#the gender happening in gundam is simultaneously both a high and a low

[bronanlynch]

sometimes I really do feel like that dril tweet that's like "please help me with budgeting" except instead of "spend less on candles" it's "spend less time watching anime" (I watched things that weren't anime. multiple of them, even. but so much of the wordcount of this is once again about gundam). anyway. happy wednesday media roundup time

listening (podcast): listened to the Great Gundam Project episode on Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, which means I'm done thinking about Gundam Wing until my roommate & I get there eventually in our Gundam watching. I'm realizing that I barely remember anything that happened in Endless Waltz even though I distinctly remember that I watched it. I do remember Zechs inexplicably being alive again, which I enjoyed because I, predictably, enjoy him

listening (music): Body Was Made by Ezra Furman, a fun catchy little tune about being trans and having a body. less angry than a lot of her other songs that I've listened to but a good song nonetheless

reading: I finished read Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, which I continued to enjoy all the way through! I thought it stuck the landing well, with a good balance between the final battle being difficult but also the protagonists' success feeling earned, and also I enjoyed that it ends in a place of like, the oppressive powers structures still exist but people are coming together to successfully fight back against them so there's hope for the future. gives it a happy ending without feeling unbelievable

still picking away at Rule of Wolves. I wish there were less of Nina's attraction to women being demonstrated by her repeatedly talking about how beautiful her butch love interest is, in ways that emphasize her love interest's femininity and explicitly made her love interest uncomfortable

also! much more exciting! I read volume 1 of Guardian (watched the drama a while back but this is my first time reading the novel), and I am once again reminded that I'm in love with Shen Wei. he is simply the perfect man to me, is the thing. I feel very normal every time he says or does anything to imply that he's been desperately pining over the love of his life for thousands of years. also I'm so fond of Guo Changcheng, finally some representation for anxious millennials in shitty entry-level jobs. also I'm enjoying reading something where the main character knows he's into men from the beginning. I think it's an incredibly fun relationship dynamic that Zhao Yunlan immediately thinks Shen Wei is hot (same) and wants to date him in a normal mundane way (also same tbh), and meanwhile Shen Wei is losing his mind over the whole situation and giving the most confusing mixed signals of all time. god I love them

watching: TGCF Season 2 is here! it's real! I have not watched today's episode yet so this is just about episode 1 but man I love this arc. one of my favorites after the Blackwater arc I think? anyway. love to see Shi Qingxuan. once again wishing the Xie Lian agreed to be girls with her (obligatory plug of my own fanfiction on this topic)

my thoughts on last week's Bakeoff is that I think it was fair to not send anyone home, because the two people struggling the most were so close and neither of them did too outrageously bad in the Showstopper. also I'm kind of shocked no one's ever passed out from heat before, I do legitimately think it's cruel to make them stand over a stove tempering chocolate during a heatwave

continuing with Zeta Gundam and getting near the end. I spent several hours yesterday typing up a 1.1k post about this that I ended up not posting but the tl;dr is wow I am genuinely really loving the way gravity is used as a metaphor for both personal baggage and also the oppressive & exploitative political systems that prevent social change, and whether or not that gravity is escapable (this is connected to how extremely normal I feel about the opening of Partizan 00 and the "might we carry our own gravity with us?" monologue)

on the other hand, there continues to be so much gender happening in increasingly wild ways. like, sometimes it's just ordinary misogyny (women keep dying for men they're in love with, why do we always have to have kids on the spaceship just to make a teenage girl take care of them), sometimes it's women having genuinely interesting characterization (Emma, Four, Haman Karn, Fa when she's not being pigeonholed into the obligatory role of Spaceship's Teen Mom), sometimes it's bad but in a really weird way that breaks my brain and also is uncomfortable to watch (Reccoa letting herself be captured by Yazan because she wants to find a strong man???), and sometimes it's bad in absolutely batshit ways that have extremely funny implications to me personally (Reccoa kissing Char and then telling him that he's not enough for her so she has to leave to find a real man which on one hand could just be that she has said she wants to find a husband to settle down with and he is obviously not good husband material on account of how he cannot see himself as anything other than a soldier/weapon (see also: the gravity metaphor. he is Not escaping that orbit) but on the other hand. does Char Aznable is gay???)

we also watched the One Piece live action show, and wow this really is such a distillation of like, late 90s-early 2000s shonen (I have no prior experience with One Piece and until recently used to mix up One Piece & Bleach). Luffy is such a peak "good friendly boy with a dream" shonen protag, and he is so much fun to watch. by far the weakest part of the writing was anytime the uhhhh fishpeople racism allegory came up which was unfortunate because overall the rest of it was really fun. I think the live action show works really well because they really lean into the campiness of it, I love their obvious wigs, I love pirate stories, I love the intense amounts of homoeroticism, I love the bonkers anachronisms of the entire setting, I love watching a guy cheerfully befriend everyone he meets and convince them to believe in the power of friendship. also love the characters. they put some Characters in there. my faves are Zoro (love an anime swordsman and also a guy whose autistic swag causes him to have incredible comedic timing) and Nami (love it when someone works for the people who ruined their lives in order to get back at them somehow, and also people in power-of-friendship shows who don't believe in the power of friendship but do care about logistics), and I would be tempted to read the manga to see more of them if it weren't like a million chapters

playing: still working my way through Ace Attorney 5. I'm happy to see Juniper again because she & Athena are very cute, but it's been far too long since I've seen Aura Blackquill. where is she! I want to see her! also where is Apollo :(

making: we made mushroom risotto from this recipe, the recipe talks about how long and arduous the process is but really it's not that bad. like, sure, you can't rush it but it's a pretty simple process. also, more importantly, it tastes really fucking good. we used an Oyster Bay Sauvignon blanc (normally when I cook with wine I have a glass of the wine that I used but the pictured wine is a Kim Crawford Sauvignon blanc instead because the Oyster Bay has been open for too long to still be like, nice to drink)

drinking: see above, we love a good New Zealand sauv blanc in this household. also, went to a Renaissance fair where they were serving mead, from Chaucer's, which I realize is probably the most common mainstream mead available but I find it a bit too syrupy (I promise mead can be sweet & have a strong honey flavor without feeling like you're drinking syrup), and I got the pomegranate one, which did not have very much pomegranate flavor. there was a hint, but it was kind of like the Lacroix of flavored meads. as someone who made a raspberry mead that only vaguely tasted of raspberry maybe I can't complain too much, but I wasn't selling that, and Imo mine still tasted better because the honey & the spices weren't quite so overwhelmed by the sweetness

writing: posted a fic about Kazuma & Maria from DGS being trans and also roommates. also the aforementioned Zeta Gundam essay