Hikaru no Go

Isora Matsuri, "Secrets of the Silent Witch" (vol 1–6)
Ongoing light novel series (with a newly released anime adaptation) about a traumatized and socially anxious witch / genius mathematician who develops a method of spell-casting without ever chanting, making her one of the most powerful magicians ever. Outside she is very intimidating and heroic, and inside she's a stuttering and tearful mess. After single-handedly saving a village from a black dragon, she retreats back into the mountain but is conscripted into guarding the Second Prince. To do this she must infiltrate the academy as an ordinary student while ~*keeping the magic secret~*. As a consequence, she learns to actually care about people and gradually heal and form relationships.

Thoughts

The high school setting and very YA situations aren't really working for me (especially with our MC, Monica, being the strongest and most ingenious witch to ever witch), but the politics are surprisingly interesting! The Second Prince (and ML) Felix is a popular and charismatic figure in the academy, and unnervingly conniving. He has a retinue of very loyal but elitist young men who befriend and are changed by Monica, the only commoner in the vicinity. This positions them as the "good" guys. However, outside the school walls, the Second Prince has many detractors, including Monica's own mentor/colleague. And as Monica protects him from assassins she learns that they actually have some very good reasons for wanting to murder him and prevent his ascension.

There are also some very nice twists with the Second Prince's character, the fun one is him being the #1 Monica Everett fanboy and having genuine interest in her magical research and papers.

Elizabeth Lim, "A Forgery of Fate"

"My father used to say, 'Green is from blue, and is better than blue."

"What does that mean?"

I gave Gaari my cheekiest smile. "It means you learn to surpass your teachers."

Beauty and the Beast retelling set in a fantasy world with Chinese elements. The MC, Tru, has the gift of prophecy that manifests in art. When her father disappears, it falls upon her, the eldest daughter, to support her mother and sisters, so she turns to art forgery. The ML, Elang, is a half dragon who has lost his heart and been banished to live on land. The only way he can go back is by presenting to the Dragon King his Heavenly Match, so naturally this means a contract marriage storyline. There's also something about a curse but to be honest this seemed written to adhere to the Disney!Beauty & the Beast vibes more than anything, I really did not understand what was going on there lol.

Thoughts

I really enjoyed the magic and underwater setting and integration of Chinese culture/lore/tropes/food... not so much the obsession with noodles, because I often think "obsessed with a type of food" is used as a replacement for personality. In this case, the noodle conversations do have narrative relevance, it's just that I was not Feeling the Love. I also wasn't really feeling the themes of regionalism and discrimination, but those parts were pretty secondary anyway.

The first 70% was a 4/5 read for me, then got downgraded to 3/5 because the book lacked the narrative and romantic tension to pull off the last act. I simply didn’t feel anything or understand any of the characters. In fact, the only time I felt any real stakes in the story was at the beginning, when 1) Tru's mom had accrued a large gambling debt that Tru had to pay off urgently and 2) Tru had to guess (by painting) a mahjong tile correctly in a do-or-die moment. Everything after that felt only superficially dangerous. There's all this talk of the Dragon King having ~eyes and ears everywhere~ in their kingdom, and even of there being a spy within Elang's palace, but Elang and Tru continue to have conversations about their fake marriage + secret plan in a normal fashion. There isn't any real fear of being discovered, so the secrecy thing feels like a sham.

I did really like Tru's art powers. They never actually help her or give her a buff—it's really just prophecy with art as its medium. Nonetheless they're what Elang needs to execute his mysterious plan and the reveal for what that exactly was was very satisfying.

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MISC:

Found out from Twitter that Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway was originally written by Avril Lavigne and that an Avril Lavigne version was released a few years ago (for a 20th anniversary album?), There's a neat animated lyric video that features old clips and photos of her:

CW: Flashing / glitch effects

Relatedly, here's her singing Complicated for The First Take:

1. What were some of the smells and tastes of your childhood?

This question unlocked something inside me

General scents: Mosquito coils; the colorful chemical paste that you'd smear on a little stick and blow up into a plastic balloon; the smoke from the (now discontinued) toy revolvers that you "reloaded" with red plastic bullet rings; White Flower oil

Star margarine

Hometown dimsum, my beloved for life.

Hometown "street" food: grilled scallops, grilled pork, lemongrass-stuffed native chicken, puso (rice boiled in pouch of woven leaves). And ngohiong, a five-spice-based ('ngohiong' is just 五香) spring roll that never grew on me but is everywhereeeee in my hometown.

Mango tarts, which I just realized that I haven't seen in a decade, at least not in the exact way I remember. It's the kind that has a round shape, a crimped crust, a custard base, a layer of mango slices and a layer of colorless gelatin (I forget in what order), and they'd be sold in solo sizes.

Eucalyptus leaves, dampened to release a minty scent and cooling sensation (we had a tree).

Santol (cotton fruit) - I haven't had one since we moved to the capital. I only liked the pulp around the seeds anyway lol, I haaaated having to eat the sour outer rind to get to the sweet cottony center.

Kamunggay (moringa). My mom hasn't cooked with these since we moved to the capital. I guess because they're not leaves that are worth spending money on (we used to have a tree).

The whole sensory experience of inasal (roasted suckling pig, more commonly known as lechon outside my hometown) we'd have at Christmas/New Year parties. The meat was soft, succulent, and salty, the way only my hometown can do it. The skin was a glossy, deep red shell. It made a satisfying crackle when you broke off pieces with your fingers and shattered them with your teeth, a full ASMR experience. I am not a lechon enjoyer (I prefer them in leftover form), but adults were always putting cuts of it on my plate and telling me to tryyyy the skinnnnn because it was apparently just That Important to them. Is it any wonder that those relatives developed cholesterol and blood sugar issues over years.....

2. What did you have as a child that you do not think children today have?
Winamp skins and piracy skills!

3. What elementary grade was your favorite?
None, elementary and high school are a blur to me.

4. What summer do you remember the best as a child?
The summer my parents shipped my brother and me to different households in my hometown. During that period, I watched Prince of Tennis, got bundled into an overnight ferry for a beach trip (snorkeling) with my cousins' cousins (my relatives had plans and couldn't just leave me behind), and got yelled at and insulted a lot by my aunt who hated girls bc of generational trauma.

5. What one piece of advice would you give to your younger self, and at what age?
IDK, I guess do more extracurriculars, learn to network, and hang out/do things with other people more? But probably more extracurriculars, I didn't really have any.