#this is the era of me finishing all of those books i bought i just know it

[vanesa]

Started reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, which seems to be obligatory reading for any biologist.

I love how, as it is a book first published in 1976 in a field that has rapidly evolved since then, it starts with many forwards and comes with footnotes addressing the many criticisms and new research that has come since. I feel as if I were reading a Tumblr post with repeated clarifications from bad faith readings, or a list of terms and conditions. Science is self-correcting and humans are subjective.

One of the many notes he addresses is the title itself. While the word "selfish" has too many negative connotations, I would argue the grief over people only reading the title/first chapter and misunderstandings and further clarifications needed is worth it for the punchier title. I think most biologist students understand selfish to mean self-perpetuating. He makes a good argument regardless.

There are some publications that came out after that have since corrected/clarified many of the points in the book, so I need to read those too.

#personal #this is the era of me finishing all of those books i bought i just know it #and before anyone comments: #YES I know Richard Dawkins is a cringe atheist #richard 'i dont need to read the quaran to criticize it' dawkins #and I KNOW the 'We Are All Africans' meme shirt #(even though the idea of all humans originating in Africa has had some substantial challenges recently) #i really hope people don't think of me as someone who doesn't critically examine what she reads and who wrote jt #i passed *IB English* okay i have credentials

[alonetimelover]

pairing: Harry Styles x book writer!reader

fc: Saoirse Ronan

summary: YN just released her debut book, and it became the hot topic online. It might have something to do with certain someone being spotted buying it.

a/n: comments to all those posts are long, because i wanted to somehow incorporate the plot of the book that book writer!reader wrote!

masterlist taglist

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yourinstagram

liked by fallinloveinbooks, user49 and 89 202 others

yourinstagram Those are the notebooks in which I wrote my little baby. I can't believe I am typing this, but 'Silver Lining' is out !!! You can buy it at all independent London bookstores. I can't wait for your reviews. I'll read them all.

view all 8 201 comments

yourbestfriend MY BEST FRIEND IS AN AUTHOR !!! JANE AUSTEN WHO ???

⤷ yourinstagram do not disrespect the legend here

fallinloveinbooks OMG i've been following you since that one post about understanding fantasy world and being allowed to incorporate real world in it! i can't wait to read it, im going to the store right now!

⤷ yourinstagram YOU. ARE. THE. SWEETEST. and i remember you from that post and all that came after. I LOVE YOU and will wait for your words!

user92 what is the genre of the book?

⤷ yourinstagram it's fantasy! but there are a few subgenres. i'd say romance and mystery play a huge role in this book, too!

user109 will it be available online? im from us and would love to read your book!

⤷ yourinstagram unfortunately, not in a foreseeable future

⤷ user109 oh no, why??

⤷ yourinstagram being completely transparent, i released this book using my own money- no publishing house involved - because no one was really interested in it. what is in the stores is the printing i was able to afford. hopefully, they will sell and i'll be able to print more editions.

⤷ user102 im crossing my fingers for you

hArrysbtch i was looking for some new fantasy books, you are sent from heaven

⤷ yourinstagram hope you like it, angel

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harryupdates

liked by hArrysbtch, yourbestfriend and 80 393 others

harryupdates HARRY outside of the independent bookstore in London today! EDIT: because all of you are asking, he apparently bought 'Silver Lining' by YN YSN !

view all 2 202 comments

hArrysbtch I've just finished that book and OMG OMG OMG, i don't know what to tell you, but he's getting into something so beautiful so structured so sad, i can't say enough.

⤷ harrysmoustache so it's worth it?

⤷ hArrysbtch YES. YES. YES. absolutely. from the first page to the last, it just consumes you. yn did such a good job, and it's her first book ever!

⤷ harrysmoustache oh, i can't find it online

⤷ hArrysbtch it's only at independent bookstores in London. no publishing house was involved, she printed all the copies available with her own money. i can buy it for you and send it?

⤷ harrysmoustache i DMed you!

stylesbabie harry in his book girl era

harrysmylife he is back and he is reading, he's just like me

user102 there's no way he has that book and i don't

fallinloveinbooks I've read it, and I loved it. I hated it because of how much it made me cry. Harry, you're in for a ride a wild one with all the *wink*wink* scenes and the most heartbreaking chapters of literature I've ever come upon

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yourinstagram

liked by harrystyles, yourbestfriend and 173 302 others

yourinstagram I cannot express how thankful I am for you and your love for my book. Unfortunately, for now, there are no copies available. But im trying to make it work. But maybe it wasn't meant to be...

view all 10 202 comments

yourbestfriend that's a bestseller book if you ask me

⤷ yourinstagram you are the love of my life

hArrysbtch not you using the last line of the book, like it didn't tear my heart open

hArrysbtch thank god it's already on my bookshelf, happy that it broke my heart and made me horny

⤷ yourinstagram Those were the emotions I wanted people to feel!

harrysmoustache my copy is flying to me, and I can't wait to read it

⤷ yourinstagram ill be waiting for your review!

user102 read, loved, cried and read again

⤷ yourinstagram two times??? i could smother you in kisses

⤷ user102 i wouldn’t mind that

user292 can't explain how unique and original it is

⤷ yourinstagram ❤️

user939 not harry lurking in the likes

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harryupdates

liked by hArrysbtch, harrysmoustache and 128 402 others

harryupdates HARRY and writer YN YSN out and about in London today!

view all 6 080 comments

hArrysbtch Alexa play that should be me by Justin Bieber

hArrysbtch she's mine harry, fuck off

hArrysbtch what is it that whenever I find someone to obsess over they become somehow connected to harry

hArrysbtch but, i smell couple material !!!

harrysmoustache he's gonna be the inspiration spark

⤷ hArrysbtch don't even start! i read silver lining with Harry in mind as one of the main characters

⤷ harrysmoustache as Emrys, right?

⤷ hArrysbtch yes! my protective and sexy bookboyfriend

⤷ user102 I see, we support complicated men here, i love it

stylesbabie they look so good together

⤷ user02 their backs are towards the camera...

⤷ stylesbabie shhh

harrysmylife I love her style !!!!

user402 she's getting so much attention from it. how did she manage this pr?

⤷ hArrysbtch pr???

⤷ user402 don't tell me it doesn't look like one?

⤷ hArrysbtch yeah, I forgot. every woman harry is seen with is just pr or the one to hate. of course. tpwk does not include woman harry is involved with?

⤷ harrysmoustache burnt!!!

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bloomsbury

liked by yourinstagram, yourbestfriend, harrystyles and 40 492 others

bloomsbury Our newest pea in the Bloomsbury pod is the sweetest, London based, young author who has just published her debut novel. We are here to help and tell you that 'Silver Lining' is coming to all bookstores in the world and to online shopping as well on the 15th of November. To feel whole again.

view all 2 202 comments

yourinstagram I LOVE MY NEW POD

yourbestfriend DONT FORGET ABOUT ME WHEN YOU BECOME FAMOUS

⤷ yourinstagram NEVER

harrystyles Congratulations, YN ❤️

⤷ yourinstagram well, thank you, harry

hArrysbtch my favourite author is getting famous!!!

fallinloveinbooks I CANT BELIEVE IT !!! congrats, yn!!

⤷ yourinstagram thank you, sweets!

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fallinloveinbooks

liked by hArrysbtch, harrysmoustache and 6 492 others

fallinloveinbooks I'm attending YN's 'meet the writer' thingy in London and I cannot express how much appreciation I have for her. She thought every little detail in 'Silver Lining' through to make the book perfect. An icon!

view all 211 comments

hArrysbtch I am here too! And I love her so much!

harrysmoustache you need to either film some moments or just post-stream it for us!

stylesbabie she looks so beautiful

user102 I am here as well! we need to meet up!

⤷ hArrysbtch im in the second row!

⤷ user102 are you the one with a pixie cut?

⤷ hArrysbtch Yes, that's me!

⤷ fallinloveinbooks I think im sitting next to you, hArrysbtch

user42 come on guys, let us now what are the questions and answers!

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dailymail

liked by hArrysbtch, user102 and 103 393 others

dailymail NEW COUPLE ALERT? Harry Styles and newly established writer YN YSN were seen leaving the same restaurant (Styles a few moments after YSN). YN independently published her debut novel just two months ago and then signed a contract with Bloomsbury publishing house after Harry had been seen buying her book. For more photos and information, visit the link in our bio!

view all 19 302 comments

user102 not you making harry the only reason she got the contract

hArrysbtch she got a contract because of the interest her book sparked online, not harry

harrysmoustache i'll just leave it here but literally Neil Gaiman praised this book online

user402 oh yes, when the privilege is striking

user99 you just cannot stop taking photos of people in their free time, invading their privacy, can you?

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yourinstagram

liked by harrystyles, yourbestfriend and 201 392 others

yourinstagram Somethin' is cookin'. And that's the audiobook of "Silver Lining" voiced by me! It will be available on 23rd of December as podcast episodes on Spotify for more of you to enjoy! Merry early Christmas!

PS: there may or may not be someone else to accord their voice to Emrys

view all 19 292 comments

yourbestfriend i could be Rhiannon

⤷ yourinstagram you were laughing your ass off after two lines

⤷ yourbestfriend not my fault that Rhiannon is the comedy queen

harrystyles 📖🎤

hArrysbtch NO WAY! i adore your voice and now i'm gonna picture you as Rhiannon - this book just became even better (it already was perfect, i don't how you're doing it"

⤷ yourinstagram hopefully, i won't end up as her

fallinloveinbooks my dream came true. i usually have such a hard time reading that audiobooks are the only option. now i'm going to listen to my favourite chapter over and over again

⤷ yourinstagram which ones are your favourite?

⤷ fallinloveinbooks definitely 6, 15, 24, 33 and 42

⤷ hArrysbtch all the chapters that depicts love - i see you

⤷ fallinloveinbooks yes! the thing is that number 6 refers to love and all those chapter number's are either 6 or add up to 6

hArrysbtch wait wait wait, i've just realised. what if harry is voicing Emrys????

⤷ harrysmoustache don't give me hope

⤷ fallinloveinbooks that would be perfect

⤷ user102 i'm not ready to listen to chapter 24 and 33 with him voicing it

⤷ hArrysbtch i will die, literally. those scenes are intense!

user102 she just wants people to be able to read the book and not care about paying bundle and having shitty quality. i love her.

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harrysupdates

liked by hArrysbtch, fallinloveinbooks and 109 393 others

harryupdates HARRY and YN at the market in Clonakilty, Ireland!

view all 6 001 comments

hArrysbtch someone tell me is that her home town?

⤷ fallinloveinbooks yes, it is! her parents still live there!

⤷ hArrysbtch meeting parents? oh god, they are serious serious

fallinloveinbooks they live that small town romance book lives

⤷ user102 so true! i need her to write something like this!

⤷ hArrysbtch i would eat it up

stylesbabie Niall is proud right now

harrysmylife i can't express how much i love domestic harry

user20 she started the thunder online after *possibly* announcing that harry will voice Emrys and decided to step away from socials. i love her. i love her. i love her.

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irishharry

liked by harryupdates, hArrysbtch and 23 403 others

irishharry How thin are the chances to meet Harry in a small Irish town? Very thin. But not thin enough to be impossible. I MET HARRY FREAKING STYLES AND THE LEGEND HERSELF YN YSN !!!

view all 2 022 comments

hArrysbtch they look so cosy... i want what they have

⤷ fallinloveinbooks a man?

⤷ hArrrysbtch yuck, i only like fictional men + harry

harrysmoustache this ken's job is walk

harryupdates this is very aestheticly pleasing photo

stylesbabie small town!harry is my favourite

user102 hopefully the inspiration is overflowing because i'm reading silver lining for the third time

⤷ hArrysbtch are you okay???

⤷ user102 nope. i just love torturing myself

fallinloveinbooks the matching coats...

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yourinstagram

liked by harrystyles, yourbestfriend and 401 100 others

yourinstagram my love in your heart...

view all 14 292 comments

yourbestfriend answer my calls, yn !!!

⤷ yourinstagram i won't tell you

harrystyles ...my heart in your palm

hArrysbtch I LOVE THE SOFT LAUNCH

hArrysbtch PARENTS

harrysmoustache i love how we all know that this is harry but at the same time it doesn't have to be

⤷ hArrysbtch it better be! this post just cured all my mental problems

fallinloveinbooks the caption... is it the title?

⤷ user102 look at harry's comment, it might be a main thing in her next novel/short story collection

⤷ hArrysbtch the inspiration sparked and inspiration was harry. that's it. when it's published i can die happily

⤷ user102 decide, that or harry voicing Emrys

⤷ hArrybtch im chronically online, don't require any consistency from me

harryupdates vacation in a small irish town birthed some masterpiece, i just know it

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a/n: i have part 2 made in my mind already. do we want more of them?

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles x you #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles instagram #harry styles fake ig #harry styles fluff #book writer!reader

[masonhawth0rne]

What I read in October

Hoo boy, I sure did forget to post this earlier, didn't I!

Honestly I've been so busy so far this month that I just didn't even think of it. Also, this month is sort of evaporating. Before you ask, no I have written nothing at all for the not-NaNo that I was planning to attempt. But I did come up with another great idea for something that I'll probably start and not finish, so you can't say I've done nothing!

Anyway, on to the list:

Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Hailey Piper ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ghost Bird, Lisa Fuller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Forest of Stolen Girls, June Hur ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Liar's Dice, Jeannie Lin ⭐️

Straya, Anthony O'Connor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Toxic, Dan Kaszeta (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Illuminae, Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Penhallow, Georgette Heyer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐��⭐️

The Myth of the Self Made Man, Ruben Reyes Jr (ss) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Call, Christian White & Summer De Roche ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Death of the Necromancer, Martha Wells ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cretins, Thomas Ha (ss) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Kill Your Brother, Jack Heath ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Valley of Terror, Zhou Haohui, tr. Bonnie Huie ⭐️⭐️

The Curse of the Burdens, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️

Amazons, Adrienne Mayor (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dead Mountain, Donnie Eichar (nf) ⭐️⭐️

Family Business, Jonathan Sims ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In the House of Aryaman A Lonely Signal Burns, Elizabeth Bear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Blessing of Unicorns, Elizabeth Bear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

METAtropolis Anthology ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Plan for Chaos, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Fatal Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Outward Urge, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️

King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard DNF

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tr. David Ross (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a bit of a mixed bunch!

At the end of September I went to a writer's conference, where Lisa Fuller and Amie Kaufman were guests of honour. I was a bit annoyed at myself because I had bought Ghost Bird the week before, not realising that she was on the program, so I had the book the whole time but hadn't yet read it! Oh well, better late than never.

Ghost Bird was a solid spooky read, dealing with family history and tensions, small town disturbances, and the violent inheritances of colonialism and racism in Australia. I originally bought it because it was on a list of books to read if you enjoyed Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, which I did.

Illuminae was one that I had heard @slushrottweiler mention several times, but I'd never gotten around to it (YA, not my most favourite! Epistolary, not my most favourite!). But after the conference I figured I'd check it out, and I'm glad I did. While I wouldn't say that it's my favourite thing ever, it was a solid scifi story, with an interesting form and style, and I'll probably check out the sequels eventually.

Straya by Anthony O'Connor was the other book on this list that I picked up after the conference. Kind of a goofy action romp through post-apocalyptic Sydney, I was expecting to be a kind of brain-off funtime read (and it is! Don't get me wrong!) but it also had a lot of very clever little twists and turns that kept it really engaging. Also a refreshing take on the 'love interest' character, being that she's asexual, and when the protagonist confesses his feelings for her she says well... that's sweet and all, but I don't do that. Can we still be friends? And then they are still friends! A lot of the goofyness of this book is held up by a backbone of sincerity which is really nice, too. In all, a fun read.

Also revisited some faves this month, re-read Penhallow for my book club, and I have to say, it is one of those books which just gets more complex with each rereading. It's up there with Rebecca as some of my most books of all time.

There's one big fat DNF on the list this month, King Solomon's Mine, which through a combination of Victorian era racism, and very poor audio quality was pretty much unlistenable, and I don't think I'll be bothered trying to find a better recording.

And that's that!

nf= non fiction

ss= short story

stars awarded at my whim

#what i read

[gffa]

I finished The Princess and the Scoundrel and I had a good time with it!  I have minor quibbles in the form of that Han’s chapters were far less interesting to me than Leia’s chapters, which felt like they had some real bite to them in moments, as well as I love Han/Leia as a couple but I didn’t always feel super engaged with the romance parts of the books, and I thought the ending was fluffier than the book’s tone indicated up to that point. Much of that is personal preference, I came to this book for Leia’s chapters, of course those are the ones I was interested in and were my favorites.  I genuinely enjoyed the moments where the book let her have complicated feelings and viewed the galaxy as complicated people, especially when it (admittedly very lightly) touched on the people who would have supported either side who won, either the Rebellion or the Empire, and why many people were caught in the crosshair of that fight, without deriding that the fight was necessary. I wish there had been more connection to Luke and Vader, that she would be reeling in the wake of those revelations, but her thoughts on Bail and Breha, the way she carries Alderaan in her heart with her, the moments we do get of her bio-family, all of what was there worked really well for me. Yeah, the tie-in stuff with the cruise experience was eyeroll-worthy, but the book did what it could with the concept, including nods towards that this isn’t just “oh, hey, a fun vacation for the characters!” but that there’s in-universe promotional and political reasons for it.  The choice the author makes, that this isn’t what they would have chosen for themselves, this Disney Experience Cruiseline, but that they’re doing so to promote the idea that such a public figure is in a secure enough place with the New Rebellion that she can go take a vacation, that they’re promoting economic ventures that aren’t dependent on the Empire anymore, that deliberate calculation walked the line between “necessary Disney merch promotion” and “solid in-universe reason for doing this” that I bought it. A lot will depend on what you’re looking to get out of a Disney-era book, but I genuinely enjoyed this one, I thought the author did a great job of working within the confines of this type of book, and there are some real banger moments that I will scream about in a series of book blogging posts.  That’s all I ask!

#leia organa #novels #book recs #meta

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

"About the Blogger" Meme

@ambeauty thanks for tagging me, love 💕

Star Sign(s): All I know is that it's Pisces. What does that mean really? No clue, never checked.

Favorite holidays: Halloween, even though it's not that wildly celebrated where I’m from, barely at all. But I love watching the craze about it online and participate in online celebrations. Other than that, Christmas, because of food and family.

Last meal: one of my favorite traditional Polish dishes - bigos

Current Favorite Musician: Does Rachel Zegler count? Because I am obsessed with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Soundtrack

Last Music Listened To: Marjorie by Taylor Swift and some other Evermore tracks for Evermore’s and Taylor's birthday (Dec 11th and 13th)

Last Movie Watched: in theaters - Renaissance: a film by Beyonce! Blew my mind! And at home it was my beloved Prospect - a watch party + live reaction (screaming about Cee and Ezra) with my friends the Bees on Discord. As Ezra would say, “This is so exciting!”

Last TV Show Watched: I am making my way through a Supernatural rewatch, finished 7x05 last night. I’m excited to finally be on S7 because S7 introduces my favorite female character ever, Charlie Bradbury!

Last Book/Fic Finished: Book - The Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo (right before S&B was c*nceled, not fuckin fair), and Fic - “The Stag” by AFireInTheAttic about Katniss and Haymitch going hunting because I am in my Hunger Games Renaissance era and PapaHaymitch feels are roaming free

Last Book/Fic abandoned: I bought the entire The Witcher series just to struggle through the first book 🫣 the story is good but the way it's written, my god. Why do our Polish writers have to make everything so difficult? All the fat jokes and sexist jokes and misogyny, you can tell these books were written by an old grumpy douchebag. As for fics, I had to drop out of some Katniss and Haymitch fics because they had shippy undertones and weren't tagged right (please people tag your fics appropriately when it comes to relationships, I am begging on my knees)

Currently reading: Book - Percy Jackson and The Chalice of The Gods by Rick Riordan, Fic - “After All We've Been Through” by TheFelineQueen96 aka my darling @ellies-little-gun, an incredible Joel and Ellie story

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation: spinal taps and bone marrow biopsy for my Titanstober fic I am flesh, bones... I am skin, soul… I needed to learn about this to figure out the balance between medical accuracy and using these procedures in unethical ways/as forms of torture, as I’ve seen done on some TV shows in the past, like The 100. I even rewatched those scenes for inspiration

Favorite Online Fandom Memory: as my bestie mentioned before me, definitely the day we all lost it over Brenton's birthday post dedicated to Anna. I had my phone in my hand when that notification appeared and I nearly dropped it, that's how bad I was shaking.

Favorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence: probably The Magicians for me. I wasn't active in that fandom, only a little towards the end of the show, but I loved it so much and it has two very strong platonic pairs that I was absolutely obsessed with, Quentin & Julia and Margo & Eliot, and I kind of wish I could write for them. Maybe after a rewatch though 👀

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did: Let me use this part for advertising and say PROSPECT!!! WE ARE SMALL BUT MIGHTY, ALL 5 OF US! Jk there's a bit more of us, but not by much and the movie is incredible. So go watch Prospect everyone!!! Come lose your mind with us over Cee and Ezra!!!

Tempting Project You're Trying to Rein In/Don't Have Time For: My brain is flooded at the moment with Katniss and Haymitch, I already cave in and wrote one fic even though I am officially on a break till January. I want to write more for them and definitely will, but I need to go back to my two ongoing Titans projects. Only my love for writing Titans is currently the size of a dying candle flame and I am trying to stoke that fire up (rereading my own fic to get back to the story) and failing (it's not working, I got nothing)

No pressure tags for the besties @undertheknightwing @legendsofentity @skoulsons @ellies-little-gun @sotvtaughtmehowtofeel @dilf-din

#tag game #dc titans #prospect #prospect 2018 #the magicians

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

So I did something out of character. Okay, a couple things.

I’d just finished reading to Mom** and saw that it was 15 minutes until the new Doctor Who would go out in real time on Disney Plus.

And my fangirl instinct kicked in. For only the third time since I first saw Doctor Who in (I think) 1981 I had a chance to watch an episode as it premiered. ***

Oh I was weak! LOL

I’ve sprung for Disney+. Yes, broke me paying for a streaming service.

The cheapest version. Of course, this means for the first time ever I’d be watching Doctor Who with commercials.

I never sit around the house during the day. This is especially with so few hours of daylight this time of year. I never watch anything until after dark. It feels almost sinful to do anything so “lazy”.

Yet there I was, after a frantic flurry of activity and router warfare, at 1:30pm watching Doctor Who!

Alright, actually I was standing in the kitchen. Does standing mitigate the sense of being lazy??

I went into it skeptical, what with my dislike of bringing back a previous show runner AND Doctor in a show I prefer to move forward****. Sure, It was going do be inspired by a comic story I read, and adored, as a kid.***** And there would be Donna, my favorite new series companion. But after a couple of years of repeated disappointment that had turned into the serious worry that I was falling out of love with the show…well, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

I LOVED it.

I won’t spoil anything. I also won’t say I didn’t have any quibbles. But it was like a breath of fresh air after being locked in a trunk for a few years****** (what? Hasn’t everyone been locked in a trunk on occasion?)

Basically, it felt like Doctor Who again. And you know what? I still love the show!!

I guess that’s why I loved the episode. It’s less anything exceptional about the episode (which, frankly, I may later call “good”), more it reminded me what it feels like to love Doctor Who.

So WOO-HOO! ( er…WOO-WHO?) I didn’t waste my money or time after all!

**Over the phone. I bought my first book in ages, simply because it was Terry Pratchett Mom had never read, and then read it to her over the phone. It would have been criminal to let her having read everything be broken by a publication of “lost stories”. Turns out she enjoyed it so much she wants me to keep reading to her. I may be spending a couple hours a day reading all those Terry Pratchett books I haven’t read myself.

*** The other two were the 20th anniversary special in 1983, that for some reason we in the US got early, and the special that aired at Easter in, geez, was 2009, when my parents and I were in London.

****Especially since I dislike Rose bloody Tyler so much that I am kinda scared they will bring that arch enemy of my fandom back. Again.

*****Reprinted oodles of times, so I am hardly the only one to find it memorable, or discover it after it’s original publication.

******I don’t want you to think I just hated the previous Doctor. I didn’t. There was some good stuff in that era, but damn, that overall writing was painful. I feel a bit about her time like I did Colin Baker’s era when I was a kid, a good Doctor saddled with too many bad stories. Both were frustrating.

#television #doctor who #the star beast

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I mentioned recently that I think it would be cool to see John Robins on Taskmaster, because among other things, we haven’t had enough of the properly self-loathing comedians on there. By coincidence, today I was reading something on a different site that discussed potential future Taskmaster contestants, and I saw something that made 100% sure I want him on there. It was someone saying his pedantry and competitiveness might annoy everyone, and someone else saying he would definitely ruin the show, with his tendency to not let a single thing go, and be too serious about it.

This reminds me of when I was trying to decide whether to buy Jon Richardson’s book. My favourite version of Jon Richardson is one of my favourite versions of any comedian in the world, I absolutely love him. That would be radio show-era version, the 8 Out of 10 Cats version, the first few years of Catsdown version. Since then, he’s been steadily watered down. It’s not been all bad, parts of Ultimate Worrier were good. But that’s not the Jon Richardson I loved in earlier years.

His book was published in 2011, which is definitely a Jon Richardson era I liked. But its title and cover and descriptions made me hesitate. All those things made it look like something that packaged Jon Richardson’s neuroses into this palpable thing that they’ve become now. I didn’t want to read that. I didn’t want to read Jon Richardson write a guide for how to date while being vaguely quirky.

To decide whether to buy it, I looked at the 1-star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. That’s what made me really decide to buy it. All the reviews that said things along the lines of: “Well, I find him funny on panel shows, so I thought this would be like that. But it’s not like that! It’s dark and miserable and depressing!” I think the review that made me decide for sure I wanted to buy it was:

I was pretty disappointed by this book - if this is how Jon lives his life then he really needs therapy. There are only so many times that you can read about how this might go wrong and that might not go so well. I finally finished the book but it was hard going. I did not really find anything about it amusing - more of an insight into how his “perfectionism” takes over his life and the trouble it can get him into. I had read the reviews prior to purchasing - however I thought that, as I enjoy his dry wit on TV, it might be OK. His dry wit comes through but just makes him appear to be a thoroughly irritating person. Not for me but others might enjoy it more. 

Great. That is what I want out of a Jon Richardson book. And I bought it, and that is exactly what I got. Honestly, I’m surprised the thing got published. It was a totally undiluted bit of Jon Richardson’s most fucked up era, absolutely nothing palpable in that. No perfectly pressed and buttoned cardigans in that, just stories about genuinely uncomfortable things that came from getting unreasonably angry about everything that goes wrong.

I’ve recently heard John Robins’ stand-up shows from 2014, 2015, 2016, and the big award winning Darkness of Robins one from 2018. I really liked all of them, especially that last one (understandably, I think, that’s why it won the awards). This makes me think I could maybe really love his radio work with Ellis James, but the problem with that is my brain has difficulty getting into a bit of something but not starting from the beginning and hearing/seeing/reading all of it, and I’m pretty sure there are about 15,000 hours of Ellis James and John Robins on the radio. So John Robins is a dangerous entity for me, I really like him but if I get too into him it could lead to me losing 15,000 hours of my life.

However, I somewhat recently read a negative opinion on his stand-up. Someone who said they liked him on the radio, where he seemed like a nice and upbeat guy, so they checked out his stand-up, and were disappointed that that was quite a bit darker and less nice than his radio stuff. That comment made me think I’d probably still enjoy his radio shows, but I’m not missing out on the best parts of him by not getting into that.

Sometimes, on the Taskmaster podcast, Ed Gamble will make jokes about how his own hyper-competitive approach to the show annoyed people. And I’ll think, “Yeah, okay, it’s a bit weird when comedians do this sort of thing, but I know it’s common. When they take something about themselves that’s obviously beloved by fans, and self-depricate about it, talk about it like it’s a bad thing. Fine, I guess Ed can do that with his competitive nature, even though he obviously knows that’s what made him one of the most entertaining contestants.”

But when I actually read things about Taskmaster, I remember that most people don’t see it that way, and Ed isn’t really off the mark by saying his intensity puts people off. Which is fine, if anyone reading this dislikes that sort of thing. Obviously we all watch this stuff for different reasons, and everyone else’s reasons are fine. I just forget sometimes that other people are seeing it so differently than I am. I tend to agree with the way I’ve heard Ed Gamble describe Taskmaster before, when he says contestants can try to win or can try to be funny, and it’s better to do the former. Because if you try hard enough to win, that will naturally come out as something funny.

Reading about people who thought Ed Gamble took things too far does also make me think… “We’re all watching this for the same reasons, right? We’re all really into Taskmaster because COVID took away our access to actual sports, and watching people get intensely and dysfunctionally competitive about this fulfills whatever void in us has been left by that? We all feel empty without watching some people tear themselves and others apart for something with arbitrarily assigned value and artificial but still powerful stakes, and we found this television show that seems to hit those points?” Yeah, apparently that’s not why everyone is into it. And that’s fine. We can all have our different reasons.

I just really want to see John Robins ruin Taskmaster with his pedantry and competitiveness that would annoy everyone, with his tendency to not let a single thing go. Come on, Alex. Cast your angry fucked up golf buddy. I didn’t get really into following comedy to see people’s palpable sides.

...I do realize this might be, like, problematic. It’s not ideal to specifically want to see comedians who will do damaging things due to some psychological problem. I’m very pleased for Jon Richardson that he got married and had a child and went to therapy and worked some stuff out, and I at times feel genuinely guilty that I preferred him before all that. Because the idea that people should suffer for art is a bad one. It’s a better world, now that Jon Richardson is happy. But I still want to see if John Robins can equal the James Acaster level of self-loathing destructive fury on Taskmaster, maybe break a camera with a golf club.

While I’m at this, I really wish Alun Cochrane hadn’t gone fucking right-wing. From the stuff I’ve heard of his before he went that way, I think he could have been one of the ones I really liked for this sort of reason. Which shows that marriage and kids don’t necessarily preclude being the kind of intensely fucked up comedian I like (meaning I don’t blame Lucy Beaumont for any dip in my love for Jon Richardson’s comedy’s quality, I blame TV executives for making him button up his cardigan so tightly that all his flaws got ironed into quirks), because Cochrane had plenty of years of being that, after getting married and before going all Comedy Unleashed. Unfortunately, I now can’t enjoy anything he’s ever done because I know where it ends up.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

So a buddy of mine bought me, unprompted, a Black Library book about the Death Korp – Krieg, I think it’s just called – and that was nice of him, and I am reading it now.

The style of the writing is, eh, adequate for me. Taste is subjective and all that, but so far it hasn’t dug its hooks in properly. But it's early days and I’m hardly an arbiter on good writing technique (mine has often been described as obtuse) so that’s not much of an issue.

What is sticking out to me is the wisdom of giving more background on Krieg. Just, as a concept.

Because the book is apparently split into two narratives. One concerns some Death Korp coming in to help some Cadians take back a hive from Orks and heretics and what have you, and the other is set in the past, prior to and during Krieg’s atomic cleansing, and centred around Colonel Jurten – the infamous dude who is responsible for said atomic cleansing.

(The main narrative is set during the Era Indomitus, also, so bleh.)

Now.

This is just personal, I know, but I always feel with things like this the less detail the better. Being aware that Krieg’s whole deal was that their ruling autocrats renounced the Imperium and there was a big ol’ civil war and five hundred years of atomic cleansing that left a formerly-nice planet a blasted wasteland and now they’re big into redeeming the sins of their forebears by martyring themselves in the nastiest places imaginable is enough.

(Also, I remember when they were just repainted Steel Legion and introduced as flavour back in during the worldwide Armageddon campaign – you’ve come a long way, baby!)

Right? So that’s what we know, with a couple extra details like about Colonel Jurten and, subsequently, all the vitae womb stuff – which I don’t mind, actually, as it’s appropriately gnarly and also does explain where a blasted wasteland gets enough bodies to throw them away so easily – and really that’s all we need to know. Personally speaking.

Getting to meet Colonel Jurten and getting to see those ruling autocrats really doesn’t add a whole lot, does it? We don’t need to see five hundred years of atomic cleansing or see the chain of events that led to it. I don’t think it adds anything, personally. It’s enough to know it happened, and enough to know what we all ended up with.

But that’s me, man, and I ain’t finished the book yet so maybe I’ll change my mind. Probably not though. I’m just leery of GW explaining too much on things that should be left spongy and amorphous.

But yeah, if you want a real nice Krieg book see if you can find Dead Men Walking, that was great. Probably not canon now, as it was pre-horrible-necron-retcon and before the Krieg got their vitae wombs too, I think, but it’s a good read.

[clockwork-reads]

Brief Book Reviews #5 (+ 2022 TBR review)

#1 Shelby Mahurin, Blood & Honey (written in September 2022)

Looks like I’m saying “fuck you” to a lot of people in books this month huh. Once again, Ms Mahurin made me hurt a lot over Louise and Reid. The mutual pining, the wedge that gets driven between them because Louise keeps secrets so Reid won’t worry so much (sadly that made it worse), just. Thanks, Ms Mahurin, I’m in pain. Seeing them make up toward the big battle at the end helped ease the ache. And then they rail each other into next week. Damn I want what they have.

The ending was fucking horrifying. Fuck you La Voisin, and fuck you Morgane. Also it was cool to do a little work and find out that Beau’s mum is Maori- at least that’s what google translate tells me from what was said in that one scene. don’t come for me. Rest in Peace Ansel, you were the real hero here and you won’t be forgotten.

also the knife throwing scene with Lou and Reid got me very hot and bothered, damn. time to get Gods & Monsters and suffer some more lol

#2 Libba Bray, Diviners

As much as I enjoy the setting of prohibition era New York, I got to halfway through the book and nothing was happening. There’s a lot of supernatural shit going on, we have Naughty John killing people in really fucked up ways, and the main characters don’t seem to be going anywhere with it, save for Evie’s uncle, and we have no idea what he’s doing in the meantime. There’s some good writing and dialogue in it, it’s just not enough to tide me over, I’m afraid. 

#3 Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse (Book 3)

I continued my foray into the Percy Jackson books in 2022, and finished Titan’s Curse. It felt good to see a book featuring my matron goddess, Artemis, being awesome, and Apollo being his delightful self- Riordan remembered that these two are thick as thieves, thankfully. And Nico, poor baby. This whole book was a lot of ouch, to be honest, though I’m sad to see Thalia leave so early, she’s pretty cool. The lady at the bookstore where I bought the box set assured me the third book was the best one, she wasn’t kidding lol. ALSO PERCY WOULD YOU JUST TELL ANNABETH YOU LOVE HER ALREADY.

#4 Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth (Book 4)

Hoo boy, this one was a doozy. It’s a bit slow-going to begin with, with all the globe trotting that gets done while the gang’s exploring the labyrinth and trying to find Ariadne’s string, and then it gets heavy as the major plot points are exposed, and then I couldn’t pull my eyes off the book. The glimpses into Deadalus’s past through Percy’s dreams are heartbreaking to say the least, but I think they were very much needed to explain why he would build the Labyrinth. And fuck you, Minos, nobody plays my baby Nico like that. I don’t care if he’s a necromancer and can probably look after himself, I will defend this boy with my life. The final battle comes in the next book, and then I hear there’s other stuff I have to read? Idk if I’ll read it. Also I’ll probably get smote for this but also fuck you Hera. Don’t fuck with Annabeth like that.

TBR Wrap-up

Total books read: 7 

I’m gonna just make a spreadsheet of the books I’m yet to read so I have a good idea of how far I am into this book-buying habit I seem to have. They’re pretty on my shelves, sure, but I don’t want to be one of those people who just have books for decoration. 

On top of that, I should be making sure I’m either reading one entire series at a time, or just one book from a series per batch (?) before I do more Brief Book Reviews. It’s kinda holding up how soon I can get to other books I want to read. the PJ books have held up my progress getting through some very interesting non-fiction books that I intend to read. 

Finally, I’m making it into a habit to have an hour a day of reading time, just so I’m off the computer and I’m not staring at a screen for ages. It’s in my bullet journal, so I won’t forget if I’m always checking.

So, let’s see what 2023 brings us.

#bookblr #brief book reviews #tbrbusterchallenge2022 #again hi i'm not dead #i'm lyz and i have a blog about books #now to make that spreadsheet #bookbanditchallenge #tbrbusterchallenge2023

[tntky]

I lost my FP

As stupid as it may sounds, I want you back. I want us back. I want to be able to pull up to your house on random Friday night and get ready to spend the whole weekend under your sheets binge watching documentaries about how random things are made and smoking way too much weed for 2 ppl. I want to get up late in the morning, put on one of your shirt and head straight to the market to buy oily snacks for breakfast. I want to go on late night drive to nowhere and listen to rap musique whose lyrics I most of the time don’t get. I want to wake up next to you snoring out loud with your mouth wide open and the aircon from last night still switched on.

But I realized that this is over. We will never get to be again us like this. This era is long time dead. You’ve got a girlfriend now. And  I don’t care about all the things that you’ve said to me, go be happy with her.

I cannot possibly spend the rest of my life chasing my FP. Ya’ll know he isn’t right for me, and I do know that too. He’s toxic. I was too at some point. And we we’re never meant to grow or last longer than this. So, I have to get things clear about the fact that there will be no coming back.

I have to stop forgiving and forgetting everything when it comes to that man. I need to have more of self-respect. Sure, this whole weekend thing sounded fun but what more? Exactly. That’s it.

Don’t forget the trauma. Don’t forget the times he didn’t commit. Don’t forget the broken promises, the dm in which he wasn’t supposed to be. The things he asked you to do. The times he would get angry over the dumbest shit. Why would you even love someone like him? You’re being delusional. Please.

It’s okay to feel like it’s going to be weird without him for now on, but it’s going to be just fine. Just like there was a before him, there will be an after. His life will go on without you and so do yours. You’re not going to regret this. You have to find out what’s up out there and the answer is simple, not him.

I know you don’t believe a word I say right now but you’re a strong girl. You’ve been through worst, and you’ll get through this as well. You don’t need a FP to know your worth. He doesn’t deserve any more tears. Let him go. This life is yours. Those dreams are yours to accomplish. Don’t rewrite your whole story based on him. Keep heading in your direction even if it means going opposite ways and never crossing path again. That’s life. There’s a time for everything and you’ve had the chance to experience this intense kind of love so get up and close the damn book now.

You don’t have to hate him. It’s okay to still feel like part of you still stick onto him or loves him. Feelings that dense won’t disappear over days. Take time to process them. Do you really wanted it to be any different? I don’t think so. It is exactly how it should be.

You deserve a guy who’ll take you on dates, open doors for you, come pick you up in front of your doorstep, gift you flowers or small things you mentioned liking, plan his weekend to come stay over, watch your type of shows on Netflix, pay for diner without asking you split the bill ! accompany you on social events that makes you nervous, read books with you, come pick you up after work to walk you back home, do random back massages even when you don’t ask for them, compliment you on your bad days, buy treats to your cat and kiss you passionately every time he gets the chance to do it, in public or not. Dance with you when there’s no music, bring you to his roof to look at the stars, won’t force you to get drunk or smoke every time you’ll finish fucking. Spend time just talking to you about the universe, on the phone or in person. Try to comb your hair or do skincare routine with you, try new baking recipe, and make a mess then clean it. Help you do your laundry or mount some furniture you just bought to freshen up the deco of your house.

You’ll get there eventually. Just hold on, as Adele would say.

#bpd vent #bpd fp #favourite person

[z0ruas]

Thinking about homeschooling again and in my case while there was physical and emotional abuse at home sometimes a lot of my neglect was educational. Main teaching parent just like didn’t teach what she didn’t remember, which ended up being math and science in middle school, which I’m sorely feeling right now. I really feel for COVID era kids struggling with video school because back in the ancient year of 2004 that was me. What she couldn’t teach she ordered DVDs about from Abeka (a publisher popular with schools attended by Fox News evangelicals’ kids lol) but barely supervised me while I watched them, like I remember being a dumb kid and distracting myself during them or working on other subjects I “liked more” (weren’t as difficult) because no one was around to notice I wasn’t retaining the 2D lecture enough. I distinctly remember going into the teachers edition of my seventh grade math book to correct my own homework and tests sometimes.

We showed up to public school for the first time (9th grade) with her made up report card full of straight A’s for me and I was like…yeah that DVD Algebra, Spanish and Earth Science are already like a dream to me…didn’t help my church and community were like sort of against me as a future woman becoming proficient in those subjects lol but yeah I’m saying all this to say that I shouldn’t feel as bad as I do for forgetting basic math sometimes despite being interested in coding for most of my life honestly. At first I just wanted to know how the Pokémon and Animal Crossing cheat codes worked, how games worked in general, how MySpace and HTML worked eventually, now I’m eating Python the way I should’ve eaten C++ seven years ago (picked because Pokémon’s coded in C lol). But as soon as I was in a real math class I found myself at a disadvantage when I got amongst my peers and realized that not having someone strict around (about school and not other arbitrary shit) was a detriment during my “middle school.” I was always in a number grade and what not because of national testing, but as far as letter grades for my individual classes? Never existed lol right now I can’t recall how we determined how I had “passed” something…perhaps finishing the textbook itself or whatever lesson plans she bought? But sometimes we didn’t…

Anyway I’m gonna keep checking in with that organization I posted on Day of the Homeschooled Child to see what I can do to prevent something like this from happening to anyone else, because the insecurity I feel to this day when doing basic math knowing some of the way I learned was recklessly self taught in a subject where rules and order really fucking matter 😂 like I love math I just know I’m bad at it. I really don’t wanna be though

#ex homeschooler #homeschool #me

[queenlua]

Rules: tag 9 people you’d like to know/catch-up with:

Tagged by @zencribnotes (hi, yay, ty for the tag!)

Last show:

I watched season 1 of Columbo, mostly on the basis of “the creator of Phoenix Wright loved it,” and, man!  What a fun series.  There’s something relentlessly compelling about Columbo’s persistent aw-shucks demeanor combined with how his relentless undercurrent of “I’ve sunk my teeth in and will not let go”; the villains are generally compelling and smart with just a dash of the fatal arrogance/doth-protest-too-much that will be their undoing; I’m now weirdly entranced by 70s fashion; the slower pacing is pretty refreshing compared to modern shows; it’s good stuff.

The whole procedural-drama format is a genre didn’t really “click” for me until this past year or so, and it’s been a ton of fun exploring what the genre has to offer.

Currently watching:

I’ve been rewatching The Boondocks a bit, which is kind of a trip—like, mostly I just needed a fun sitcom to watch during dinner, and I remembered watching it on late-night TV as a kiddo—and it is fun, but it’s also from such a specific moment/era in comedy, yaknow?  Parts of it are acerbic on-point satire; other parts really miss the mark or, uh, haven’t aged well, let’s say.  The highs are still crazy-high, though.

Currently reading:

Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein.  Hilariously, I impulse-bought the ebook of this after listening to an interview with the author, thinking to myself, “this will be a good way to learn more about the Reagan era, which I’ve been meaning to learn about!”  So I started reading, and reading, and reading… and when I was 25% of the way in, I was like, “jfc, we’re STILL in 1976, when are we going to get to Reagan’s presidency?”  Which is when I (1) looked at the page count for the first time (“oh my god this is over a thousand pages”), and (2) looked at the subtitle for the first time (“oh we just. don’t even. get. to his presidency. oops”), and…. lol.

BUT AT THAT POINT I was already having a good time and pretty committed, so, whatever :P  It’s an interesting if intermittently-frustrating read.  So much of e.g. the US dems’ fundamental dysfunction, inability to grow a bench, weird flat-footedness in the face of obvious threats, etc, are just… there!  All the way back in 1976!  Time is a flat circle and I guess we’ll just have the same problems for decades and decades, sigh.

And wrt eg the feminist movement particularly (and also the movement for gay rights, and other social-progress-y movements), there’s such a palpable sense of what was already being lost, even before the New Right revolution had fully taken hold.  There was a moment of broad bipartisan consensus on a lot of important issues, and then… there wasn’t, lol.  Also there’s just a sense of dynamism/fearlessness you get from e.g. the book’s profile of Bella Abzug that, ironically, it feels like it’d be hard for a female politician to get away with nowadays—at least not while being as popular as she was at her height.

(I’m hoping to do a more in-depth writeup of this one on my Dreamwidth when I’m finished with it, but it’ll be a bit.)

Nonfiction:  See above.  Did I mention long book is long?  I may as well give a pitch for Matt Stoller’s newsletter, who does interesting deep-dives on how monopolies have distorted various sectors of the economy; I first found him via his writeup on the truck driver shortage, and while he’s hit-or-miss he’s more hit than misses imo

Last book: If we’re willing to count novella as book-length, it’d be “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress, a smart lil scifi novella that won the Hugo/Nebula in the 90s.  I’ve been meaning to write a proper review of it, but to give an idea: after finishing, I read that the author wrote it in response to both Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Ayn Rand’s work—I can see both those in the result, quite clearly, though the result feels more Le Guin-ish overall, and also the author wisely grounds the narrative in a very human conflict between sisters that lent it the emotional heft/realism it needed.

(If we’re going with Only Actual Books Allowed, it’s this silly lil mystery novel I read while on vacation; very much the kind of light entertainment one reads with beer in hand after a long day of birdwatching :P)

Tagging: if I follow you consider yourself tagged.  or don’t, whatever, only if you feel like it :P

[duhragonball]

Wordswordswordswords

For the past several months now, when I haven’t been writing, I’ve been reading Fantastic Four.   I bought a DVD-ROM back in 2008 which contained .pdf files of every issue from 1961 to 2006.  A couple of years ago, I decided to quit putting it off and actually read the whole thing, and now I’m about eight issues away from finishing it.  Even so, I think I’m going to keep going and try to catch up to the present day.   I think that’s only about 200 more issues, so no big deal.

People say that when you get older, you lose interest in your old hobbies.  I got into comic books about 30 years ago, and I got sucked into the whole “Marvel Universe” thing around 1997, trying to learn as much of the interconnecting lore as possible.  A lot of the fun of comics back then was the thrill of seeing what would happen next in the new books, while also uncovering the history laid down in the back issues.  At some point, the novelty wears off.   You’ve either seen all the same tricks, or you’ve read enough back issues that nothing really surprises you anymore.   So you either get jaded or you move on to something else, or you learn to change perspectives, which I guess is what I’ve done.

Today, I seem to experience comic books in this insane macro-scale, binge-reading entire runs and series, because so much of it is available digitally now, and I’ve got the disposable income and free time to commit to it.   I thought about liveblogging my experiences with Fantastic Four, but I knew it would slow me down too much, and really, the contents of individual issues don’t seem to matter as much to me anymore.   It’s all about historical eras now.   And really, I don’t even want to do a breakdown of the eras, because even that feels like too much trouble.   Let me focus instead on my favorite and least favorite runs.

So this is a page from Fantastic Four v.3 #28 by Claremont and artist Sal Larocca.  I tried to find a typical page that illustrates the problem, and this seems like a fair example, because at least all this word-salad manages to recap the plot.   Mr. Fantastic is trapped in Dr. Doom’s armor, and unable to prove his true identity to the world.  But even if he could, he has to keep up the charade of being Dr. Doom, because he’s the only thing holding back a warship full of evil soldiers.   He can’t let them destroy the world, but he can’t tell them to stand down, or they’ll turn on him.

But Claremont keeps restating the problem over and over.  This page is like 20% word balloon, and it’s just the characters mulling over this dilemma that’s already been explained several times over the past two issues.

By contrast, you have this page from FF v.3 #63, by Mark Waid and Mike Weringo.  This is a pretty exposition-heavy page as well, but it flows a lot better.  The Waid run on FF is my favorite so far, and I think it says something I blew through all 37 or so issues in a single weekend.   It’s just a nice easy read, with plenty of dramatic punch and solid plot and character dynamics.  

The thing is, I got so frustrated with Claremont’s run that after a while I started to wonder if I was being unfair, or if there was something wrong with me for not appreciating it.   And I started to look for the same flaws in my own writing.  “Oh crap, I’m not as bad as Chris Claremont, am I?”  That’s the effect that guy has on me.   I started wondering why the run was so bad, and why other runs are so much better by comparison.   And this was what I finally came up with. 

So when you look back up at the two pages above, notice how the Sal Larocca art doesn’t really move the story along.   It’s not that he’s a bad artist.   I like his stuff, but on this run it never seemed to click with Claremont.   Sometimes it felt like they weren’t even aware of each other as they created the comic.   In this case, it’s just four panels of the characters standing around talking to each other.  There’s a shot of a holographic map, and Johnny walks off in a huff, but those visuals seem to have nothing to do with the conversation.   A lot of words are being said, but they don’t tell any new story, and the images are just sort of there to decorate the extraneous words.  

But on the other page, the art actually helps the exposition go down smoother.   In the first two panels, the characters are talking, then in panel three Sue notices something important, and in panel six, Reed seems to be putting the whole thing together.   Their expressions help tell the story.  But the real meat of the page is in panels four and five, where we see Franklin Richards watching them from the shadows.  That look on his face in Panel Five is what brings the whole page together.  He knows something about all of this, and he’s deeply troubled by it.  Also note that Panel Five has no word balloons in it.   The expression is allowed to carry the narrative.   That’s what makes you eager to look at the next page, because that’s where you find out what he knows about this situation.

And that gave me a shot of reassurance.   For one thing, I write prose, not comics, so I don’t have to worry about stepping on an illustrator’s toes.  I read once that this sort of thing was why John Byrne left the X-Men comics back in 1980 or ‘81, because he drew this shot of Colossus ripping up tree stumps and Claremont wrote a whole essay’s worth of captions over it.   By 2000, the only thing that changed was that he was doing it to Sal Larocca, who was sporting enough to put up with it. 

More importantly, this whole realization reinforced a bit of writing advice I picked up years ago.   When you write a conversation, it’s always good to have the characters do something while they talk.   You have Character A say a line, then add that they’re folding laundry.   Then Character B says their line, and they’re eating a chili dog or whatever.  And back and forth, with each character making progress with their task as the conversation continues.    It adds a beat to the dialogue, so it’s not just rapid fire yammering back-and-forth, but it also shows that they’re not just disembodied voices.  And you can use the side-actions to communicate other stuff alongside the dialogue.   Claremont’s problem is that he can’t do that himself in a comic book, and a lot of times he actively prevents the art team from doing it for him.   So the comics he writes feel slow and plodding, even if they may not actually be any longer or harder to read.

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest.   Sometimes I worry that I let the length of a textpiece distract from the message I’m trying to convey, but I think the point is that there needs to be a message, and a clear presentation.   Some messages may take longer to express, but as long as they’re not bogged down with excess clutter, they’re still worth expressing.

[kokomeong]

The End of An Era - A Tribute to Milk! Records

How fast time passes us by, so why don’t you hold them - Remedy Waloni

I am writing this piece as I sip on a tall hot latte at a Starbucks inside a chain bookstore near my campus, a scene that I would have never imagined when my girlfriend took me to Seven Seeds in Carlton near her campus nine years ago. Her senpai took her there on her first week in Melbourne and she ordered hot chocolate, not convinced that the famous Melbourne coffee was different and would win her over. She used to not be able to stand the smell of second-wave coffee and coffee shops. In the early 2010’s, my brand new (and still alive) iPod video consisted of Alvvays, Bon Iver, Beirut, DCFC, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Wild Beasts. Teguh Wicaksono regularly made a super indie playlist for National Geographic Traveler. It was an exciting time. We went from spending our time going to Periplus Malioboro just to stare at Frankie to finding them at news kiosks everywhere in Australia. The third-wave was taking over in the peak of the hipster years, and we were relieved that the same trend had occupied Yogyakarta when we returned home a year later. Light roast direct trade coffee with manual brew and single origins were introduced perhaps not very successfully by snobbish male baristas as the market preferred cheap iced coffee with condensed milk as their go-to drink and young male smokers remained loyal to the dark roast americano with sugar added.   

I was reminded of all the buzz about the end of an era as Ronaldo and Messi left the European football scene when I heard that Milk! Records announced that they will close its doors in 2023. It was the heart of Melbourne independent music scene. I learned and took so many references from that music label and its community. It was the year Real Estate released Atlas, the year I was hooked by the brilliance of Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia. Courtney Barnett released Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, Methyl Ethel and Twerps completed their second album, and Dick Diver finished Melbourne, Florida, a staple of their distinctive Australiana sound.

Melbourne was a manifestation of an idea of how diverse the communities can be in a city. It could not be better: multiculturalism, the rising awareness of indigenous issues, Palestine, and animal rights debates, farm-to-table dining and direct trade sustainable produce, the tram lines, queer people kissing in front of old houses in Brunswick, the radical ideas of what a library is and can be, the New Year’s Eve fireworks in River Torrens, all the bookshops and empty wet streets, Papa Gino’s in Carlton, the A1 bakery in Sydney Road, Al-Alamy in Coburg, taking a book conservation training under the supervision of Karen Vidler, summertime bus ride along the majestic Adelaide coastlines, Adelaide Showground, the morning view from a room in Sturrock Street, a summer evening in St Kilda, my obsession with Steph Hughes’ illustrations, and the bitter smell of cheap morning to-go coffee in an unnamed stall in Adelaide station, introduced to me by a woman who worked in my apartment. They ground the beans and made the coffee in a proper espresso machine. There was always a long line of blue collar workers. The beans were dark roast, so bitter that you cannot drink it properly without sugar. I remained one of their regulars during those beautiful days in Adelaide because what is coffee even for if not to be romanticized.

That era in Australia changed (if not solidified) me, and I could not feel more fortunate to do my Master's there. I was a nobody, a 23 year-old working administrative-level job under a yearly contract dying to escape my routine and dysfunctional family dynamics. It was a small chance as the scholarship mainly goes to civil servants with a solid experience and career path. I didn’t have much to offer so I had to make it seem like I knew what I was doing somehow and they bought it. I spent all of my savings to give the best care to ten stray cats I rescued. My parents did not give me any money when I left for Australia, despite their ‘success’ in their respective career. I even gave mom my last 100,000 at the airport because I knew she needed the money.

When I rode my Tokyobike slowly for a morning commute to campus, I felt that it was surely the end of an era. The new young Indonesian bands I can no longer relate to, the fact that my hair is no longer perfectly straight and surrenders to my mom’s curly genetics, the way I managed to understand Japanese cashiers and their many questions before letting me pay for my order, reminiscing the Sefton Park suburb while indulging in the views of Zuibaiji river and the vast open rice fields everyday on the way to campus.

Australians enjoy a slow brunch, the Japanese eat a very effective breakfast. Australians spend a long summer holiday, the Japanese take a week-long summer break. Australians invented their perfectly balanced flat white, the Japanese preserved and perfected their simple drip coffee.

They are totally in contrast, yet from the life I have here and there I learn something in common: that you can be the kind of people who do not define yourself with your titles, job positions or external achievements. The kind of people who have a life outside their job. The people who are more interested in enriching their lives than pursuing the conventional idea of success. People who take seemingly trivial things seriously and deeply. They read, bike, walk, garden, bake, brew, ferment, cook, eat, drink, taste, feel, meet, see, write, watch, and listen consciously. They keep searching for something new and they are excited to learn.

Some people need to advance their career so much they are willing to do literally anything and sacrifice others when they realize they can’t do achieve anything just by relying on their skills and competence. They’re the type who might not appreciate walking to a green space, getting joy from looking at the ducks in the pond, being overly excited to see wild turtles in the river. But there’s no need to be so stressed out about going down if you can just choose to not go up.

Your titles and privileges can and will end, but ideas and knowledge go on. Rest in Peace, Milk! Records.

#hidup di kota #weekend #melbourne #naarm #australia #milk! records

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

I’ve never been a percy Jackson girlie bc in middle school I refused to read them bc I was living my “I’m not gonna like that I’m not like other girls” era but I’d seen so much on my fyp about it so I had to start the books and lemme tell you Drea I’ve gotten sucked into them so much like I finish a book and immediately start the next they literally got me out of my reading slump I haven’t read this much in so long and I LOVE IT SM being sucked into these worlds to escape my life is my new coping mechanism

No bc I hadn’t read a book as a hobby since I was a sophomore in high school cause junior year is when all my AP classes started and i had bought the first book of Trials of Apollo back when it came out but never got to read it and I was cleaning up my shelf before our trip and saw it and was like u know what now that the semester’s over let me read this and I got sucked right back in!! I finished all 5 books in the span of the last 3 weeks KSNDNSNDNS

I’d forgotten how much I love Rick’s writing style and his humor and just how much I adore the characters 🥹 diving back into that universe has reminded me of how those books literally shaped my personality and my own writing so much it’s crazy SKDNSNSN

Also after you finish both of the Percy Jackson series, I definitely recommend you read his other stuff, starting with The Kane Chronicles, which is based off Egyptian mythology!! SOOOO GOOD DUDE!!!!! AND ITS ALSO GETTING MADE INTO A SHOW BY DISNEY+ JUST LIKE PJO!!!

He also has one with Norse mythology that I plan on reading next cause I also started it but never finished it but I remember loving!! And all of these series occur within the same universe, so he’s actually written short crossover stories between them, which I also have to catch up on!! And tbh I’ll probably reread PJO before the Disney series drops just so i have a refresh of it all AKMDNSMS

but yeah Rick is an amazing writer and all of his books def live up to the hype!!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Throwback to that time almost exactly a year ago, when I was coming to the end of the the Britcom list I’d made as of then. This was a long initial list – it was anchored by the long-running panel shows: QI, Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Catsdown, Taskmaster, WILTY, and beginning-of-the Amstell-era to present (as of then) Never Mind the Buzzcocks. It also had shorter panel shows that focused on people I’d come to know and like due to those longer panel shows – Jon Richardson’s Ultimate Worrier, Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, Insert Name Here, Duck Quacks Don’t Echo, Was It Something I Said?, Argumental, Big Fat Quizzes, Comedy World Cup, and Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled. It had some other topical shows, like The Last Leg, Russell Howard’s Good News/The Russell Howard Hour, and The Mash Report.

It also had fictional stuff. I re-watched a lot of old stuff I loved while I was growing up: Flying Circus and the four Monty Python movies, How to Irritate People, Fawlty Towers, Ripping Yarns, Blackadder, Brass Eye, Mr. Bean, Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister. And some not-quite-so-old stuff that I’d also enjoyed watching in younger years: The Inbetweeners, the Mitchell and Webb sketch shows and Peep Show, and of course, my favourite show since I was a teenager, The Thick of It. And I watched a bunch of sitcoms and sketch shows that were new to me, also largely based on people I’d discovered via panel shows: Not Going Out, The Mighty Boosh and Luxury Comedy, Starstruck, Feel Good, Ghosts, everything else Armando Iannucci has done (I’d always loved The Thick of It and In the Loop, couldn’t believe I didn’t decide until 2020 to actually find more of his work and get into Time Trumpet and those year summaries and On the Hour/The Day Today/the rest of the Alan Partridge content), Derry Girls, Grandma’s House (I had a while after my friend died in February 2021 when I’d almost finished Buzzcocks and decided to deal with my breakdown by watching everything else Simon Amstell had ever done, also there was a lot of The Clash and Nirvana involved, so if your friend ever dies suddenly of a brain aneurysm during a pandemic I recommend Simon Amstell and The Clash and Nirvana), GameFace, Nathan Barley, The IT Crowd, Moone Boy, Miranda, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. That’s what I can think of off the top of my head; there were plenty more than that. Plenty more in all these categories.

I watched the collected stand-up DVDs of Josh Widdicombe and Joe Lycett and James Acaster and Russell Howard and Jon Richardson and Lee Mack and Sarah Millican and Sean Lock and Simon Amstell and Frankie Boyle and Daniel Sloss and Rhod Gilbert. I reread my Douglas Adam books (Hitchhiker’s Guide series, Dirk Gently ones, Last Chance to See, The Salmon of Doubt). I bought and read (or listened to on audiobook) a bunch of comedians’ memoirs, like Lee Mack and David Mitchell and Jo Brand and James Acaster and Stephen Fry and Sandi Toksvig and Alan Davies.

So like I said, big list. That one took me from March 2020 until October 2021, after which I made a new list and got to work on that one. But with my first list, I had this general plan that it was all building toward one show. I needed to finish every other show on the list, and then I would have enough of a foundational understanding of the general Britcom landscape to fully appreciate that one. And that show was… Hypothetical. Because I put together the beginning of this list by watching Taskmaster, picking out my favourite people from it, and looking up what they’d been in a lot. From that, I made that list and said, “Well there are hundreds of episodes of many shows on here, but the world did just end, so I guess I’ll have time to get through it.” And I was right.

As I went through the list, I added more to it. And since I finished that first list and started my new one, I’ve branched out. I’ve found more older shows that were not among the things I watched as a kid (French and Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous – which my dad did try to introduce me to as a kid but I never got into it, The Vicar of Dibley, go forward a bit to Smack the Pony, I just decided I wanted to find out if any women existed before 2008). I added some sitcoms that were made and starred in by people I liked, from old ones like Spaced and 15 Stories High to newer ones like This Way Up and Josh and The Dutchess. I finally made myself watch Meet the Richardsons, despite having difficulty reconciling the Jon Richardson onto which I project everything with the Jon Richardson who exists now. Then I also bought Jon Richardson’s book, to remind myself of the 2010 version of him onto which I like to project. I added some more recent panel shows that featured people I liked, like Question Team and Unforgiveable and Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains. But more than that, I expanded into slightly less mainstream stuff, like stand-up shows that were not on DVDs, a fair bit more stand-up no matter where I could find it, audio stuff, the whole Stewart Lee thing. And I got into The Bugle in March 2022 and immediately decided I’d never be interested in anything except The Bugle ever again.

So I feel like my initial plan basically worked. I had to start with that first list to have the foundation, to get to know the whole landscape of comedians and pick out the ones I liked, so I could then go find further work by those people. If I hadn’t started with the long-running mainstream stuff, I wouldn’t have known where to start with anything else. And the thing about the panel show circuit is it’s so small and self-referential that the more of it you’ve seen, the more you appreciate it. So I had the general idea that I should start with the broadest shows, and then I’d go into the narrower shows already knowing the people involved, so I’d appreciate them more.

That was the plan. And the plan for that initial list that took me a year and a half was that I would knock everything off it before watching Hypothetical, and that way I’d have this one show that I’d go into with full knowledge of all the people involved. I stuck to this, timed everything pretty well by watching a few things at a time in ways I’d planned, trying to have one long-running thing and one short-running thing going at a time. About a year and a half after I’d started this, I was almost done the list, and I really wanted to watch this fucking panel show. I’d chosen to save Hypothetical for last because Josh Widdicombe and James Acaster were two of my favourites on Taskmaster, and when I was first looking up those favourites after first finishing what had aired so far of that show in April 2020, I was excited to learn they hosted a different show together. I now realize I can see James and Josh together in lots of places, but at the time, a crossover event with my favourites from multiple Taskmaster seasons seemed like a rare thing that was worth saving.

So I was almost ready to finally watch Hypothetical, but I wasn’t quite done the rest of the list. I had one thing left, and that’s a BBC 6 Music radio show called The Russell Howard Show. Or called The Russell Howard and Jon Richardson Show, unofficially at least, depending who you ask. It was a whole thing. Everything on that show was a whole thing. It was a 90-part radio drama about a tragically star-crossed relationship, a great love doomed by little things like the personalities of both people involved. It did ruin my life for a little while. I think this year that the end of the first run of The Bugle messed me up – while that one was at least run by two basically psychologically functional people. The BBC radio drama had like 1.5 of those at best.

I’ve checked my folder, and all 90 episodes come to just over 126 hours of audio. I planned to finish my short running TV shows at the same as the long-running radio show, but I underestimated how long the radio show would go, so I ended up with nothing left on my list but Hypothetical and quite a bit of radio show left. I thought… I’d like to have something modern and mainstream and, frankly, not a heartwrenching commentary on lives torn apart by mental health struggles, to balance out this fucking radio show. And surely it won’t hurt anything to start Hypothetical a little early, right? I wanted to make sure I was familiar with all the other Britcom before I got to that one, but I’d done that. This one radio show from 2006-2008 (Jon stayed on with Matt Forde and rotating guests until 2010, but I cut it off as soon as Russell left in July 2008 because I could not bring myself to listen to anything that happened after that, the one thing I know happened is that in the first post-Russell episode Jon chose I Can Do It Without You by the Kaiser Chiefs as the first song and Jesus Christ you fucking drama queens) shouldn’t have anything that would be relevant to a TV panel show that started airing in 2019. Nothing I’d learn from that radio show would add to my enjoyment of Hypothetical.

But I told myself I’d made a plan and I’d stick to it, and honestly, I was so drawn into the radio show that as much as I might think I wanted balance, I wasn’t really able to get into anything else until I finally saw its ending, for better or for fucking worse. So I spent some time doing nothing but listen to that radio show, every day, sometimes pretty much all day, while I did yard work on my grandparents’ large rural property because I was staying there at the time. I went back to that house recently, and just seeing the driveway made me remember spending hours and hours and hours picking up apples from that driveway while listening to Jon and Russell snipe at each other. Lovely memories.

Finally, I finished the show. I got to the last episode. Jon and Russell sniped at each other until the end. They discussed their favourite songs. That was somehow enough to turn into a fight, with Jon complaining that Russell spent too much time singing Rufus Wainright. Matt Forde, who’d started joining them in the last few months of episodes because I guess they figured if they introduced him early then they could replace Russell with him and that would just be fine, asked them to try to be slightly professional because the nation was listening. And then the last episode ended. I sat in my grandmother’s chair and watched the sun set over the ocean and felt way too emotional about a radio show from almost 15 years ago. I went up to my grandparents’ loft and got drunk and played a lot of songs by Kate & Anna McGarrigle, because they’re a wonderful Canadian folk music duo that I’ve loved since I was very young, and Kate McGarrigle is Rufus Wainwright’s mother, and that’s just a weird connection between my Canadian folk music and this Britcom show. There’s not normally much overlap in my two favourite niches.

Anyway. I finished the radio show. And the next day, I finally put on Hypothetical. It was a great show. Was it worth a year and a half of build up? Okay, nothing is quite worth that. But it was fun. I knew almost every guest on it, and knowing something about them already made me appreciate their humour more, so my plan had, in fact, worked. I thought that was nice. The very first episode was like a Taskmaster crossover: James and Josh hosting, and guests Rob Beckett, Jessica Knappett, Liza Tarbuck, and Tom Allen. Representation from seasons 1, 3, 7 (x2), and 6, plus one person who will almost definitely be on Taskmaster in the next few seasons, right? Episode 3 was all Taskmaster: Josh and James, plus Sara Pascoe, Lou Sanders, Nish Kumar, and Ed Gamble. Representation from season 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9. This was exactly what I’d wanted in April 2020, when I’d first made that list! Fun Taskmaster crossovers! But I’d seen them all on so many other shows so I got more of the references!

Then I got to episode four, featuring Romesh Rangathan, Rosie Jones, Kerry Godliman, and Matt Forde. And that is the source of the above clip. It validated all my thoughts about how I should stick to the plan of doing all the required reading before getting into anything. Because I would absolutely not have understood the significant of this without that fucking radio show. It was a running theme of that show that Jon and Russell were both mildly obsessed with Mark Lawrenson, and when he started joining them, Matt Forde shared their obsession. I know so much shit about Mark Lawrenson, just because Russell Howard and Jon Richardson and Matt Forde told me about him while I picked up apples at my grandparents’ house in summer/fall 2021. I know he was a very significant figure in the lives of those three men, and apparently for quite a few other people in those days. Maybe still, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Mark Lawrenson since 2008, except that he wants to poison the England football team. But I know a lot about him from then.

And that allowed me to get that joke on that 2019 episode of Hypothetical in ways that would have gone way over my head otherwise. Basically, for reasons that are grounded in over a decade of history, it is really, really fucking funny that Matt Forde failed to know a basic fact about football person Mark Lawrenson’s life. Really funny. He’s sort of dedicated his life to knowing that sort of thing. I mean, I guess he’s mainly dedicated it to knowing about the Labour Party, but after that, the next biggest thing he’s supposed to know is Mark Lawrenson.

Anyway, that’s what I have to say. I just rambled for a long time and now I feel like I should have a better way to end it than this. I documented that whole journey on this blog while it was happening, but to the people I’ve just gotten to know on here in the last few months - hello, that’s how I got to where I am now in my Britcom journey. And here is a clip from Hypothetical that is incredibly fucking funny. Enjoy.