Month in Review: May 2022

[elenothar]

I spent the first half of the month with a miserable cold after all the travelling, but things have been calming down since then, fortunately.

TV and movies

One consequence of being mostly stuck at home for two weeks, was that I got hooked on a drama for the first time in a while. I watched all of Who Rules the World (且试天下) in May, which for me is pretty fast. It was easy, pretty fare and I quite enjoyed it (I will also admit that Yang Yang is something of a draw...).

I also started watching The Long Night with folks on Discord, which so far is very tense and quite dark but also very well done.

I didn't watch any movies I can recall right now. 40 eps of a drama are more than enough watching for me in a month!


Books

I only read one novella - Nghi Vo's When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, which I enjoyed. Most of my non-fanfiction reading effort goes into academic texts these days (alas).

Fandom activities

The high point of May was the 520 Guardian exchange. I got a lovely fic from miss_ingno: Keep on Going, which I adore and recommend to anyone who's even a little bit invested in Shen Wei and Dragon City University.

My own offering was this one:

Treaty-Bound (12k of HC fic speculating about the Guardian Treaty and its effects on Shen Wei)

I also wrote two more Guardian fics in May:

Unusual Results (3k, earlier identity reveal via run-in with an aphrodisiac)

of thousands, just the one (1k, angsty time travel)

My longfic (accidental marriage canon divergence) is also coming along - not sure yet whether I'll be done in June, but as of right now I only need to write a couple more scenes for the last chapter.

Comments

[elenothar]

XD

Let me know if you want to hear anything more detailed about it. I find it hard to rec things to people whose tastes I'm not entirely clear on yet, which is why my statements in posts are usually quite general.

[plingo_kat]

I guess I'd ask how prominent the romance is, and whether it's particularly ~dramatic~. I'm really not a fan of storylines which rely on miscommunication, and for romances in particular my tolerance is low for stupidity on the part of the characters in order to create tension.

[elenothar]

Ah, this is I can answer. The romance is very prominent - it's primarily a romance show, I'd say, with wuxia and political intrigue as prominent side shows - but one of the reasons why I enjoyed the show so much is that it's really not a dramatic romance. No stupid miscommunications, both of them just very equal and pretty mature about it, and complementing each other nicely. There's one ep where there's a bit of secondhand embarrassment re: the guy trying to figure out how to confess his feelings, but they don't really make a whole deal out of it.

The main reason I like this show is because everyone is so competent and smart, and for the most part that extends to the romance aside from a couple of very small hiccups.

[plingo_kat]

Minor secondhand embarrassment isn't too much of an issue thankfully (like the Guardian books scene, at least it was short!), and competent/smart leads sounds good. Thanks for the info!

[elenothar]

You're welcome! Let me know what you think if you ever do watch it :)