Journal of Mistress Kat

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August of Posting commences. \o. Luckily I had this stored up. Probs not a perfect record, certainly not of media, and obvs doesn't include the hundreds of fanfics I have shoved at my eyeballs but...


Kat Reads Books - June & July Edition

Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan - In 2000 Ayesha is finishing high school in US with plans to go to university there, but falling for the only other Indian in her school derails everything in the most classic ways when she gets pregnant. Eighteen years later, Mira finds herself thinking about her birth mother more and more as she starts to tentatively connect with her heritage. Then she finds a letter... This was a nice read, which sounds very bland and I guess it didn't exactly rock my world with originality or prose, but the book did give some insight into desi experience in America and the 'person of colour adopted by white parents' experience too. Overall, I think the book probably gave an overtly optimistic and rosy view of some of issues especially given the first time period and cultural tensions (Muslim girl, Hindu boy etc), and the ending too was unrealistically happy for everyone but... maybe that's what we need in YA, idk.

Roihu (= 'Blaze') by Tuomas Niskakangas - Having reached the inevitable end point of unchecked capitalism, Finland in 2030 is a country of increasing inequality, polarisation and a right wing/conservative government dancing for the tune of economic elites. The leftwing coalition is increasing in popularity under new charismatic leader and the citizens are angry. Like 'rife for revolution and coup' angry. Then a young woman sets herself on fire, setting in motion a series of events with twining conspiracies and unravelling secrets. This was a really good thriller with enough twists to keep you guessing until the end. There's a good deal of history and economic theories winding through, so if like me, you like it when the author brings receipts, only adds to the story. The context is depressingly believable, only a very small step away from current situation in many places. Can't find anything online about this being translated (though I didn't look too hard) but would recommend.

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee - Birthday book gift from H. Dylan is working hard at keeping his aunt's takeaway afloat when rich boy Theo stumbles into his life with potential solutions and family drama but also some (fake, or not) dates. Listen, this was exactly what it promised; adorable romance with little fake dating and upstairs/downstairs tropes, with an underlying story about family and acceptance. I also learned about mooncakes and Chinese myths. Perfect holiday reading, engaging writing, great detail and diverse cast all around. Would recommend.

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas - Another of H's birthday gifts because they knows what I likes. By the author of Cemetery Boys which I 'reviewed' here, and like that, this has a trans boy as the protagonist and the reluctant not quite a hero. Set in a fantasy world of gods and their half-god offspring, all in a hierarchy, Teo is the son of the goddess of birds, who gets selected to participate in the Sunbearer Trials with nine other semidiosa youth. Adventures are had, friendships (and maybe more) rekindled, all while dark forces are sabotaging the trials. This was fun with a diverse cast, emphasis on friendships and family relationships over romance, and interesting worldbuilding. I was fully invested by the end, only to discover that this ended with a 'to be continued'. Sigh. So now just waiting for the sequel I guess... But would recommend.
 

Kat Consumes Media - June & July Edition

Elements - I was upset over something and wanted some pretty animation on my eyeballs. This provided that. The concept is cute and there's some fun jokes and creative things about the Elemental city and how it's adapted to the different elements. However, I am too adult for this because we end up with the cross-elemental romance and I'm too distracted by trying to figure how that's even possible...

Striking With Pride: United at the Coalface - Sky Documentary about the solidarity and support between the LGBTQ+ community and the Miners' Union in 1980s (i.e. what inspired the movie Pride) with focus on Mark Ashton, the main organiser. This was a really good documentary with many of the surviving members of the movement from both sides. I very much want to show this at uni but copyright may be tricky.

Damsel - I am here for the concept for sure, and one does enjoy watching Millie Bobbie Brown fight a dragon, but the plot? So full of holes that dragon would be able to fly through it. The fact that movie also got Angela Bassett and Robin Wright, and yet utterly wastes them... The only one who wasn't wasted was Shohreh Aghdashloo voicing the dragon though arguably even the dragon's characterisation was weak. ( Spoilery rant )

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Finishing things has not been a strong suite over the last two months. I have two more books midway through and one film that I started and haven't finished yet. But anyway, here we are:


Books:

White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson - Marigold is moving to a new house in a new town with her mum, kid brother, her mum's new husband and his daughter. Sounds like a lot even before you add anxiety, bedbug phobia, and a complicated relationship with some mind-altering substances into the mix. Oh and possibly ghosts. Okay, look, I really liked 95% of this book. The characters were all real, the haunted house trope was well written and then got twisted into something worse/better that provided that kind of social commentary about class and race that wasn't like, subtle, but was True, and then... It ended. Before anything really got properly revealed or resolved beyond the surface mystery, not even the family relationships and I am Big Mad about it. Like yeah, none of that shit gets resolved quickly in real life, I fucking get it, but c'mon! This was the epitome of the 'ambiguous/open ending' tag, don't read if you're not prepared to deal with that.

Black Wings Beating by Alex London (Book 1 of 3 I assume) - In a civilisation built around birds (using them, worshipping them, hating them) twins Kylee and Brysen set out to capture the near legendary ghost eagle for reasons that start personal but end up having much broader consequences to the destiny of nations. There were a lot of things in this book I liked: really interesting world-building, no one was perfect, queer and POC representation, plot that means I will definitely want to read the follow-ups. There were also some things in this book I didn't like, not because they were bad writing or bad story choices but more like they were challenging/difficult to read but actually important for the plot and characters. Namely: child abuse, animal abuse, and some pretty graphic violence overall. Also, the flipside of making your characters realistically imperfect is that I spent most of the book wanting to shake some sense into one of the twins because omfg... but yeah, he's gonna grow some sense himself I think as the story progresses. Yes, would recommend, but 'mind the tags'.


Media

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - I finished all 5 series of this on Netflix over the last couple of months and on the whole I enjoyed it a lot. It was the perfect 'I need something funny but no thinking required and queer friendly to watch to distract me from grief and general stress' choice. The ending was a bit, idk, bland. And in my heart, I still love the potential of Kimmy/Jacqueline even though I knew that was never going to be a serious possibility.

Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda - I love Hannah Gadsby, I really do, and she was still hands down the funniest (unsurprisingly, given the level of experience) comedians in this showcase. As always with something that includes short sets from about six different and diverse performers, I didn't gel with everyone's style, but I definitely laughed a lot during the hour and something. Would recommend, if you want to like reaffirm your faith in humanity a bit and need a break from some of the transphobic rhetoric of mainstream media.

The Extraordinary Attorney Woo - I enjoyed this a whole lot despite some scenes and plot points being a bit hard on my public humiliation squick. I was pleasantly surprised that the love triangle wasn't actually dragged on and the 'other woman' was not made a villain in any way. All the characters were interesting and not just straightforwardly great or awful. In case you're wondering, Jung Myeong-seok is my fave (he is Trying, in a way that is long-suffering but ultimately kind, and also he is cute af, cannot believe what they put that man through during the last few eps too!). The main romance was sweet but without shying away from the challenges. I was impressed with the breadth of social issues and representation included, as well as the variety of relationships beyond romantic that were portrayed.

Agust D Tour 'D-DAY' the Movie - Absolutely worth the price to watch this at the theatre. I was pleasantly surprised to find almost twenty local army at the theatre with me, many of whom were cheering and clapping as if it was a live concert, which was adorable. Okay, the show itself. I had. Many Emotions. Look, firstly, Yoongi is absolutely one of my two main BTS biases, no question. Secondly, have you met my competency kink? Thirdly... It was somehow... softer, than I was expecting. Which isn't to say Yoongi wasn't spitting fire and dominating the stage, because he absolutely was. The first three songs were a repeated slap to the face, kicking of with Haegum, followed immediately by Deachwita and Agust-D without a pause. There was also an absolutely relentless back-to-back medley of his parts of the Cypher 3, Cypher 4, Ddaeng and Ugh. But even through all of the more upbeat/aggressive songs, Yoongi stayed open and present, there was a palpable feeling of connection with the audience and several points he was singing/rapping with the audience rather than at them. This was even more pronounced during the slower song like Seesaw (ugh, my heart, this is one of my favourites) or The Last. We got guest appearences from Jungkook (Burn It, again one of my favourites), Jimin (Tony Montana, lolll) and Namjoon (Strange, the set up for this and the song gives me feelings, as did the contrast of Namjoon with his military buzzcut and more controlled presence in comparison to Yoongi's looser, more flowing presence. and hair, lol). I also enjoyed the choice of Yoongi being carried onto the stage at the start of the show and off it at the end of Amygdala. And by 'enjoyed' I obviously mean 'felt pain in my heart in all the good ways'.

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Okay, another part of my 'not resolutions but conscious effort to carve time to do these things that are good for me' is 'read books'. There is also an instrumental aspect to this: I have a lot of books I haven't actually read. Goal is to read more so I can decide what to keep and what to donate. Judging from this month, three books/month seems to be manageable.

So, monthly reads with some commentary. Not sure these are focused enough to be called reviews. But here we go, Books That I Gone Read in Jan. These are all books H got me for Christmas, selected based on an Insta post of 'best current boys kissing boys fantasy'. Extremely valid.


FANGS Vol 1 (Billy Balibally) - Okay, it's a very pretty manga? I assume the actual plot will kick off in Vol 2, but Vol 1 mostly consists of 'here's a pretty vampire, he's new' and 'here's another pretty vampire, he's got a ~past~' and 'now watch them fuck' and 'hang out with their pretty vampire friends'. Like, I'm not opposed to any of that. I did say that it was Very Pretty, right? Read in public with caution, several panels get explicit.

Cemetary Boys (Aiden Thomas) - This was an extremely entertaining YA m/m fantasy that ticked several diversity points. The protagonist is trans. He's part of a multicultural brujx community in LA who have special powers to heal (the women, bruja) and summon/release the spirits of the dead (the men, brujo). In the course of wanting to show everyone that he's a real brujo, our protagonist sort of accidentally summons the ghost of a local bad boy. There's a mystery (I did guess the baddie pretty quickly but the ride was still entertaining) and lots of interesting cultural details and family feels. Found this fun and cute, dealt with some important topics in a way that was hopeful.

Dark Rise (C.S. Pacat) - First of a series (trilogy I assume, aren't most of them trilogies?). 19th century London except an ancient evil king is rising and an ancient order of knights (sorry, stewards) is sworn to protect the world. Some kids with ~destiny~ and also magical powers get caught up in the whole thing and no one is quite what they seem. Okay, listen, I started drafting this review paragraph when I was about halfway through the book and at that point I wasn't super impressed. But then, the last third of it dropped a number of plot twists I legit had not seem coming (I half guessed like one) and it turns out that the story I thought I was reading was a cover for something much more interesting and darker. And the same happened to several of the relationships. Like, I'm not just saying this because of the magical collar of obedience and the extremely strong d/s vibes that pushed to the surface but, well, those things did not hurt. I do, however, have one petty complaint to get out of the way: The author has a weird habit of constantly reminding the reader of what has happened or been said by repeating key phrases in italics. And I get it, it's a 'dramatic emphasis' technique we've all used (like, literally used it myself in a fic recently) but when you do it several times in every chapter it gets, frankly, annoying. Yes, this is a YA book but unless your target audience is teenagers with short-term memory loss, this is excessive. Anyway, regardless of my feelings that some more editing of things like that would've improved the style, I absolutely will be checking out the rest of the story.

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Firstly, I am verklempt over the lovely comments on my Holiday Meme tread. I also definitely know who some of the people responsible but to protect them from having to openly discuss icky feelings I'm going to pretend I don't.

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Secondly, after at least a couple of years of not having energy for these things, I have signed up for fandomtrees. You can find my extensive list of fandom requests here. I honestly could have continued for much longer but had to cut it off somewhere so we have: Guardian, Guardian RPF, Harry Potter, Good Omens, BTS (sigh, I know), MCR, FOB, PATD, Start Trek AOS, Grimm, MCU and Witcher. Being multifandom is a gift and a burden.

I've strolled through the entries posted so far and identified some with tempting prompts... And have about 1k for one of them at the moment, whoo writing!  

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Thirdly...

We will be starting a read/reread of Book 1. Eye of the World on 1st of December, with initial schedule (to be adjusted if needed!) of roughly book per month. Besides that, any and all fanworks or other content relating to both the book series and the TV adaptation, are welcome on the community.

If Wheel of Time is an old friend (it was a genre staple for many of us in the comm) or a new acquaintance and you'd like some peer support in tackling the series, and opportunity to fannish chatter, gather your sword, mount your steed and ride toward tar_valon! Adventure awaits!

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( Schitt's Creek )***

( The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin )
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