February 2024 Update (Patreon)

March is about to come in like a lion! I've been really busy with various things. Went through stressful things at both my jobs, and now I'm starting a new term I'll have to read eight student novels at the end of, which I'm not looking forward to. But I've also been improving my exercise regimen and trying to get in shape, and that's going decently. I'm so close to finishing editing my book, and I've been plugging away at the query letter and synopsis.

I'm still continuing all the seasonal anime. I picked up Wonderful Precure, but as much as I love the concept of a dog becoming a magical girl, it's not super grabbing me so far. The lack of good fight scenes is kind of a disappointment though I get that it's not the best lesson for kids if they punch animals. I'm going to stick around until the cat transforms though!

I've also been burning through Lovely Complex after the Jelloapocalypse drama with the dub. It's a pretty fun show, with excellent faces, though how it drags out some parts is frustrating. There are some rough patches (Seiko's introduction. Whoof.) but I think Jello's criticisms were mostly in bad faith. Risa is a really fun character.

Monster also remains a top tier thriller. It's cool to see all the different stories it tells.

I read Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries this month and really enjoyed it! It's a cozy adventure that draws on a lot of cool fae lore, and the banter between the main duo is pretty fun. It's been a while since I've seen a het romantic subplot in a book that I enjoyed this much.

I've been reading The Moon on a Rainy Night,  and it's REALLY good. I feel bad I'm watching it as the same time as A Sign of Affection though because I keep comparing how they handle hearing loss and that's not really fair (especially since there's no one way to handle it and it's not like I'm an expert). But I do think it's noticeable that it addresses some of the complaints I've seen about SOA--so far I do enjoy that it kind of takes a more complex approach rather than always being romance first like SOA. Kanon is hard of hearing, she has to clear up misconceptions she can't hear anything, she points out that only 20 percent of deaf people use sign language (but starts using it when she really relates to a movie and the way the cute actor uses it, which is such a teenager thing), the lip reading isn't treated quite as magically as SoA does sometimes, Kanon has to remind people to look at her and she can't hear them, and she misreads things a lot more, and mostly I really enjoy that she' s often angry about ableism and has complex feelings about being disabled, as well as a lot going on with her character. I can definitely see it's not perfect (and there's probably stuff I'm missing as a non hoh person) but I really like Kanon as a character.

(I feel like I'm knocking SOA too much-- it is a really good series and it's own thing with a very sweet vibe, and it's been exploring Yuki's deafness and tying that in to communication in romance a lot more in recent eps...it's just nice we have romances involving hoh characters that take different approaches)

And the MC's struggle with her gay feelings is so relatable. The part where Kanon teaches her the sign for marriage is a man and a woman, and she gets really depressed? So real, the heteronormativity blues. She has a lot of interesting, complicated feelings too.

A Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl is another one I picked up, the first volume was kind of disjointed (and some of these girls need to learn about consent) but I like the energy. Seeing a girl having a love-hate relationship with her rival that turns into smooching is catnip for me, and the series following multiple couples is cool.

I Think Our Son is Gay has a pretty solid ending. More open-ended than I expected, but still good.

I realized going through my work's library that I've somehow never read Maus, so I've started on that! And I picked up Himawari House, a gn that follows a half-Japanese woman who immigrated to America when she was young returning to Japan, and feeling a disconnect and sadness from how separated from the culture and language she's gotten. It does a lot of interesting things with language, showing words fading out when she can't understand them and so on, and she has a Korean and Chinese housemate  (the book gives their POVs too, it's really got a lot of nice stories going) so there's contrast between their language...it's something that would likely interest anyone who wants to learn about Japan! The girls also reference shoujo manga in fun ways a few times, like one talking about a shoujo-like romance and the other reminding her that would mean they'd probably have to go 100 chapters before the actually got together lol.

Been playing a little Pokemon Scarlet DLC. Love that I'm Kieran's bad boy origin story.

That's about it! Hopefully March will be easier on me and we all have a good time!