elenothar

Not much to report for this one - September is always busy, what with the start of the new academic year, and we also had guests for long stretches of time (by my standards), which ate up what little free time I had.

TV and movies

I watched Zhu Yilong's most recent movie Lighting up the Stars - not entirely my thing (mostly due to the type of characters involved), but the acting was good and so were the family feels, and I liked seeing the way Wuhan was portrayed.

Started a rewatch of Who Rules the World with folks on Discord, which remains fun and fairly undemanding. Other group watches still going on include Ultimate Note (not really capturing my attention, alas), The Rebel, Love and Redemption, very occasional Nirvana in Fire. I've given up on Romance of Tiger and Rose, which I know a lot of people like, but it's just too much secondhand embarrassment a la romantic comedy and the whole thing is a bit too, idk, stylised? for me.

I haven't been watching any fiction on my own because no time, and also I often find it hard to settle on something to watch when I'm not mid-series with something, so I just end up doing something else. Quite a bit of British comedy panel shows though...

Books

Several, for once! I now live near a library branch, and am taking full advantage.

- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: very fun, some interesting language ideas, and prose and characters that make it a very smooth, easy read (in German I'd say 'kurzweilig'). Felt very similar in style to The Martian
- The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories: a translated anthology of Chinese short fiction; I enjoyed it a lot.
- Seraphina by Rachel Hartmann: I read it for relevance to my research re: music in fantasy, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Very politics and intrigue
- Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey: read for the same reason; a brief and nostalgic read, it's got that McCaffrey/Lackey/etc vibe. A bit too YA to really capture my attention though
- the first two volumes of the English print translation Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
- Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: read for work reasons; not super my cup of tea either (stories that stray towards utopia usually aren't), but interesting for a look at early 20C feminism

I also finished She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan), which is a strong rec as predicted, and started The Curse of Chalion (Lois McMaster Bujold), because she's an author I usually like.

Fandom

The only reason there's anything much to report here is because Guardian wishlist fic finally went live (though, in my case, it was written long beforehans). I'm very pleased with and grateful for the wonderful gifts I received: art for my fic Treaty-Bound by

acoyotewhowanders, a ficlet about Shen Wei knitting by

tinypinkmouse, a fic about Dixingren music by

nnozomi and a domestic weilan double drabble by

trobadora. Links to all at this DW post.

Wishlist contributions:

Knell (Chu Shuzhi & Shen Wei, 2.7k)

Changing like the Seasons (weilan wingfic, 3.3k)

Distraction Level: Lethal (Shen Wei holding a baby, 1.5k + mixed media, art by

teyla

Breath In (The Rebel, Lin Nansheng/Zuo Qiuming, 1.5k)

Outside of wishlist:

Tresses (Shen Wei & Cheng Xinyan, 1.2k)