#mini writeup

[bumbled-bees]

I feel conflicted, I see everyone talking about how awful CD is but the times I've interacted with her before she switched names she seemed sweet.

You’re not alone in that.

A lot of people, even now, are still working through that dissonance: how can someone who once seemed kind, understanding, or even supportive be the same person who’s now the subject of so much criticism and hurt?

The truth is, that confusion is part of how Lily (CD) draws people in. It’s not just that she can seem sweet: sometimes, she genuinely is. Especially early on. Especially if you’re new, vulnerable, or trying to find your footing in her community. She knows how to be welcoming. She knows how to mirror your values and speak your language. She’s clever, and emotionally perceptive enough to know what people want to hear when they first show up. And when she’s not actively on the defensive or in a foul mood, she can come across as thoughtful or insightful, because that’s part of the persona that originally made people gravitate to her.

But the important thing to realize is that those early positive moments don’t cancel out the pattern of harm she’s caused over time. A manipulative or harmful person doesn’t have to be cruel all the time to still be damaging. In fact, inconsistency is one of the strongest psychological hooks. It keeps people off-balance. You start to wonder, “Did I do something wrong? Am I just imagining the bad stuff?” You cling to the good memories because they feel more real, more comforting, and it’s painful to reconcile them with what comes later.

Lily also benefits from being particularly good at making you feel like one of the “smart ones,” the “good ones,” the people who get her. That sense of exclusivity, of being on the inside of something others “don’t understand”, can be incredibly validating, especially if you’ve ever felt unheard or dismissed in other spaces. It makes it even harder to believe you could be misreading things or that she’s acting in bad faith. But eventually, the mask slips. Maybe she snaps at you. Maybe you watch her do it to someone else. Maybe you notice how your discomfort keeps getting minimized, and how hard it is to express criticism without backlash.

It’s okay to have been drawn in. It’s okay to have believed the best in someone. That doesn’t make you naive or complicit. It makes you human. Lily’s behavior is calculated to pull people in and then gradually reshape how they interpret her actions, and that’s why so many people feel this exact conflict when they start to see her more clearly.

What matters isn’t whether you once saw her as sweet. What matters is what you do with the fuller picture now, and how you choose to support others who’ve been through the same thing. It’s not your fault for getting pulled in. But it is a sign of strength and empathy to step back and question.

[agbpaints]

Man the Sentinel is such a cool looking mech for how aggressively OK it is. Making your main gun an AC/5 is generally a bad move, though the RAC and Gauss variants are pretty funny tho.

[feardrummed]

can gt.live stop calling me out whenever i put them on while writing. literally stating off with the ollie bit in poppy

[bovineblogger]

Hi Barley!

So apparently people have bred mini micro cows? As house pets? This seems insane to me and I was wondering if you knew anything about that/ had any thoughts on it?

not good!!! very very not good!!

ahhh i try really hard to keep this blog as a positive space but this is a really really important thing to me that i feel really strongly about, and i think id be silly if i didnt at least try to warn people, so here goes!!

cattle are not dogs! please do not keep them as house pets!

cattle have very specific needs and if you're not knowledgeable about those needs and not equipped to raise cattle, please do not keep them. i understand that "micro minis" look cute, i completely understand seeing one and wanting one as a house pet if you're not super knowledgeable about them but i really have to warn you guys that cattle can not be happy and healthy under those conditions!

im going to pass it over to my good friend @horse-reviews for the writeup because im not very good at expressing myself when im frustrated and also he is literally an agriculture science guy so watch this space!

photos from here and here

[le-trash-prince]

This is still a WIP (and will remain so at least until s2 ends) but I think it's rounded enough rn to go ahead and share.

Once it's properly done, I may do a mini-writeup on each song, but I do wanna go ahead and say that the first song, Aching Hearts, is from the S2 pilot. It starts playing when Pete lays the flowers on Way's grave and continues when Kenta, Winner, and Dean pull up to the gravesite. I wanted to include it because I feel like Pete's feelings for Way and Kenta's feelings for Pete are intrinsic to the start of KimKenta's story. Also because it's a good fuckin song.

[crownedinmarigolds]

This has been in my drafts a while but I'll probably be VERY slow finishing it so I'll just post! It's snippets of the mini Nyth and Noa zine my love and I have been thinkin' about! Just a bunch of black and white and reddified bits of my art of them and some of his writeups!

[eat-a-dicker]

mini little write up on ralsei but it's pretty fascinating how he can be read as a writeup on depression. he knows how fucking sad this story is but he's putting on a happy face so that kris, susie and by extension the player can have fun and enjoy themselves. a very tragic and loving character.

[norbezjones]

Bez Reviews Independent Books 5: The Last Bread Mage

Hey everyone!  I wanna do little reviews/writeups for the independently-published books I find on itch.io, and so, here I am.  I want to review one book every month or two (or quicker, if I’m lucky); it’ll get me reading more, and get authors who often go without feedback some thoughts on their work!  I think it’ll be cool for everyone!

If you want your book reviewed, the only requirement I have is that it’s hosted on itch.io.  Even if itch is just one of many places you can get the book, I want to review books that have a home there at least.  Feel free to get in touch with me with your books—I’m @NorbezJones on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Bluesky, Pillowfort, Threads, Instagram, and Tumblr; I’m norbez2.0 on Discord.

Looking forward to seeing your books! <3

__________

After I reviewed M. Kirin’s Memory Leak, Kirin ( @maxkirin ) contacted me and asked if I wanted a review copy of another one of their books, The Last Bread Mage!  I said yes, and here we are!  So to make it plain as possible: I was giving a free copy of this book in order to review it.  However, that does not sway my opinion of the book either way, and my opinions are 100% my own.

So, what’s The Last Bread Mage about?  Well, in a fantasy world, the end times have arrived.  A red mage named Fel manages to survive the destruction of his magic school, and he finds a saint named Amara, who insists they must go to The Pinnacle, the center of the world.  Along their journey, they find a knight named Virgen and a thief named Dormi.  The four journey to the center of the world using the help of Fel’s magic, and when they get there, they make a surprising discovery.

There are almost 30 chapters, and between each chapter is a mini-chapter that describes something that ended off the previous chapter and/or will start off the next chapter.  This “something” can be an object, a person, a piece of worldbuilding, anything really.  These mini-chapters are a cool idea and add a lot to making the world feel real.

So, I won’t bury the lead: I liked this book a whole lot.  I really, really love it.  And not because I got it for free—like I said, that does not affect my opinion, and I honestly wish I could go back in time and spend money on this.  I’m going to make this review as in-depth as possible to make up for the fact that barely anybody has read this fucking amazing book.  I have criticisms, obviously, but overall, this book is a 10/10 from me.

It reminded me of the thick sci-fi & fantasy epics I read to pass time in the hospital (to be clear, that is a compliment), immersing myself in deep worlds with rich characters between the pages.  I wish I’d had The Last Bread Mage during my last trip to inpatient.  I’m glad I have it now, at least.

Also, it’s one of those books that the more you read it, the more the meaning of the cover becomes clear & changes.  The last time that happened was with Still Life With Woodpecker, and it was pretty cool to see it happening here.

You might be asking, “Why is it called The Last Bread Mage?”  This is because Fel is the last red mage, and “bread mage” is another name for “red mage” due to the fact that red mages make bread for hungry people.  They basically use their magic to bend the rules of the universe using the three basic components all things are made of: texture, fiber, & substance.  By mixing & matching these basic materials, they can turn one thing into an entirely different thing, like when Fel renders the bars of a cell into bread.  They use up energy when they do that though, so they can’t do it forever—after all, even magic-users are only human.

The magic system in this book is very interesting, and makes for some very unique ways for Fel to get him & his friends out of the perils they end up facing.  It also soon leads to theological implications, because red mages’ magic changes the logic of the universe set by God.  However, God can only “see” the basic components all things are made of, so since a transmuted item retains the same basic materials, in God’s eyes, nothing has changed.  These theological implications are explored in various ways and go in many directions I didn’t expect, like when Fel uses his powers to make him & his friends not exist in the eyes of God.

There are also times where Fel’s powers go awry, though, through no fault of his own.  Basically, the apocalypse occurring in the world is causing the world’s logic to fall apart, drowning continents and making fantastical creatures appear that previously only existed in fiction.  This means that the logic behind Fel’s powers sometimes fails him, such as when he tries to make a doorway for him & Amara to escape down the block from a threat, but when they go through that doorway, they’ve been transported halfway across the world.

By making the story about the logic of the universe and how it can be exploited or make what should go right go wrong, the book carries a consistent throughline throughout the whole thing, even & especially when Fel does his most shocking action near the end of the story.  It’s a very admirable feat.

Speaking of the ending, I do want to talk about that.  If you don’t want to be spoiled, skip to the “SPOILERS END HERE” line.

**SPOILERS START HERE**

When Fel and his friends reach The Pinnacle, they meet a few other folks there—and they meet God.  I wasn’t sure if God was going to end up being real or not, but there it is, fretting as the world comes to an end.  It’s revealed that God made the world in an effort to make order out of chaos, but chaos keeps seeping through, no matter what it does.  It has ended & restarted the world many, many, many times, always bringing back The Chosen Four (Amara & three others named Lumbre, Huesos, & Frio) and The Fated Four (Fel [true name: Felicidad], Virgen [true name: Virtud], Dormi [true name: Domino (a name Dormi finds “fucking stupid”) & Beatrix [true name: Hambre])

Beatrix is a very interesting character.  In this lifetime, she was the butcher in the prison Dormi was locked up in, ruthlessly killing many of Dormi’s friends.  But she regrets being that person, thought she had to make herself into what she now realizes is a monster.  Her & Dormi’s reflection is shown in this passage:

“Dormi and Beatrix‌—‌who had been incredibly lost until this point‌—‌found themselves looking at one another. They thought about the life they’d led and wondered how different things would’ve been had they switched places. It humbled Beatrix, for she had been taught to hate the people of Gritlan, and it scared Dormi, for they were terrified of the butcher they might’ve become.”

The eight of them are always created when a new cycle begins.  Amara remembers every single cycle, every single timeline that has ever existed.  So does God, of course.  And now, it’s time for the world to end for a new cycle to begin.

The Chosen Four all carry pieces of The Worldly Egg, from which a new cycle of the world will hatch.  They take out their pieces, the egg forms—but God doesn’t hatch it.  Instead, God admits to them that it is tired of change, of chaos.  It longs for predictability, and wants this all to end.  It wants this to be the last cycle to ever exist.

Of course, everyone else protests.  So, God asks them all to vote whether this should be the last cycle of the world.  God votes Yea, as it is tired of doing this over & over again.  Everyone else votes, until finally, Fel has to be the tiebreaker. 

But instead of voting, Fel takes the The Worldly Egg and rends it, crunching it down to its most basic materials and absorbing them into himself.  In doing so, Fel absorbs everything existing into himself—the world, his friends, even God—and becomes the new creator of the universe.  The Prince of Absolute Chaos.

He creates a new cycle, brings his friends back.  God is reborn as a child, and as a being who has never had a name, it asks Fel to have his—to be named Felicidad.  Fel says yes, as long as, “[Y]ou must promise me to honor the name by living a life full of joy, laughter, and smiles.  Do you promise?”

The previous God thinks about it—after all, life could be full of “joy, laughter, and smiles” or it can be full of “misery and misfortune”.  In the end, it promises Fel it will uphold the name, and the book ends on that final exchange.

I teared up quite a bit as I read through the ending, and even going back to find quotes for this review made me tear up again.  Saving your friends, saving the world, and even saving God—there’s something very beautiful in that, I think.

I also love how Kirin was able to bring aspects of his Mexican culture into the book, by making all of the true names that of “the first language” within the book’s universe (Spanish).  It’s a nice little touch and I think it’s neat.

**SPOILERS END HERE**

Now for my criticisms.  Like Adrian in Memory Leak, Fel is referred to as “the young man” quite a lot.  Sometimes this happens multiple times in the same paragraph.  This seems to be in an effort to avoid using pronouns instead, but sometimes, it’s better to just say “he”, as someone who also has this problem in eir writing (thanks, OCD [literally, not a figure of speech]!).

That’s basically my only nitpick.  I wish I had more to criticize honestly, but I really don’t.  Good problems to have.

In conclusion, I’ve never been angrier that a book isn’t popular than when I finished this one.  Where are the Tumblr shitposts and multiple pieces of fanart for this book?  I’m so mad lmao!  Also, I imagine I will have that feeling quite a bit as I continue this book review series.

I want to leave off with these words that Amara says to Fel, because I think they’re beautiful:

“‘The only thing worth a damn in this world is being the best versions of ourselves. What does that look like to you, sweet Fel? What does the best version of you look like? It may seem far away, unreachable at the best of times, but you should reach out for this impossible ideal. Be the truest version of yourself. That’s the only thing we can do. Everything else? My dear, everything else is a gamble.’”

So true, bestie.  Amen.

[life-series-playlist-submissions]

I have to do one of these totally off topic concert writeups for Starset AE03 too! This is the second time I’ve travelled a long way to go see Starset, and it felt pretty worth it each time. Especially since the acoustic events and the main demonstrations are vastly different. I just can’t say enough about how insane I am about Starset, and this obsession opened me up to being insane about other sorts of music, and therefore feeling equipped to run this blog XD. Also Badboyhalo is completely to blame for me discovering Starset, I found them because he mentioned them as his favourite band on stream.

So, AE03. It’s their 3rd instalment in their acoustic event series, where they play a shorter, this time 11 song setlist for 100-150 of the biggest fans in their acoustic form. It’s basically like a big VIP event, it then transitions into getting a photo with the band and getting to talk to them and give them stuff to sign. (I now own 7 items signed by the band. 2 posters, a lanyard tag from Immersions pt.2 and AE03, both books and an Echo Unit plushie I made myself.) I got VIP at Immersions pt.2 last year, and since I’d already met them once I was much more composed. It’s insane to think about, because I was able to just casually talk to the man, Dustin Bates himself, who I’ve spent hours apon hours listening to his music, about a question that I had about one of the books, and how we rarely get any good concerts where I live. My part time customer service job trained me for this day.

The setlist was great too, and I was super happy to get to hear Starlight and Telescope live. Starlight is personally significant, and Telescope is a deeper cut I wasn’t ever expecting to hear live. I was telling Cory from the band that I really enjoyed Starlight among the other songs I liked and he told me that he was the one who got it onto the setlist. My reaction was something along the lines of “OH MY GOSH THANK YOU.” (Cory’s awesome btw.) Toksik was probably the most fun out of the setlist, especially since I had no idea how the heck they were going to make it work acoustically. The audience was super into it, me included! I’ve got an odd fondness for that song, especially because of how easy it is to quote. My only setlist gripes are how I voted Ricochet on the vote song because I hadn’t heard it live before, and Die For You I’d already heard, Die For You won. And “one day I’ll get to hear Where The Skies End live…”

I got a pretty good spot in the audience too, with only one layer of people in front of me. It was a “thank goodness” moment, since I’m not very tall. I was super paranoid about not being in the way, especially since some of the people in the front were obnoxious in my opinion. Canadian in a room of Americans.

The only thing I got at the merch stand was an Echo Unit keychain, I’d seen them on the website but they were pretty expensive, but they were selling them here for only 5$ USD. Since I’d said no to getting one for price reasons before, I jumped at getting it. I could’ve got more merch but I have enough Starset merch already, I want to save my money for future merch drops and the new book that’s coming out later this year. There was a chance to win prizes too, and I didn’t win anything, but the number 135 was called which is like my personal funny number. Since this is a Life Series blog, my love for Cubfan135 is not apparent at all but he’s my favourite hermit and I’m in love with him and that’s an understatement.

Anyways, one of the items I brought to get signed was my Echo Unit plushie, that I’d hand made myself for this. (I’m pretty good at making plushies, I have a full set of mini hermits I made when Hermitcraft 9 started, plus a Skizz and Joel added later.) The band and a bunch of other fans that were there really liked it, here is a link to a post on another blog with pictures of the plushie. I got a few “where did you get it?” questions, which I responded that I made it myself, which is a great compliment that my work is on par with something you could mistake as official merch. I’d love to make some to sell but as we know as MCYT fans, fanmerch can be risky territory.

I think I was one of, if not the first person that Zuzana, the cello player spoke to. I was nervous that silver sharpie wouldn’t show up well on the fabric I chose for my plushie’s hood, so I had brought a scrap of the same fabric that I used in hopes to test the marker on. I told her this and gave her the scrap, and she just signed it like usual when I was just expecting like, a test scribble so now I have no idea what to do with this random piece of fabric that’s signed by Zuzana from Starset XDDDD.

Just now realizing that most of this post is me talking about the experience as a whole rather than the actual music, but this is an off topic ramble for a reason. I could do essays about Starset as a whole, I’ll restrain myself. Keep the playlist submissions coming!

[bumbled-bees]

I feel like it's also important to acknowledge Lily isn't a 24-7 manipulation machine either. She's human, she contains a spectrum, sometimes she's nice or kind or thoughtful to the people she likes simply because she likes them (and sometimes it's because she wants them to like her back, which is a normal human thing to want). The problem is she refuses to learn to respect boundaries, and eventually it won't matter how much she likes someone if they're not giving her what she wants.

She lets her feelings dictate her 'objective' understanding of the world around her to such a degree that if she DOESN'T like you, if she thinks what you're doing is annoying or tiresome or frustrating or stupid, that's YOUR fault and you should do better. And if you don't...things can start to get ugly.

Yes, exactly!

Lily is not a cartoon villain, nor is she operating some 24/7 psychological chessboard where every move is deliberate and malicious. She’s human. That includes genuine warmth, genuine connection, even moments of insight or compassion. But like you said, the issue isn’t whether she can be kind: the issue is why, to whom, and how those moments are undermined by her broader patterns of behavior.

When Lily likes someone, she can be thoughtful. She can be generous. But as you observed, that’s often conditional, tethered to how much validation or agreement that person gives her in return. The moment someone deviates from her expectations by setting a boundary, asking a question she doesn’t want to answer, or simply not performing the loyalty she feels entitled to, that warmth curdles. Her entire perception of you can flip on a dime, and once she decides you’re in the “annoying” or “wrong” category, there’s very little room for redemption. That shift isn’t just personal, either: it becomes moralized. If she’s irritated or hurt by you, then you must have done something bad. You must be manipulative. Or a stalker. Or obsessed. Or in bad faith.

And because she interprets the world through the lens of her own emotional comfort, she genuinely seems to believe that anyone who makes her uncomfortable must be objectively wrong, not just in their behavior, but in their entire character. She collapses boundaries into personal betrayals, and disagreement into threat. That makes honest communication almost impossible. Because even if you bring an issue to her calmly, even if you're trying to be empathetic, she often reads it as an attack on her identity and reacts accordingly.

So yes, Lily’s not always manipulative, and sometimes she’s kind simply because she feels like it, just like anyone else. But because she’s unwilling (or unable) to do the hard work of distinguishing between her feelings and the reality of a situation, it means the kindness is always walking a tightrope. It’s easily revoked. And over time, that conditionality poisons the well. Because it teaches the people around her: you are only safe here as long as you keep her happy.

[boxturret]

Bohrok Pens Part 2: Beads and Charms

In this second installment of my coverage of the Bohrok pens I'd like to cover the pens themselves.

PART 1

PART 3

Just for some quick terminology, the Bohrok feature 3 colours and they will be referred to as such throughout this writeup:

Primary: For Tahnok this would be red, the colour used for the body and shields.

Secondary: For Tahnok this would be orange, the colour used on the limbs.

Tertiary: For Tahnok this would be blue, the colour of the eyes and Krana

The main defining feature of this pen system is the use of a set of interlocking beads and other decorative charms that use a thin metal rod that threads through the assembly to hold it together.

Due to the fixed length of the rod the number of charms you can use at one time is limited.

The pens come with many parts to swap out, but to start let's cover the most coveted one, the miniature Krana.

The Krana featured in the pens are roughly half the size of the real ones and are quite accurate, mainly just missing the eye holes. They're even made of a slightly rubbery plastic. Unlike real Krana the Mini Krana aren't randomised, the Tahnok pen always comes with a blue Krana-Za. This unfortunately means that Kranas Ja and Vu are not available as Mini Krana.

As opposed to the original Toa pens, where their small mask clipped on to a round bead, the Krana attach to a small charm styled after a Toa head in much the same way as the real ones can, using a small peg that fits in to the mouth of the head.

Now for the most important part, structurally, the Bohrok face shield charm, which features the thin metal rod.

This part is styled after the Bohrok face shield, but the pattern is printed on, rather than achieved by mixing clear and coloured plastic like in the real part. The part is articulated and can be flipped up to reveal the Krana, should you decide to place it there. In the downward position it can also function as the pen's clip.

The next charm is made to resemble two Bohrok limbs merged together. Its quite open and allows a view of the metal rod when used in the pen. Interestingly its made in the primary colour, instead of the secondary like the real sets. The Bohrok limbs wouldn't be appear in the primary colours until the Bohrok-Kal.

That concludes the charms, so now we move on to the various types of beads. To begin with, each pen includes two cube beads in their secondary colours.

One features the corresponding Bohrok-Va on opposite sides, interestingly the art is mirrored between the two. The second features an image of the Bohrok's shield alternating with the first letter of the Bohrok's name written in the Matoran script. Unlike the Bohrok-Va being mirrored the shield is actually rotated 180 degrees.

Next comes the cylindrical beads. Again, there are two included in each pen, one is made of transparent plastic in the tertiary colour, while the other is made of solid coloured plastic in the secondary, with the Bohrok emblem printed in the primary colour on only one side. This is true for all except the one included with Kohrak pen, which for some reason inverts the colours.

The last of the printed beads is the large round one. Every set comes with a black one that features a BIONICLE logo. They also come with a primary coloured one that features a monochromatic image of the island of Mata Nui on one side and the name Mata Nui on the other, printed in the secondary colours.

Now for the filler beads.

Due to the fixed length of the metal rod there are several coloured beads that can be used to fill space. Every pen comes with one large ribbed bead in the primary colour.

There is also a much smaller, thinner bead. Each pen comes with two, one in the secondary and one in black. Except for, again, the Kohrak pen, which instead has two black beads.

Finally there are the double beads, basically two of the thinner beads stacked on top of each other. Each pen comes with one in light grey, and one in the tertiary colour.

Last but not least comes the actual pen component of these pens.

Each pen features a pattern specific to the Bohrok's element, bubbling water for Gahlok, flames for Tahnok, etc. This pattern is then encased in soft, transparent rubbery plastic that has, unfortunately, become quite sticky over the years.

The pen mechanism is rather simple, by rotating the very tip of the pen in one direction the tip will be extended and you can write with it, and rotating it in the other will retract the pen.

The mechanism can be easily removed by unscrewing the end cap, which is where the thin metal rod that holds the whole pen together is attached to.

The mechanism comprises of a small metal ink cartridge attached to a white piece of plastic with a large thread on it, which is responsible for the extending of the writing tip. There is a rather large spring to keep pressure on the cartridge, as when the pen tip is retracted fully the part is just floating freely. Due to the specialised nature of the parts I don't know how replaceable the ink cartridge would be. at the very least it would need to be cut down.

That concludes this look at the pens, finally this series will feature a small gallery of some photos I took of the pens.

[what-about-zaladane]

Reddit Astrology Response Masterlist

Astrology: r/AskAstrologers

I've got a short series where I reply to Reddit questions that are too old for me to reasonably comment on, or my writeup got a little long, or I just feel like reposting my response to tumblr as a mini-essay.

Mars in Cancer in the 8th House: A Quiet Storm (also includes Mars aspects to Pluto, Mercury, MC, and Neptune)

Why Your Mail Keeps Disappearing: A Natal Chart-Based Look at Logistics and Karma

Why Do I Give off A Negative First Impression? Mars, Venus-Pluto Squares, and the Armor of Intensity

Reddit Chart Analysis: Joy, the Fifth House, and Fallen Jupiter

[arwainian]

The F@tT Fic Marathon: Catching up finally.

🎉I have officially read the full Friends at the Table AO3 tag!🎉

My very silly quest has reached its technical end point after EXACTLY 10 months of intensive reading! It has been sometimes grueling, often delightful, and led to me developing intense opinions in directions i never thought possible to myself. But I have done it, and I am extremely pleased with myself.

To get some housekeeping out the way, I usually give recs upon a writeup, but since there were only three fics left for me to read i'm just gonna shout them out generally.

Fics 1981-1983

check out i'm too scared to say half of the things i do (when i picture you) by waltztangocache for partizan era Kal'mera Broun fantasizing about Valence and trying to keep from letting that slip through their telepathic bond

and if you like Christmas fic, fangirl_squee has got you covered with Fero "not liking Christmas" but being roped into it anyway, and the Bluff City Masks crew hunting down some Christmas mini-miracles

and like, if you're looking for something to read, remember every single writeup has come with at least one personal recommendation. it's all under the tag #fatt fic marathon (also a caveat that these recommendations come from my personal tastes, i might not have mentioned a fic during the marathon that's a favorite of yours and i hope you continue to deeply enjoy what you love even when it might not have hit where I would have liked)

if you would like to take a look at the massive spreadsheet I used to keep track of which fics I was set to read together, as well as other info like what season it was for, and word count, here is a link to it!

What next?

First of all, I'm gonna spend a good long time reading other things. I've accumulated a great big To-Be-Read pile of pleasure reading consisting of both real-ass books and other fanfic that have been put at a lower priority while I powered through this project. I have had fun, but it is high time for a Break to read and do other stuff for a bit. (*glances nervously at my unstarted secsam project*)

If you happen to like my thoughts about what I'm reading, this past year I tried to keep track with reading log posts. They got stripped down to the basics over the course of the year and Finals Season sorta took it out of me so there's nothing for the past couple weeks BUT. i like reading a lot and i like talking about it a lot. so that's all tagged as #cal reading log if you want to keep up with me and my reading

and, what shall happen to these writeups! I'm not interested in continuing these in perpetuity, but I may give a final send off one when the tag hits 2000 (i'm still deciding). otherwise, this is likely the end of them. I might still shout out inidivudual cool fics that get published as I read them, but that's just like, good fandom practice to spread around cool fanworks tbh, rather than this weird thing I've done. nonetheless, i hope y'all had fun watching this journey

and a final thank you to all of the lovely authors who have made fanfic writing their hobby and have chosen to share what they write with others. Thank you! it is extremely obvious that I could not have done this if they never put pen to page or fingertip to keyboard and did the dang thing in the first place. you've made some cool stuff and i like reading it.

Happy New Year Everyone!

[fritzes]

mini chaos writeup: fritzpaul acapulco match

for @pinkcaraz

so, let's set the scene. it's the semifinals of acapulco 2023, taylor fritz vs tommy paul. keep in mind, acapulco is a tournament where it's so hot and humid that they literally only have night session matches, so this is all happening pretty late at night

oh, and in the quarterfinals, taylor just beat frances. big week for the trio

tommy wins the first set (and the only normal set in this match) 6-3. obviously this frustrates taylor. they have that interesting dynamic where they're such close friends that they're even more competitive with each other than they are with anyone else, and this stretches back a while. this is pure speculation, but surely taylor feels like he has something to prove here, since tommy literally used to make bets with other players on who could beat taylor the fastest (to be fair to tommy, taylor absolutely sucked in juniors)

so, in the second set, there are a ton of breaks and tommy ends up serving for the match. he has a match point... and then he loses said match point and gets broken. classic tommy paul. taylor goes on to take the set in a 7-2 tiebreak

at this point, they're both exhausted. taylor has completely changed outfits. they're playing some crazy tennis. there are some early breaks, but it seems like it's barreling towards a tiebreak. oh, and throughout the set, taylor is starting to look really, really sick

so, at 5-6, just before taylor is about to serve to stay in the set, he walks back to his bench and vomits into a bin. now, in retrospect, this could have been a good thing, signaling the rise of post puke fritz, but alas that did not happen. instead of doing the sane thing of trying to get some kind of break, taylor walks right back out onto the court to serve. he faces two match points, but he somehow manages to hold

in the third set tiebreak, tommy returns the score taylor gave him in the second set, 7-2. and so, three and a half hours later, it's over

at the net, tommy looks like he's about to collapse. taylor looks like he's about to collapse and then melt into a little puddle. they're both dying

the next day, tommy loses the final in three sets to alex de minaur

in 2024, they both lose in the first round of acapulco. considering all of this, maybe that's for the best

[timberwind]

I should get to the other asks that have been waiting in my inbox for months (sorry!) soon... I meant to do little mini-comics for each of them but life lately has been a touch too busy for that. I'll probably just do writeups with the occasional diagram.

[extraordinaryhistories]

CHECKPOINT: The Extraordinary Histories roadmap

…so how are we doing this?

Like, really?

With ‘Sofia’s Song’ marking song number 30 on Extraordinary Histories and the last original song of the A Sun Came era  I thought it best that I use this as a mini-checkpoint, take a step back, and explain exactly how I’m planning to go about the mammoth task of writing companions to every single Sufjan Stevens song ever. 

I’ll let you all in on a little secret: when I started Extraordinary Histories I didn’t have a plan. Not a real one, anyway. My thinking was that I would start with A Sun Came and then just… work it out from there. Whatever would come next (Enjoy Your Rabbit? The bonus tracks? The loose tracks from the era?) was tomorrow’s problem; at that stage, all I needed to do was focus on working out the approach my writeups would take. It was more than enough work! But I discovered that approach quickly enough, and pretty much overnight, I found myself at the end of A Sun Came and well into the loose tracks– and bereft of a true plan of attack. I’m glad in retrospect that I started with ‘A Winner Needs a Wand’ instead of a track like ‘Jamila’ that probably technically preceded it. It was already a big ask getting people to be interested in Sufjan’s chronically under-listened debut album; starting with something even more obscure would have totally eliminated momentum.

But once that was all done, I realised I had questions to ask myself:

Which songs were I to include in this project? Should I be including his covers? His demos of later fully fleshed out songs, like ‘Love Yourself’? Remixes of his songs by other artists? What about collaborations? Or live-only tracks, a group which includes some of his all-time best songs like ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Majesty Snowbird’?

In what order should I be tackling these songs? Should I be going by their date of release, even if it meant absurdities like covering ‘Jamila’ and ‘Julia’ during the Age of Adz era? Or should I be going by their approximate recording dates, even if it meant absurdities like covering certain albums, like Planetarium, well before their official release date – and partaking in a whole lot of guesswork?

I thought I’d use this post as a way of answering those questions. Maybe you had them too or maybe you didn’t – either way, at least now you’ll know what to expect.

Regarding the ‘which songs?’ question, I decided that casting a wider net was better than casting an exclusive one and missing out on many important points in Sufjan’s artistic journey. As a general principle, I have decided I will be covering every single original song written by and credited to Sufjan Stevens – and every version of those songs, so long as those versions were created by him. To wit, I will be employing the following rules:

No covers. This might be disappointing to some, and in many senses it’s disappointing to me – I really wanted to write about ‘I Saw Three Ships’, dammit! If we’re exploring the development of Sufjan as a songwriter, though, it would be difficult and somewhat irrelevant (albeit interesting) to talk about his version of ‘Pink Moon’ or ‘Good King Wenceslas’. The biggest impact this will have is on the Christmas songs, which will be reduced to only the originals. If and when I get to the end of this behemoth of a project, I’d be interested in exploring the covers as part of a follow-up series, but that’s a bridge we can cross when we come to it. One exception: I will be covering his version of ‘There’s a World’ by Neil Young, mostly because it’s the closing track of a core studio album. Consistency? I hardly knew ‘er.

No live performances at all – including of unreleased material. Lots of cool alternate live arrangements of ‘Chicago’ out there, and I’ve been thinking of covering his live shows as part of another hypothetical future project. But they won’t be included in Extraordinary Histories; neither will the Carrie and Lowell Live tracks; neither will ‘Majesty Snowbird’, tragically.

No remixes of Sufjan songs by other artists. Sorry, Jon Galaxy remix of ‘Chicago’ fans, and Doveman remix of ‘Futile Devices’ fans.

No songs that aren’t officially released to the public. This was a tough call to make: do I cover Stalker, Astral Inter Planet Space Captain Christmas Infinity Voyage, both, or neither? I settled on ‘neither’, largely for ethical reasons. The artist didn’t want us to hear these, and I will respect the artist’s wishes.

As for the question of order, I decided that I needed to make an absolute call in one direction or the other. Ultimately I judged that jumping back and forth between 1998 and 2008 would be absurd, so I will be covering his discography in order of rough recording chronology. For Sufjan, this is not the same as his release chronology. Albums like Planetarium, for instance, were recorded all the way back in 2013 and only released in 2017, after the Carrie and Lowell era was complete. There are many other cases that are similar to this one – if there were only one or two I might have gone for the simpler route of release chronology, but alas. Once again: Extraordinary Histories is meant to cover Sufjan’s discography both as a collection of songs and as a linear process of artistic growth and redefinition. Its writeups are meant to work both individually and in tandem with one another. There’s a real narrative momentum to Sufjan’s career that would be kneecapped if I had to bounce between different eras.

Time for the big reveal. Here’s the complete list of songs I will be covering for Extraordinary Histories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P6tUPAX0dlHRIWZxGlwtZkhE_sWH3lOKXxKKcqqlX0k/edit?usp=sharing

They are listed in the order in which I will be covering them. I had to make some educated guesses as to when some of these were recorded. You’ll notice some fun details that I discovered in the process, like that ‘My Rajneesh’ was almost certainly recorded during the Carrie and Lowell sessions.

Finally: why am I sharing all this info only now? Partly it’s because I’ve figured it out only now. But it’s partly also because this is a logical cut-off point. We’ve covered everything from A Sun Came and nearly all the tracks from the era. The only ones left before Enjoy Your Rabbit are a quartet of demos of later, more well-known tracks, and seeing as I’d run through the tracks from this period in no particular order, I thought it best to finish off the originals and then tackle these demos in one big non-chronological batch. After those four are done, we’ll jump into Enjoy Your Rabbit, and then ride out his career from there.

See you all very soon.

-Samuel