reviews, thoughts, things i've consumed recently, etc.

sometimes i am consumed by a desire to roundup the media and similar things that i've witnessed, consumed, thought about, etc. in recent days. i like to talk about things i care about! spoilers will abound, presumably

the cemetaries of amalo books by katherine addison

the goblin emperor is one of my favorite books but i always found celehar unnecessarily judgemental so was very nervous to read the sequel series. i liked witness. i wish that the truth of the religious magic had been left more agnostic/up to interpretation, as in goblin emperor, but it's fantasy so ... understandable i guess. i like the tea culture and the other little snippets of the wider, non-court culture we get to learn about. the narrative of witness felt a little all over the place: all of the books in this series lean toward slice of life but i find the others have enough overarching character arc if nothing else to still feel cohesive. witness didn't do that for me. i didn't dislike it, though.

grief of stones left me an emotional wreck; i found myself seeking labyrinths to walk. i am not a person inclined toward religiosity but a deep part of me yearns for ritual and tradition and collective history that i just do not have access to. i haven't thought about going to church in almost a decade and i almost did, after i finished grief of stones. i couldn't really tell you what about it hit me so hard but ... celehar is deeply opinionated, terrified of intimacy, frequently wrong, extremely stubborn, insomniac, miserly — drinks a lot of tea, feeds the cats, prefers to walk over taking the train — and at some point i'm describing myself and not a character.

the charm offensive by alison cochrun

you know, i see a lot of things saying — "queer books these days are so sanitized, they need more sex" "why aren't the teenagers in heartstopper fucking" "where's the desire?" etc etc and i think for me it's not about wanting queer media with more sex, it's about wanting queer media with more mess. the charm offensive has sex in it. it has ace-spec main character(s) and it still has sex scenes. but, it also has a lot of difficult topics and conversations about all kinds of facets of identity and mental illness and at no point does anyone say anything wrong in any of those conversations. they sound like if you searched "how to respond when my friend says they might be asexual" and read it out instead of using your own brain at all. being queer is not neat! it's not correct and there's no way to be correct! i think sex can help with conveying messiness because it causes mess or is messy for a lot of folks but i think that you can be messy without sex. give me more media where people perform different identities in different spaces that directly conflict! relationships and labels that cannot be defined or described in conventional ways! people who still need to unlearn shitty internalized ideas and are mean sometimes! people who say the wrong thing and maybe they never apologize! let us be cruel and unpolished and bad at being perfect and good at being imperfect, and let us still be worthy of existing regardless.

i kissed shara wheeler by casey mcquiston

this is my favorite casey mcquiston specifically for the mess of it. like it still has that classic mcquiston polished idealism that's a little boring sometimes but also it's a book that says, maybe we like monsterfucking because sometimes we like fucking monsters. also give me "i'm mean sometimes and the people who love me still love me" and i'm like a moth on a lamp i love that shit (i also read seasparrow this week, that has that too).

the angel of the crows by katherine addison

the author's note at the end that revealed that this started as a bbc sherlock wingfic literally took me out i was gone from the world for about 48 hours

applying to jobs in january of the year of our lord twenty twenty three

zero stars. recruiters keep telling me that they love me and want to hire me and i'm such a great candidate but oooh, well, not right now though. there's no open positions for someone with your skills right now. i'm so good at my goddamn job please someone just let me do it (i'm fine i'm currently employed i just don't like my current institution and want to leave)

when people say "why would someone stay with their shitty boyfriend if they don't like him?" and then stay with their own shitty boyfriend that they don't like, and stop talking to you because they know that you'll ask them why they're staying with their shitty boyfriend when they don't like him

i'd have three goddamn fucking nickels why do people do this ????????????

butter beans in smoked cascabel oil (from FLAVOR by yotam ottolenghi)

i'm not a big believer in cookbooks. i hate having to spend a lot of money just for one recipe on ingredients that won't work for other recipes. i like cooking from a broad array of staples that i keep on hand at all times (which includes a very extensive spice cupboard, don't worry). but i got this one as a gift and we're cooking from it as a kind of family thing and this recipe is genuinely really delicious! i will make it again. maybe i'll share it here on my recipes page at some point.

psychopomping, a playlist by a friend of mine

she made a playlist of the songs that she would play as she accompanied spirits to the underworld/afterlife/whatever. it's six hours long and it makes me feel safe and calm and serene but also oddly energized. it makes me feel loved.

the concept of being observed by the same people in multiple different spaces

i feel a lot of pressure in my life to perform: stability, acceptability, humor, whatever. maybe it's the anxiety or high-masking autism or just Living In A Society but it shapes a lot of my life. i've been trying to do it less (i'm allowed to do anything i want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone ! i'm allowed to do anything i want and be anything i want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone !) but it's slow and i'm not very good at it. and one way i counter it is by creating little digital enclaves for myself, places like this neocities site, where — while i might still be performing — it's for a different audience than my day to day. i can perform a different facet of myself, and perhaps in a lower stakes way than i do in other places. it feels safer to be earnest here, sometimes.

but, i'm trying. i have a tumblr account i mostly use for fanart and i sent it to one of my friends, recently. someone i've known for almost a decade and already knows about many different facets of me but hadn't seen that one, specifically, until now. i'm not quite sure how i feel about it, yet. i haven't decided whether or not to share it with other people (even with only twenty or so followers it feels public enough that i've created another sideblog where i feel even less pressure to Be Someone). i want to care less about it. nothing bad has happened because someone saw my silly, earnest, extremely mediocre drawings. (i find it hard to believe her when she says that she likes them but i know that i should trust her, it's mean of me not to trust her) — anyway. it's a goal for the future. a goal for 2023, for the next phase of my life. i want to be more earnest; i want to care less but also care more. here i am!