superborb

This show would sound totally not up my alley from the premise. A comedy about sportsball?! But it was so highly recced by so many people that I had to check it out and you guys.

It is definitely worth watching!!

The premise: Rebecca Walton is the new owner of AFC Richmond after an acrimonious divorce and wants to tear the team down. It's the only thing her ex-husband truly loved you see. So, she hires Ted Lasso, a DII American football coach, as the next coach of this Premier League (association) football team. DII is the second of three tiers of collegiate level sports in the US; the Premier League is the top of the pro level football. Ted is (obviously) not prepared and knows nothing about football, but what he has is a gift for emotional earnestness. The sportsball part doesn't really matter for understanding the plot. Relegation bad, you can osmose that pretty quickly. (Presumably you understand more of the jokes if you know football.)

Let me get the things I didn't like out of the way so I can gush after. First, Ted apparently never learns even basic rules about football even at the very end of the season. Yeah, it's played for laughs, but c'mon, that's way lazy. It's lampshaded a real tiny bit near the end, but I didn't like it!

The other problem is it leans a bit hard on the stereotypes for secondary characters-- and because most of the core cast is white, this means many of the characters of color get little more than a happy-go-lucky (or other) stereotype with a bit of padding. The show does try to subvert expectations -- at one point Ted gives a little Army toy (that his son gave him to keep him safe) to one of his players, but well, the player points out that he doesn't have pleasant associations with the American military. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the main cast is white, and that's the result of that choice.

And the tiniest complaint: the accent Ted uses is real weird. After listening to the actor's interviews, it seems that he has a midwestern accent and is putting on a southern accent?? W-why not just keep your distinct midwestern accent, which surely registers as a very American accent??

OK Now the stuff I loved. I am a total sucker for EARNEST FEELINGS and well, you get a lot of those. They do not spare those. When the situation calls for a serious talk, a serious talk is what happens! (But like, with jokes. Not so serious as to be boring.) I mostly don't like comedies because second hand embarrassment is a huge squick, but Ted Lasso does a neat turn around each potential moment that meant that I never cringed away from the screen.

Keeley, a B list model who dates the star player, and Roy, the aging, angry captain, sometimes do feel like a little bit too stereotyped at the beginning, but I quickly fell in love (much as Roy reluctantly comes around to Ted...) by the middle of the show. Really, I think they cast so well. All the actors delivered so well, during the comedic moments and the emotional ones.

Trent Crimm, a skeptical journalist who is extremely reluctantly charmed by Ted, and the other Richmond fans who are also extremely skeptical yet reluctantly charmed, were exactly as great as you can imagine from that description. Love it.

Also I ship Keeley/Rebecca. Though Roy may be more emotionally aware than Rebecca, hard to say there.

tl;dr Loved the mythology + worldbuilding, felt it could use a thorough edit and more polishing to really shine

The premise: Alexandra Trese protects humanity from the supernatural (drawn from Filipino folklore), struggling to maintain the accords her father maintained with the creatures of the underworld. Starts out crime-solving mystery, culminates in a Big Bad style ending. 6 episodes of ~30 min, animated.

The mythology and setting were superb-- and indeed, what everyone's been praising. I'll defer to Filipino friends who have said that it feels accurate etc, but watching with little knowledge still let me feel immersed in the worldbuilding.

I also thought the characters were generally interesting, though the emotional storyline was strongly centered around Alexandra. With only ~3 h of runtime, that's fully to be expected. I guess it's also blending a bit into the worldbuilding, that the most interesting characters were the supernatural ones-- the Emissary was excellent. Though uh, Alexandra really liked to threaten her allies in ways that seem counterproductive? Ghost boy was helping you! Why must you-- stab his hand (no permanent damage done).

Here's where I felt it could use a strong polish though: while some plot threads were nicely pulled through and there were good callbacks, many of the threads get dropped and the Big Bad finale was a mess. Did we really need a half episode of Big Bad pontification?! And the repeated flashback reusing the same scenes may have tried to do the "building emotion by revealing more about the scene", but mostly felt repetitive. Also, a lot of the writing and dialogue could really have used some tightening. The dialogue was not helped by some VERY wooden voice acting (in the English dub), especially disappointingly for Alexandra.

[Rot13] Gur Qngh Gnyntohfnb juvfcrevat va rirelbar'f rne nyfb frrzrq gb nofbyir gurz bs glvat gbtrgure guvatf yvxr... jul qvq gur Znlbe znxr n qrny gb trg uhaqerqf bs crbcyr xvyyrq, jung jnf uvf zbgvingvba? 'Cbjre naq zbarl' nybar vf abg irel rkcynangbel.

OK but lest you think I didn't like it, I do think there were a lot of great smaller subplots, it just didn't stick the putting-it-all-together landing. The tikbalang as drag racer? INSPIRED. The whole tiyanak subplot was really top notch too, probably my favorite arc in terms of pacing and interest.

Overall, it's a fast watch and I'd recommend it if supernatural crime fighting is a genre you like.

As my pile of library books looks accusingly at me, I "accidentally" bought Black Water Sister, got thoroughly distracted, and read it in a multi-hour frenzy. Oops?

The premise: Jess, an unemployed new college grad, is headed back to Malaysia with her parents after growing up in the US. With no time to adjust, she begins to hear the voice of her late grandmother, who wants Jess to take revenge on a gangster... It's a paranormal mystery with a theme of otherness.

OK I have to get it out of the way, this book hit my pet peeve on page two. The Ivies don't offer merit-based full rides!! I'm sorry, my overeducated USian self cannot help it. In all other respects, the US backstory is fine and vague.

Anyway, moving on, what I most love about Zen's set-in-Malaysia works is the Manglish. I've complained in the past about the self-consciousness of other works when trying to convey other languages; Zen never falls into that trap. It makes the work so much more immersive and real when you don't break disbelief for language. The only translation is for older sister, which was oddly explained twice-- it did act to emphasize those moments, I suppose.

Overall, the book is highly plot driven. It's like being tied to a train going full speed ahead sometimes. This obviously has its pros and cons: I never felt like the book was lagging and there was serious momentum at all points, but there wasn't as much space to explore anything other than Jess and the central plot. To me (and YMMV), sometimes characters felt like they existed only in conjunction to Jess and the plot. Part of this is the close third person POV: Jess is very much in her own head and it's totally in character for her to not have much insight into other people's emotional lives.

I had seen some snippets of the book on twitter, and none of them I felt sold the book very well? Like, food yay, but that definitely undersells the book IMO. The tension of not being out underlies a lot of Jess's thought processes (even when she doesn't realize it consciously) and queerness conflated with diasporaness with otherness is a major theme... but 'paranormal mystery' was the primary vibe I got. Trying to predict the twists and turns ended up occupying more of my reading efforts.

In conclusion! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

I slept on it and I still want to say it, so controversial opinion: I think it's natural to compare WOH to CQL, as a touchstone of a recent Chinese danmei adaptation that has made it relatively big in the anglosphere.

I don't care about the particular article, but this sort of thing has been backlashed MULTIPLE times in the last few months, and there's something in the shape of the backlash that's been a little weird to me. Like, yes, it's frustrating when someone who doesn't know basic genre differences acts as if they were an expert. It's an easy dunk to make!

Leaving aside the question of simplification for a popular audience, there are still huge similarities between the two, especially for an audience that isn't already super familiar with the genres in question? Like, Vorvayne pointed out, even if the only thing in common they have is that they're Chinese, this is... a pretty significant common factor? Culturally, narratively, historically, that's a lot of commonality that is notable to an anglophone audience. They also are relatively recent danmei adaptations that have gained huge popularity both in and out of China; it's kind of weird to say that they HAVEN'T been influenced by each other. I know the wuxia vs xianxia divide is strongly defended, but they are adjacent genres, even if they aren't in direct conversation.

I hate reading facile articles, and I'm hardly going to consider this kind of article / twitter comparison / what have you as recommended reading. I too would rather read that article by an expert who has the background to make interesting comparisons and delve more deeply than any of these pop articles do! Erin has much to say about WHY we don't get those Good Articles and how difficult it's been to get anyone expert to write ONE article on CQL, but all I have to contribute on that is: the Bad Take gets the views.

In conclusion, GOT is a super weird comparison to make for WOH, but CQL feels to me, not only a natural comparison point, but also a justifiable one? These comparisons are made to sell the show to a new audience!

Today I got a haircut (pics on twitter), and the shampooing / head massage part of things always reminds me of China.

For reasons unexplained or immediately forgotten, we weren't to wash our hair in the apartment. Instead, we'd go to the hair salon a short walk away from the group of apartment buildings. As it was inevitably the summer when we were in China, I'd want to go a lot, despite having to go through the sticky heat to get there. Anyway, at 10 yuan, which at the time was only a little over 1 USD, for a nice shampoo and a mini massage, it was totally worth it. Unlike the US, the massage was longer and more forceful and they did your arms too. Honestly one of the things I most miss about China (mostly joking).

While I was thinking about haircuts, I also remembered that as a child, we'd go into Chinatown for my mom to get her haircuts. This is a weird memory for two reasons. First, as I reminisced about previously, Chinatowns were not a major player in my childhood memories, and second, my mom is Shanghainese enough that she spends a lot of effort on her hair. (This is a Shanghainese stereotype, as relayed to me by my mom. Mostly when I am lazy about getting my hair cut.) So either she mostly got it cut elsewhere and just took the opportunity when we visited the city to get it done there (but why? Aren't most people really loyal to their hairdresser if they get it done frequently? She is very hairdresser loyal now?), OR I was too small and only thought it was chinatown, when in reality it was just a place that was a long way away and had a lot of Chinese businesses in close proximity? *thinking face*

I think that as a small child, my mom must have mostly cut my hair; I only remember this because I once cried for hours over being given bangs (...). By the time I have more fully formed memories (reaching the level of standard Helena-has-a-bad-memory recollections), I just went to the hairdresser my mom went to. After I became an adult, I would still get haircuts at Chinatown, because everyone always said that only people familiar with Chinese hair could cut it properly etc etc.

But as my years between haircuts attests, I don't really care enough about my haircuts that I can tell the difference between a Chinese salon and anywhere else. I DID notice when I went to supercuts (for the non-USians, it's a super cheap hair salon chain), and they didn't cut in a straight line parallel to the ground, but other than that... is there really a difference? Okay, my bf was able to cut in a straight line, so going to the salon for layers is indeed a noticeable and needed difference, but non-supercuts salons will all do layers, so... What I can tell is the non-Chinese salons don't style my hair as well afterwards, but the differences in the cuts, I'm just completely oblivious to.

This is kind of a weird post, huh. Do you have any haircut memories?

Here's what I've been consuming that either I didn't have enough thoughts for a full review on or haven't finished.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (book): Post-WWI British murder mysteries that I'm sure most are familiar with. I enjoyed this light and easy read on a day I didn't feel super well! Maisie is competent, and though the subject matter is grim (aftermath of WWI), it kind of follows the conventions of period British murder mystery that is well-worn enough to me to be soothing. A good low brain day read IMO.

Beastars (anime), ep 1: On Jeannette Ng's rec over on twitter, anthropomorphic animals in a world with a divide between carnivores and herbivores; an alpaca gets murdered in their boarding school and sets off distrust between the students. I enjoyed this well enough, but I was trying to find a show for me and my bf to watch, and he... did not like this at all. The inaccuracy of the animals (herbivores being small, and some actual herbivores among the carnivores) bugged him and the school setting wasn't his thing. May pick up the rest if I get bored? There was definitely potential in the main couple.

Warrior (TV show), ep 1:

hiddenramen recced this, a show set during the Tong Wars between rival Chinese gangs in 1870s San Francisco. It was interesting, and had some great fight choreography. However, US TV shows do this thing where the scenes are lit SO POORLY and I got a bit of a headache from squinting at the screen trying to decipher what was happening. For that, I don't think I can press on, no matter how good it might be.

Imperial Coroner (cdrama), eps 1-12: Tang dynasty crime solving with a great core cast. I'll definitely be finishing this and doing a full review, so won't write more now -- have been livetweeting over on twitter, here is the top of the thread. Have not yet broken the thread, incredible.

Chef Wang 美食作家王刚 (youtube channel): Cooking channel with a focus on professional dishes and hometown rural favorites. All the videos seem to have very good English subs! This is good because he has a pretty strong accent, and slips into dialect with his family. Not all the videos are designed to be followed by the viewer, so they don't have recipes, but some do, and the focus on technique is nice. Especially liked the series on lianggao, one video where he goes around with an old master is here.

Also read a handful of short stories, but was very bad about keeping track of them. I'll save up the ones I liked (and bookmarked) for a dedicated post I think.

( 5 gifs )

TL;DR 90% harem drama (not palace drama!) with a dash of political drama for flavor. Exactly what you'd expect from a harem drama in terms of plot twists and schemes, but I thought the pacing and some of the schemes were misses. I'd rec Minglan over this, but if you like the harem drama genre, it's an exemplar.

Premise: During the Ming dynasty, Luo Shiyi is a concubine's daughter in a respectable family. She is an expert embroiderer (and her shifu plays a major role!), but the harem politics force her into a marriage with the cold Xu Lingyi, the Marquis of Yongping. By her side are her loyal maids and eventually the love of her husband, but she faces the standard threat of the mother-in-law and concubines, in addition to the feud between the Xu and Ou families that spills over into the household.

( Read more... )

Before I go on to the review, I'll do a little advertisement for the danmei reading club I read this with! We're about to take a brief hiatus (both as a break and to let people catch up and finish) and choose our next book! The options now look like They All Say I've Met a Ghost (他们都说我遇到了未知生物), Lord Seventh (七爷), and Golden Stage (黄金台), all of which are completely translated! and ranging from 40-79 chapters. So if you've been intending to try a new reading club, do ping me to join!

Unfortunately, ISMM does not have a complete translation at this time. There is a translation up to chapter 40; the whole novel is 47 chapters + an extra, so it's quite short. Last month there were also some rumors that it might get an official translation? And of course MTL is an option.

The premise: Wei Yanzi is an actor blessed with good looks, but is terrible at acting. Under the same company and having debuted at the same time, Gu Yiliang, blessed with both good looks and good acting ability, is considered by the general public to be his adversary! WYZ, frustrated with the trash talk on the internet, stumbles across this intriguing NiangziArmy. These shippers are spreading love on the internet! Only now WYZ and GYL are set to film in the same series...

It's basically fluffy modern romcom, with a relatively small cast of characters. There were lots of laugh out loud moments, but also a few scenes where I was cringing with second hand embarrassment (only one I gave in and had to have the computer read it to me so I could get over it faster haha). I'd say the secondary characters are a bit lacking-- they're certainly fun, but they only exist in the periphery. There is enough fandom bits to add some flavor, but it wasn't overwhelming (to me, anyway). The plot is serviceable, with enough twists to be interesting, but it's still a short romance novel, you're not going to get a deep plot.

I'd say it was a good pick for an easy cnovel to start with, since vocabulary and grammar are relatively simple; there were a LOT of music and drama references, which I'm grateful that halfcactus caught and posted in the server haha. There's also an audiodrama and manhua; I'm excited to listen to the audiodrama now! It goes in a slightly different order so I didn't want to get confused as I was reading.

I read this on

sophia_sol's rec and enjoyed it a lot! It's a collection of translated epics, with a longer introduction at the beginning explaining the style and historical context for the epics generally, and then a preface to each of the epics describing the variations of that epic and a little about how it is situated and interpreted. These epics are a cross-section of the various kinds of epics that might be performed, including the main 'cycle' of related epics and then more miscellaneous ones that draw on the same traditions.

CW: as these are folktales, there's often misogyny; bride kidnapping is a common topic.

What I really liked was the aspect of the common body of characters and backgrounds that get drawn upon for each individual epic. That's kind of what I like about fic, when you can see the different aspects of the characters as they have different adventures etc; of course, since there are only 30 epics translated and many are out of the main cycle, there's only so much of this aspect, but it was enough to be satisfying.

There was one epic at the end that was kind of satire, but it seemed that they didn't have a good grasp of how all the satirical pieces fit, so it was only just enough to give a slight flavor.

It was also really interesting to see the translation of an oral tradition, with minimal smoothing for written text. As you may expect, there's a lot of repetition (though the amount varies based on the performer). Often this is for emphasis, where if they want to drag out X, they'll repeat it in a few different ways. Or if X happened three times, the whole group of lines will be repeated again. There's also set phrases to refer to things; for example, wine is always green wine, gold is always red gold, heads are always reckless heads, etc. (The introduction gives none of these as examples for epithet-noun phrases, but the ones they give seem less common?) This makes sense when you're trying to follow something aurally!

Another poetic feature that was really interesting was the "Slavic negative antithesis", where a comparison is made to the negative form. The introduction gives as an example:

A bright falcon didn't swoop down on the geese,
on the swans,
And on the small migratory gray ducks--
A Holy Russian bogatyr
Swooped down on the Tatar army

The final tidbit I found interesting was the conflation of courtesy with knowledge-- one hero's special power is his courtesy, which is glossed as knowledge a few times.

Anyway, if folktales and oral epics are of interest, I'd recommend this book! It was solidly informative, while giving a good flavor of the translated epics.

It did bother me that my account names didn't match and, well, uminohikari is kinda... a remnant of high school!Helena, isn't it? It seems sometimes that the idea of borbs will be seen as very much of this time period, but it feels more current!me anyway.

So hello! I'm superborb, formerly uminohikari!

While we're doing housekeeping, does anyone know which of the skins are the mythical "mobile friendly" skins?

There were a couple media bits that I had A Thought on this month, but not Enough Thoughts for a full review, so I'll group them together here.

Recently, my thoughts have felt molasses-like, so slow. I think efforts to be more social drain the same energy as writing does, maybe that's why I've not been having more thoughts haha.

Nomadland (movie): I... feel like I'd enjoy the book more? At the time, my bf had just finished reading the book and wanted to watch it and he liked it /a lot/. It might be too artsy for me as a film though, I don't think I Appreciated (or really understood) The Choices enough. And it's trying to convey a sense of culture, but ... too slowly for my impatient brain. It's clearly a movie a lot of people love, so a media/audience mismatch I think.

Dark Lord of Derkholm (audiobook / book) + Year of the Griffin (book) by Diana Wynne Jones: I don't think I appreciated just HOW GOOD DWJ is at descriptions until the book was being read out loud? Truly excellent, though some of the choices in voices the narrator put on (esp for the women) were annoying enough that when combined with the severe time penalty of having to listen to an audiobook instead of reading, I ended up reading the book anyway.

They're very DWJ books: imaginative, creative, chockablock full of interesting characters... thoughtless fat shaming, egregious obligatory het pairings, and a crash landing of an ending. I'd read them again.

It was also really cool to be in chat with

x_los and

excaliburedpan, who've both like, written academically on DWJ, as I read it, so I could get a broader context for stuff like, oh this professor is inspired by Tolkien, who DWJ bullied into actually teaching classes sometimes. (It's obvious from the text that these characters are People, Actually, but it's different when you know: oh, this specific person.

Educated by Tara Westover (audiobook): I enjoyed listening to this as an audiobook, but once I wasn't obligated to be in a car, I haven't felt the need to finish it. The narrator has a great voice, with enough interest to not be soporific, but still soothing. Really shows why a professional voice actor is valuable (in comparison to the Because Internet audiobook). It's an interesting memoir, I just felt like the author hadn't introspected enough to really deeply analyze or draw connections in her story? She's young yet, which doesn't help. Still, if you like memoir, the ~1/3 I listened to was written with an engaging tone, full of interesting stories, and showed the complexity of emotion in an insular family. [CW: abuse]

Word of Honor: I've been watch partying this at the youtube pace, but I'm too scared to write a real review / don't want to harsh anyone's squee because it's a big fandom now, so I'll... not. I love A Xiang by far the most, but many, many death flags are being planted so I'm pretty sure she's not going to make it.

helena — Today at 2:51 PM
oh
my
god
this elf price is a horsefucker

helena — Today at 4:22 PM
oh no the horse is an elffucker

Thus endeth my review.

tl;dr Cried buckets. The emotional storyline is excellent, though the plot feels a tad unrealistic to me.

Premise: An Ran is in the process of trying to apply to go to Beijing for postgraduate studies in medicine and escape her hometown and her family's gendered expectations for her life. Unfortunately, her parents are in a car accident and pass away, leaving behind her six year old brother. She now has to decide whether to raise her younger brother, who she didn't know existed before this, or to pursue her dreams.

I have to caveat that most of the film is in Sichuan dialect, which I don't fully understand; with the Chinese subs, I can get most of it, but especially when they argue (and therefore speak rapidly), I am lost. I'll definitely rewatch if it comes out with English subs!

Though I suspect that the emotional resonance of An Ran being told to act like an older sister would like, one shot KO me if it were in my parents' dialects so maybe this is for the best.

As the premise says, the film's central theme is 重男轻女 wherein boys are more highly valued than girls. It echoes through how the parents tried to pretend she was disabled so they could have another child, the differences in how the siblings were treated by their parents, and in the previous generation, when the aunt had also given up her dreams to take care of her younger brother.

The brother's actor is really good for his age; definitely believed all his (gazillion) temper tantrums, but also he did a decent job in the emotional scenes. Also, at one point, he does a mini-heist with another kid and it's adorable. I think it does fall into the trap of "kid too mature for age". Needed for the story I guess.

With the previous generation, we see the paternal aunt and maternal uncle contrasted. The uncle always is on An Ran's side basically, even if he's a bit useless, while the aunt is the source of a lot of pressure to be the older sister and take care of the brother. Commentary on how women contribute to the patriarchy really. Still, the conversations between the aunt and An Ran are some of the best scenes, both narratively and in terms of acting.

As I watched, I judged how poorly An Ran was treating her brother at the beginning, because like, she /is/ an adult, but my mom pointed out how seriously she was taking his care, even before they developed family feelings towards each other. Also, brother is a bit of a spoiled brat and both of them were dealing with grief, so I suppose it's normal. (And also Doylistly needed for an emotional arc.)

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It probably hits most strongly to older sisters haha, but I think it is an interesting meditation on family dynamics for anyone.

There are many fics from that era that were memorable for me, the way that something you read when you're young can stick with you forever. Here are the six that float to mind for me. I would love to hear what yours are!

I've roughly sorted this by first encounter:

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, by

synecdochic. Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
I was never actually in SGA fandom, but years later, I read what was left from its heyday. This was, of course, one of the most popular fics in the fandom, and the first time I read it, I was too young to really understand the ending. Rereading a few years later, I realized that somehow I had come around to it being a happy ending in a way that I hadn't understood before. It was also one of the first extended DVD commentaries of fic that I had read, and the insight into how the story was constructed was /fascinating/ to me.

Database Unavailable, by

unrequitedangst. Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment
There are many fandom AUs: this is the only one that stuck with me because of the sharp insight into ridiculous fandom drama. Fandom AUs tend to be mundane in a high school AU sort of way; this one is so rooted in what fandom felt like in certain circles that it escapes the generic trap. I have since asked myself about many an unreadable style, IS [THEIR] BRAIN LOWERCASE 6 PT FONT?

Another Story, by

yhlee . Fandom: Princess Tutu

yhlee kindly reuploaded this just now! This was the first encounter I had with this kind of mixed meta/fic. It's a genre I really like, and I'm so glad I could discover that.

Wings to Fly, by

abyssinia . Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
I think this sort of quiet gen fic, about the unexplored backstory of a character-- it's still some of the most satisfying fic to me. Something about the idea of a Ms. Watson, a teacher who cared and changed the life of a child, quietly stayed with me.

Jeu-Parti, by Macedon. Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
This skirts towards original work, in the sense that Jake is a minor character and the other member of the pairing is an OC, but mostly this is so memorable because it was the first time a fic from literal decades ago still felt recent to me. Due to style and trope drift over time, older fics (and original works) are inevitably of their era; there's that trivia game someone put together about trying to identify the year a fic came out by its summary and it works because of this. Yet this fic felt like something that could have been written now (well, a decade ago lol). It made me start to more seriously seek out old Star Trek zine fic to try and see what styles and tropes had shifted and what had stayed the same.

When I Look in the Mirror I See Double, by

etothepii. Fandom: BBC Sherlock
This one is memorable in the sense that the central conceit, one mind in two bodies, is one that I pondered for quite a while after. (And Ancillary Justice brought it to mind again, which prompted this list in the first place!)

CW: grief, death

I listened to her fandom podcast from a decade ago, and her voice brought a fresh wave of grief. It's coming up on a year to when she died of COVID.

I don't really feel justified to be so sad; I mostly admired her from afar. She had been the head of the dorm when I was a tiny first year, and she was so cool. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up, that confidence, that extroversion, that ability to make people feel welcome. (Well, the latter was probably because she was trying to settle in the whole dorm's worth of first years.) I went back to look at my old diary entries, and every time I talked with her, I would write how cool she was. Nothing useful like what she actually said of course, and my memory is so bad that I don't remember anything but how she made me feel.

Her few professional published works had such a sense of place. We'll never get her book now, the one she worked on during her MFA.

I didn't know her fandom identity until recently. I knew she was fannish, I knew she loved Sailor Moon. (When the black cosplay twitter tag went around, I couldn't look out of grief. We'll never see her colored girls x Sailor Moon project.) I had read one of her fics before, it turns out. But mainly-- the podcast, her voice. Her laugh.

Well, I read both of these in one day in a multi-hour spree, so I suppose I enjoyed them hahaha.

These complete the trilogy started by Ancillary Justice, though there are a few other stories set in the verse-- a full length novel and a short story. The links to the latter are broken most places, since Strange Horizons must have redone their URL formatting since 2014, so here: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/she-commands-me-and-i-obey-part-1-of-2/ (I haven't read it yet).

Anyway, spoilery thoughts ahead. I'm more coherent this time, not having stayed up until 2 AM to finish them...
( Read more... )

Meitachi recently included this book in a bookblog, and the premise sounded interesting. The audiobook, of 8 hrs, was exactly the length of some recent long drives I had to take, and it was immediately available through the library, so I opted for it over having to fiddle with podcast software or anything else.

It's a pop linguistics book about internet language, and the emphasis is very much on pop.

I don't know if I can be totally fair here, because I really struggled to understand the audiobook. I know I am bad at auditory processing, but not all of it was processing issues. (Though I think that clearer enunciation would really have helped.) When a book contains a lot of discussion about very specific textual choices, reading them out loud in funny voices sheds no light upon the textual choices and also, the funny voices are VERY ANNOYING to me. A few times for emphasis, maybe, but it was way too often and way too difficult to parse.

Also, I'm a fast reader in English, and instead of being able to skim the many repetitive parts of the book, having to sit through it was annoying. That's probably just inherent in the audiobook format though.

Content-wise, it's quite light. I enjoyed most the parts where she draws upon the literature and wider studies, but much of the book is broad, general conclusions and small surveys, which I find suitable for a tumblr or blog post, and not a published work. This is somewhat unfair of me, as it is billed as a pop linguistics work, but the sections where linguistics literature is being discussed were genuinely interesting! And the general conclusions not very insightful.

As a collection of "interesting tidbits about the internet", it failed for me personally, because I just knew a lot of the more obscure or older facts, and had already had to consciously adopt much of the younger changes to language. Like, the usage of emoji as gesture feels-- obvious to me? It is something I am not good at necessarily (as Amanda called me out on the other day lol), because I have to consciously try to include it, but I recognize that that is how it is being used.

Anyway, I leave you with what my younger brother said about the last two chapters that he was in the car for: this is the kind of thing mommy might listen to to understand the internet. I don't think my mom would actually (though her story about shifting Chinese language choices causing drama between the mainland and overseas members of her alumni Wechat group is certainly topical), but the point is... the audience for this book is probably not an Internet Person.

I could NOT take the shame of having to borrow a book from the library three times, so I stayed up until an absurd hour to finish it. As a result, the entire second half of the book is pretty hazy in my memory, so I won't call this a proper review, more a bunch of impressions.

The premise: the Radch empire is an expansionist dictatorial one, though the expansionist bit might be over (for now?). As part of their military might, they use AIs that are based on space ships and control ancillaries (human bodies from previous annexations). The main character is/was one such AI, left in the body of the only remaining ancillary component of the Justice of Toren, called Breq. Early on in the novel, she meets Seivarden, who had been a lieutenant on her ship-self a thousand years ago.

The first half of the book is told in alternating chapters of "present day" and "past events", before the action of the plot starts up midway through and it sticks to the "present day" from then on. It's very much a descendent of space opera, with the attendant tropes and preoccupations.

Spoilery discussion ahead!

( Read more... )

Overall, I enjoyed it! Will definitely be reading the sequels when I can get my hands on them.

I will match up to $5000 in donations (+company match! 3x your impact!) to nonprofits supporting racial justice, broadly interpreted. Please check with me that the nonprofit can be matched by the company before donating. (e.g. red canary song does great work, but is sadly not eligible) I would prefer that these be new donations, but obviously have no way to check. I'll accept any sort of confirmation of donation on the honor code, you can DM or email me as you wish.

ETA: We're at 1660$ donated by me, which comes out to 5080$ (one person got her company to match too) donated total so far!!! And since it was asked: no deadline on donations, just until i hit $5000!

ETA2: Everyone is SO generous; i'm at 3440$ personally donated, for a total of 10470$ donated between all the matches?!

ETA3: omg I hit $5000 in less than 24 hours?! A total of $15,890 donated to some great causes! I hope everyone will keep contributing as they are able. It seems (n=1) that this kind of solicitation of donations is shockingly effective, if anyone is ~inspired~ to do similar!

Profile

superborb

March 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Pink After Dark for Boxes and Borders by branchandroot
Resources: Salmon Spawn

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 29th, 2026 03:49

Recent Entries

Ted Lasso

Trese

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

(no subject)

Haircuts, a ramble

Media diet, May

Let me introduce you to the best scene thus far in imperial coroner

The Sword and The Brocade (锦心似玉)

I Ship My Adversary X Me (我嗑了对家x我的cp) by PEPA

An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics by James Bailey and Tatyana Ivanova

Dreamwidth housekeeping

Media diet, April

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

Sister (我的姐姐)

Rec list: six fics from over a decade ago

(no subject)

Ancillary Sword & Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

(no subject)

Profile

March 2026

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags