Our Favourite Media of May 2022

[helloladies]

Each month, we look back over the media we loved in the previous month, from books to film to video games and more.

Anna

Nirvana in Fire — I mentioned in the latest fanworks recs that I recently finished rewatching this Chinese drama with a group of friends. It’s so good, and really rewarded rewatching. The show is meticulously plotted, with tons of twists and turns. The costumes are gorgeous, and all the characters feel complex and real. I especially love the wide variety of awesome female characters.

Making a Yellow River Delta: An Environmental Drama in Song Dynasty China by Ling Zhang — I’m always a little hesitant to recommend academic books, because I do understand that they can be dense and intimating. And this book is pretty dense. However it was also mind blowing! This book looks at the connections between environment, humans and governance and made me see them in a new way. There’s lot here that’s relevant to current day environmental problems and I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time.

keeping it 101: a killjoy’s introduction to religion by Megan Goodwin & Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst — I found this podcast because one of the scholars I follow on twitter retweeted one of their recent episodes about buddhism. I still haven’t listened to that episode because I decided to go back to earlier episodes first. I really love that this podcast is constantly deconstructing imperialism in how we study religion. I’m learning so much!

Susan

Undertale — I finally got around to playing Undertale and I have... Questions...? I knew pretty much nothing about Undertale except that friendship is magic¹, so I was not prepared for all the places it went. The level of meta commentary on RPGs is mind-boggling! It's worked into every aspect of the gameplay, the narrative, and the world building, which wasn't what I expected, but it retroactively made everything about the retro aesthetic and the UI make sense. It's very cool!

And now I need to go and launch myself into the LPs for the other route, because the game never wants me to play it again and who am I to argue?

¹: Okay, I knew friendship is magic, angry fish lady exists, and don't fight Sans. Who is Sans? NO CLUE.

Comments

[readingtheend.com]

Ahahahaha, Susan's preliminary knowledge of Undertale sounds like my current knowledge of Undertale. Also, does the game tell you it doesn't want you to play it again, once you're finished??