#i think Meatbun thinks this way too

[lostintherealmsofthefandoms]

I love mxtxt but I highly disagree with her (and presumably mostly danmei authors) when comes about "only one couple cause is unrealistic this amount of gay people" and I know many people agree, I've seen those kinda of comments under shows like kinnporsche.

The reason why I don't agree is cause no one complains when there's only straight couples, which you know is also unrealistic and happens all the time, like those series of books The Bridgertons, over 10 books, each a couple of the same family or surroundings, no one is gay, that's not realistic, but straight romance fans don't complain about it. Why should we complain or try play "realistic" when comes to non straight couples??? So to me everyone on the damm world of the show/book can be gay, bi, pan and have a homo relationship that I will be okay with, is far better than if they were all straight, which again, happens all the time in mostly stories and no one complains about!!!! So, yeah...

[shunin-gumis]

Designs of Happiness - Track A06

L4mps Main story Translation

Title: Cafe369’s New Flavored Bun

Characters: Toi, Daniel, Netaro, Nagi

Summary: To find the fated person who would lead him to his brother, Toi guides the protagonist to the local meatbun shop. But as they were about to enter, strange noises echo throughout the premises… 

JP Proofreading: aca @463ce6 and tsukimi @rurumiiii on twt EN Proofreading: jes @arcanecrayonn and tsukimi @rurumiiii on twt

Also big thanks to you three for helping me with Netaro speech!

Location: A Town in HAMA

Toi: Ani-sama… please be safe, wherever you are… I’ll bring you back soon… 

Momiji: He’s been praying this whole time we were walking… I can tell he loves his brother very much.

Momiji: 5 minutes to 11 pm… 

Momiji: Toi-kun, how’s it going? It’s almost 11 pm, do you think we can make it in time?

Toi: It’s ok, we’re almost– Ah!

Toi: That’s the place! I’m sure of it!

Location: Cafe369

Momiji: Wait, this is Cafe369… 

Daniel: You been here before?

Momiji: I’ve dined here once, with Akuta-kun. It’s advertised as a meat bun shop, but there are  quite the unusual variety of buns sold here, including fillings other than meat… All of which are equally delicious.

Toi: Wow, it’s wonderful to see fate already at work again!

Daniel: I’m glad yer getting along with those kids but– Was this meatbun place always here?

Toi: Eh?

Momiji: What are you talking about? This place has been around for a long time. Right, Toi-kun?

Toi: Even though I’ve never gone in before, I do remember passing by it often… But, when did they first open…? 

Momiji: Now that I think about it, I’m not sure either… 

Daniel: I swear this was just an empty lot until recently though… 

Momiji: But… it’s right there.

Toi: Right?

Daniel: … Well, whatever. Can’t say much when it’s right in front of us. Maybe I’m just rememberin’ it wrong.

Daniel: …Hm?

Daniel: That’s… You two go on ahead.

Momiji: Daniel-san? Where are you–

Momiji: Aaaand he’s gone… Well, I guess the two of us can go in first. Though, considering how late it is, the shop might be closed already… 

Toi: That’s true… 

Toi: Ah, there’s a notice put up on the entrance.

Momiji: “Temporarily closed for ingredient procurement”...? No way–

*loud explosive noises*

Momiji: Woah!?

Toi: *startled gasp*

Momiji: Ah, did it stop…?

Momiji: What was that just now? So loud too… 

Toi: It came from inside the cafe! Maybe someone’s in trouble…!

Momiji: That may be so, but…  

Momiji: We don’t know what went down in there, so I don’t think heading in without Daniel-san would be a good idea… 

Momiji: Toi-kun, you should wait here–

???: Boo!

Pet Robot: Bwoo!

Momiji: AAAHHHHHHH!!! 

Toi: AAAHHHHHHH!!

???: WOOOAHH!

Toi: Eek…!

???: Ahaha~ Did I frighten you?

Momiji: H-huh? This person is… 

~~~(flashback)

???: Hrmm… Indeed, I do catch a whiff of it around here but…

Momiji: …..

???: You, human.

???: Tell me, would you know where my missing item might have wandered off to?

~~~(end flashback)

Momiji: Ah! You were the person who came by HAMA house the other day!!

???: Hm?

???: Oh~ You’re from that place where that green-pea canine resides. 

Momiji: Yes, I remember you saying you were in the mood for some green peas… So you’re the owner of this cafe? 

Toi: Um, do you know this person?

Momiji: I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that… We did have a chat in passing a while ago. 

Toi: … Is that your pet robot next to you? Good evening, little one.

Laika: La~ i~ ka~

Momiji: So your name’s Laika! It’s nice to meet you.

Cafe Owner?: More importantly, do you have time to spare right now? I’m in a bit of a pickle, you see~

Momiji: In a... pickle?

Cafe Owner?: I simply do not have enough hands to get the job done right now… At this rate, perhaps it would be better if I just have this entire place go up in flames… 

Momiji: Huh!? That’s more than just a “bit” of a pickle!

Toi: We’ll help you however we can! I’m sure that’s the reason we were guided here! 

Cafe Owner?: Ooh~ How wonderfully helpful indeed! 

~~~

Location: Inside Cafe369

Momiji: Woah, I can barely see in here… 

Momiji: Toi-kun, are you alright? Maybe it’d be better if you just wait outside… 

Toi: I feel terribly lonely and afraid without Ani-sama but… I can’t just stand back when I know this path will lead me to him! 

Cafe Owner?: Shh–! Hush now! Lower your volume, lest we be overheard by the pesky trespasser!

Momiji: An intruder!? Are you sure it’s not just a customer or an employee who got lost…? 

Cafe Owner?: Indeed.

Toi: Oh no…!

Cafe Owner?: This is a tale of what unfolded this very evening, when I was about to take a respite… I had been in the middle of picking my brain, pondering what new ingredient I could possibly stuff into my meat buns, when suddenly, my sixth sense went zing! and… EUREKA!

Cafe Owner?: It drew my attention to the fact that there was a suspicious individual inside the building, watching me…!

Toi: Eek… 

Cafe Owner?: I could sense their gaze drilling into me…  And so, I took a big gulp, steadied my beating heart… and BAM! I turned right around to face them!

Cafe Owner?: But alas, their presence had already faded away like mist… I’m certain the fellow is still lurking somewhere, within these walls… 

Laika: Lurker.

Momiji: … I really, really hope he’s not talking about a cockr*ach… 

Toi: What do we do if they’re a bad person… I’m not really strong so… 

Cafe Owner?: This particular individual is adorned with wings, sips the sweet nectar from blossoms, scatters pollen across the lands, and wields a deadly stinger….

Momiji: Wait… 

Toi: That’s… 

Laika: Bzzz… 

Toi: A bumblebee?

Cafe Owner?: Indeed, you got it right.

Toi: Yay!

Momiji: So all those explosions we heard were from when you were trying to… deal with the bees?

Cafe Owner?: Ehehe~ I simply had to have my hands on them, so I made a little bit of a mess, you could say. Back home, we don’t have these critters–

Cafe Owner?: Bees… Insecta class: Hymenoptera. This order includes both bees and ants, and as implied by the etymology, they are classified by their transparent but membranous forewings and hindwings.

Cafe Owner?: All hymenoptera are capable of undergoing complete metamorphosis. While ants are not as widely recognized as being part of the order, the others are generally considered so.

Cafe Owner?: These include Siricidae, Tenthredinidae, Pamphiliidae, Cimbicidae, Argidae, Orussidae, Evanioidea, Ichneumonoidea, and much more… 

Cafe Owner?: Such variety~ It certainly follows that there even exist cultures that consume insects! I must also mention, they are explosively nutritious as well!

Cafe Owner?: And so~  As you may have put two and two together, I had set up various, perhaps potentially dangerous, contraptions to ensnare some of these critters so that I may procure some fresh ingredients. This is all for the sake of experimenting with new flavors for my buns, you see!

So here, catch this!

Momiji: Woah, hey…!

Momiji: This is… a fishing reel…?

Cafe Owner?: It would be unwise to space out at this time, lest you commit a blunder.  Make sure to hold it properly!

Momiji: Sorry, that was an… extraordinary amount of information you just dumped on us. I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed for a moment there… 

Toi: You must be an expert on bumblebees!

Cafe Owner?: Ho ho ho!

Momiji: So, what am I supposed to do with this reel?

Cafe Owner?: You must reel it in at my signal. In the event the pest escapes the trap, I must give chase immediately. So, you will have to spin the reel in my stead!

Momiji: O-okay, got it… Well, I didn’t get it at all but if this helps you, then I’ll do it.

Toi: Please give it your best pull!

Momiji: I’ll give it my all.

Cafe Owner?: …..

Toi: ….. 

Momiji: ….. 

???: Um–

Cafe Owner?: NOW—!!!

Momiji: Got it!!!

Momiji: This is some heavy reel…! Since it’s so sturdy, it should be alright even when pulling in a heavy load…!

Momiji: The grip on this handle is good, and the line seems pretty strong! There’s little drag too– I’m sure we can haul in a big one!

Toi: Wow! You sound just like a professional fisherman! 

Momiji: Ahaha…! All of that info was drilled into me… by a friend of mine… named Kafka…! 

Momiji: C’mon!

Momiji: We’re… bringing… you… home…!

Momiji: *grunts*

Momiji: Got it…! 

Cafe Owner?: Huzzah!

Toi: Wow, that’s a big bumblebee… (?)

Momiji: Huh…?

Momiji: That’s… a human, right?

Cafe Owner?: Bumbling humans are acceptable ingredients as well!

Momiji: What!?

Daniel: Yo! I’m pretty sure the SR parked outside is the bike that fella had–

Nagi: …..

Daniel: What, found him already?

Momiji: Daniel-san… Please help me get him down…!

Notes:

Netaro’s Bug Report: Siricidae | Tenthredinidae | Pamphiliidae | Cimbicidae | Argidae | Orussidae | Evanioidea | Ichneumonoidea Also in the original Japanese, I believe they either typo’d the bug family names of Argidae (In script: ミツフシハバチ科, Correct name: ミフシハバチ科) and Orussidae (In script: ヤドリギキバチ科, Correct name: ヤドリキバチ科) or they are somehow two new bug families in the future.  The pdf I referred to is the Hymenoptera classification by Hirohiko Nagase

Green-pea canine is what Netaro calls Shuumai.

The Hachi Pun: Netaro wants to capture a bee(ハチ hachi in Japanese) to test them out as a new flavor for his buns, so he set a trap. But in the end it was actually Nagi (whose last name is Hachinoya) who was caught in the trap. 

Nagi’s bike is the Yamaha SR400, or at least a futuristic bike modeled after one.

[baiwu-jinji]

Hi there. I came across this tiktok recently by @/cicilovecheese who is an ex danmei author herself and she revealed that meatbun is a school teacher irl who made inappropriate comments about her underage student who, according to her, looked like mo ran in 2018. this information deeply disturbs me. there are screenshots of it too from the website zihu i think but since the posts itself are gone there's no way to 100% confirm if this is true but the screenshots do look sort if legit. do you know anything about this? i love erha so much and this deeply concerns me.

Hi! As far as I know Meatbun did make a comment on social media about her student looking like Mo Ran, and when a fan commented that Meatbun should make a move, Meatbun jokingly replied that she's not interested in sleeping with him. From what I've seen Meatbun sometimes has no filter when she talks on social media, and she made that comment jokingly and was bantering with her fans, but I also think it's neither appropriate nor professional to comment on your underage student on social media. I'll leave it to people to judge because people might find it ok or not ok depending on their perspective. I like Meatbun's works so I can't be an impartial judge in this.

[thegreymoon]

i'm not an anti 😭😭😭 it's funny that you're absolutely missing my point. there are plenty of works about noncon fantasies. it's rare to see an author single out her shou's sexuaI abuse and depict it as erotic while in the SAME story speak about the horrors of sexuaI abuse/sIavery when it comes to other characters. i dont think this is an unfair criticism and definitely not anti nonsense. just because you disagree with me doesn't make me an anti but i digress. my point wasn't call out noncon fantasies in fiction.

You literally said, and I quote:

lmfao?? erotic novels can be written without ertoticizing sexuaI abuse. she couldve done the same with consensual scenes.

This is typical anti nonsense. Sure, we can write erotic novels without eroticizing sexual abuse, but how is that relevant? You cannot write non-con kink into it without it and Meatbun is not being shy at all about what kinks she's into. This is a book she wrote, first and foremost, for herself, and then for the rest of us who share her proclivities. People who would like to read something else - for example, vampire fic, a comedy of manners or a zombie apocalypse - are free to go and find such a book because, in theory, Meatbun could have written any of these things instead of erotic fiction of the non-con variety, but she didn't because she didn't want to, and if she had, non-con enjoyers probably wouldn't be reading it to begin with.

If you don't want to be mistaken for an anti, you should not come into someone's inbox with their rhetoric and expect them not to see you as one.

I sat on this ask for a couple of days and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and answer in good faith. I did not miss your point, I just thought you were an anti, and in my opinion, dead wrong, so I didn't feel like typing out a proper reply. There is nothing contradictory about the way Meatbun treats non-con vs. rape within the context of this particular subgenre. It is, in fact, a very common trope, where whatever is happening between the main couple is not seen as something that cannot be overcome (or even enjoyed) because the fantasy itself is about relinquishing responsibility for your own sexuality with someone you want all this to happen with. The point is that Chu Wanning enjoyed it because it was Mo Ran, and Mo Ran did it because he loved Chu Wanning. It is the foundation of this kink.

Now, I don't know if you don't typically read fics like these, but contrasting it with actual rape that is not a part of the fantasy is actually extremely common because it reaffirms that the main relationship is an exception, therefore special and safe in spite of the fundamental violation. With actual rape, nobody wants that to happen, not the characters and not the readers, and it is treated as horrific (which is why in fic, we typically use non-con and dub-con warnings for the erotic variety and the rape warning for actual unwanted rape, even though non-con and dub-con don't exist IRL, where it is ALL rape). Yes, there is a contradiction here, but it is something that is super common within this subgenre and something that the readers definitely want to see, in part to validate that what happened between the main couple is the exception to the rule.

Chu Wanning is not going to enjoy being raped just by anyone (though there certainly are books/erotica out there that play with this idea too and 2ha is actually on the very mild end of the spectrum here, which is why I find it hilarious that so many antis get their panties in a twist over it), which we see when he is assaulted by Shi Mei. Just like Chu Wanning, we are supposed to feel visceral disgust (though I do not deny that there are people out there who are into this too, which is totally cool, you do you) because it is happening outside the main pairing, which is treated as special. Mo Ran is supposed to rescue him from the bigger villain because the readers find his possessiveness reassuring and the fact that his relationship with Chu Wanning (consensual or not) is the exception. The encounter ends with Chu Wanning's chastity preserved and Shi Mei defeated and humiliated, which makes the readers feel good.

The rape of the girl that led to Mo Ran burning down the brothel is supposed to be horrific, and it is supposed to give us insight into Mo Ran's actual personality, where we see that when he is not under the influence of mind-altering magic, he finds the act horrifying. He is not a habitual rapist and if it had not been for the extraordinary circumstances (i.e. the mind-bending magic and the fact that he actually loved and wanted Chu Wanning more than he needed to breathe), the violation would never have happened. It is the exception because he loved, just like Chu Wanning wanting and even eventually enjoying it is the exception because he also loved him in return. It is not narratively contradictory, because, within this subgenre, it is actually very consistent, again, because this is an erotic non-con novel and not an actual commentary on the evils of rape.

Anyway, I apologise for calling you an anti if you really aren't one and I hope that me answering your question seriously this time around makes up for it.

All the best! :)

[grumfield]

I'm not the same anon but I've recently been looking for some metas on consent in 2ha 😅. It's both for bettering my own understanding of the story through different perspectives and also for a 2ha fic i'm working on. Do you know any metas on this subject? or can you share your interpretation if that is okay with you? thanks!

I don’t know of any metas of the top of my head but I’d love to explain my own interpretation! I won’t go too much into overt spoilers but more just general vibe implications

2ha is like telling someone who’s being bit viciously by their dog that they’re a victim and while yes that’s technically true it’s then revealed that the dog has been put in a fighting pit its entire life, got a nice owner for 2 weeks, and then got put back in an even worse fighting pit where he’s horribly conditioned to exclusively bite and kill, and only 40 years later is he randomly set loose back in his nice owner’s old house.

2ha works in a way I like because the layers of who exactly is experiencing non-con (both sexual and otherwise) is a sort of little matryoshka doll reveal.

The most obvious—and one that everything revolves around—being Chu Wanning’s past life. He suffers the most straightforward abuse, he gives the most straightforward sacrifice. It’s very clear cut, and as a result you have a very comprehensive interplay of desire and fantasy. Dude essentially gets his rocks off to visions of his love interest as kindle unlimited alpha billionaire and it’s very clear that entertaining sex slave fantasy in the comfort of your own bed is not the same as experiencing IRL. Congrats Chu Wanning, you discovered BDSM scenes and submission! Surely that’s the extent of it for you and others (it’s not)

As for everyone else…

I can’t remember the exact quote but Mo Ran thinks about how as a child he was so poor that he never knew what he liked, and he didn’t actually have opinions on simple stuff like flavors or appearances or the gender of people because that was a luxury for the rich. It’s like that ��maybe I would be nonbinary but I have a job” meme lmao . Wanting things, or not wanting them, or making decisions for yourself, is something that isn’t allowed for the poor. If you exist in a structure where you don’t even know what you want, you physically can’t.

Basically every other character who enacts or experiences noncon in all its strokes falls into this bucket. And it’s kind of the earliest instance we catch something explicitly laid out about consent beyond just strictly sexual, and how it very plainly lays out the definition of it as: any position where you do something you don’t want to do is noncon.

But you’re so distracted by the explicitly sexual dramatic yaoi discussions of attic wife sex dungeon noncon you don’t really give it much thought until later. But it’s crazy in retrospect because Meatbun gives us two characters who are a synthesis of these things—Rong Jiu and Song Quitong—really early on, who are both victims of poverty and as a result do and are subject to stuff that’s really terrible. Mo Ran just sucks bad and hates their guts so we’re a bit blind to it even though they came from really similar backgrounds (which kind of ties into a separate but equally interesting question Meatbun poses of if empathy and peace is something only afforded by people who are rich—Mo Ran wasn’t able to save earthworms until he was in a safe environment and had food in his belly).

The matryoshka doll goes further when we find out exactly what happened to Mo Ran, and THAT is what I love about it. That. Because very suddenly your entire idea of who the biggest victim in 2ha is goes from the very straightforward answer to one that’s significantly more complicated. Yes Chu Wanning is a victim but Mo Ran has been a victim since the moment he was born, and then in a brief heartbeat where he was allowed to grow and be kind, he was immediately subjected to the most violating horrific nightmarish thing could happen to him and dude STILL manages to hold some shred of humanity. I joke about Mo Ran being terrible and a piece of work and he is but my boy contains multitudes and he is also the nicest sweetest gentlest boy in the whole world who did nothing wrong (he did) (but also he didn’t) (but also he did) (but he—)

This plays a lot into a third character who I won’t say for spoilers but you’ll definitely know who I’m talking about if you’ve read the whole book!!

[veliseraptor]

October Reading Recap

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: vol. 3 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. Still in the territory of a part of this book I remember fairly well, and while the whole underworld arc is good it's not my favorite part of the book and mostly I come away from it going "Rong Jiu has rights." which is true! and I do think Meatbun knows it actually but it still hurts how his arc goes here. Me: continually getting too wound up in the fates of side characters and distracted from what's going on with the mains.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to moving into the next parts of the book, which I don't remember as well. Though I know it's a while before it gets really painful, aka what I'm most excited to reread.

Dark Carnivals: Modern Horrors and the Origins of American Empire by W. Scott Poole. I was so frustrated by this book. I wanted it to be an analysis of horror films and their relationship to American imperialism; what I got was a lot of overwrought prose and repetition of the titular metaphor that was very light on the analysis of the actual texts and heavy on the scathing opinions about what is "good" (politically) horror and what is "bad" (politically) horror. Which, fine, my politics are technically the same as his politics, but it was annoying to read in a book that I thought was going to be more analytical. I had high hopes for this book and it failed them; makes me more hesitant to read his other book about horror and World War I, which I have had on my list for a while. But I liked his book on Lovecraft, funnily enough, so not totally sure what went wrong here.

Paradise-1 by David Wellington. I did not realize that this book was first in a series and I'm a little bit annoyed about it. It was decent horror but it doesn't need to be a series and the lack of resolution bugs me, because now if I want resolution I have to read the next book and I don't think I really want to read the next book. Space horror seems like it would be such a rich land full of possibility and yet I keep being disappointed by space horror. (If, in this case, less disappointed than I was by Dead Silence.)

Remnants of Filth: vol. 1 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. She's done it again! It's a differently fucked up relationship, to be sure, but boy am I already here for it, despite feeling like I know very little about what's going on. Gu Mang is my jam as far as character type, and I really like the dynamic as its laid out as having been previously between him and Mo Xi, and also how it is now. Dedicated friends/lovers turned to bitter enemies turned to one of them fractured to a shadow of himself leaving the other bereft of resolution...mm, good stuff. Can't wait to find out more about what's going on under Gu Mang's surface. Looking forward to reading more of this one and glad that I already have the second volume to go to. (And the rest, technically, but I do like reading cnovels in print when I can more than reading on a computer.)

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Look at me! Reading classic sci-fi knowing only the bare minimum about it. I liked it more than I expected to, and was less bothered by the way the women were written than I expected to. I didn't realize that it was more a string of short stories tied together by a frame narrative than a novel, but it was really fine that I didn't know that going in - didn't affect my enjoyment, I don't think. And I did enjoy it! I might not have read it on my own, but I read it for a sci-fi book club and ended up liking both it and the book club. Not sure I'd give it, like, a strong recommendation, but I'm glad I finally read it. It'll be interesting seeing what echoes/traces of it I can now pick up in other robot/AI-related writing.

Monstress: vol. 5-7 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. This comic is so good you guys. So. Good. I don't really know what else to say here, except that she continues to step up her game even more with every volume, and I don't know how she's keeping all the balls in the air that she is with this story as deftly as she is. I have no idea where this story is going, either, and I can't wait to find out. I don't know. Themes of monstrosity and agency and lack of agency and how to be a good person (or try) in a terrible world. With a whole lot more than that. Also there's gay betrayal, if you're into that.

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. Why do I continue to read Greek Mythology retellings when at best they end up making me go "eh, it was okay I guess"? Not sure. But this was okay, I guess. I liked the same author's Electra better.

Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy. More of a "history of the western world categorized by periods of time in which there were various diseases" which...was not quite what I was hoping for, but it was still a good, solid book about epidemiology and the impact of disease on history. A lot of it was familiar to me (how disease enabled the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, for instance, but also British colonization in North America), but I did learn some new things, particularly in the sections about Paleolithic/Neolithic diseases. All in all a book I read because I'm particularly interested in the subject but not probably one I'd recommend as the one book that they'd have to read about it.

The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson. I made it a goal in October to read some spooky books and ended up only reading three, but this was easily my favorite of those - and my favorite non-Darcy Coates horror I've read in a while, too. I wasn't totally sure what to expect from this one, and the slow reveal in the first two thirds particularly was very well done. I found myself slightly more compelled by the portions set in the past than by the present storyline, but not so much as to ding the whole book for it. And I liked that the monster was left pretty vague and undefined, too; that's always my preference. Some very gross descriptions and body horror, as a caveat for those who might be interested but are sensitive about such things.

Die: vol. 1-3 by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans. I'm finally rereading (and finishing) this series and...I forgot how much I like it. Not only because the art is gorgeous (and the art is gorgeous) but Kieron Gillen's writing remains as sharp as ever, and the way he is playing with fantasy as a genre is very fun for me as a fantasy nerd. My favorite issue remains the one about The Lord of the Rings, though. I don't know that this one is quite as good as The Wicked and the Divine as a whole, but I'll have to reread that one taken as a whole, too, before making that determination.

And the art really is gorgeous. Stephanie Hans remains a fave.

Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin. A decent narrative about the Oklahoma City bombing, certainly competently written, but he interrupted himself a little too often drawing parallels to January 6th, in my opinion, and I don't feel like I took anything particularly new or fresh away from this. Which is maybe an artifact of the fact that I've read a number of better books about the rise of right-wing extremism in the 90s, and this one wasn't one of them, but I'm going to go ahead and damn with faint praise when I say "it was fine."

currently I'm rereading Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey which is a fascinating text in ways that I'm going to need to chew on for a bit, so that I can finally read the sequel. but then a bunch of stuff came in for me at the library, so I'm next probably going to be reading Silver Nitrate by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and then Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey, and then The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu, and then Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and then Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. or that's the plan, anyway. we'll see how fast it gets derailed.

also somewhere in there planning on reading more Female General and Eldest Princess and most likely the second volume of Remnants of Filth. I'm trying to spend less time on the internet in general (you absolutely could not tell I am sure) so let's make it a busy reading month instead.

[iwanttofuckereh69]

Now reading: The husky and his white cat shizun

So i finished the first book. It's been what, not even a week? (EDIT: 2 fucking days since the og post i made) How am i supposed to wait till the rest is released if i keep swallowing them at this pace i feel like i still restrained myself but not enough ig

And like what, that last arc was utterly insane. Meatbun just tortures their leads, she's truly more cruel than Chu Wanning himself. It's not even characters in the world thats against them its just the author plainly tormenting them. That last scene … ehem spoilers for the first book here

…where Chu Wanning gets forced into Shi Mei's body? And he's going through all of that for Mo Ran while Mo Ran think its Shi Mei?

They just are so clueless, both of them. It's so tragic. The author just forces them into those situations rjuiefknhijugv And the fact we get POV's of both of them how they misinterpret each other's words and gestures… And as readers we can only silently scream at the book and observe the tragedy.

Getting back to my bullet points from the original post:

Chu Wanning is cruel AND pathetic but just like i mentioned earlier, not exactly like Mo Ran sees him. I still don't know how can he be both mean and kinda caring but only when nobody watches. I mean i get that its just that the level of his ruthlessness is scary. I still think his mom beat him as a kid for him to turn out this way

Mo Ran is dumb, i can't with him. I can't with how he doesnt realize why he is the way he is towards Chu Wanning, why he is so possessive. EVEN THAT DAMNED BROCADE BOX DIDN'T MAKE THAT LIGHTBULB IN HIS HEAD LIGHT UP. Great character, i love him but he is so utterly dumb...

Okay I can maaaaybe see why they will end up together, like everything seems like they are fated to be together. And Chu Wanning is pinning over him for whatever reason. But then i still believe in Mo Ran / Shi Mei supremacy. I love him being all lovey-dovey towards Shi Mei its just so adorable when he's talking about him or about his wontons. It still makes me giggle and kick my feet.

I have no idea what happened when Shi Mei died, it just seems unlikely Chu Wanning would be cruel like that. Probably Mo Ran was too dense to understand what was going on. There surely is more to Shi Mei, i'm just scared to think he's gonna turn out to be two faced.

Shi Mei is still my precious please don't be evil please don't be evil

i am convinced there will be a lot of pain and misery

WHAT THE FUCK WENT DOWN AT THAT LAKE

will i have enough strong will to wait some time before i get the 2nd vol

probably not

im gonna keep myself occupied with drawing Shi Mei <3333333333

[lgbtqmanga]

New Releases August 20, 2024

Hate Me, but Let Me Stay (manga) vol. 1 by Hijiki

Ever since the assault that led to his unexpected pregnancy as a teen, Koga Naoto, an omega, has harbored a deep fear and distrust toward alphas. He's even convinced himself that he doesn't need a mate. After all, hasn't he raised his daughter, Shizuku, just fine on his own? Still, at the behest of his concerned mother, Naoto reluctantly attends a matchmaking party. There he meets Tsuchiya Hazuki, a teenage alpha who declares that Naoto is his destined mate. Naoto does his best to ignore the young man's advances, but he can't deny the way he feels in Hazuki's presence. Can Naoto overcome his fear and admit that maybe, just maybe, he might not hate this one alpha?

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun (novel) vol. 6 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat) with illustrations and cover art by St

After two lifetimes of misunderstandings, Mo Ran and Chu Wanning have at last opened their hearts to one another. Mo Ran is determined to treat Chu Wanning with all the devotion his teacher deserves, but Chu Wanning has his doubts: has Mo Ran truly turned his attention from his first love, the beautiful Shi Mei, so easily? Yet the pair must put aside the bloom of new love all too soon. When a crucial clue about Xu Shuanglin’s whereabouts comes to light, the foremost powers of the cultivation realm set out to confront him. But the more devious moves their opponent makes, the greater Mo Ran’s suspicion grows that behind Xu Shuanglin lurks another player—a true mastermind who holds all the pieces.

My First Love's Kiss (novel) vol. 1 by Hitoma Iruma

Takasora Hoshi’s life is upended when a girl from her class named Umi Mizuike and her mother temporarily move into her family’s cramped apartment. From the outset of this arrangement, Takasora finds herself annoyed by Umi’s behavior…and her good looks. And though the two girls initially agree to avoid interfering in each other’s lives, Takasora can’t help but start to wonder where Umi keeps wandering off to at night… From the author of Adachi and Shimamura comes the bittersweet tale of two high school girls whose lives are thrust together under the same roof.

She Likes Gays, but Not Me (manga) vol. 2 by Akira Hirahara and Naoto Asahara

“I wonder why people like us are born.” Continuing to keep his sexuality a secret, Jun decides to start dating his classmate Sae. They go on dates, they kiss—but as much as Jun wants to prove he can do more and keep up the ruse, things don’t go as planned. Yet just as he thinks of being honest with Sae, he receives a sudden, devastating message from Mr. Fahrenheit…

The Summer Hikaru Died (manga) vol. 4 by Mokumokuren

Two boys grew up together in a certain village—Yoshiki and Hikaru. One day, Yoshiki became sure that Hikaru was no longer himself. He resolved to accept the new “Hikaru,” whatever happened to his friend. But now he’s decided to research the history of “Nounuki-sama” and Kubitachi to understand what this creature truly is. The situation evolves unpredictably, outside the boys’ control. Who will make the next move, and what will they find?

Tied to You (manhwa) vol. 2 by Chelliace and WHAT

His heart torn from the bittersweet pain of Jiseok’s sweetness and affection, Wooseo has turned instead to his Ring Partner, Jigeon, unaware of the older’s deep-rooted feelings for him. In a moment of drunken weakness, Wooseo seeks comfort from his “stand-in Jiseok”…and the two of them kiss?! But Jiseok isn’t completely oblivious—and he’s starting to catch onto the fact that something may be going on between his brother and his best friend…

Welcome Back, Alice (manga) vol. 7 by Shuzo Oshimi

FINAL VOLUME

Yohei, Kei, and Yui want to be loved for who they are. Yet somehow they keep making the wrong choices, hurting not just the people around them, but also themselves. And when Yohei ends up in the hospital, it becomes a wake-up call for all three of them.

A White Rose in Bloom (manga) vol. 3 by Asumiko Nakamura

Ruby is a student at an elite European boarding school. Things are going pretty well for her until she finds out that she won’t be able to go home for Christmas. Instead, she’ll be stuck at school with only one other student—the aloof and beautiful Steph—for company. As Ruby tries to understand Steph, she becomes more and more attracted to her. But can she break through Steph’s icy exterior in this latest volume?

[danmei-confessions]

throwing myself into the snake pits with this but.... mxtx is not the greatest writer to ever write. her stories can be very flat, and she struggles with any character who isnt the main couple.

ive never been able to finish any of priests works, but from what ive read of similar works by meatbun and tjq both have a more nuanced take on world building and meatbun is just a straight up better writer. i think that the fandoms (mdzs tgcf AND svsss to some extent) tend to put her on a pedestal thats (imo) slightly undeserved. Her plots arent that complex and her villains are, while with understandable motives, generally undeveloped, and their popularity and depth seems majorly subsidized by fandom.

same goes with the themes of her work, where they're either forced upon you or else subtle enough to need an essay of reasoning. not to mention her characters struggles can sometimes be a tad... alienating? i cant think of the exact word, but the mc's tend to be very wrapped up in their own problems (which is fine!) but its sometimes at the cost of seeing how theyre affecting the world around them. with wangxian and hualian especially (though my boy binghe does in svsss too, just in a more unhinged way), the ml's don't really challenge our mcs. even if they know what their partner's doing wrong, they p much unconditionally support them or at least dont pressure them into challenging their ideas. the ml's growth, if there is any, is done off screen, and any changing isn't by the protag but by outside efforts. like, wwx doesnt really change? like hes not really learning anything he didnt already know (demonic cultivation = not good) and besides jin ling he doesn't really face any personal consequences (as in, the opposition is always either a group, faceless background characters, or characters who didn't have that much of a personal connection to him pre-death)(jiang cheng doesnt count for much bc wwx avoids him like the plague, jc would rather die than talk emotions with his brother, and both of them misunderstand why the other is Like That post return)

ahhh anyway i hope this made sense! i still love these characters, but i do think ive matured enough as a person and a especially as a writer to be a little more critical of them!

(/ω＼)

.

[seth-burroughs]

chapter one rewatch part one. Witamy w następnym odcinku przygód Yumy w wypiździewie ft. Shinigami ona też tu jest

(I think ill just be making separate posts on all of these instead of putting the chapters in the reblogs as they could get a bit.... lengthy otherwise)

behold...... the best chapter.... in my humble yet correct opinion..... here it is..

poor fucking yumer doesn't even get a hotel room he just. sleeps on the damn sofa in the submarine. at least yakou gets some company after all these years

how are there still leaves/needles on these trees? there is zero sunlight and even if there are varieties in there that could survive that for a while its also been raining for entire three years i think all that dampness has long since caused them to get 1000 root rot and fungal diseases. that's not a forest that is a pile of rotten wood that's already 70% disintegrated. what do they even nail all that shit to

the fungi, on the other hand? they're fucking thriving. i made a post about that earlier but i don't want to look for it. all i need to say is that kanai ward has a massive fucking evil fungus problem.

at least yakou had a good time that night lmao.

perhaps i should enter a kokofurio/yumakou era

even shinigami pointed out how poetic yuma tends to get sometimes with his monologues xD

ah yes the cooking scene. maybe i am just such an incredibly skilled gourmet chef that it doesn't even occur to me, but i do not get how do you even manage to fuck up this badly.

and it even looks and smells normal..... how does he do that.

yuma, how the hell do you do that.

okay i came back after i pause since i was doing too bad with my brain shitfuckery to continue it then came back for it in order to distract from my brain shitfuckery

am i really about to enter a kokofurio/yumakou era

im actually ending up liking yakou way more than i did initially lmao..... the guy is growing on me. shame about the d*tective thing though ://

oh, speaking of, detectivephobia mention counter: 5 (kind of)

ooooh also i see. yakou says that he tried contacting wdo several times about the whole kanai ward situation before but they always waved him off and said they got bigger cases to worry about. i wonder why would they do that hmmmmm

"he didnt seem all that impressive to me" youd know huh shinigami

"each master detective is quirky in their own way"

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH CITY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY CITY TIME :3333333333 also there was a meatbun trivia right before we left. nervous laughter

im already getting emotional and we're not even at ginma or marunomon districts yet. what shall i do with myself once that time comes.........................

whats up ramen dude

meatbuns again [ominous music] well at least i can confirm they tasted good lmao?

are u gonna be mad at me for skipping the whole vivia segment

FUBUKI :D

"im sure halara is around somewhere probably hustling kids outta their money'' omgg the foreshadowing in precipitation cipher is actually insane you guyssss

ending this at the part when kokogami's about to look for halara!! goodnight gamers ..

[qpjianghu]

Tag someone you want to know better:

I've been tagged by @lovesickfolly -- thank you!! I love these things.

Favourite color: If I had to pick one color overall I guess I'd go with... burgundy? I'm more of a multi kinda gal.

Last song: "Done for Me" by Punch, from the k-drama Hotel Del Luna. I honestly WOULD be mainlining the score / soundtrack from Mysterious Lotus Casebook, but I have to keep taking breaks because it makes me TOO EMOTIONAL HSDOIFHASIDHFS

Last movie: TMNT: Mutant Mayhem! It was super cute. Gorgeous animation style.

Currently watching: Lord help me, but I am about to finally start Supernatural (good work, peer pressure!!). I'm also watching the dongua Link Click -- dumb name (or bad translation), incredible show. This is the post that instantly convinced me to watch it, and I honestly couldn't pitch it any better myself.

Also just biding my time until TGCF season 2!! ^_^

And I'm really excited to start Koisenu Futari -- looks like it has amazing aro/ace rep!

Currently reading: Just because the person before me mentioned this -- I also have @shamera's fic open to read! I love it so far. I'm also reading Yuwu (Remnants of Filth) by Meatbun, and The Swimming Pool Library. (The two genders! Both gay tho <3333)

Currently working on: Trying to disentangle all of my thoughts and ~feelings regarding Mysterious Lotus Casebook!!! I do want to write something about the series, because it has totally enthralled me in a really special way. And jumping off of that, I'm also thinking of putting together a post on my sudden hard-and-fast fall for c-dramas overall, because I think there's something interesting there psychologically that others might relate to as well.

Currently obsession: Uhhh, yeah, Mysterious Lotus Casebook. I have never come so close to attempting to learn how to gif, LOL. (Luckily, everyone else seems to have this covered. ;)) Also, Link Click! WATCH IT!!

Tagging some folks, if you're interested in jumping in!

@nutcasewithaknife, @busarewski, @oceaniche, @abirdonalilactree, @asiandramas-asianent

And anyone who wants to participate!

[frickingnerd]

For the Ask Game give me... Rain Code

answers for the ask game under the cut!

3 male characters I love:

my three fav guys from that game are desuhiko thunderbolt, aphex logan and zilch alexander! zilch was the first character i started to like in that game (and look how that turned out smh 😔), aphex had grabbed my attention ever since the trailers and i thought he was really cool (but look how turned out - part 2 😔) and desuhiko seemed like the annoying perverted guy at first, which i've never been a fan of, but then he turned out to he a great friend to yuma and trying to play wingman for his best friend, which immediately made me change my mind about him and make him my fav character! honorable mention to yomi hellsmile, who's a shitty person but a very fun character!

3 female characters I love:

my favorite gals are pucci lavmin, kurumi wendy and shinigami. pucci was really sweet on that train and i thought she and yuma could be cute together (now look how that turned out - part 3 😔). kurumi wendy was someone i liked all along but especially the last chapter made me like her even more! and shinigami was a character i really dislikes for quite a while, until her last scene, that kinda hinted towards her true nature :')

3 romantic ships I love:

basically my three favorite ships are yuma x kurumi x shinigami. i like yuma and shinigami together, especially seeing them grow closer over time and become actual friends. yuma and kurumi is a really basic but wholesome ship. i want kurumi to be happy with someone and i think yuma would do the best job making the girl happy. and kurumi and shinigami could be really cute too, especially if we get them to partner up in the next game (and not just kurumi bringing the book to yuma & him reunite with shinigami 😳). honorable mention for yuma and pucci, aka. the ship that never got to sail :')

3 platonic dynamics I love:

yuma and yakou, yuma and makoto and yuma and desuhiko. i really like desuhiko because of his friendship with yuma, so i had to list those two here. yakou is also a very important person for yuma and i wish we could've seen more of them. and yuma and makoto are just... very interesting!

3 favorite moments in canon:

shinigami's goodbye to yuma is probably my favorite moment in canon. it's really sad but it also showed off who she truly is in such a nice way! i also really like the reveal of the pink blood and the meatbun reveal! it's been a while since i played the game & i'm not 100% remembering those anymore, but i'm counting those two! honorable mention goes to the reveal of number one, but that was the one plottwist i really saw coming. but it was probably as satisfying as it was because i had noticed all the hints up to that point.

3 favorite headcanons:

my favorite headcanon is that they found a way to bring back all the dead people by the end of the game. don't ask me how, they just did it, okay? and next game they'll get to show up and be happy!

i also headcanon everyone as bisexual until proven otherwise! i pretty much do that with most media i consume and this game is no different!

and my last headcanon is that kurumi gets to be the next person making a pact with shinigami and that shinigami tells her all about her time with yuma.

3 least favorite things about it:

my least favorite thing about this game are the characters. since this is made by the people behind danganronpa, i have to say that i was expecting so much more from these characters. they were highkey a let down, especially... vivia twilight. i really dislike him the most. like i'm someone who loved nagito, kokichi & byakuya when playing danganronpa and it feels like vivia should be a character made for me to enjoy, but i just... i just don't like this guy. i'd love to have a vivia fan elaborate to me what's so great about him, but he's just some lazy & depressed guy who won't stop talking about wanting to die. like... that's not even a funny catchphrase, my guy. vivia gets to be the second least favorite thing just for that. as for my third least favorite thing... also character related, but i hate how everytime the killer was the one person i liked the most. literally, every damn case. i'd be like "oh, i can't wait to learn more about this character!" only for them to be the killer. like, towards the end of the game i always just knew who the killer was without even knowing, because surely it was the person i found the most interesting, right...? :')

[yiifu]

yuwu chapter 191 and I can't believe we aren't done with the plot twists yet like,, I've been reading for the past two hours and it's just one twist after the other my brain has been liquefied and baked and fried and now I'm trying to hold on to my last two braincells understanding wtf is going on with hua po an and chen tang and jiang fuli. jiang fuli is a cousin of chen tang with chen tang's memories and identity. but he is not chen tang. also what happened to his eye. it's 12.30am I'm too tired for this and I have to go to work tomorrow

the way what hua poan feels for chen tang parallels what jiang yexue did to murong chuyi. also what the bat queen wuyan tried to do to recreate chen tang from male prisoners. and then parallels between the doomed relationship of hua poan and chen tang and our dear ranwan frm 2ha next door.

also the shoutout to the divine haitang wood on that island, I hope all of those people who participated in the nurturing of that haitang tree know that it became the revered chu wanning elder yuheng of the night sky beidou immortal. I hope history knows its efforts were not in vain because I truly teared up at that point. to think that all these people did these things wayyyyy before 2ha's cast existed... it's like reading a history textbook of 2ha's world. and I'm not even done with 2ha yet but I can't wait to see the references when I get back into it. yuwu is a tour de force of many micro histories and stories between people, and it is also, in a sense, a chu wanning origin story. this whole world that meatbun created spanning events across 2 books is so compelling, reading them is like travelling centuries of societal history. even with so much material on this world written already I'm still curious to find out what happens in those 100 years that connect yuwu with 2ha. some societal structures are evidently very different - e.g what happened to the armies? where is chonghua in 2ha's world? are there still legends being told in 2ha's time of the 2 generals of chonghua?

[thegreymoon]

So, a couple of weeks ago I came across an idiotic post in the 2ha tags from someone who had NOT EVEN READ THE BOOK but had gone on to spoil themselves for the ending and then had the audacity to think they had a seat at the discussion table with hot takes such as “Mo Ran is so stupid, reading about him makes me barf” and “Evil Flowers are so unbelievable” and “deus ex machina, blablablaaaaa” 🙄🙄 I admit that my reaction to that post was not my best moment because I generally do not go around calling people stupid to their faces for objectively stupid fandom takes. And yes, I have since stopped engaging, blocked and gone on to touch some grass because in the grand scheme of things, This is Not Important. 

But here I am again, digging up the corpse of this dead horse to beat it some more. 

It is not my intention to tell people they must like 2ha and that they are objectively wrong for not liking it. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it; I will probably not be taking reading recommendations from you because our tastes in fiction don’t align, but otherwise, I don’t really care. There are a million reasons why this book would not be somebody’s cup of tea, from the eroticised rape, icky age gaps and explicit gore, to more benign things, such as episodes that stretch the suspension of disbelief a little too thin (for example, casting a spell to walk under water in exactly the same way as you would on ground, disregarding all laws of physics—which was my personal snagging point). Hell, in spite of literal decades of effort, I could never get my own mother to sit through The Lord of the Rings because she just couldn’t get past the walking trees, so mmv and that is fine.

Also, addressing the blatherings of someone who had not even read the book and was just parroting what they had seen other people say with a dash of half-baked high school literary criticism that they were not even applying correctly is absolutely a waste of my time and I am fully aware of that. However, this was not the first time I had seen “deus ex machina” leveraged as criticism against 2ha, it’s just that this time, I got angry enough to sit down and write a rebuttal on why this is simply not true. 

I have many thoughts on this topic and this whole thing got entirely too long for Tumblr, so I decided to post it on AO3 instead. Here is the link ☝☝

[thatswhatsushesaid]

I've always thought both nice guys stans and villains stans are the two sides of a same coin. The difference that the first ones only like the closest to a morally perfect character while the latter are like edgy kids who only like what's "evil" or, at least, "morally gray". Any other character who can't embrace exactly this, is wrong...

And it's ok to have a preference but it becomes so predictable? It's like you people can't stand when a character has a moment, like most human have (because, luckily, most people are "good" but also all of us have moments where we... suck. We're awful and don't know better). And it's like there's only 3 types of characters for you: morally good, morally gray and evil. And that's it...

tbh, it's nice to find people that understand Mo Ran and realizes Chu Wanning has his faults. I'm tired of how much people shit on Mo Ran and puts Chu Wanning in a pedestal... but describing him like that mainly because of Rong Jiu (of course, someone who mainly like scummy characters that are like that because of his past, was going to like him) is a bit unfair (because it's not a lie that he's done A LOT of good things too, for people and for Mo Ran) and it's why I don't get when someone likes only types of characters and not characters for themselves.

One last thing is that I actually think that Meatbun was unfair with two of her secondary characters, one of them being Rong Jiu, and it's maybe one of the few things I'd change about 2ha. But then again, you can't expect every single character to have a good ending and for everything to be fair...

idk what to say to most of this, anon, but I'll give it a shot.

I think I'm actually pretty good with any character has a 'moment' of any kind--like that's sort of my whole deal here, emphasizing the double-standards between protagonist characters who are allowed to have their 'moments' and retain some modicum of goodness vs antagonist characters who go straight to bad boy jail forever. also I really don't think that all people who stan villains/antagonists are edgelords who like evil shit. but some people are just drawn to antagonist characters, particularly antagonists who end up that way because of societal injustice and othering that leave them with no options. goodness and righteousness are often viable options available only to characters who have power or privilege.

also re: chu wanning, I specifically said I was going to keep an open mind about him going forward, and I am. I'm not shitting on him by pointing out the things he does in the literal source material that make him personally unpalatable to me, particularly when I couple that statement with, verbatim, "but I'm keeping an open mind about him".

[veliseraptor]

December Reading Recap

I thought about trying to do some kind of 2022 reading summation/best of/worst of/whatever and I might still do that but right now I'm just going "too many booksahhh" so I'm just going to keep on going with month two of my "here's what I read this month" short reviews.

I read a lot this month, but unfortunately it involved several books that missed for me (but a few that I really enjoyed).

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: vol. 1 by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat (Seven Seas Translation). I mean, as usual, even without knowing the actual quality of the translation as a translation I am still pining for a professional translator. And yet I'm still reading, because this is the way I have to read the thing as translated by an actual human, and I am enjoying it. This time around I am falling much more in love with Chu Wanning than I did the first time around when I was laser focused on Mo Ran as more nakedly ~my type~ but boy!! *pats Chu Wanning* this man can fit soooo many issues in him.

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang. I feel like my relationship status with R.F. Kuang's writing should just be listed as "it's complicated" because I don't even know how I feel about this book, really. It's conceptually fascinating, it's doing so many cool things, the way she chose to end it is very bold and I respect the hell out of it, and something still just didn't quite...click for me in the way that I wanted it to.

I think it was that it felt a little heavy-handed with its metaphors. Which is fine, to be sure, and making your imperialism metaphors specifically about language and translation isn't something I've seen somebody do a lot with in fiction, but...yeah. I'm calling this one less a fault of the book and more a fault of the me, though; it definitely feels like a your mileage may vary situation.

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke. I picked this up on a whim and it wasn't worth it. The book was very taken with its own cleverness; I was not.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. This was another one where the summary/description was more interesting than the actual book turned out being, which was, while readable and I was intrigued enough by the mystery to power through it pretty fast, underwhelming overall.

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. Some people (me) keep picking up retellings despite at this point knowing better; other people (me) keep picking up superhero-comics-inspired books despite at this point knowing better, only this time I was actually surprised by how much I liked it. It was legitimately a good story! And you know I'm always going to be a sucker for a story that takes the villain's side.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I have the creeping feeling that this book was too sophisticated for me and I would have liked it more if I was more sophisticated, which is an unpleasant feeling to have.

I wanted more deep sea horror from it than I got - not in the sense of ~creatures and tentacles~ or anything, but this was far more a book about grief and loss than it was horror, and it was billed to me as the latter, so I came in from the wrong direction and was a little disappointed. It was a good book, though, and beautifully written.

Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany. Had I known that the title of this book was from a One Direction song (I didn't) I might have anticipated more how much it was about bandom and therefore less relevant to my interests. It was also lighter on the analysis than I expected/wanted, so ultimately this one was a disappointment too.

Beowulf trans. by Maria Dahvana Headley. This is the first translation of Beowulf I have ever actually read (!) and after reading it I kind of wished that I'd read at least one other translation to compare it to. But a lot of the things she was doing with alliteration and assonance and rhythm in the language were just spectacular. And it gave me the chance to read this one (by this translator) coupled with:

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley. Adding this to my "books to read in pairs" list alongside the Song of Achilles / Silence of the Girls dyad. It's been sitting on my shelf for a while now, and I finally got around to it as spurred by reading the original Beowulf text, and...whoa. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while and I want other people I know to read it so I can bounce off their thoughts about it. If you haven't heard of it: this was billed as a retelling (I know) of the Beowulf story set in a gated community but I feel like the fact that it's based on Beowulf is almost beside the point in some ways, and in other ways it's very much in conversation with that text and lives alongside it and maybe a little in argument with it.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: vol. 4 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (Seven Seas Translation). I feel a little bad about how my reaction to this volume was a little bit "this was mostly a lot of Wangxian stuff so I was less excited about it" but there you go.

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo. I have to say, I read The Chosen and the Beautiful when it came out and was a little underwhelmed, but the synopsis for this one sounded interesting, and people kept raving about it, so I decided to give it a go, and I liked this one both (a) much better than The Chosen and the Beautiful and (b) just as a book without comparison needed. It also made me want to dig more into early film history. The way that this book is in love with (in a way) early film is also a delight to read, and while I can't call it subtle, it's eerie and beautiful in a way that really worked for me.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. I read a lot of horror despite the fact that I end up underwhelmed by the vast majority of it. I was slightly less underwhelmed by this one than I expected to be, but that is, as you might note, not exactly an endorsement. Part of the problem was that I found the main narrator just too fucking hateable in a very specific way to feel anything about his suffering but vague, detached interest in where it was going to go.

Heaven Official's Blessing: vol. 5 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (Seven Seas Translation). I just love this book so much and everything about the reading experience is difficult to judge in an objective way because my brain just kind of goes "look at them go! look at these little dudes go! they're so funny :)" in a very empty-headed sort of way.

This volume does sort of fall between my favorite bits, though (after end of Black Water Arc, before the Hua Cheng's Sculpture Gallery), so while it started digging into some of the Crown Prince of Wuyong lore it didn't quite hit the parts that are juiciest for me.

The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. This book made me so mad about public health policy. Like, so mad. I'm mad about it periodically anyway but this just made it worse. It's really good, very comprehensive overview of some of the emerging diseases since 1950, including Lassa, Ebola, antibiotic resistance, HIV/AIDS, and others. It's long, and definitely a rough read if you've got any kind of disease phobia (she isn't...gruesome about the clinical descriptions but she also isn't mincing words), but worth a read if you feel like you can do it and are interested in epidemiology.

There's definitely outdated terminology and some bits that made me squint about the book's politics, but overall the author's clear message of the need for holistic health policies for everybody mitigated a lot of those concerns (particularly the way the author repeatedly underlined the links between poverty and deprivation and vulnerability to illness, and the vitality of giving people a way out of that situation as part of public health policy.

The Bone Orchard by Sara Mueller. The last book I read in 2022! I'm so fascinated by everything this book was doing. There was some very interesting world-building under the skin of what was really mostly a mystery with a side of politics. And I say that favorably. Ultimately I'm not sure that it'd make my favorite books of the year list, but I'd give it a casual recommendation; that is, if someone was eyeing it to read I'd say it was worth picking up.

I'm currently reading Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg, which was published in 2007 (during the Bush years) and I can already tell reading it now is going to be an experience.