forestofglory

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.

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?

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... )

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.

As the title says I've actually read some of the pile of graphic novels that I got from the library! Things have been busy and I've been sick so progress has still been slow.

The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Faith Schaffer — A graphic novel about a teen girl who wants to be a samurai and an older jaded ronin. The tech level is handwavy feudal Japan but with cell phones, which I found distracting. I didn’t think the cell phones added enough to the book to be worth it. Content note: gore, grief and dying

Anzu and the Realm of Darkness by Mai K. Nguyen and Diana Tsai Santos— Graphic novel about a Japanese American girl named Anzu who has just moved to a new town and get accidentally swept into the underworld. I thought it was pushing a little hard on we can solve systematic problems like bullying with individual choices but it was mostly sweet. I liked the kind of cartoony art style and all the different mystical critters.

Dragon of the Lost Sea by Laurence Yep —I read this Chinese mythology inspired MG fantasy novel to the kid at bed time. I had read these books myself as a kid and I was a little worried that they wouldn’t hold up, but the suck fairy has not gotten them! It’s maybe a little weird that the dragons all have wings. Chinese inspired stuff written in English these days tends to be very strict about not mixing in more western elements like that but actually the mixing is fun. Anyways this is a fun adventure story with lots of characters with big personalities.

Navigating With You by Jeremy Whitley,Casio Ribeiro, and Nikki Fox —A graphic novel about two girls who are both new at their high school. They decide to go on a quest to find all 7 volumes of an out of print manga they both never finished reading. I loved this! Both girls are charming and quirky in a geeky way, the manga story within the story was lovely. One of them does have a dead mom, something I generally avoid but by the time that was revealed I was hooked. It was super fun and charming!

Himawari House by Harmony Becker —A graphic novel about three young women from different places who move to Japan and end up living in the same house. It's a very slice of life with lots of food and friendship but also some sad moments. The author has a heartfelt note at the end explaining that she wrote on the accents because she wants to destigmatise having an accent. I have mixed feelings about it though because I find written accents way harder to parse than spoken accents.

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”

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 )

I am once again contributing to cozy SFF discourse: Domestic Labor and Community Building Rec List

This list is for all of you who said "I'd like cozy SFF, if it was the thing you talked about"

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 )

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.