Media Roundup May-June
Jun. 30th, 2023 21:50To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers: Astronauts exploring four habitable worlds, as the time dilation and time required to travel to distant planets stretches their connection to Earth. Each planet showed a true aspect of scientific research, in a way rarely done well in scifi. Overall, I thought the book was pleasant, but ultimately forgettable.
Far from the Light of Heaven, by Tade Thompson: Locked room murder in space: a long haul transport ends when the captain wakes to find some of the passengers have died. It was... fine? I did not enjoy the prose style, though it did fit with the short, punchy pacing, and often felt that people were just saying things to convey info. It isn't really a mystery novel as you don't have enough info to solve it before the characters, so it's more an action / survival in space story.
Mamamoo MY CON concert: The first big standalone concert I've ever attended! We had decent seats, right in the center. However, we were pretty far away so the camera work being not great was a definite detractor from the experience. Maybe I should have brought opera glasses ahaha, though I think that would be unusual at a pop concert. I enjoyed it! I do like most of their music, and the outfits were eyecatching (sparkles really are hard to catch on camera, aren't they). If I were to go back in time though, I miscalculated just how annoying it would be to get to the venue and it miiiiiight not have quite been worth the sitting in traffic for 3+ hours to get there (and then another hour back).
Not Me (2021): Naive and privileged White must disguise himself as his twin brother, who he's been separated from for 15 years, and go undercover to discover who beat his brother into a coma. Complication: his brother has started a college protest group that is about to commit arson and now he's in the middle of it. Not a subtle show with respect to gay rights, rule of law, etc, but I can see how that would be really refreshing in many ways? The arguments about how to best take action to protest were well done, and the tensions and relationships between the characters mostly reasonable and not too over the top. The main relationship is very cute and stays at the right level of screentime too -- and I think if the fandom does not yet have a "Hot n Cold" vid, this is a missed opportunity. (It's not actually hot and cold, but from the perspective of the love interest, the twin situation definitely feels like it...) You must suspend a lot of disbelief on the twin swap, the realities of tattoo and piercing care FOR the twin swap, and best choices in the face of raging fires. Overall, it's pretty short (14 eps of 45 min) and a solid watch.
New Life Begins (2022): Set in a pseudo-historical China where there are nine province-slash-kingdoms with one ruling over the other, each with its own distinctive culture; the plot occurs between annual selections where each province sends representative women to the ruling province to be selected as wives or concubines for the ruling family's sons. This is very superficial eye-candy overall, with some nice emphasis on food. I also appreciate that they do have a serious postpartum depression storyline, even if it's a bit hamfisted. I do love that we get lots of girls on screen and they have agency. Aaaaand I have a list of complaints that I will hide here:
PlanD: I realized when I was reorganizing my DW tags that I had recced a youtube channel before, so it seemed that I should rec the one I've been watching consistently for the last year! She's a vlogger who has a small sewing business and mostly vlogs food and cute shops. It's very soothing to watch! I also learned some nice little tips for recipes.
Far from the Light of Heaven, by Tade Thompson: Locked room murder in space: a long haul transport ends when the captain wakes to find some of the passengers have died. It was... fine? I did not enjoy the prose style, though it did fit with the short, punchy pacing, and often felt that people were just saying things to convey info. It isn't really a mystery novel as you don't have enough info to solve it before the characters, so it's more an action / survival in space story.
Mamamoo MY CON concert: The first big standalone concert I've ever attended! We had decent seats, right in the center. However, we were pretty far away so the camera work being not great was a definite detractor from the experience. Maybe I should have brought opera glasses ahaha, though I think that would be unusual at a pop concert. I enjoyed it! I do like most of their music, and the outfits were eyecatching (sparkles really are hard to catch on camera, aren't they). If I were to go back in time though, I miscalculated just how annoying it would be to get to the venue and it miiiiiight not have quite been worth the sitting in traffic for 3+ hours to get there (and then another hour back).
Not Me (2021): Naive and privileged White must disguise himself as his twin brother, who he's been separated from for 15 years, and go undercover to discover who beat his brother into a coma. Complication: his brother has started a college protest group that is about to commit arson and now he's in the middle of it. Not a subtle show with respect to gay rights, rule of law, etc, but I can see how that would be really refreshing in many ways? The arguments about how to best take action to protest were well done, and the tensions and relationships between the characters mostly reasonable and not too over the top. The main relationship is very cute and stays at the right level of screentime too -- and I think if the fandom does not yet have a "Hot n Cold" vid, this is a missed opportunity. (It's not actually hot and cold, but from the perspective of the love interest, the twin situation definitely feels like it...) You must suspend a lot of disbelief on the twin swap, the realities of tattoo and piercing care FOR the twin swap, and best choices in the face of raging fires. Overall, it's pretty short (14 eps of 45 min) and a solid watch.
New Life Begins (2022): Set in a pseudo-historical China where there are nine province-slash-kingdoms with one ruling over the other, each with its own distinctive culture; the plot occurs between annual selections where each province sends representative women to the ruling province to be selected as wives or concubines for the ruling family's sons. This is very superficial eye-candy overall, with some nice emphasis on food. I also appreciate that they do have a serious postpartum depression storyline, even if it's a bit hamfisted. I do love that we get lots of girls on screen and they have agency. Aaaaand I have a list of complaints that I will hide here:
Problems often arise just for plot, or situations occur that contradict previously established facts about the society.
There's also (tbf, standard at this point in Chinese censorship) weird tension where they can't have the emperor be anything but insightful and good, but also they need a comically evil crown prince to defeat. As a result, the emperor is, once again, the plot device.
It's HUGELY biased towards agriculture and against a nomad lifestyle; our protagonist gets the nomad descendants to welcome farming after resisting forever with just a few words. (Also very into free trade?)
In general, they seem to want to subvert tropes, but simply don't put the thought in or the effort needed to actually succeed. For example, the momo having a Tragic Past that caused her to be strict about the women learning proper etiquette doesn't satisfy: the problem with the rules for women isn't that the world is changing, it's that they never protected the women anyway. And one province is supposed to be the 'matriarchal' society, which seems to just mean a flipped standard patriarchal society with military women. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the women from that province get to be badass, but it's not exactly thoughtful about how a matriarchal society would have evolved OR how it would have influenced neighboring provinces when they are de facto acting as the same country.
I get that this is supposed to be a superficial type show, but really, much of the relationships and characterization does rely too heavily on an outline instead of depth.
There's also (tbf, standard at this point in Chinese censorship) weird tension where they can't have the emperor be anything but insightful and good, but also they need a comically evil crown prince to defeat. As a result, the emperor is, once again, the plot device.
It's HUGELY biased towards agriculture and against a nomad lifestyle; our protagonist gets the nomad descendants to welcome farming after resisting forever with just a few words. (Also very into free trade?)
In general, they seem to want to subvert tropes, but simply don't put the thought in or the effort needed to actually succeed. For example, the momo having a Tragic Past that caused her to be strict about the women learning proper etiquette doesn't satisfy: the problem with the rules for women isn't that the world is changing, it's that they never protected the women anyway. And one province is supposed to be the 'matriarchal' society, which seems to just mean a flipped standard patriarchal society with military women. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the women from that province get to be badass, but it's not exactly thoughtful about how a matriarchal society would have evolved OR how it would have influenced neighboring provinces when they are de facto acting as the same country.
I get that this is supposed to be a superficial type show, but really, much of the relationships and characterization does rely too heavily on an outline instead of depth.
PlanD: I realized when I was reorganizing my DW tags that I had recced a youtube channel before, so it seemed that I should rec the one I've been watching consistently for the last year! She's a vlogger who has a small sewing business and mostly vlogs food and cute shops. It's very soothing to watch! I also learned some nice little tips for recipes.
Media Diet, mid-June
Jun. 14th, 2022 18:59Am I doing a mid-June Media Diet solely so I can discuss The Color of Distance even though I didn't have quite enough for a dedicated post? ...Yes.
The Color of Distance, by Amy Thomson: A human biologist is stranded on a world where the amphibian-like intelligent life has extremely refined abilities of biological manipulation. From![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants' rec -- DW search was NOT pulling up the rec, but it seemed like it could only have come from a Becca rec. THIS BOOK WAS 1000% MY JAM. So much my jam that I hadn't realized the books I had been reading were not my jam?? Anyway, a list of things that were my jam: weird aliens with development/society that were well thought out, difficult cross-cultural communication, extended academic presentations and associated nerdery, characters who kind of hated each other a bit and had to work through it, complicated disputes that didn't have simple resolutions where the characters' needs were in conflict. The ways that learning about each other impacted/changed how they viewed the world! I did not like the ~alien word~ emphasis at the very beginning, but it stopped afterwards thankfully. Also, stranding her when they know about her being on the planet seems ...kind of evil? And not going after them in the first place when they went missing conflicts with their strict leave-no-microbes-behind policy and evil? The book also has a very 90s sci-fi obsession with overpopulation, and does mostly fall into the one-species-one-culture trap. I am very sad that the sequel is apparently not good, but I loved this book so much!
An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, by Gad Beck and Frank Heibert, translated by Allison Brown: The first part of the memoirs of Beck, a half-Jewish teenager in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and the Holocaust. Fromskygiants' rec. Beck so clearly cares about people and understanding people, and the strength of the memoir is (IMO) the description of so many different, complex people from many walks of life. I found especially interesting the descriptions of the daily life of how their underground network operated -- and the many people who needed to be coordinated -- and that two of the non-Jews who contributed were motivated by spite after a perceived betrayal by the Nazi party. A short, complicated read.
CW: underage sex with adults in positions of power and, obviously, Nazi Germany
The Past is Red, by Catherynne M Valente: In a post-apocalyptic world, the survivors live on a giant floating garbage patch. Fromsophia_sol's rec. I thought the worldbuilding and plot was quite shallow. The impression is rather like a series of ideas without thought about how they'd connect and follow-through? Also, I did not enjoy the prose very much. I did like the moral it tried to convey about loving your world as it is and living for the sake of living.
These Violent Delights, by Chloe Gong (DNF): Romeo and Juliet retelling in rival gangs of 1920s Shanghai. The prose is melodramatic and repetitive in a tedious way, and could have used some serious polish. Characters are rather thin, with 'snappy' dialogue and actions prioritized: e.g. breaking things to make a point just reads as if this supposedly mature protag is a total brat. I finally gave up at the line, "Despite the shine, it was brisk out today, chilly in the sort of way that drew the roses in the garden a little straighter, as if they couldn't afford to lose a single second of the warmth filtering through the clouds." Second... of warmth... Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm feeling more patient with superficiality.
Mini Metro: A puzzle game where you build a rail system as a city grows. I needed a new mobile idle game after Two Dots was becoming a bit repetitive, but Mini Metro in the standard mode is a bit too real time for that (one of modes is to create an efficient system, and so you can't lose). However, I got sucked into trying to beat all the city achievements. Each city has an achievement where you have to build your rail lines with a particular restriction and reach a certain number of travelers transported. And now that I've done all of them, I can put it down in my Media Diet hahaha. I liked that the achievements encouraged you to try different techniques! The game does a good job of differentiating each city even though they can only tweak a few things-- notably, the map itself, but also the speed of the trains and some of the power-ups you get. From youtube, it seems that Mini Motorways, the sequel game, improves upon the base idea, but it's not available for mobile (yet?).
Gorogoro Kitchen: A youtube channel, mostly vlogs of daily life / flea markets in France by a Japanese couple. I find the rhythm of these vlogs very soothing, and also love looking at flea markets.
The Color of Distance, by Amy Thomson: A human biologist is stranded on a world where the amphibian-like intelligent life has extremely refined abilities of biological manipulation. From
skygiants' rec -- DW search was NOT pulling up the rec, but it seemed like it could only have come from a Becca rec. THIS BOOK WAS 1000% MY JAM. So much my jam that I hadn't realized the books I had been reading were not my jam?? Anyway, a list of things that were my jam: weird aliens with development/society that were well thought out, difficult cross-cultural communication, extended academic presentations and associated nerdery, characters who kind of hated each other a bit and had to work through it, complicated disputes that didn't have simple resolutions where the characters' needs were in conflict. The ways that learning about each other impacted/changed how they viewed the world! I did not like the ~alien word~ emphasis at the very beginning, but it stopped afterwards thankfully. Also, stranding her when they know about her being on the planet seems ...kind of evil? And not going after them in the first place when they went missing conflicts with their strict leave-no-microbes-behind policy and evil? The book also has a very 90s sci-fi obsession with overpopulation, and does mostly fall into the one-species-one-culture trap. I am very sad that the sequel is apparently not good, but I loved this book so much!An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, by Gad Beck and Frank Heibert, translated by Allison Brown: The first part of the memoirs of Beck, a half-Jewish teenager in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and the Holocaust. From
skygiants' rec. Beck so clearly cares about people and understanding people, and the strength of the memoir is (IMO) the description of so many different, complex people from many walks of life. I found especially interesting the descriptions of the daily life of how their underground network operated -- and the many people who needed to be coordinated -- and that two of the non-Jews who contributed were motivated by spite after a perceived betrayal by the Nazi party. A short, complicated read. CW: underage sex with adults in positions of power and, obviously, Nazi Germany
The Past is Red, by Catherynne M Valente: In a post-apocalyptic world, the survivors live on a giant floating garbage patch. From
sophia_sol's rec. I thought the worldbuilding and plot was quite shallow. The impression is rather like a series of ideas without thought about how they'd connect and follow-through? Also, I did not enjoy the prose very much. I did like the moral it tried to convey about loving your world as it is and living for the sake of living. These Violent Delights, by Chloe Gong (DNF): Romeo and Juliet retelling in rival gangs of 1920s Shanghai. The prose is melodramatic and repetitive in a tedious way, and could have used some serious polish. Characters are rather thin, with 'snappy' dialogue and actions prioritized: e.g. breaking things to make a point just reads as if this supposedly mature protag is a total brat. I finally gave up at the line, "Despite the shine, it was brisk out today, chilly in the sort of way that drew the roses in the garden a little straighter, as if they couldn't afford to lose a single second of the warmth filtering through the clouds." Second... of warmth... Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm feeling more patient with superficiality.
Mini Metro: A puzzle game where you build a rail system as a city grows. I needed a new mobile idle game after Two Dots was becoming a bit repetitive, but Mini Metro in the standard mode is a bit too real time for that (one of modes is to create an efficient system, and so you can't lose). However, I got sucked into trying to beat all the city achievements. Each city has an achievement where you have to build your rail lines with a particular restriction and reach a certain number of travelers transported. And now that I've done all of them, I can put it down in my Media Diet hahaha. I liked that the achievements encouraged you to try different techniques! The game does a good job of differentiating each city even though they can only tweak a few things-- notably, the map itself, but also the speed of the trains and some of the power-ups you get. From youtube, it seems that Mini Motorways, the sequel game, improves upon the base idea, but it's not available for mobile (yet?).
Gorogoro Kitchen: A youtube channel, mostly vlogs of daily life / flea markets in France by a Japanese couple. I find the rhythm of these vlogs very soothing, and also love looking at flea markets.
