forestofglory

Media Roundup: Mini Update on Reading Goals

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 18:06:25 GMT

Back in January I said I was going to make “comfort” my media theme for the first quarter of the year and then think about if I wanted to change. The first quarter of 2026 has been over for a bit. I’ve been having an amazing reading year so far! Other media not so much – I’ve been watching things only with other people, but that’s fine. Honestly I’ve not been thinking about my media theme much. So I guess it's going fine? I don’t see any need to change it anyways.

But now that I am thinking about my theme I kinda want to watch another crossdressing girl drama – those are so fun and comforting.

And now for some thoughts on recent media. It’s been a bit because I was busy and sick – but I’m doing better now.

NewsPrints by Ru Xu —Sometimes I read a thing that it seems like I should be really into and I'm just like "This is nice" That's how I feel about this book. It's got a crossdressing girl, cool diesel punk tech, found family! I'm not sure why I don't love it. (I started reading the squeal but it was somewhat darker and I didn’t really want to deal with that.)

Justice Society of America vol 1 and 2 by Geoff Johns, Mikel Janín et al. —I ended up reading this for convoluted reasons: I read Stargirl and the Lost Children because it had an appearance by a minor character that I was curious about, and then I wanted to know what happened next, which is told here. I would have liked even more lost children. But really the problem with this is that its too much story for the space, everything happens very fast and there is not enough time to get to know the characters. Probably I’m expected to come in already knowing and caring about some of them, but since I didn’t it really just felt like no one got much space to be interesting.

I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner—This queer regency romance is billed as “inspired by Jane Austen and queer history” but you could just as easily call it “a queer retelling of Emma”. I enjoyed it! I love how expressive the faces are. Also I really appreciated the facts and references in the back. And It’s super cool that all of the clothing is based on existing surviving garments or historical fashion plates!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girlvol 1-2 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, et al— this continues to be very fun! Featuring such delights as dinosaurs and a zine issues!

Nezha (2019)— I watched this Chinese animated movie with my group watch discord. So I generally I write up notes on each item for these posts a day or two after finishing it so it will be fresh in my mind (Then I wait until I have several things so I can post them all together) But this time I had to run off after watching Nezha and now its been a week so I don’t remember this as well as I’d like. It was fun though.
Content Note traumatic childbirth, gross bodily fluids

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New Post At Lady Business: Graphic Novel Rec list

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:56:30 GMT

I've been meaning to write a rec list inspired by all the graphic novels and comics I've been reading recently for a while, but I kept getting sick or distracted. But I've finally finished it so you can go check it out here!

I think I've talked about most of these in my Media Roundup posts but you can think of this as the highlights version.

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Media Roundup: Awesome Girls!

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:48:47 GMT

Have some more thoughts about media!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girlvol 1-2 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, et al— Remember last time when I was like “maybe I should reread Squirrel Girl”? Well I decided to go for it and that was a great idea, thanks past me. These are so much fun! I enjoy Doreen’s unconventional approach to problem solving and her general enthusiasm for everything! I’m also glad that they kept the letters sections in the collected volumes – I love getting to see all the cute cosplay and squirrel pictures.

(Reading this had made me think about the were a bunch of girl centric fun comics around 2015. I wish that trend had continued)

Lumberjanes: True Colors by Lilah Sturges, polterink, et al— The final Lumberjanes graphic novel. Pretty cute, though I do feel that these graphic novels aren’t as good overall as the main series.

Mamo by Sas Milledge— I really liked this fantasy graphic novel about two young women trying to deal with a town where the magic has gone wrong. The art was so good! Lots of big sweeping landscapes, but also great details. Lots of excellent birds too!

( Batman: No Man's Land and Batgirls )

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Media Roundup: On the Mend (I hope)

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:53:32 GMT

I’ve been sick for the last week or so which meant there was a lot of time to sit around reading but I didn’t have a lot of energy to write things up. But now I’m doing better so have a media roundup! (This isn’t everything I read while sick because some of it I didn’t have the energy to write up, and also I’ve been slowly reading Batman: No Man’s Land and if I write something about it, I’m going to do so after I finish the whole story. )

Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi— For kiddo’s school book club. This is so not my kind of book and I wouldn’t have read it if the kiddo hadn’t insisted. I just find contemporary books with political themes really really stressful! So this book about a Syrian-American boy in 2016-2017 was really not my cup of tea. So I think it was doing ok at being the book it wanted to be, but that book is not for me. Also the whole book was in poetry, and I don't think that actually added much – but also I’m not really a poetry person.

Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton by Ryan North and Mike Norton— Since I've been reading a lot of superhero stuff an algorithm showed me this, and it's got a cute dog and is written by Ryan North so I thought I'd check it out (What has Ryan North been up to since Squirrel Girl? Maybe I should find out. Maybe I should reread Squirrel Girl)* This was a bit darker than I was expecting! And did really feature the elements of North’s style that I remember enjoying alot (witty dialogue and certain wacky over the top-ness) Though still mostly a sweet story. (Content note: abusive training/animal harm, animal death, children in peril)

Lumberjanes: Bonus Tracks and Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs— These are single issue Lumberjanes stories by a bunch of different writers and artists. I enjoyed the variety! I think my favorite story was the one that had Last Unicorn vibes (Look I watched that movie a lot as a kid)

Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass by Lilah Sturges, polterink, et al— Lumberjanes original graphic novel – this was honestly a little disappointing, I didn’t feel like it really captured the vibe of the original comic. It did not help that this was one of those graphic novels with a very limited color palette (black, white and green) and I really missed the colorfulness!

Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship by Lilah Sturges, polterink, et al— Another lumberjanes graphic novel – I liked this one a lot better. It probably helped that my expectations were lowered after the first one but I do think it was a better story overall as well.

The Ribbon Skirt: A Graphic Novell by Cameron Mukwa— A middle grade graphic novel about Anang, a two-spirit and nonbinary Anishinaabe kid, who wants to wear a ribbon skirt to an upcoming powwow. This is very sweet! There are talking turtle spirits! There’s also Anang’s friend who is uncomfortable with Anang’s identity and kinda transphobic about it as heads up

* after writing this I did look up what Ryan North has been up to, some library holds have been placed. Also I noticed that he has PDF’s of all of his academic papers available on his website and I think that’s very charming and helpful of him.

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Media Roundup: Grumpy Foot Pain Edition

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 18:50:48 GMT

The last several days my foot has been extra painful and I have been very grumpy about it. It’s really unpleasant and I would like to stop being grumpy already. But I have been reading things while trying to rest my foot and distract myself so have some thoughts:

Ghost Circus written by Adrienne Kress art by Jade Zhang— MG graphic novel about, what else: a ghost circus. The story here didn’t really grab me, but I loved the art, especially of the circus performances. (content note: ghost kids, child in peril)

Lumberjanes, Vol. 15-20 by Shannon Watters, et al.— I have now read all of the main series of these! There’s still some extra stories and graphic novels to check out, but the main thing feels complete. Vol 19 where the campers decide to do one last thing before the end of camp was especially charming. The ending was a bit rushed but narratively satisfying. This whole series was very good and fun and I’m glad I came back to it and read the second half.

Gotham Academy Second Semester— The second Gotham Academy series. This one is all one long arc where the first one was more episodic. I didn’t like this quite as much as the first series, which I adored. Its a little bit darker and less fun. But I still love Maps and Olive and their friendship. I’m sad there aren’t more of these, but at least there are a few more stories where these characters show up for me to read. (Maps reminds me of very early Tim and I think it would be fun if they hung out, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.)

Batman, Vol. 6: Abyss by Joshua Williamson et al— I read this because it contains a story featuring Maps from Gotham Academy. That story was great! (Well except for the fact that some of the art of Japanese characters was bordering on racist caricature– that was not good at all!) The rest of it wasn’t bad– a little confusing because so much of it referenced other story lines and I have no idea what’s going on in comics this decade.

Kindred Dragons by Sarah Mensinga— A very sweet MG graphic novel about a girl who really wants a dragon egg. She lives in a world where fairies bring some girls dragon eggs – but it mostly runs in families and she isn’t from a “kindred” family. It’s set in Canada which confused me at first, but works for the vibe. The book says “volume 1” very prominently so I was a little worried that it would end on a cliffhanger but it's a complete story.

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Media Roundup: Onward!

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 23:56:52 GMT

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: Even More Sequential Art

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:29:03 GMT

I was sick for the last three days and couldn’t really look at screens for long, so now I’m so behind on my reading page! I might declare amnesty so if you posted something you’d like me to see let me know!

Meanwhile I have continued reading many graphic novels (and not watching anything) so here are some thoughts on my most recent reads.

Lumberjanes, Vol. 3-7 by N.D. Stevenson and Shannon Watters, et al.— These continue to be very fun! Lots of friendship and adventure, plus I love how colorful they are. The camper who is transitioning from a Scouting Lad to a Lumberjane is also very charming! I’m glad I’m rereading these! (And only a few more volumes until I get to new to me stuff)

Batman: The Golden Age, Vol. 1 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane et al— I have a habit of turning anything I’m interested in into a historical research project of some type. Thus I ended up reading this collection of the very first Batman comics. They are not especially good stories, but it's fun seeing bits of lore that feel essential to Batman slowly being added. The batplane and batarangs both show up before the Batcave and the batmobile! Neither of which showed up in these comics. Bruce just keeps his batman stuff in a chest in a room with windows, and drives around in a normal car. The causal racism in these sure is a lot though.

City of Secrets and City of Illusion by Victoria Ying— fun middle grade steampunk adventures! These are not very dense (not a lot of words on any one page) so they are very fast reads. I enjoyed the art, theirs a good sense of motion and lots of fun gears and things

Doughnuts and Doomby Balazs Lorinczi— A short graphic novel about a witch and a singer who meet by chance when both of them are having a really bad day. This was very cute but it was so short there wasn’t really time to develop the characters or their relationship much

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson— So I’m not big on contemporary middle grade fiction, because stuff about making new friends, dealing with bullies and other school social dynamics stresses me out most of the time. But several people who I think have good taste recommended this graphic novel about a girl who is not getting along with her best friend and ends up attending a roller derby camp without knowing anyone else there. I’m glad I read it because it was really good!

The Legend of Brightblade by Ethan M. Aldridge— Another graphic novel by Aldridge – this one is about a prince who wants to be a bard. He ends up running away and forming a band. It’s very charming, though definitely not a book that’s thinking critically about monarchy. The art as always with Aldridge is great!

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Media Roundup: Yet More Sequential Art

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:38:31 GMT

The graphic novel pile is still going strong! (I did start watching a mini drama but I’m going to wait until I finish it to include it in one of these round ups)

In other media related news I have figured out that I can read comics from Hoopla on a tablet and that’s been nicer on my hands than reading at my normal computer set up. I’ve also gotten a new timer and have been doing better at taking hand breaks so I’ve been watch more Crush of Music

Lumberjanes, Vol. 1-2 by N.D. Stevenson et al.—There’s a Lumberjanes/Gotham academy crossover that I want to check out, but it's been ages since I read any Lumberjanes so I thought I’d re-read them. Another series about girls who are friends with each other! Friendship is so great! This is definitely an advantage of reading a lot of YA and MG things, though it still would like more female friendships in media for adults. Anyway, these comics are very fun! I have requested several more volumes form the library

The Space Cat: A Graphic Novel written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford— I was very excited when I learned that Nnedi Okorafor had written a graphic novel about a cat! It turns out this is based on her real life cat. It is extremely cute and very charming! The art was perfect for the story.

Teen Titans: Raven, Teen Titans: Beast Boy, Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven, Teen Titans: Robin, and Teen Titans: Robin Teen Titans: Starfire written by Kami Garcia, art by Gabriel Picolo—These are like YA graphic novels adaptations of the Teen Titans – that is this own version and not as far as I can tell part of larger continuity, but clearly based on the earlier versions. I’m not super familiar with most of these characters or the earlier version of the Teen Titans but I liked these as their own thing.

I did break my no YA with dead moms rule, as the first book opens with Raven’s mom dying in a car crash. The characters are fun, and I liked seeing their friends and family. The romances do feel really fast and underdeveloped though. But seeing the team form is a lot of fun! The art is good too!

There’s supposed to be one more of these published later this year so I’m going to have to keep an eye out for it so I can read the ending!

Taproot by Keezy Young—A lovely graphic novel about a gardener who can see ghosts. I loved all the lush plants! I would have liked just a little bit more detail about how the magic worked though. The whole book was really sweet.(CW: several of the ghosts are kids)

The Changeling King by Ethan M. Aldridge—Sequel to Estranged, I liked how this dealt with the consequences of the events of the first book. And the art remains excellent!

The Return of the King— Watched with R and the Kid. This one felt the darkest of the three, also the one with the most changes from the book. We took more breaks this time so I felt less over-stimulated by the end, which was good.

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Media Roundup: Working on The Graphic Novel Pile

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 19:23:39 GMT

This time I have nothing to talk about but things from my pile of graphic novels from the library. I picked up another set of holds, and then put in even more holds, but I’m getting to the end of things I want to check out so it's possible the pile will diminish eventually.

I read so many books in January, after so long of not reading very much. It’s nice but my brain sure confuses me.

Estranged by Ethan M. Aldridge—I really liked this author’s other book, The Pale Queen, so I thought I’d look into other graphic novels he created. This one is good too! The same lovely art, cool world building and some nice found family feelings.

The Lost Sunday by Iléana Surducan—A sweet kids graphic novel inspired by fairy tales. It’s very short. As a non-christian I don’t love the association of Sunday with the day of rest, but it is otherwise lovely. The art is very fun, very expressive with good use of colors.

Gotham Academy, issues 1-18 by Becky Cloonan et al.— I was always going to love a story about plucky girl investigators at a boarding school who are friends with each other! The fact that this is set in Gotham and features appearances by members of the bat family is just a bonus. It’s got kinda a spooky vibe but it’s not really scary. I've been reading comics from the 90s, so it was fun to check out something more recent, and nice to have some different art styles. (I’m not really a fan of 90’s comic art styles even if the city scapes are good)

Mia “Maps” Mizoguchi is so much fun! She's clever and excitable and so enthusiastic about everything! I love her! I'm going to have to track down all the stories she appears in so I can read them.

Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman—A fun queer western adventure – I appreciated the author’s historical notes in the back. The subdued but warm color plate for this really added a nice touch.

Sanity & Tallulah, Field Trip,and Shortcuts by Molly Brooks—The first two of these were rereads, as I read them a while back and didn't remember them that well. These graphic novels are fun! Sanity and Tallulah are two girls living on a space station. They are friends with each other and have slightly madcap adventures. I also liked how this handled worldbuilding with each book showing a larger and more complicated section of Sanity and Tullaulah’s universe, especially the way the earlier books drop hints about the larger situation but you don’t fully see it until the third book.

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Media Roundup: Bits and bobs

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:47:38 GMT

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

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 18:27:37 GMT

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!

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:25:50 GMT

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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2025 in Review: Writing!

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:02:01 GMT

2025 wasn’t my best year for writing, I was sleep deprived and not very inspired. But I did manage to write a few longer things so I thought I’d do a quick round up.

I wrote three things for ladybusiness :
Adventures with Crossdressing Sword Girls
Domestic Labor and Community Building Rec List
Chill Chinese Reality Shows Rec List

I posted one short translation from Classical Chinese:
Magu

And I wrote an annotated bibliography for a friend:
Liao Biblography

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2025 in Review: Sewing!

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 17:04:55 GMT

Here’s a round up of things I sewed in 2025! It was a good sewing year for me. This a lot of pictures so I divided it up into sections.

Clothing

This year I got back into sewing garments for myself. Here’s some of what I made. (I don’t seem to have taken pictures of everything)

Jacket!

And I made three of these tunics but I only found pictures of two of them

I also made several shirts for the kid, but again didn’t photo document them very well. But here’s one picture:

Doll Clothing

I sewed a lot of clothing for my 18 inch doll! Mostly Tang dynasty inspired hanfu. I used this project to learn more about hanfu and also pattern drafting. I drafted all the hanfu patterns using a book and I feel more confident about pattern drafting now. (Maybe not confident enough to draft something for me)

Here’s the first outfit I made:

Then I decided I wanted to make a round collar robe for that hufu/crossdressing girl look. I started by making a jacket -- it took several tries to get the pattern right

All those versions really paid off though because my first try and a robe went perfectly:

Then I made a reversible robe – I wanted to do that open collar look I’ve been seeing in dramas

And here’s the second lined robe I made

I also did Tang Dynasty girl outfit:

And in not hanfu doll clothing I altered a pattern so I could make my doll a matching tunic to mine

Quilts

I didn’t sew a lot of quilts in 2025 – I was working on other things. I did send two quilt tops to a friend to quilt and then finish those quilts though. Here some pictures:

I also sewed up a quilt top which I’d cut out all the pieces ages ago but then left sitting around for a while.

Here’s some in progress shots

And the finished quilt top :

I don’t have any specific goals for 2026 sewing, but I have several quilt tops in various stages of completion that I hope to work on. I also have another top for myself cut out, and some fun fabric set aside for other garment projects. And I have plenty of ideas for more doll clothing too!

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Media Round Up: Loose Ends

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 18:24:54 GMT

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!

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:52:25 GMT

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

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 18:26:54 GMT

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 18-21

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 19:31:59 GMT

Here's some more recent DecRecs!

Day 18
Today is one of those days where I really wish I was capable of napping. But since that isn't going to work I'm planning on spending some time curled up on the sofa with an ereader full of fic an hopefully a cat on my lap
So for today's #DecRecs I want to rec one of my favorite fics ever "on a long journey" by twigofwillow
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819775/chapters/73366473

This is a Lan Sizhui centric post-canon CQL fic and It's really the best!

Things I love about "On a Long Journey":
*It's beautifully written
*The characterization is so perfect!
*The way the story is non-linear and includes. memories, stories and letters (Jiang Cheng's letter is so funny and pitch prefect)
*found family and good feelings while still letting people be complex and messy!

Day 19
For today's #DecRecs I have a really cool boardgame that I first played this year Vantage by Designer Jamey Stegmaier
basically your party crash lands on an alien planet and you are all in different locations, represented by illustrated cards. You can tell the other people about the cards but not show them the cards

It's very fail forward game, so you kinda wander around and interact with the environment and maybe complete some goals. There's lots of cool stuff to do! Once I have taken a child on an adventure, almost gotten eaten by a dragon, and stolen a flying vehicle!

( Read more... )

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DecRecs 2025 days 11-17

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 17:44:39 GMT

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

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 19:35:41 GMT

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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Liao Biblography

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:08:27 GMT

For the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction I offered to write a bibliography on a topic of the winner’s choosing. My friend Rae won the auction and asked me to write something about the material culture of the Khitan Liao or Jurchen Jin. I was not very familiar with either of these dynasties, but after some discussion and preliminary research to get a sense of what’s out there we chose to focus on Liao textiles.

The Liao Dynasty existed between 916 and 1125, roughly contemporaneous with the Song Dynasty. One of the reasons I wanted to research the Liao was that they are closer in time to bits of history I’m familiar with. Thanks to my love of The Long Ballad I got really into Tang history (618-907 CE), and more recently I’ve been working on translating stories from the Taiping Guangji (太平廣記), a group of tales compiled in the late 10th century– so I’ve been learning about that period as well.

Before I started the more in-depth research, I read a bit about Liao historiography, and I’ve included a few of those papers to help put the Liao in context, with a few other papers that aren’t on topic just for fun.

( Read more... )

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It's DecRecs Time!

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 19:47:59 GMT

Hi I haven't been here as much as I'd like. We had some damage to the house that caused a major disruption, and even though it's been fixed for a while I'm having trouble getting back to my usual routines and projects.

But that's not what I want to talk about! It's December, and every year for the last several years I've been doing a project called DecRecs in December where I rec on thing everyday for the month and encourage other people to rec stuff too. Recs get posted on Mastodon and this year for the first time BlueSky then every once in a while I round them up and post several days worth here.

So here are the 1st five days of recs!

Day 1
It's the first day of December and that means its time for #decRecs !

This year I want to focus on reccing things I discovered this year, not things I've recced a ton of times before, though I'm sure I'll include some old favorites.

I'm starting out with "This is it" a mulifandom Go /Baduk / Weiqi vid. This so much fun! I've been rewatching this everytime I scroll past it in my ao3 bookmarks and its a delight every time!

I love the variety of source material and the perfect timing!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51767752

2:57 min, only music, subtitles available

Day 2
Today for #DecRecs I want to talk about barley tea! I used to get this all the time at my favorite Korean restaurant but I recently realized that I can make it at home! It's so good, cozy, a bit of nutty flavor, very warming in the cold!

( Read more... )

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Media Round Up: Short things For Low Focus Times

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:34:15 GMT

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

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:32:40 GMT

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

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:42:41 GMT

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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