halfcactus

September... flew. I had to go back and reread my own tweets to remember what happened. /o\

Media log

他們都說我遇到了鬼 by 青色羽翼 (English: They All Say I Met a Ghost by Cyan Wings)
This was a book club read, and we finished the main novel right before Mid-autumn Festival which was apt and fortunate in light of Mid-Autumn busy-ness.

TL;DR - I agree with superborb's review which includes a handy synopsis!

My main thought about this book is that I think it works best in other mediums where other PoVs can be more organically incorporated: I've listened to bits of the audiodrama and enjoyed it, but I think it would be even better as a visual medium like a comic or an animated series. The writing is best when it stages the comedic scenes that highlight the differences between what Shen Jianguo (the main character) sees and what other characters see.

To me the book has a very rocky start, but gets better: when we first meet Shen Jianguo, the dense-ness of his PoV felt overdone. Between his exaggerated obliviousness, and the confusing circumstances of the first ghost he meets (Mr. Saw), I wasn't sure it was my type of humor. But I think these were the chapters where the author was still figuring out how to write the book and the characters. The writing and humor certainly get more refined as you go on—my level of engagement peaked between chapters 13 to 30, before the author rushed their way towards the ending.

The women are written so lovingly! My favorite parts were all the arcs involving the girl ghosts. The author really took their time with telling their stories, making for the most heartwarming resolutions and bittersweet partings. When you see the MC interact with the girl ghosts, you understand why he was so popular with school AND why the ML falls in love with him. These are the parts that shone for me the most. The author's end-of-chapter skits for the girls' ending were also really funny.

The romance was smooth, stress-free, and basically just a side dish. I enjoyed it more for how the romance characterized Shen Jianguo than what the relationship or the ML (an exorcist from a well-known family) was like.

In conclusion: I enjoyed this book for the middle bits. XD It's a nice and easy book if you want a short and funny story with a gay main character who's very comfortable and confident in his sexuality (and his pecs!). Although there is some romance, the overall vibe of this novel was very gen! Also, apart from being a poor grad student, the main character was completely self-sufficient and did NOT need any saving at all, which was nice! He's very athletic and earnest.


CONTENT NOTES: gruesome deaths (though the writing is very good at focusing more on the afterlife), bullying and abuse (of ghosts in their former lives), and the MC's unquestioning trust in the entire justice system



Couple of Mirrors


Also known as the 12-episode Republican era GL show! Or, as our groupwatch lovingly calls it, murder wives.

Once again linking to superborb's entry on this, because anything I wanted to say, she already said. https://superborb.dreamwidth.org/476320.html

And here is my gif/livetweet thread.

Things I made in September

Kamen Rider Build stickers: this was a collaboration with lunarflares and hoodlessmads. We wanted to thank kuyamars for streaming the ENTIRE show for us and also for drawing Chihayafuru fanart for EACH of us during our Chihayafuru groupwatch!

[fanvid] Kamen Rider Build - Seishun Amigo: This has a target audience of 1 (me). I firmly believe that Seishun Amigo should be the theme song to the Kamen Rider Build movie, and needed to make my vision a reality. The lyrics match PERFECTLY, you can't change my mind.

A Mid-Autumn Dice Game cheat sheet: My Chinese side comes from a part of Xiamen/Fujian where the Mid-Autumn practice is to play a dice game for prizes (traditionally mooncakes of different sizes, but we just customize our prizes). This year my brother suddenly wanted to ~revive tradition~ so I designed a visual guide for winning dice combinations. :P I made a colored one but it has mistakes I'm too lazy to edit, and this black-and-white printer-friendly one where you can color in the dice yourself. Anyway the most notable thing about it is that I drew the diagrams on Google Slides. Very pleased that we can do that now!

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Currently

Watching: The Justice:


A Republican era show about banking, marriages of conveniences, and revenge. Cast includes Zhang Xincheng and Cai Wenjing as the leads, with Liang Jie as one of the supporting characters. I wouldn't recommend this show, but I think it's very good at telling women's stories. It has a very complex and refreshingly consistent FL that I find is very challenging to play! I'm halfway through and I think I'm starting to genuinely enjoy it (the fallout of the first 20 eps), but IMO they should have just removed most of the ML's scenes from the first half, which I felt were a waste of airtime––especially since his character is just an empty suit of plot armor and contradictions.

What I enjoy the most about it is the FL's other relationships. She has such fun and genuine relationships with other people that the main romance feels very fake (which is not aided by the ML being, in gixi's words, a cryptid). This is definitely a script issue because the actress thought so too. And I wonder if that contributed to how reluctant and emotionally flat her character seemed in the scenes where the intent was romantic tension.

Livetweet thread (with occasional gifs, if ZXC is stripping) here.


Reading: The Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky: This is my first time reading a poetry collection designed with a narrative structure, and while I knew what I was getting into (I've read excerpts before), I almost immediately had to put it down because of how distressing it was. :( It's a book about a stageplay about a nation that decided to turn deaf after a soldier shot a deaf child. The writing and images are extremely evocative. (I'm especially sensitive to child harm so I haven't been able to pick this back up.)