#i found this in the depths of my drafts dunno when its from but yeah take it

[ummmuhhidk]

ooh tag game

(get to know your mutuals thing) thank you @watertankafternoon :)

what's the origin of your username? i didnt know what to put as my username because all the ones i tried were taken and entered this outta anger. and voila

OTP(s) + shipname: funny you ask that! i am never telling you

favorite colour: green :) (specifically like a teal-ish aquamarine-ish sorta thing. #97f0e5 is close i think)

songs stuck in my head: oh man oh man. theres a couple:

- "The Ultimate Sandwich" by Ninja Sex Party (about a man who harbors perverse sexual lust for a sandwich)

- "Instrument of Surrender" by Sea Power (disco elysium ost fucks hard as hell)

- tsurupettan (i was listening to the umineko ost)

- “D/N/A” by Azari (ive associated it w something so whenever i hear it i think of that thing. but also its suuuuuch a good song)

weirdest habit/trait: probably hiding everything ever from everyone until im sure they wont hate me (i manipulated a friend into mentioning she liked a show to me by reading the whole book series the show was based on. why am i dancing around saying it goddamnit its sherlock i read all of the sherlock holmes stories in 8th grade every last one so my friend saw me reading them and would mention bbc sherlock so i could have an excuse to watch it. im very normal)

hobbies: playing video games, reading, collecting things (crow behavior, i know), coding (sometimes), Knowing Stuff (psychology specifically), thinking about morality and ethics and all that stuff because its fun! :)

if you work, what's your profession? fighting for my life out here in the education system

if you could have any job you wish what would you have? hmmmm this is a hard one, ideally id have none because depression but maybe a software engineer? i like coding things :) ahh also a psychologist would be cool! OH WAIT ALSO maybe beekeeper :)

something you're good at: comic relief i would hope, though with a lot of tasks i am reduced to a bumbling fucking idiot. also maybe debating some certain topics ?? but only certain ones

something you hate: man i dunno. i dont feel that kind of hate in my heart. except for when i do but i dunno. uhh OH people who get overly angry at niche and completely useless discourse. like stop it. go frolic in a field or whatever leave me alone

something you collect: a lotta fuckin things, currently im into 100%ing a buncha games. also i wanna work on a living shiny dex in pokemon but that takes so long... ah well

something you forget: birthdays, uhhhmmm. uhhhh. many other things

favorite movies/shows: UHHH UMM UHHHHHH im rly secretive about this stuff on main. dunno why. just am. anyways um mayyyyybe uhhhhhhh sorry im scared. i just dont say this stuff man idk

favorite food: i dunno. sugar is good? corndogs are also very good? i forget what other answers i could have to this

favorite animal: cats and penguins :)

what were you like as a child? during all of elementary school i was all like. i was the sort of autistic kid who was "an old soul" or "mature for their age" (im really into higurashi right now so i wanna compare myself at that time to rika furude). anyways the first day i got to middle school i was wayyy less shy (and could now swear!) and yeah nothin much changed since.

favorite subject in school: chemistry (10th grade), easiest A ive ever gotten. literally had like 98-100% percent in class damn near always

least favorite subject: PE and english (massive vocabulary, canNOT write any assignments for shit)

what's your best character trait? the consistency of my "fuck it we ball" mentality

what's your worst character trait? the consistency of my "fuck it we ball" mentality

if you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? make me able to shapeshift. or give me a billion dollars i guess that works too

if you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? dont know :(

@ fuckin anyone. have fun w it !!!!! participate to your hearts content!!!!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

THAT MAP

i didn’t die

also spoilers. like. major spoilers. im serious.

dont click that read more unless you’re totally okay with spoilers cause i talk about some endgame stuff too <3

CELESTICA ERIDIA

THAT ERIDIAN RIFT HUHHHHHHH ITS RIGHT NEXT TO PANDORA

WE’RE ENTERING THE FLORPUS

IT LOOKS LIKE THERE’S A WAY TO TRIANGULATE/OPEN THE WORMHOLE OR SOMETHING???

alright LOOK

each planet (Eden-6, Promethea, Pandora) they’re all circled and when their lines cross it leads to SOMETHING

and looking at the grid that’s obviously what looks to be a wormhole

so we’ve also got the lines

“elpis - not what it seems. is elpis a lens? or a conduit. or both?”

A CONDUIT/LENS?? FOR W H A T??

ARE WE BEAMING SOMETHING OUT OF PANDORA? BECAUSE IF THESE TEMPLES ARE ALL SIMILAR PYRAMID-LIKE STRUCTURES TO THE ONE ON ATHENAS THEN THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE

this is DEFINITELY on pandora (you see elpis up there) so it’s possible something is going to hit elpis and it’s going to beam to this vault-thing and open up a gateway to the Eridian Rift??? OR

we open this Vault and it beams something up to elpis and elpis helps open up part of the Eridian rift

i’d guess we’d need all 3 (?) active to open it?? Eden-6, Pandora, and Promethea

so something SEEMS to be getting beamed either from elpis to pandora or from pandora to elpis

but im going to get elpis to pandora given the way it’s being thrown out? like it hits elpis straight on and then defracts over pandora like a prism

im guessing it’s such a broad spread bc it’s trying to hit the vault-temple-thing we see above (still... not quite convinced those are vaults like we’ve been seeing them in the past games (with lots of big loot inside). again something like teleporters makes way more sense to me)

they also bring this up, that athenas and promethea have a draw to one another, which makes sense since part of the promethean vault key is on Athenas

“Although Athenas is not in the Promethean System, there is a strong pull detectable through use of [eridian resonator (customized) which I have discovered here (seen in purple)]” i have no idea if any of the bracketed stuff is right“

more importantly it looks like one piece of Promethea’s asteroid belt is ‘highlighted’ which i imagine is that giant space laser

which ngl surprises me because

this doesn’t really look eridian to me at all. like, okay, the laser part IS purple but... the actual tech doesn’t look Eridian at all. it looks VERY human. maybe maliwan/atlas discovered it and changed it somehow? that’s pretty much the only reason i can give. like they made it so it would only hit a certain area (concentrated) instead of the entire planet (like we see Elpis doing)

also if we look at Eden-6

eden-6 seems to be 1 of 6 (or more) planets surrounding the gas giant (?) named Eden (which is such a cool fucking detail). or maybe that’s just a solar system named eden. either way. AWESOME.

my question is:

is Eden going to act similarly to Elpis? to the Asteroid Belt of Promethea?? because if that’s the case OH MAN MORE GIANT SPACE LASERS. maybe this is why ships keep on crashing to Eden-6. We know the planet is basically a ship graveyard, maybe there’s some Eridian interference that’s causing this to happen???

Also, when they say “Vaults lead to other Vaults” do y’all think this is tied into in any way the “Vault of Vaults” or whatever “It” is???

because THE VAULT OF VAULTS??? APPARENTLY WE WERE NAUGHTY AS FUCK FOR OPENING IT (the overseer says so when you accept the quest for the proving grounds)

AND THE MASTERS (whoever the FUCK they are!) ARE NOT HAPPY BOYS

ALSO “UNIVERSE DESTROYING POWER” AS CLAIMED ON THE WEBSITE

UHHH IM GONNA GUESS THAT RIFT IS ABOUT TO KILL EVERYONE AND/OR LET OUT A BIG OL SPACE DEMON COUGH THE DESTROYER COUGH

ALSO WE PROBABLY ARE CONFIRMED THERE ARE TEMPLES ON EACH OF THE PLANETS WITH THAT DIAMOND SHAPE

THEY MATCH UP WITH THE SYMBOL WE’VE SEEN EVERYWHERE

(also we now can guess this takes place after Athenas..?)

‘Vault... Key?’ i mean... think about it. we know the symbol for Vault is the circle with the arch. but this is different. this is diamond with, yes, with a vault shape in it. but... there’s obviously more to it than just the vault symbol

plus tannis is using it on pedestals dedicated to Vault Keys so i mean. you know.

and if this IS the symbol for Vault Key than oh man oh me oh my

that would mean opening up the ‘mini vaults’ on Pandora/Promethea/Eden-6 would lead to that big Eridian rift opening, whatever it is

which could explain this line: “the Vaults lead to other Vaults” “Smart, Leda!”

looks like Typhon met someone who writes in blue. who’s name is Leda.

calling it now typhon totally banged a Siren named Leda and had 2 twin kids (it runs in the family) the twins take after their parents: one red, one blue. possibly inherit the Cloth Map and learn about the purpose of the Vaults through it. i got nothing on the cage thing but tbh i wouldn’t be surprised if Typhon or Leda ended up going crazy at some point and/or having kids inside of a Vault for some ungodly reason. spewing random shit about ‘bandits this, bandits that’ to keep them from leaving. maybe they knew their adventures were going to (eventually) lead to the destruction of the universe so they wanted to keep their kids safe without having to admit they’ve doomed everyone outside this has no proof at all, im just spitballing lol i mean look at these love-sick FOOLS lmao

look they both left messages (that i can’t read) with hearts at the end of them

“Genius! [gibberish i can’t make out] <3″ “you know it! <3″

we don’t know what the Vaults really are for, huh Tyreen?? NOW WE DO. NOW. WE DO.

“ERIDIAN GLYPHS ARE CYHPERS!” (sic???)

“by overlaying various found glyphs patterns emerge which are then...” ASDFGSHJ i CANT READ THIS “What is the machine?” “We’ll figure it out together!” MACHINE????????

i NEED it

“Mapping in progress: the key-glyph [something] is an Eridian cypher hiding coordinates to some kind of cyber (????) structure” this perhaps???

also the proving grounds. let’s talk about those. we know they’re eridian, we know there’s 6 of them, we know there’s 1 at least on both Athenas and Eden-6.

we know those Eridian Ruins/Cyphers lead to the proving grounds. we know this much. so is it definitely confirmed the proving grounds hold a higher place in the story than they’re saying? i mean let me pull up my other draft talking about these in-depth and copy paste because there’s only 36 minutes until the NEXT endgame content stream

“Later in the campaign, you may be worthy of taking part in the Proving Grounds: themed gauntlets watched over by a Guardian known as the Overseer who wishes to test your mettle on behalf of the mysterious ‘Masters’.”

so it sounds like at least one is going to take place during the main campaign of the game.

as for uhh who the Masters are... I don’t know. I imagine they’re Eridian in some way/shape/form. to be honest, considering the Overseer is a Guardian (confirmed), I imagine these ‘Masters’ are just literally Eridians. some sort of council, perhaps. i mean “the masters will determine who is at fault” for “naughty humans opened the vault of vaults”. so i imagine they’re like a council.

Let’s start listing stuff we know about the Proving Grounds:

1. you get them by translating (we apparently get a translator later on in the story) Eridian texts (ciphers) left behind, which tell us where (?) these proving grounds are. why we’re not just using tannis... i dunno. something better not have happened to Tannis, gearbox

We’ve seen these texts in the Eden-6 gameplay, so it looks like maybe we won’t need the eridian doritos stabby thing to break any crystals. damn youuu

“Ohhh good. Nonsense.”

i make jokes with my friend that soon i’ll be able to read Eridian given how much i stare at these tablets. it’s only a matter of time...

2. there’s apparently 6 of them, and at least 1 on each planet. We’ve seen the Athenas (Survival) and Eden-6 (Instinct) versions, which does make me wonder if there’s any tie between 6 of these trials and the 6 Sirens...

Also, given there’s supposedly 6 trials and only 5 planets (as the community has gotten devs to tell us), it makes me wonder a) if there’s actually 6 planets or b) why there’s only 1 planet with 2 per planet. i guess if that’s the eridian homeworld then it’d make sense if they have 2.

(Also Varnell did originally say 7 trials at first, but he gets a pass because he was live on stage and i would’ve made that mistake too knowing my dumb brain lol)

3. Apparently during the narrative of the game, at some point, we will unlock at least 1 trial.

“[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game. a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

so... YEAH. big news, gamers.

does this take place at the end of the game? its possible. its likely considering this is considered endgame content. it might not. it could be both, like sort of a repeatable thing. im not really certain. 

What I am certain about tho, is that this takes place after a huge story event.

So, maybe the BL3 story ends on a cliffhanger. Tbh i would upset if that happened, but THAT SAID, if the game does end on such a huge cliffhanger that this is AWFUL and the end of the universe is coming, I don’t think we’d be getting 4 story DLCs that completely ignore this problem.

The devs had said the entire story will be contained within bl3 (no splitting it up between dlcs), and it seems the games like to keep the timeline intact in the real world, so if imminent death is on its way, we can’t exactly wait 5 years irl and in-universe for borderlands 4.

So, if this is a cliffhanger ending, I don’t think whatever happens is... that big of a deal. Sort of the level of finding the Vault Map at the end of BL2. It’s big news! but it’s not going to end the universe. The story marches on. We figure out the new goalposts of this universe and keep doing stuff outside it.

Now that we know that, let’s take note of what the Overseer says at the start and end of this mission:

“Vault Hunter... I thought you might show up sooner or later. So naughty your species, so curious. The Vault of Vaults has been opened and it has been released. Prove your worth and I will reveal why the Masters made me wait for you”.

“Naughty humans opened the Vault of Vaults, but the Masters will determine who is at fault. Until next time, Warrior.”

so that’s some pretty fucking loaded dialogue, isn’t it?

im vvvvvvvvvv curious about who this ‘it’ character is... something the Eridians didn’t want out- well, that’s bad, because we (or the twins, or maliwan, or both I guess) just let it free. and the fact the Overseer won’t even reference the thing by name... that’s probably bad. If this is an actual entity, then that is mostly why I believe this particular Proving Ground takes place during the main story.

that said, ‘it’ could literally be anything. Knowledge, hope, whatever. the potion you brew to become a Siren. you know. anything. She called whatever was released ‘it’ and it doesn’t seem like we’re in a RUSH or anything. Just hanging out doing proving grounds. and apparently this is because we’ve been naughty humans. not evil, just naughty. like she’s giving us (or the cult) a slap on the wrist.

The Overseer doesn’t seem too affected by us opening the Vault of Vaults herself. The Masters apparently are trying to determine ‘who’s at fault here’, like it isn’t exactly clear. was it the humans for opening it? was it the eridians for making them openable?

it would be interesting if this isn’t even talking about something that happens in game, but instead like... she’s referencing Typhon and Leda. the Vault of Vaults had been opened (by Typhon and Leda) and IT has been released... whatever it is... maybe the reason Typhon and Leda locked their kids in a vault? ... i mean if we’re going by the eridium/slag causes psychos, then maybe that? we definitely find eridium on planets other than pandora...

also speaking of stuff taking place during the game, lets remember what was discussed in that interview: “[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game... a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

worthy of what, exactly?

I’m still of the belief that it’s for the title of Vault Guardian (and, yes, by proxy, i want to say Siren, but y’all won’t take me too seriously if i keep advocating for this crack theory lol... implying you took me seriously in the first place 🤡) because of the Guardian Rank

the fact we’re killing Fallen Guardians means, technically, a position HAS opened up... plus I don’t think the Watcher would have come in contact with Lilith if she didn’t think the Eridians needed us

that said, if this isn’t for just becoming Vault Guardians, then... idk. If this is strictly endgame stuff, i don’t even know what we’re trying to prove our worth for.

I guess worthy of not being thrown into alien prison is probably a good one. magic space prison is probably hard to get out of. like, ‘200 years an opening’ hard to get out of. and ur roommate is the destroyer 😨

i mean... maybe worthy of entering the Eridian Rift? i mean... it’s possible this rift leads to the eridian homeworld... there would have to be one HELL of huge Vault Monster to keep people from getting through :o

anyway, we’ve got 20 minutes until the new endgame content, i’ll be sure to add onto here if we learn anything new and/or i think of anything else. im vibrating over this shit, it’s awesome. i LOVE this map. might have to pick one up on ebay or smth.

[rabbiteclair]

how do you go about doing research for your fics? i often want to write, but find myself stuck and overwhelmed with the amount of research that’s needed to portray things accurately. i never know where to start looking. got any pointers?

(Standard ‘look I just do this for funsies and have no formal education around writing, so this is all just my own experience and some secondhand advice’ disclaimer applies)

First off, by avoiding research as much as humanly possible. Really. Really. Do yourself a favor.

The way I see it, when you run into a Factual Thing you don’t actually know while writing, you have three options.

Avoid going into unnecessary detail on the thing so that it doesn’t matter that you don’t know about it.

Research the thing in-depth to make sure you get it right.

Give up on getting it Just Right and BS something.

#1 is very nice where applicable! Especially works well for stuff that isn’t very interesting or relevant to the plot.How does one go about making a TV from scratch? Heck if I know. So when I wrote Nitori doing it, I gave only really broad details about the process, and it mostly happened offscreen. No research required!

#3 is a lifesaving skill. This should probably be your default answer on 90% of things. Like, as an example: the bit from Goddess/Girlfriend where Sanae got enshrined. I am pretty sure that a few arahitogami got enshrined during their lifetimes in ye olden dayes. If I searched long and hard, I could probably find out what this process looks like. And, I did in fact start searching when I was writing the fic. But, 1) the odds of readers knowing the Proper way to do things were pretty darn slim and 2) we’re talking Reimu, who happens to live in a fantasy realm where provable gods can walk up to you and steal your french fries, and isn’t a very orthodox shrine maiden anyway. She was probably BS’ing it in character. So hey, make something up and avoid the thirty hours of research.

This is great for things that aren’t ultimately that important, or stuff that’s obscure enough that nobody’s likely to have their experience ruined if you don’t get the details right. Dunno much about historic pub food costs to use as a basis for the prices at Mystia’s stand? Make something up. Dunno how somebody living in an isolated fantasy realm analogous to the mid-1800s could get their hands on refined sugar, or sulfuric acid, or a modern telescope? Make something up. Plus, with some of these cases, ‘what’s historically accurate?’ is a less important question than ‘what would make the story more interesting?’

Which just leaves... stuff that actually needs researched.

And if you get to that point, you should still really ask yourself whether it matters. Will somebody care that you wrote about characters eating sushi in a landlocked region? No, really, think about it. I promise you that the time you spend debating whether Gensokyo could have developed the right sorts of aquaculture techniques to raise freshwater fish that are safe for sushi production could be better spent writing. If somebody still complains about it, look them in the eye and say ‘I don’t fucking know, Sumireko smuggled in another ocean fish, are you happy?’ (Yes this is a topic I spent about eight hours researching back in the day and I am retroactively bitter about it.)

But, let’s say you do find some stuff that legit needs to be accurate. First off, there are two real broad categories here, I feel.

Number one is straightforward factual bits. How tall is a torii usually? What’s a suitable detonator for a modern explosive? How long would somebody have to fly straight up before they hit clouds, assuming they were going a bit faster than a sprint? This is all stuff that you might decide you’ve gotta get right. It’s also stuff that could very well not be that important. When you hit one of these, you really should just leave a note for yourself, keep writing, and research it later. Nothing slows down your progress like pausing every seven minutes to research things that don’t even impact the story. (The Patchouli chapter of Thief of Hearts had a lot of these in the rough draft. Lots of ‘Marisa pointed the telescope at [COORDINATES]. Looking through it, she saw [SOME CONSTELLATIONS].’)

Number two... is, yeah, the stuff that you both need to research, and that matters to the story. If you’re writing a long arc about characters building an airplane, you should probably have a pretty good idea of how airplanes are made. Not only that, but the details shape the story--what kinds of obstacles the characters face will partially depend on your findings. This stuff, you should try to research before you even start writing, when possible.

Apart from factual stuff, it can also be a very good idea to research general... flavor things. Like, if I were writing a novel-length story set in the underground, I’d probably BS a lot of the details, but I’d also read a good bit about spelunking and those weird cave fish and stuff, to just kind of help me get the feel right and give me some general ideas.

... so, with all of those ‘CHOOSE YOUR RESEARCH WISELY’ warnings out of the way, what secrets can I bestow upon you for actually performing research?

idk, Google mostly

Google can turn up a lot, though. Google Books has a ton of old reference stuff available, and if you’re searching on fairly scholarly topics, it’s usually pretty good at finding relevant academic papers for you. Cultural stuff is its big weakness, in my experience: If you want a good overview of architecture styles in regular houses two hundred years ago, or what weddings looked like in the Meiji era, you are out of luck.

Youtube is also surprisingly helpful here. Weird DIY chemistry videos gave me a 10x better idea of how to make chemicals than I got from a day of reading Wikipedia. I found something like a 18-minute documentary about how karakasa are traditionally made that was very helpful for writing Kogasa.

There are two whole online resources I can recommend for Touhou-adjacent topics in particular:

First is The Encyclopedia of Shinto. This is an indexed English translation of one of the main Japanese references on Shinto, so it’s fairly thorough, if a bit high-level in places. Useful for writing shrine/god stuff. Plus, since it’s, you know, a religion, I feel inclined to try harder for accuracy when it comes to Shinto topics.

Second is the Kojiki. As of last time I checked, the only translation available online is Chamberlain’s old clunky one, but it works. Volume 1 contains a lot of bedrock mythological stuff. Touhou references it all over in general, and basically every Lunarian but Kaguya can be traced back to a character in here.

... good references on youkai are unfortunately much harder to find. There are a few English sites cataloguing them, but I don’t trust any of them thoroughly enough to link directly. ZUN plays pretty fast-and-loose with a lot of youkai, anyway, so I feel like actual folktales are best viewed as an inspiration.

oops this turned into an essay didn’t it. Oh well hopefully something in there is useful.

[igotopinions]

Books I Read in 2019

* = Re-read Check out past years: 2012, 2013 (skipped), 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Follow me on Goodreads to get these reviews as they happen. 1) The Right To Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet by Sheila Watt-Cloutier 2) Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire by Emily Witt 3) The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi 4) My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Reads like a more mature Chuck Palahniuk. 5) Of Dice and Men by ME I won't be a dink and give myself a star rating or glowing review, but I gotta get that credit for my annual reading challenge! I'll also say it's a richly rewarding experience to, after all the work of writing & editing & publishing & promoting, to re-read something you wrote and still feel all the strong, positive feelings it gave as you figured out the first draft. 6) Lagos Noir, edited by Chris Abani 7) The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair 8) The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi A really fun, cleverly written coming-of-age story with just the right period touches to it. I gobbled this thing down in a couple of days, having no problem seeing why Zadie Smith spoke highly of it in her latest book of essays. 9) Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice 10) America: The Farewell Tour  by Chris Hedges   TL:DR This book is not toilet paper, but it sure is shit-adjacent. It gave me strong feelings, which you can read on Goodreads. 11) The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic by Joanna Ebenstein Great introduction to the subject with fantastic photos & illustrations. My only frustration was the layout, which frequently breaks up the main text mid-sentence for two or even four pages of images with details captions to read or full page quotes, so it takes a bit more effort to read linearly. 12) The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany I found this through the ol' Appendix N reading list and it's not hard to see how this influenced D&D in many ways, but it has value well beyond that novelty. This is a wonderful fantasy tale in the vein of classic fairy tales, a welcome break from the kind of epics we mostly associate with the genre these days. By the final run up to the ending I was really immersed in what I was reading and I know I'll be looking up more of his books. 13) The Worst Is Yet to Come: A Post-Capitalist Survival Guide by Peter Fleming *14) A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.   The first third remains perfect. The middle third is better than I remember, which is to say very good indeed, despite the feeling of inevitability running through it. The final third remains a pretty obvious punchline stretched out over too many pages, something basically predicted by the ending of the middle story. But! Ah! That first third! 15) The Gods of Pegana by Edward John Moreton Dunsany In theory this was an influence on Lovecraft's Dreamlands cycle books. 16) Era of Ignition: Coming of Age in a Time of Rage and Revolution by Amber Tamblyn 17) Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa 18) 1985 by Anthony Burgess 19) Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan 20) Seasonal Associate by Heike Geissler,  Kevin Vennemann (Afterword), Katy Derbyshire (Translation) 21) Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport 22) How To Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck Edited by Jobe Bittman 23) The Immortal of World's End by Lin Carter 24) This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace 25) My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite *26) Idoru by Oliver Brackenbury 27) Conan by Robert E. Howard,  L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter 28) Heroes in the Wind: From Kull to Conan by Robert E. Howard 29) The Postman by David Brin Yes, this is that “The Postman”, the one which was adapted into a universally reviled Kevin Costner film in the mid-to-late nineties. It is, however, significantly different and far more enjoyable. It is an extremely White Straight Guy book with some curious ideas about gender in the back end, a "Rah rah, America!" through-line, and an obsession with describing horses as "steaming". It is also a well-crafted, clear, concise, quickly-moving story that avoids several obvious turns most authors would have plowed right into, and overall serves as a great exploration of the power of lies & myths. Plus, yeah, it is kind of heartwarming to imagine the concept of snail mail & the people who deliver it serving to re-unite us in the post-apocalypse. Unlike the movie, I'd honestly recommend this. Heck, I'm thinking I'll start exploring the rest of his catalog. 30) Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond  & Adam Horowitz If you're a fan, then you'll like this. If not? I dunno man! The whole thing feels like hearing stories from your favourite old high school buddies when they're at their most honest and interesting. Great stuff. 31) Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery 32) Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master by Michael Shea 33) Conan of Cimmeria by Robert E. Howard,  L. Sprague De Camp, and Lin Carter. As tends to be the case, the pure Howard stories are best. Carter and De Camp are mostly interested in arranging Howard's work into a larger, more coherent universe...which is fine, I guess, but it has a way of making Conan feel less a legend striding in and out of fantastic situations, more a man - a strong, interesting man, sure, yet still just a man. *34) The Hunter by Richard Stark *35) Beast by Paul Kingsnorth 36) The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline 37) It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office by Dale Beran 38) Planetes, Vol. 1-4 by Makoto Yukimura 39) The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan 40) Reawakening Our Ancestors' Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing by Angela Hovak Johnston 41) Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq 42) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott Part life-as-a-writer therapy, part craft, this leans more toward the latter than Stephen King's ON WRITING and that's plenty fine.  A nice, light read that holds value for writers at all stages of their career, I reckon. 43) Conan The Freebooter by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp As tends to be the case with these collections, the pure Howard stories are best. That said, Lin Carter carries himself much better here than in some of the earlier volumes. There are no magical abstractions of good and evil arm-wrestling each other while Conan just stares at them... 44) The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie 45) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft Pretty good stuff but, as was pointed out on the excellent Appendix N Podcast, this story would have been really something had it been edited down a bit. RACISM METER: Honestly, pretty okay, which is saying something for Lovecraft! No cats with awful names or race theory or any of that. Just a good wholesome story of madness and history. 46) Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin 47) Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber 48) The Enchantress of World's End by Lin Carter 49) The Barbarian of World's End by Lin Carter These are not terribly good books....but I keep reading them for the goofy ideas and setting. Averaging 180 pages, they're not a big investment so hey why not? 50) The Giant of World’s End by Lin Carter The first is the best. I think because it was written as a complete story, not the literary equivalent of another episode of a Saturday morning cartoon, as the other World's End books read. As with the rest of the series it is enjoyed more on the merits of the wacky ideas than the quality of prose, including a part near the end who may well have been a source of inspiration for the Emperor of Mankind in the Warhammer 40K universe. Its main drawback is the classic scifi/fantasy failing of providing multiple asides to historical background meant to add depth to the world but which is ultimately meaningless to the reader as it has little if anything to do with the story - nevermind the characters! Heck, it's only 140 pages. It's fun. The ending actually got to me a little. It's a good place to pluck out ideas for tabletop roleplaying, if you're into that. Yup! 51) Wonder Tales: The Book of Wonder and Tales of Wonder by Lord Dunsany 52) Outcast of Redwall by Brian Jacques It's a fun little story, clearly intended for younger audiences, and I've no regrets having bought it second hand. BUT You could have clipped off nearly a hundred pages if the author didn't feel compelled to give you a highly detailed account of every single meal - including many feasts - had by characters big and small. Holy mother of God do you come out of this knowing a lot about the diets of the various woodland creatures, with their meadowberry pies and etc. 53) Björk's Homogenic by Emily MacKay 54) DCC RPG Annual Vol 1 by Steve Bean, Julian Bernick, Daniel Bishop, Jobe Bittman, Tim Callahan, Colin Chapman, Michael Curtis, Edgar Johnson, Brendan LaSalle, Stephen Newton, Terry Olson, and Harley Stroh 55) Conan the Avenger by Robert Howrd & L Sprague De Camp This is one of the better collections. Only the third story is a reconstruction from one of Howard's outlines, the rest are undiluted and glorious.That said, the back two stories are a bit cringey re: race, *especially* the reconstruction I mentioned. I'd say I don't know who looks at a Howard story and thinks "Ah, this needs more complex racial hierarchy nonsense!" but I do and that man's name is L. Sprague De Camp, apparently!The important thing is now I'm all caught up for the next episode of The Appendix N podcast, which I heartily recommend. 56) Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms by John Hodgman 57) Grand Union: Stories by Zadie Smith 58) The Singing Citadel by Michael Moorcock 59) White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo 60) The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson *61) Virtual Light by William Gibson 62) The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance *63) Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Ursula K. Le Guin (Foreword), Olena Bormashenko (Translator) *64) Bill, the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison A fun little dunk on Heinlein and his ilk. Very slapstick. 65) Gonzo by Hunter S. Thompson *66) McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh

STATS Non-Fiction: 23 Fiction: 42 Poetry Collections:0 Comic Trades: 0 Wrote Myself: 1

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Draft: Kitchen Sink Drama

Vola rolled over onto her back, as though looking at the television from a different angle would somehow improve the dreck she was watching. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t.

‘Ugh,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘Can’t take much more of this.’

She was watching the annual cheese-rolling championship, or whatever it was supposed to be called. Some human thing, she supposed. Ever since the little nub-ears had started taking notice of their new visitors, they seemed to have gone out of their way to flood their media with “quirky human traditions” in order to educate their “newfound friends”.

Honestly, Vola hadn’t really taken much from it. She was becoming more and more aware that the humans around here were petty, passive-aggressive little bitches who liked pushing their culture onto everyone else they came across, but other than that, it wasn’t as though she was learning anything from her experience. Except that apparently chucking a hunk of brie down a grassy embankment was something these nerds enjoyed doing in their downtime.

Vola stared slack-jawed at the screen as her eyes glazed over, her brain cells almost leaking out of her ears as she watched a bearded guy in a stupid looking hat pluck a round of cheese out of a cowpat.

‘Seriously,’ she told herself. ‘I can’t take this any more.’

Her senses seemed to dull as the whole experience washed over her. At least a quarter of an hour passed without her even moving, until eventually her hands and feet started to get itchy. There was only so much not being able to take this any more that she could take, and she had just about reached her limits.

Vola sat up on the bed, stretched, and clumsily found the remote. Finally freeing herself from the mindless human “entertainment” with the click of a button, she resigned herself to the fact that she would probably benefit from getting dressed and finding a better way to amuse herself than to sit in front of the TV until the sun went down.

She chucked on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt she’d left on the floor that didn’t smell too bad, and headed out of her room to get herself some breakfast - or lunch, whichever one she felt like.

She found Cade busying himself in the kitchen. It wasn’t a shock to find him awake, but she was a little taken aback that he was still at their apartment during the daylight hours. Honestly, sometimes she got the feeling the guy never slept, let alone sit still for longer than five minutes at a time. He was always moving around, doing things and going places and meeting people and telling Vola, with the kind of ungodly energy he always seemed to have, that he only wished he could be in two places at once.

Groggily, Vola wondered if all halflings were like this, or if she’d simply drawn the short straw in getting a roommate.

‘Oh,’ said Cade from behind a mixing bowl easily the same size as him. He winked at her as he cracked an egg into whatever he was mixing together, and shot her a huge, cartoony grin that filled his entire face. ‘I was wondering if you ever got up before midday, you old slugabed. Just kidding, just kidding! Did you have a good night’s rest? Tried out those meditation tapes I loaned you yet?’

Vola tried to smile back, but her facial muscles were exhausted out of sheer pity for Cade’s overworked little mush. He had a habit of making her feel tired simply by how much effort he was putting into living. She had half a mind to go back to bed after watching him for only a few seconds.

‘Um,’ she eventually managed, any attempt to respond to his questions lost in the scramble to keep up with his relentless optimism. ‘Do you know if we’ve got any cereal?’

Cade’s great big smile fell flat. ‘It’s nearly eleven, Vol,’ he said. ‘I think you might have missed the boat if you wanted to have breakfast.’

‘Who said anything about breakfast? Cereal’s an anytime food,’ Vola shrugged. She lumbered over to the cupboards and started opening them at random. ‘So, do you know if we’ve got cereal? I’m in a Cheerios kinda mood, but I’ll take anything if we got it.’

She could almost feel him rolling his eyes at her. ‘I hope you’re at least going to put it in a bowl this time,’ he muttered. ‘I mean, far be it from me to tell you how to live your life or tell you how to eat your meals - and yes, I’m quite aware that eating cereal straight out of the box saves on washing up - but honestly, did you really have to pour milk in there too…?’

It was at about this time in pretty much every conversation she’d ever had with Cade that she just started tuning out his little nasal rants. This morning was no exception to the rule. She only wished he had been more helpful in her quest for Cheerios before the inevitable had to happen.

A few minutes later, once she had found something to eat, and once Cade’s high-pitched mothering had faded away and had instead been replaced with the occasional hummed chorus of a song which sounded a little bit like “Walking on Sunshine” by one of those chirpy pop bands he liked so much, Vola decided that it was okay to start talking to the little nerd again. She pulled up a stool next to Cade as he poured sugar into his mixing bowl. ‘So,’ she said, shoving a handful of Chex into her mouth, ‘What’re you up to anyway? You never said.’

‘Ah,’ he said, back to his usual cheery self. ‘Well, you see, I’m trying my hand at baking! It’s something my mother was always insistent I give a try, but unfortunately I never really kept it up after leaving home. I just thought I’d, you know, have a bash at it again.’

‘Huh. That’s… cool.’ Vola looked into the bowl, then at the large book at the halfling’s side. She presumed that it was a recipe book, but it was written in that funny rounded human script she hadn’t bothered to learn how to read yet. ‘Can I have some when you’re done making it?’

Cade made that long, theatrical noise with his nostrils that he did whenever he really wanted to say no but couldn’t think of a polite way to put it. ‘It, erm… It’s… Well, technically it’s intended for someone else, but I suppose you can have a little bit. Perhaps. If you behave. I mean, you can start by putting that cereal in a bowl like I asked…’

She beamed at him, turned the box upside down and shook a fine dust of Chex crumbs all over the floor. ‘Too late,’ she snorted.

‘I still don’t know how you can eat that much so quickly.’ He shook his head in disbelief, his little nose wrinkling as he tried to distract himself by stirring his mixture with a wooden spoon easily as thick and as long as his arm. ‘Perhaps it’s not safe to let you have any of this cake; no doubt you’ll scoff the whole lot before I’ve even had chance to pry it out of its baking tin.’

‘Hey! I resent that! And anyway, it only looks like I’m eating a lot because - number one, you’re about the size of a tin of peaches and eat like a bird on a crash diet, so naturally anything I’m eating is going to look huge in comparison,’ she said, ‘and number two, humans have no idea how to package food in orc-sized portions. Seriously, you tiny people are all alike: halflings, humans, elves… maybe not dwarves, they know their way around a healthy-sized meal…’

Vola looked up, noticing that Cade had stopped stirring the mixture. He was looking a little pale.

‘Um. You okay there, bud?’ She prodded him gently in the arm.

He shook himself, as though he was awakening from a particularly worrying daydream. ‘What? Oh, yes. Fine, perfectly fine. I just need more flour. And, erm, butter. And probably eggs too. And probably - oh, rats.’

‘Rats?’ Vola scratched her head. ‘I didn’t know you could make rat cake.’

‘Oh please, don’t be facetious, Vol,’ Cade huffed. He hopped down from his seat and paced around in a little circle. ‘I’m really not in the mood. I’m going to have to go out and get more ingredients, aren’t I? Oh no, I really haven’t thought this through. Damn, damn…’ He slapped his leg as though it was briefly on fire before, in his characteristic whirlwind of energy, he jabbed a finger in the air. ‘That’s it,’ he decided. ‘I’m going out. I’ll get double the ingredients, come back, wash out the bowl, start the recipe again - and by Yondalla’s braid! I’ll probably be too late to catch him. I’ve ruined the whole day, haven’t I? Vola, what am I going to do? Everything’s ruined, isn’t it? What am I to do?!’

Living with Cade these past few weeks had been an adventure. For someone who barely reached her kneecap, the little guy seemed to be filled to overflowing with more emotional twists and turns than a Rubik’s cube with a bad sense of direction. He’d just gone from being uproariously ecstatic to the deepest, wailing depths of inconsolable despair in a few minutes, and here she was still trying to pretend that she knew what facetious meant.

‘Um,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to… help? At all? I mean, I could just go and… I dunno, buy you some more stuff to make your cake with or something?’

Cade’s whole face lit up, his misery melting away in seconds. ‘Right, I’ll need another bag of all-purpose flour, some unsalted butter, another carton of eggs… and maybe another bag of sugar, just to be on the safe side. White, granulated,’ he clarified, as though she didn’t know what sugar was. ‘I’ve got enough of the other ingredients. Thank you, Vol, you’re a peach!’

‘Yeah, I guess I’m not too bad,’ Vola grinned. At least running errands was better than watching some dudes throwing cheese down a hill all day.