Ultxian - Riya

Fun, someone said the words “prior authorizations” around me and now I’m pissed off at 730am on my day off. I go off on this rant all the time. ALL THE TIME.

hello!! do you have any book recs for historical fiction/ non- fiction or something similar to the palace of illusions? thank you!!

A short list because I'm not well:

Song of Draupadi by Ira Mukhoty

Indian mythology retelling

Mahabharat from Draupadi's POV

Descriptive prose and lush worldbuilding

Everything Mukhoty writes about Indian women is readable

Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

Egyptian history retelling

Nefertiti's reign from her sister's POV

Morally grey central characters

The writing style is so descriptive and nice

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan

Queer Chinese history + fantasy retelling

Breathtaking, immersive worldbuilding

Wlw and mlm hostility; two evil non binary leads

Mulan but with a sapphic romance

The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Indian mythology retelling

Ramayan from Sita's POV

Exploration of duty vs desire

Not as good as The Palace of Illusions, but still worth a read

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Indian inspired fantasy

Sapphic romance between central characters

Cool magical systems

Morally grey female lead

Circe by Madeline Miller

Greek mythology retelling

Morally grey female lead, lyrical prose

Same author as The Song of Achilles

I have heard divisive stuff about it tbh

Sati Series by Koral Dasgupta

Indian mythology retelling

Feminist historization of female figures from Indian myth

Includes Ahalya and Kunti so far

I hope you find something to your liking from this list!

Kofi: papenathys

Lan ‘I don’t touch people’ Wangji

concept: two indian high school girls fall in love, desi dark academia style. imagine them carefully braiding each other’s hair in the school restroom while discussing mughal history. sneaking an old ipod to school and listening to sufi and carnatic music together on the weary bus ride back home. doing everything together, they’re as inseparable as two girl best friends can get. going to book stores or libraries on weekends and spending hours reading sitting next to each other, and then having an intense discussion over chai and vada pav at a small stand. coming back from coaching classes in the evenings, holding hands as their jhumkas twinkle under the streetlights. texting each other at 5 in the morning while stuck on homework. holding hands, hugging ten times a day and cheek kisses are normal, and they never realize their feelings for each other until an accidental forehead touch in a doorway, glancing at each other’s lips and breathing heavily. not choosing to date for fear of ruining their academic careers and remaining best friends. finally getting together when by a stroke of good luck, they both make it to their common dream college and have a celebratory kiss when one goes to the others house to break the good news in person. just, two desi girls falling in love; enamored by the world around them, its knowledge and each other.

Do you have someone in your heart?

Coming from a country with very heavily censored literature and media, and therefore has to resort to media from other regions for some form of representation and validity, I have to say it’s genuinely upsetting how some non-Chinese danmei/bl show fans are reacting to the news about censorship.

If your entire conversation about censorship in C media is centered around your inability to read your favorite book or your favorite donghua ship not holding hands for as long as you want, then honestly you are an entitled person who should consider keeping your opinions to yourself. By making this conversation about games, danmei and donghua and/or live action adaptations of those novel you are opting to shift focus from queer kids who actually live in China, now losing a form of representation and maybe being pushed further back into the closet or even lgbtq+ activists whose projects might lose traction and resources due to the heavy censorship.

You can be upset about your games, books and shows, this is not saying that it’s a bad thing. But to make a nation wide attempt at silencing queer voices about a couple of web novels and TV shows is to completely undermine the true scale of censorship laws and the effect it will have on the country’s queer community.

watching word of honor was fun because i knew all the spoilers but none of the actual plot. yes i know everyone who dies in the penultimate episode. what’s a glazed armour. yes i have seen 30 different gifsets of every wenzhou scene including the epilogue. who’s zhao jing

I don't want to hurt you

or anybody,

so please forget about me.

Just try.

Find yourself a better friend.

I lost every friendship I ever had and it still hurts.

1. Finneas O’Connell / 2. Ocean Vuong / 3. adampvrrish / 4. Otessa Moshfegh / 5. Fairycosmos / 6. Richard Siken / 7. frenchtoastlesbian