in the hopes of someday escaping the palace. But instead she gets picked to be the puppet emperor.

The “AFAB person was raised as a boy for Reasons” variety of crossdressing girl stories really have a different vibe than the crossdressing girl adventures I grew up with, there’s just less of a sense of agency when the FL didn’t get to choose to crossdress.

Spoilers

I was not expecting the tragic ending thought! I thought it would somehow turn out ok up until the last moment.

Content Notes: Child death, corporal punishment (children and adults), torture (presented as righteous), blood

Wow the Worldep 1-4—Yes, I’m watching yet another Chinese reality show featuring Liu Yuning. This travel show where a group of people visit a bunch of cities near the 40th parallel. It’s pretty charming! I love that there's a little cartoon planet that represents each person. I would prefer a bit more focus on the tourism – tell us more about these places, and describe the food please!

Ancestors and Anxiety: Daoism and the Birth of Rebirth in China by Stephen R. Bokenkamp—This was a super interesting book about Daoist ideas about the afterlife and how they evolved after contact with Buddhism. I kinda wish I had read this before finalizing my translation of the about Wei Huacun because she’s mentioned in this and there’s a bunch of useful context about early Daoist practice.

Dragon Steel by Laurence Yep—The second book in this series which I’m reading to the kid. Still holds up well, I enjoyed the under sea dragon kingdom which was one of the bits that stuck with me from my first reading. This one does have some fatphobia though, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh—I tried so hard with this book! Well maybe that’s not strictly true because at first I wasn’t going to read it because I didn’t really like the one thing by Emily Tesh I had read before (Silver in the Wood) but then I found out more about the premise – a teacher a magical school who actually has to do paperwork, so I decided to give it a go.

I loved the first third of this book with its teaching and risk assessment and a big climatic battle that could be the end of a different book. Saving the world part way through and then having to live with the consequences would make for an interesting book, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here. Instead we introduced a new very annoying character.

I was considering DNFing at that point but I asked some friends if he went away and they said that I could expect less of him, so I kept reading. And there was a lot less of him for a bit, but another thing started frustrating me: the story was providing big clues about something that the main character was not figuring out. I really don’t enjoy that kind of reader character knowledge mismatch! That’s been resolved now but I didn’t feel motivated to keep reading after that.

I really wanted to like this book because teaching at a magical school is a cool concept, and so many of my friends loved it but after the first third I found it pretty frustrating.

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Media Round Up: Middles

2025-08-24T17:42:41Z

Lately I've been saving up dramas until I'm done watching them and then posting about them here, but right now I am watching several things and I want to talk about them. I also read a couple of things and watched a movie since the last time I posted one of these.

Kill My Sins ep 1-14—This is a cdrama about a woman who is a “mind healer” in not!Tang China. (And also some dude but I don’t care that much about him) There’s a lot I like about it, it's got women who are friends with each other, excellent costumes, including some crossdressing women, a character inspired by one of my favorite historical figures (Shangguan Wan’er), and a woman ruler. The plot is a twisty revenge story, and its very tense, so I have been watching very slowly.

Content notes: harm to animals, gore, backstory featuring sexual assault, torture, self harm, domestic violence

Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 5-11— I picked this drama back up because I wanted something very unstressful to watch. It’s not really very good, but the things that are bad about it make it easy to follow. like everything is a bit exaggerated, and I'm not super invested so it's less stressful. It’s got women in armor

Justice in the Dark eps 1-4 —This show sounds like it's made in a lab to be not for me. It’s got police, violent crime, bad things happening to kids, a CEO, a romance where the couple met when one was a kid and the other was an adult, and probably some things I’m forgetting. But it's the new show that my groupwatch picked, and that’s an important event in my social calendar so I decided to watch at least the first couple of episodes. Who knows maybe I will end up liking it, it’s happened before.

It does have some really nice food details, but I wish it wasn’t so visually dark – it's hard to see a lot of the time.

( Ash's Cabin, House of Flying Daggers, and A Rome of One's Own )

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New Post at Lady Business!

2025-07-29T23:10:37Z

If you've been following along with my media round ups you might have noticed that I've been watching a lot of Chinese reality shows. So I decided to make a rec list to talk about some of my favorites

Chill Chinese Reality Shows Rec List

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Media Round Up: Strong Women

2025-07-22T18:24:30Z

I thought I would have gotten father with my pile of graphic novels form the library by now since I think of them as such quick reads, but I guess I've been reading other things.

Women of the Conquest Dynasties: Gender and Identity in Liao and Jin China by Linda Cooke Johnson —Read for my FTH bibliography. This didn’t have a huge amount about textiles but it did have a lot about interesting and badass women.

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite —A murder mystery novella set on a space ship. Very much in the style of classic murder mysteries, complete with an older woman detective. There's a bunch of interesting memory based tech in here including something like a replicator that works off memories which is a cool idea but replicating the thing you remember exactly how you remember it doesn’t seem like it would work out for most people. Fabric is mentioned as something that’s easy to replicate, but I don’t remember even fabric I’ve sewn with that precisely. Most of my memories are just not very precise – I would just end up with a lot of blobs if I tried this.

This kind of mystery really depends on the quirky cast, and I liked the characters but felt like we didn’t really get to know them, I think it would have benefited from being longer so the characters could be a bit more developed.

This makes it seem like I didn’t like the book, but actually it's very charming. I especially liked the the main character is a knitter and there are lots of yarn details.

Hovergirls by Geneva Bowers —One of those graphic novels I mentioned checking out from the library. Cousins Jalissa and Kim have recently moved to a new city and have to deal with challenges like working at a coffee shop and fighting mysterious glowing fish. This was fun! I really liked the art style, which was very bright and colorful.

The Moth Keeper by Kay O'Neill —Another graphic novel by the author of The Tea Dragon Society books. This one is actually written before A Song for You & I and it’s not quite as good as that one, there’s few places where it's hard to follow the action. I did really like all the night time desert landscapes, and the moths though!

( Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors, My Uncanny Destiny )

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Media Round Up: Ups and Downs

2025-07-13T23:14:54Z

Since it's more than halfway through the year I started to write a reflection on my reading goal for the year: "Read Joyfully" But I found I didn't have much to say about it other than it turns out its easier to engage with new to me fiction when I actually get enough sleep.

However I do have some thoughts on things I've read and watched recently to share:

The Truth Season 3cases 9 and 10 — The last two cases, I’m sad that this is over now! This was so, so much fun! The second to last case featured my favorite costumes of the whole show in show with many excellent costumes. This really a fairly frivolous show but I love it so much! (Content note: the final case involved a dead kid)

Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 1-4— I wanted to love this. It is an adaptation of The Generals of the Yang Family, a story dating back to at least the Ming Dynasty that features women in command of the military. The FL is very badass. However I got fed up with how childish both the leads were acting.

Also this was released in 2012 which isn’t really that long ago but it feels like a whole different era.

Medieval Textiles across Eurasia, c. 300–1400 by Patricia Blessing, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, Eiren L. Shea— This is a novella length overview of the topic. About 80 pages with a lot of pictures. I liked how it tied together such a big area and a long time period. Zooming out helped me put the stuff I know about (Chinese textiles, mostly Tang dynasty) into a larger context. I read it for the FTH biography I’m creating on Liao textiles.

A Song for You & I by Kay O'Neill— My friend Maureen, who is a children’s librarian, recced this graphic novel by the author of the Tea Dragon Society books in her most recent newsletter. And I’m glad she did because I haven’t been keeping up with recent releases and this was really good. It's a very gentle story that’s kind of coming of age with a lot of travel. One of the characters has a flying horse! The art is really good. I kept stoping to admire the color gradients. Just a very lovely book.

Please Be My Star by Victoria Grace Elliott— Reading a A Song for You & I reminded me that my library has lots of graphic novels and I checked out a whole pile of them including this one. Please Be My Star is a YA romance featuring teens putting on a play. It was very cute though once or twice I got a little too much second hand embarrassment.

Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born ep 1-4— This kdrama sounded so exactly my thing. It’s got preforming arts, tons of women, and crossdressing girls! It’s also very pretty and well done. So I’m baffled as to why after four episodes all I feel about it is “meh”

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Meida Round Up: Girls and Demons

2025-07-03T18:21:09Z

It's that time again! More thoughts on media:

The Truth Season 3 case 8 (I think, the numbering is confusing now)— this case featured Chinese style horror, and it was very creepy but in a fun way. I also enjoyed the earthly 20th inspired costumes

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming— I’m writing about this even though I didn’t finish it because I think some of you might enjoy this. The first bit was really fun! The main character is a wildlife biology PhD student, who when she finds herself on an alien planet is upset that it's full of dinosaurs all from different time periods from each other! (Very relatable really) The book has a very fun voice. Unfortunately it ends up becoming too much sex for me.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh— A Korean inspired fantasy YA novel about a girl who chooses to sacrifice herself in place of the designated Sea God’s Bride and enters a spirit world full of mythical beings and complex politics. (I read this even though the mom is dead, and really there’s no narrative reason for it) This was lovely and very atmospheric, though the ending left me a little dissatisfied. (Content Note: Infant death)

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen— Second book in the Little Thieves trilogy. Very fun and twisty in a similar way to the 1st book.

Kpop Demon Hunters — It's an animated movie about a kpop girl band that are magical girl-sque demon hunters, there's lot of musical numbers.A Koren friend of mine described it as “an American movie set in Korea” and I think that’s spot on. She specifically complained about how the worldbuiling/theology feels too christian. It doesn't fully work through the consequences of all the violence but the flight scenes are very swooshy and fun, and I liked the themes a lot. I also really liked the female friendship aspect.

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Media Round Up: June 23, 2025

2025-06-23T18:56:53Z

Here'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 )

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Meida Round Up: Crossdressing Girls and Other Disguises

2025-06-09T18:16:29Z

Here's some thoughts on media I read and watched recently

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen— This YA fantasy novel was really fun! There are lots of heists and disguises. All the moms are terrible but they aren't dead (being Death doesn't count). I really hated all italicized German words (it is not a problem that they were German I just hate it when “foreign” words are italicized, it's both othering and distracting to me as a reader) However this really sucked me in! It’s fast paced and twisty and the worldbuilding feels grounded.

Coffee Prince ep 5-20— I finished this classic of crossdressing girl media. It was cute and fun! I got a great comment on my post about crossdressing girl media about how crossdressing allows women to form friendships with men on more equal footing. This drama really leans into that and the pleasure of being ‘one of the boys” without having to justify oneself.

This did the best job of “The MC thinks he’s gay because he likes the crossdressing FL” that I’ve seen (Though I haven’t seen many) it could be even better but I was pleased with it nonetheless.

(Content note: Blink and you'll miss it miscarriage and fertility issues)

The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy— Somehow no one told me that it is a crossdressing story but trans. That is, the main character is a trans girl who starts the book thinking she’s a boy in disguise. Interestingly she "disguises" herself as a girl so that she can go out into the world and become a witch (mostly crossdressing men in media are trying to access "inner" spaces). The author even thanks Tamora Pierce in her acknowledgments, so it's very clearly part of that tradition.

What people did tell me about this book is that there are a bunch of meetings, in fact I was expecting more meetings based on how much people talked about them.There are some meetings, but they don’t drag out and are often summarized. But I was not expecting it to be quite as brutal as it was, there was a lot of fighting and some killing, and also quite a bit of phillosy about power and making choices. Definitely a book that gave me a lot to think about.

I don’t often go seek out reviews after I read a book, but this one I really wanted to see what other people said about it. I really liked Roseanna’s review.

The Truth Season 3 cases 4-5— I continue to really enjoy this show! I especially liked the set of costumes that looked part of a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Also they have been playing with the format in fun ways with these two cases.

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Media Round Up: May 25 2025

2025-05-25T21:43:03Z

I can't think of an even vaugley clever subtitle for this post so I've just put the date. I read some books with varying levels of joy. Getting slightly better sleep for a bit helped, as did putting less pressure on myself to love everything I read.

Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis—I was very charmed by this book! It’s not a book where I want to think too hard about the worldbuilding, nor is it a book that thinks too hard about its political systems. (There is an empire – it's bad because it wants to control magic and take over all the little kingdoms around it. But we aren’t going to think too hard about how all those monarchies work or about due process) But if you are in a mood to let those things slide and I was, it's a fun read. I liked and wanted to root for the main characters right away, especially the male lead who is a bit princess coded and becomes a librarian by accident. The plot is mostly a kind of tropey romance and I found that very soothing.

Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer—This age of sail crossdressing girl book was recced in response to my crossdressing girl media post. Our main character Jack (née Mary) disguises herself as a boy to become a ship's boy on the HMS Dolphin, and has many adventures. This was a little too gritty for me, especially the early part of the book where her family all die, and then she lives on the street. That section featured a lot of the kids dying! Then ship life is rough and they are in battles and things so more people die. There’s also an attempted rape. Anyways this is a solid example of the crossdressing girl trope! (I actually checked the second book out form the library but it involved school bullying and I was finding that way too upsetting)

A Sky Full of Dragons by Tiffany McDaniel—I read this MG fantasy out loud to my kid over many bedtimes. I think it's a bit too whimsical, which is not a thing I thought I would ever complain about. I like whimsy! But so many unexpected things kept happening it was hard to follow the plot at first. Plus it’s just hard to hold narrative tension when absurd things just keep happening.

The Truth Season 3 cases 1-3— I’m so obsessed with this show! It’s a reality show where pretty people wear pretty clothing and play an elaborate game that’s like a cross between and escape room and a murder mystery dinner party. It’s got my fav Liu Yuning and several other people who I'm very fond of. I think the big thing that keeps me coming back is the group chemistry, which is very fun. I can’t really follow the mysteries – I can get the broad strokes, but to really follow you need to get the details. But it's fine because it's not really what I’m here for, and I enjoy the surprise reveals. This season's costumes are great so far!

Paprika—We did watch another Satoshi Kon film for our next movie night! This one is both very trippy and very creepy. I’m not sure I like it. It was good, just really intense. Anyways I’m glad I watched it. I continue to be impressed by Satoshi Kon’s cityscapes (content note: sexual assault, fatphobia)

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Meida Round Up: Continuing Adventures

2025-05-05T17:26:45Z

Here's some thoughts on what I've been watching recently (Basically all I've been reading is non fiction for a research project my Chinese tutor and I are working on with a smattering of fic.)

The Truth Season 3 preview episodes—I loved the second season of this show so I’ve been greatly anticipating the third season! This is a reality show about pretty people wearing pretty clothing and playing murder mystery dinner party. But I think what makes it work is the chemistry between the group. I don’t yet have access to the actual episodes but this season started out with two and half prequel episodes where the cast just hung out and played variety show games, ate hot pot, and cooked (Liu Yuning got to show of his knife skills!) It was so much fun!

Tokoyo Godfathers—Another movie night pick on my group watch server. It’s about three homeless people in Tokoyo who find an abandoned baby on christmas. This is very good! It’s an unusual mix of some very serious things and very silly things, but the silliness somehow just makes the feelings more intense. I loved the animation. All the little details of the streetscapes give the flim so much texture. It’s gritty and beautiful all at once.

The Tale of Nokdu ep 1-20—I picked up this kdrama because it features a man crossdressing as woman and woman crossdressing as man. The ML is the main character and he spends most of the first half of the drama crossdressing, while the FL only crossdresses occasionally.

I’m enjoying this but also finding it really stressful! The first part was a bit more light-hearted but then there was a big twist and everything has been tense since then. I’m not sure what makes it so stressful either. There is a complex political plot and everyone is keeping lots of secrets from each other. Anyways I was finding it too stressful and had to take a break. I really hope I can come back to this.

Content notes: Corporal punishment, threats of rape including childern child threatened with rape, mentioded pass rape and murder of a child

Coffee Prince ep 1-4— This is what I started as a break for Nokdu. It's a modern day rom com and also a classic of the crossdressing girl genre. I somehow got the impression that this was very long but no, it’s only 17 episodes. So far it's very cute and charming, definitely a good break from a stressful show .

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Media Round Up: Again!

2025-04-25T18:27:04Z

I don't generally post two of these in a week, but I finished the drama I was watching and also read and watched several short things, so I have more than enough to say.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells—I know I wasn’t that enthusiastic about rereading the first Murderbot novella but I still wanted to reread another one so I did. This was pretty fun. I had lower expectations which probably helped, but Murderbot admits more to caring about stuff in this one. But the best part is definitely Murderbot’s relationship with ART! I especially liked the bit where they watch media and talk about how humans portray beings like them.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells—Yet more Murderbot, as I was finding it rather morish. This one doesn’t have ART, and it does have a lot of new characters to keep track of.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells— Even more Murderbot. This is the last one I have on hand and these four make a nice arc so I stopped after this one. It's hard to pull off this kind of multi part arc where each piece also is a complete story

( The Lost Boys, Race to Romance,and In a Class of Her Own )

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New Post at Lady Business!

2025-04-23T16:35:36Z

I have a new post out at ladybusiness "Adventures with Crossdressing Sword Girls" where I talk about some of the crossdressing girl media I've been watching recently and a bit about why I like this trope so much. Come tell me about your favorite crossdressing girl media!

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Meida Round Up: Comfort and Textiles

2025-04-20T18:02:41Z

I’m once again sharing my thoughts on my recent media consumption. But first some thoughts about my joyful reading project.

I spent several days making a deliberate effort to not read if I didn’t feel like reading or wasn’t excited by anything I had to read. I don’t think it really helped? I was kind of miserable but in a different way than when I read things because I don’t have anything better to do. (I need no screen low hand impact things to do right before bed) But I guess after I did that I did end up reading some things. So maybe it worked? But I would rather not do it again.

I went back to reading not because I was suddenly super excited but because I had a day where I was too sick to do much at all and ended up reading a long fic all day.Which was nice, maybe not joyful, but nice.

( All Systems Red, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire, The Crescent Moon Tearoom, and The Flash Band )

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Meida Round Up: Cool Trees

2025-03-29T18:43:24Z

Here's some thoughts on what I've been reading and watching lately:

The Yin Yang Master (2021)— My group watch discord server has decided to have monthly movie nights as an activity that is easier for people who struggle to keep up with the dramas we are watching. This was our first movie. I liked it a lot! great visuals, including a bunch of dramatic vistas, cgi monsters (my favorite was the tree yao with petals drifting around her) and fun fights. Plus there are female characters!

A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany—I think it's helpful to read more Chinese stories from this time period to get a better sense of the genre and see how other people do translation. This book is aimed at undergrads so it has less footnotes than To Live as Long as Heaven And Earth which was also translated by Campany. Personally I like the footnotes, so that’s not a plus for me. All of these stories are very short, mostly less than a page when translated, so there’s not a lot of story or character development, definitely something I read for intellectual reasons and not for the stories.

Love of Petals— It took me a couple of episodes to get into this drama, I didn’t like the relationship between the leads at first, but it got better fairly quickly and I’m glad I stuck with it. The FL is a gardener and the ML is a flower yao, and eventually they start a flower nursery with a group of formerly mistreated yao. There are several very beautiful sets with many many flowers. The ending is a bit rushed and confusing, but it's mostly pretty charming. I don’t have Deep Thoughts about this or anything, but it was cute and fun.
(Content note: attempted suicide)

Seawitch by Skye McKenna —The third book in the Hedgewitch series, read out loud to the kid. I think this is my favorite book in the series so far. In this book they go visit the main character’s cousin who lives in a seaside town in Cornwall, and I really liked all the sea mythology. This book also features a boy who wants to be a witch and I enjoyed his storyline.

Somehow I’ve already finished five dramas this year! Which is as many as the most I've watched in a whole year previously. All of these were 24 episodes or less, but still that’s a lot for me.

Reading joyfully continues to be a challenge, and I’m trying not to push it because I don’t think it helps. I’ve been anxious and depressed a lot recently and its just hard to do anything joyfully when one is in that state.

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Media Round Up: Strong Women

2025-03-12T21:46:49Z

I’m in a bit of a reading slump which is not fun. I have mostly been reading academic papers, a couple of which were very good, but it's not the joyful reading that I want to be doing. I feel like I’ve lost the knack for finding SFF, and to a certain extent fic, that I want to read. Or maybe I never had that knack for my current brain. Either way it's a bit frustrating.

(I wasn’t going to say anything about the academic papers I’ve been reading but you know what I’m going to at least link you to my favorites : Tang ‘cosmopolitanism': Towards a critical and holistic approach by Shao-yun Yang and; The Song Rediscovery of Chang'an by Xin Wen)

But let's talk about what I’ve watched recently instead:

Legend of Yunze Season 2 —After starting watching a bunch of things and not getting very far with any of them, I really wanted to finish something, and I was reminded that I hadn’t watched the second season of this mini drama. I found this season harder to follow than the first season – not sure if that’s because I was tired or because there's a lot of dream sequences that make this confusing. Could be both.

Love Behind the Melody ep 1-6— This is a Chinese drama about a modern day pipa player who gets transmigrated back in time to vaguely tang dynasty olden times as a woman who plays the same pipa. She then gets involved with contests between various different music academies.

I totally decided to check this out for the shallow reason that it looked like it had a similar textile aesthetic to A Love Story of Oiled Paper Umbrella. And it does but I don’t like these textiles quite as much. I think LSoOPU did more interesting mixing and matching, and those textiles were more Tang-style. Still LBtM has some fun big dramatic textiles and lots of color.

I also appreciated that they have Tang style tea. The early Tang kind with tea leaves and spices and fruit in it was kinda like soup. Don’t think I’ve seen that in a drama before!

However I disliked the dynamic between the main couple. What I wanted from this show was a scrapy found family competing in music competitions while wearing pretty clothing, but instead what I got was people trying to manipulate each other.

Jade's Fateful Love ep 1-24— ( Read more... )

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