forestofglory

I've mentioned that I'm in an online group watch that watches Chinese media. We watch one live action show and one donghua (aka animated show) and we just finished watching Thousand Autumns and are thinking about what donghua to watch next.

So far we have watched: Scumbag System, Heaven Offical's Blessing, Cinderella Chief, Spiritpack and as mentioned Thousand Autumns.

Things we have on our maybe list: MDSZ, The King’s Avatar, Beryl and Sapphire, Chivalrous Hero Shen Jianxin, Rakshasa Street, and Fox Spirit Matchmaker

So if you have thoughts on any of those or other donghua to rec please share. We like things with queer vibes, wuxia and xianxia, food, and found family but are open to trying all kinds of things.

I'm seeing a lot of wish lists on my reading page as part of the snowflake challenge and they seem like fun. So here's mine:

*Icons! I've been working on building my collection but I want more, here's a few things I'm looking for.
-An icon that says "Why can't I make you a cup of tea over the internet?"
-An Untamed icon that says "swoosh" or "swooshy"
- Something with trees
- A Star Trek icon -- know there are a bunch of these floating around but I need to get a better sense of what I want and go looking
- A writing icon of some kind. Maybe a fannish one with character writing? or maybe I just want something that says "words, words, words"?

*Meta about food, ecology or urban planning!

*Recs for good books and articles about Chinese history. My recent enjoyment of Chinese media has made me realize how little I know. I'd be especially into things that talked about what daily life was like in the past.

*Recs for cosy SFF of any length

So it occurred to me that if I want to write more about nature and/or the built environment maybe it would be good to read more about those topics too. So thought I’d ask for recs. I sometimes have trouble reading the latest planning and ecology news because a lot of it is depressing and/or terrifying. At work I end up reading a lot of new articles about the Bay Area housing crisis and it wears me down after a while. But I’m sure there’s good stuff out there that I’m missing.

Here’s a couple of things along these lines that I’ve liked to give you an idea of what I have read on these topics recently. (And also because even when I’m asking for recs I love to give recs -- sorry!)

“Knowing Prairies” by Liz Anna Kozik This short graphic essay is an excellent introduction to some key conflicts in restoration ecology.

Braiding Sweetgrassby Robin Wall Kimmerer This book of essays by biologist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation about blending indigous and western ways of knowing is amazing about inspiring.

Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature by D. Graham Burnett This book is framed around a trial but its really a detailed dive into how people in 1818 NYC thought about whales a topic I found utter fansinating

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon This book blew my mind when I first read it. It is all about how the city is connected to the countryside, and explains how the expansion of the US frontier was driven but cities.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein This detailed history of segregation in the US is really good but also very depressing.

Ok, most of those are book length, but I'll happy take recs for shorter things or sequential art.