halfcactus

https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/138441.html

1. What is your all time favorite book?
For the past decade, probably Ann Leckie's Radch trilogy--in particular Ancillary Justice. I remember reading it at my desk at my old job and getting assaulted with feelings. Also Goblin Emperor by Sarah Monette.

I feel like I keep waiting for my next reads to hit me the same way but I think I should reconcile myself with the fact that my reading brain is not what it was ten years ago, before the pandemic. ^^;

2. What is your all time favorite movie?
For the past decade, The Legend of Hei. Xiao Hei my baby!!!

3. What are you reading right now?
An assortment: the manhwa The Tale of Goldiluck the Black Kitten, which I adore fiercely; the manhwa As the Heart Leads, a fantasy/romance with pretty art, ongoing in its first season; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman; The Invention of Darling, Li-Young Lee's latest anthology, which has a "plot" I can actually follow as it constructs (or reconstructs; I'm not very familiar with religious lore) a creation story. It feels less autobiographical and inward-facing than usual, an interesting experience.

I've also sampled the first chapters of the licensed translations of Run Wild (Saye) and The Imperial Uncle, though I'd hardly count that as reading.

4. What is your favorite show on TV?
For the past decade, the cdramas Nirvana in Fire, Qihun (Hikaru No Go cdrama), and The Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower. For anime, Chihayafuru, Silver Spoon, Run with the Wind, and Natsume's Book of Friends.

5. What is the last movie you saw in the theater?
Nezha 2, which I'm surprised they showed in our local theaters at all! A little sad that I missed Mickey 17 because I couldn't afford to watch two movies in the same week...

-

Tech things, this month:

Finally learned to back up my computer without overwriting the backups from my previous computer! Next project would be trying to retrieve and back up my old music files and fanvids. Kinda sucks that because iTunes shifted to streaming, my mp3s (even the purchased ones!) disappeared from my folders in the process of all my reformats and migrations and I can't seem to download the files off the cloud.

Retrieved my Evernote files, mostly fic and poetry saved from the internet... One day I will go through them.

I can now (kind of! I mean I’ve only tried it on one site so who knows) rip streams through Stacher, which is yt-dlp for dummies (a.k.a. ME). Still using Cobalt and Wechat for everything else, which I hope never stop working bc they’ve been so reliable I don’t know any other good alternatives.

( Manga/manhua/manhwa )
( Movies: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes; Nezha 2; The Substance )
( TV: Bai Yao Pu (Fairies Album) S1; I Am Married... But!!! )

( Books: Straw into Gold - Fairy Tales Respun )

-

RECENTLY:

Finished Cheese in the Trap (manhwa) and Ya She (donghua).

Watched the "new" Justice in the Dark eps (eps# 9 and 10). "Watched" is a pretty generous way of saying "relied on my memory of the audio drama to understand what's going on". The "zero empathy" thing and DNA talk continue to befuddle me, though they mostly seem to be focused on the argument of nature VS nurture and what that means for Pei Su. It's quite interesting that they made LWZ's mentor's daughter a co-intern in this adaptation, it integrates her more into the plot and emotional themes since she was mostly offscreen in the original work. I'm trying to relearn how to GIF post GIFs on Tumblr and my fandom Bluesky but tbh my fandom energy has been on the decline and my ability to focus worse... it's already a miracle that I managed to watch two whole eps in a week.

Feeling a bit anxious in light of global news, because the repercussions of certain US policies might eventually ripple into my livelihood, but I'm trying not to think too much about it.

After months of being bald, the tree (I think it might be narra?) across the street has finally sprouted bright new leaves and has been practicing how to flower. :) I was actually really worried it was dying because it grows on concrete and seemed withered for so long and its "seasons" seemed out of sync with the rest of the trees along the street, but the vicious summer seems to have brought it back to life.

I'm still paper-journaling faithfully. Four months in and no blank pages, thanks to the manhwa I write about and the smatterings of cmedia that have me drawing new vocabulary. It's the only thing that feels tangible and real these days.

Books/Comics

Mostly Chinese-language lit that I have a lot of thoughts about but never wrote proper entries on... and then a couple of indie comics from Shortbox 2024:

priest, "橋頭樓上 End of the Bridge, Top of the Tower"

Jimmeh Aitch, "哈囉哈囉馬尼拉 Halo-Halo Manila"

接骨木花, "陰間沒有珍奶嗎？ Is There Boba in the Underworld?"

Nico Baidan, "Firsts"

Pearl Law, "Karma's A Peach"

Movies/Musicals

SIX The Musical

Twisters (2024)

The Wild Robot (2024)


RECENTLY: Read up to volume 3 of The Apothecary Diaries light novel series and then stopped reading because 12 volumes is kinda a lot... Picked up 青春18×2：重返最初的悸動 again as a palate cleanser and am happy to report that it's not het all the way through. (As a shoujo manga enjoyer I do love het, I just think that an anthology about youth and first loves shouldn't be exclusive to it.)

Watched the first two seasons of the Cinderella Chef donghua because it was suggested by the Netflix algorithm, though "watched" is a generous way of saying "skipped all the plot and non-cooking scenes". 😂 Plot was mostly a setup for the romance and the romance was downright awful from what I saw of it, which really is a shame because it had all the potential to scratch my shoujo + cooking anime itch. The food animation + cooking shenanigans were SO up my alley... And then season 2 gave us too many characters, not enough cooking, and the reactions leaned more ~emotional and nostalgic~ rather spectacularly OTT and I had to cut my losses and drop out... Disappointing because it had a strong season opener (cooking showdown with the restaurant across the street).


CURRENTLY: Watching the cdrama adaptation of Link Click with daisydiversions, since fansubs are complete. Don't think we'll finish before the year ends. ^^; Also watching Arcane s2 and grateful for the staggered release schedule because this show isn't exactly bingeable for me and I like to avoid major spoilers... AND I easily get overwhelmed with high episode counts. XD

WEBTOONS/MANGA:
Wrote about I'll Be Matriarch in This Life + See You in My 19th Life + A Sign of Affection here.

DNF A Sign of Affection because I 1) found out it was still ongoing, 2) lost my urge to bingeread shoujo/otome comics.

MOVIES:
Wrote about 我的少女時代 Our Times (2015) here, and 海角七號 Cape No. 7 (2008) + How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) here.

GAMES:
Finished Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and enjoyed it!!! Even though I ended up still having questions about the plot, the twists in the last act really stuck the landing and got me in the feelings. I also really liked the way it shows how animals, humans, and ghosts have very different perspectives on life, deaths, and attachments... And the overall design and experience were pretty great, even though I was too dumb and impatient for this game. XD

CREATIVE WORK:

Subbed: 舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend trailer 1

So Close gifs: Shu Qi gifset / Karen Mok/Zhao Wei gifset

Mid-Autumn Dice Game rules (graphic/diagram): personal work, technically a repost from 2021, but I wanted to archive it

Sep 19 & 20 ~travel vlog~

Also made the graphics for NiF Exchange 2024 (technically just recycled last year's PSD to get it done fast)

Currently

PLAYING:
Fallen London, a free text-based + browser-based RPG... Idk how long I'll stick with it but I really like the mobile version! So far it's curbed my wild urges to keep starting new books/comics/games, which is good, because between the endless compulsions to start new books/comics and the frustration of never finishing anything, I was about to go crazy. And it's much healthier than gacha. Even though I almost left our laundry to get rained on because I'd just gotten a (rare!!!) temporary Danger buff lol. My character is named Santan, after a tropical flower.

WATCHING:
舍不得星星 You Are My Lover Friend, starring Wang Yuwen, Zhang Xincheng, and Guo Yunqi.

Would not recommend this to friends, but it's serviceable and relaxing as a background watch. While Wang Yuwen and Zhang Xincheng have very nice, warm "childhood friends" chemistry (likely due to them being IRL childhood friends with moms who are spreading leaks of their kissing scenes behind their backs), the characters are, though competent, kinda bland...

Enjoying the OP enough that I've never skipped it, though. :') And the show does manage well with its quieter moments of sweetness so I'm hoping it catches it rhythm sooner or later.

READING:
( Well I guess I should make a list lol )

Anyway Shortbox Comics is going live super soon and I'm trying to commit to only getting works by Filipino authors considering *gestures at reading list*. Not to mention I have yet to finish going through last year's Shortbox haul. XD

( Furiosa (2024) )

( Bonnie Garmus, 'Lessons in Chemistry' )

-


I also watched Rookie and I don't know if I'll ever write about it or the details that I personally feel were flattened in the English translation, but here, have another GIF of girls being joyful:



In recent personal news, we had a couple of holidays and so I finally went to the dentist. I got 4 fillings and my throat is still a bit sore even though it's been 5 days since then. >:( I also took my wonky phone to a shop, and one of the troubleshooting things we did was to reformat my phone... Which is kind of funny because I just had to reformat my computer a couple of months ago... It's like the universe is telling me I have to make a clean slate and let go of my youthful follies. That, or pick up more interests that don't involve screentime. /o\

Recently read

Joe Sparrow, "Fishing"
A comic that compares the concept of creativity, inspiration, and struggles to execute artistic ideas to fishing. Concise, well-communicated, and good choice of colors that differentiates what's above and below the water.


Snowlattes, "Grief Log" & Fatima Wajid, "Prism"
Both of these artists are ESL and could use a friend to help them copyedit (though I firmly believe that most amateur artists who get into comics need to run their stories with writing/editing and reading friends anyway); it still feels like a privilege to be entrusted with such personal and beautifully illustrated journals—one about grief and loss, the other about getting high with old friends. Fatima Wajid’s art and worldview are so marvelously depicted I got all emotional lol.




Megan Abbott, "The End of Everything"
The mystery cdramas I've been watching have me raring to read mystery, but unfortunately this... was not the type of crime/mystery I wanted to read. /o\ It's grooming and sexual harassment/assault framed in a missing persons case and told in the PoV of teenage girls who have daddy issues and are navigating school and sexual experiences. It's more interested in the psychology and the emotions than the crime and mystery, but the psychology and feelings aren't very interesting and the final twist is very standard.

The prose is attractive and the scenes of girlhood would fit really well in a coming-of-age novel. It has a writing style that I associate with fanfiction and amateur writers, ie. a lot of made-up verbs and "smelled like x and y and z"s but the word choices, at least, are quite logical and not just running on vibes. They still get a bit much sometimes though. XD

(I have a Kanae Minato novel lined up as my next mystery/thriller read, we'll see how that one goes since I've never read any of her work before.)

Recently sampled (then dropped)

Elizabeth Hand, "Wyldling Hall"
I... simply don’t have the brain to read a story written as a documentary/series of interviews. Also not sure how much horror is in this?

priest, "Stars of Chaos" (Sha Po Lang)
Sampled the first chapter of the first volume because I saw people in cnovels talking about how smooth the translation is and... well, the first chapter does read very smoothly. It's a lot less distracting than MDZS and Little Mushroom. But I still bounced off it because of a couple of oddities, and because I'm likely familiar enough with priest's writing style to feel the disconnect. And then I got distracted about my personal thoughts about what I like to see in a translation VS what other people like to see in a translation and the kinds of conversations I wish we could have about translation. I don't know how to talk about this without sounding ungrateful and nitpicky!!!

Anyway for this novel I might have to either cross-reference with the raws or supplement with the audio drama which is too much work and defeats the purpose of reading a translation. Stepping back for now and coming back in my own time, unprompted by any concurrent discussions.

-

Drama-wise I'm now at the final episode of Tender Light and trying hard not to laugh at the recent plot developments. Setting aside the issue of the plot not plotting, it's just really funny that there's this entire Devotion of Suspect X plot development when the author of the original novel has been accused of plagiarizing Suspect X in a completely different canon a couple years ago. I never watched Better Days but I would argue that Tender Light's setup is closer to Suspect X. I did hear that Tender Light deviates a lot from the original novel, which is allegedly plagiarized from a couple of other things, but I'm not interested in reading the original novel and checking. ^^;

Goddess of Yesterday: A Tale of Troy by Caroline B. Cooney

A retelling of events leading up to the Trojan War. Because it's largely driven by fate, I didn't find the main character (Anaxandra) particularly compelling, but I thought she was a very effective POV character. The world felt tangible in her eyes, and it made sense to me how, throughout the series of childhood separations, she always tried to grasp and hold on to love, but did not fight rejection. Someone smarter than me can probably make the different types of love alignment chart...

Liked: the characterization of Helen + the Medusa bits + the Cassandra twist in the end

(Read this because superborb wrote about it here and it seemed short enough for me... It still took me a couple of weeks to finish. XD Like her, I enjoyed the first parts the most!)


My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata (translated by Jocelyne Allen)

An autobiographical meditation on loneliness, sexuality, and mental illness + journey towards purpose.

The manga begins with the story's destination—the main character naked in a bed with a female escort—and cuts back to answer the question of what propelled her into making this bizarre life choice.



This hit me very hard, and only partly because of the relatability and specificity of what it expressed. I was fully invested in the author's journey, and felt relieved and proud during each of her breakthroughs. Because of the way she sets down every individual episode into a logical path in retrospect, there's a feeling of progress and catharsis, and it gets more emotional as you take in how it took her around ten years to get there. Seeing how much time, effort, desire, and therapy it took to move her forward made me feel so hopeful both for her and for myself, a person who has yet to find the "sweet nectar of life" (reasons to wake up and function). :P It was also very sweet to see the adults obliquely rooting for her as she scrambled to get a "real adult job" as a young college dropout!

The author's relationship with her gender and sexuality at the time of writing was a work in progress, identifying as lesbian but not fully identifying as a girl, with sexual expectations that were shaped by 1) a lack of sex education 2) erotic BL manga/doujinshi that were representative of neither reality nor her sexuality.


Content warnings: self-harm (seen in the scars), eating disorder/disordered eating, anxiety, depression and other unnamed mental illnesses

---

Started reading: 她属于我 She Belongs to Me by 妲婴 Da Ying

I hesitate to say I'm reading this because I've mostly just downloaded + converted the JJWXC chapters to a format readable on my phone ereader + Pleco (using this script to generate the epub and a random website to convert to txt...) so I have something to look at when I'm stuck in a bank queue or waiting room. (Pre-pandemic, this was the only way I read cnovels so the habit kind of stuck even though I spend significantly less time doing any physical banking now.) ^^;

I actually have no idea what this book is about, other than douqi recommending it as a short, light, and wholesome modern-day read... I didn't even bother reading the summary haha. I also didn't realize until today that the cover art is so! Pretty!!! And intriguing!

In terms of readability (as someone who has weak vocabulary and reading ability): I got intimidated with chapter 1 because it felt like there was a lot of plot/drama and some vagueness going on, but it ended at a place that I think I might be able to follow. \o/

I thought the romance was going to be between the MC (married) and her childhood love (pregnant and married—apparently unhappily—to a man) at first, which would have been potentially interesting if done well but much more likely to be... not. It seems like it's actually between the MC and her affluent businesswoman wife? It's a sort of a consensual temporary marriage arrangement for reasons detailed in the chapter 1 exposition. I'm actually kind of into this dynamic, especially with both women appearing competent in their respective career paths, so we'll see! At least it's only 57 chapters. XD

I kinda want to do a reading log, but I'm really struggling with platforms right now... I should probably just write my notes on my physical journal but that requires a different frame on mind...

EDIT: I just found out that there is a fantranslation that hasn't been updated since chapter 40... I feel less stupid/alone now for my moments of confusion hahahaha. I don't know if it's still appropriate to leave translation feedback in the comments since it's been 3 years since the blog was updated and I'm not exactly qualified to say anything........

Technically this should be a "top 2" because only Fallen Angels and Leonor Will Never Die made me feel connected from start to finish (Spider-Man: AtSV was also a 4.5/5 movie for me, but took a while to reel me in).
( 2023 movies, books, TV )

Tools used:

Letterboxd Wrapped (3rd party year-in-review generator)

Lastboxd (3rd party collage generator)

StoryGraph Wrapped

Last.FM Playback

---

( 2023 in journal pages )

1) I upgraded from one secondhand phone (iPhone 8, 64GB) to another (iPhone 11 Pro Max, 256GB), and it's been a surprisingly tedious process! Migration took a couple of tries. I was told the battery was still fine but I decided to replace the battery anyway since diagnostics marked it as significantly degraded, and I think it was a reasonable decision???

I also spent some time trying to find a new budget app since the app that I was using to log my expenses has been defunct for years. Ended up with an app that's quite simply called Budget. It's not a super seamless experience but it's close enough to what I need (logging and categorizing).


2) After a solid month of indecision, I got a new planner, one that conveniently starts in December. After going with dateless planners during the pandemic, I'm back to the regular dated life. I went with a Laconic (A5, vertical left), which has an hourly layout on the left and a free grid layout on the right. So far it hasn't fulfilled the fantasy of solving my productivity/laziness issues, but it's nice to be able to block out time visually. Again, not the perfect experience (the allotted daily sections are too small for writing notes, which I like on my dated spaces), but overall it has a lot of nice features.

Months have built-in tabs and every page has a mini-calendar for the quarter. Monthly spreads have ample space for writing on and/or decorating if I ever feel like it. It is, however, 3x pricier than my previous go-to planners (Midori and Muji), so we'll see how much I use it in 2024.



3) I have no photos of it, but I got a new case for my Kindle! My previous one was one of those very cheap China ones (literally shipped from China lol) and the print for the design was SO bad but not worth exchanging. I put up with it for more than a year but I couldn't take it anymore, so I got a no-nonsense clear one this time (though frosted at the back), one I can decorate with cute stickers. ♥ I actually got curious compliments when I took it to a screen protector stall hehe

4) Lastly: got a new personal Instagram account even though I'm not particularly active, because my original one was created for our dog that died a year ago. Not sure if making a new account was a good idea—in some ways it feels like self-erasure because I did have some travel photodumps on my old account, from a much different time that I'll never get back. But I managed to download the data/archive of my original IG, which feels reassuring because a lot of the photos/videos were taken 3 (or 4?) secondhand phones ago.

Reading recently:

Xi Zixu, My Five Elements Lack You: I'm not sure if I'll finish this this year because my ability to read disintegrated again, but I'm at chapter 80+! It's a wildly uneven book and the main romance sucks tbh (though the chapter 81 confession was hilarious) but I'm really fond of Lin Jue, the thirty-something jiejie who has truly weird and scary hobbies and was recently revealed to be grieving a long-term relationship.

Witch Hat Atelier, which I'm buying veeeeery slowly and I'm very grateful for because reading it makes me feel alive and present.

Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, This is How You Lose a Time War: finally picked this up for its 2023 virality, but the writing style and alternate history parts might not be for me, sadly. I'm invested in the main characters' relationship, though.

My Shortbox Comics 2023 haul......... I'm not even sure I'm 1/3 in. XD