Trismegistus

This one has been making the rounds, so why not?

1. Three shipping tropes you love?

Enemies- or friends-to-lovers: I consider this to be a spectrum with two different starting points, rather than two different tropes. To my mind, a good shipping story is as much about what makes each character tick, and how each character discovers those things about themselves. This trope (particularly when you start at the far left of the spectrum) it tailor made to produce that exploration.

Pining: Pining is a wonderful trope because you get a lot of lovely emotional distress and the tension it inherently builds, and then a lovely bit of emotional release and payoff at the end. And all without having to go through it yourself.

Groveling: There is nothing like a good grovel, particularly when combined with the above two tropes. Write me a good grovel and I will eat out of your hand.


2. Three shipping tropes you don't love?

Soulmates/instalove: Like enemies- or friends-to-lovers, I see these as variations of the same thing and it's one I'm just not into. If the characters don't need to do any growing, exploration, or self-examination to get together (or if they're fated to get together anyway), what's the point?

Love triangle: Particularly (as so often happens) the kinder/gentler/calmer/more mature rival loses out to the angrier/more sullen/less emotionally available or mature rival because s/he loves the character they're competing for more, even if s/he just can't bear (or just can't) show it. Ugh. (I expect this trope is an attractive consolation story for people in cultural or personal situations with large imbalances between the amount of emotional labor and commitment expected from one partner over the other, but not being in such a situation, it doesn't have much to recommend itself to me.)

Now, if the object of the romantic competition within a love triangle unlocks the harem ending, the above no longer applies.

Forbidden romance: Namely, the specific shade of this trope in which the protagonist is dating or married to one character, but discovers that they're "meant to be with" that character's sibling, best friend, or what have you. Bonus hate points if they can never be with said sibling/best friend/whatever for "reasons". Even more bonus hate points if the partner is not any kind of asshole but just some plot element that had the misfortune of meeting the protagonist before protagonist's Real True Love ^(tm).


3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you?

Give me characters who fall in love despite social, cultural, or religious expectations and mores telling them they can't. I want that tension. I want those dark nights of the soul as the characters deny, then question everything about society and themselves, and then I want the emotional payoff when they say Fuck it, throw their reputations to the winds, and get together.


4. One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you?

I'm not really into specific physical traits per se, but I do love it when characters are incredibly into their partner's individual attributes, whether that's build, coloring, calluses, signs of youth or aging...whatever that may happen to be in the context of a specific ship.


5. Multiship or monoship?

This really depends on the canon. There are some where I am 1 billion percent devoted to an OTP, 1 billion percent devoted to an OT3, and others where I delight in a lumberjack match of a shipping free-for-all.


6. Rare pairs or mainstream?

As most of my fandoms are rare at this point, you could make a convincing case that all my pairs are, of necessity, rare as well. But I've had fandoms where I shipped the most popular pairings, fandoms where I've shipped pairings that went against the grain of everyone else, and everything in between.


7. Polyamory or monogamy?

See the answer to 5), above.


8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?

Generally, reversible. I also have a fondness for stories that explore characters who think they aren't (or shouldn't be) reversible exploring just that.


9. Do you always have romantic ships for fandoms?

Meaning, are there things I’m fannish about without caring to seek out romance or shipping fics for the source material? Absolutely. In fact, that’s probably the majority of my fandoms.


10. How important is the sexual part (if any) of your ship?

If I’m shipping something, I will most likely want some smut for it at some point, although I by no means need for there to be a sexual aspect to everything I consume for that ship.


11. Opinion on platonic ships?

Meaning, am I okay with ace romantic or romantic-but-not-sexual ships? My brothers and sisters in christ, allow me to introduce to you to the collected works of Sugiura Shiho.


12. Three ships you currently love?

• Cutter/Bliss and Octavia/Suki from House on Vesper Sands/The Naming of the Birds
• Astarion/Tav and Karlach/Tav from Baldur's Gate 3
• Yoruma/Sayatoki from 終点unknown

13. Five OTPs from past fandoms?
Going backwards in time from my Ao3 account:

• Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
• Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen | Breq/Seivarden Vendaai from Imperial Radch
• Aziraphale/Crowly from Good Omens
• Loki/Thor from MCU
• Thara Celehar/Azhanharad from The Tombs of Amalo

14. Opinion on the importance of marriage?
AFAIC, marriage is an excuse to throw a big food-and-dance(-and-booze-if-that’s-your-thing) party for your friends. If it makes narrative sense that the characters to consider it important, awesome. Otherwise, I’ve read too much Stephanie Coontz to be starry-eyed about the institution for its own sake.


15. Opinion on OC kids?
I’m not opposed on principle, but it would need to be well-written and make sense for the characters in question and even then I would never actively seek it out.

これで以上です。

Because chances are I will neither finish an additional book this afternoon, nor post complete this meme if I let it go until evening. And with that, ( here's what my 2024 reading looked like. )

Happy New Year, everyone!

これで以上です。

Another wrap-up post? Sure, why not. I'm only listing media I actively consumed and finished (i.e., no movies on in the background, no games or television series still in progress, no podcasts where I cherrypicked specific episodes to listen to).

Given everything that went down, I really didn't have the attention span or joy in imagination to consume much visual media in the latter half of the year, but that means there's just more for me to wrap up this year. On the flip side, it was a pretty good year for live music (and we didn't even get to half of the shows we were interested in seeing).

I may come back at some point and add notes or thoughts about each, but for starters, let's just get the list down.

Movies

Ant Man: Quantumania

The Banshees of Inisherin

Barbie

A Christmas Story

Dungeons & Dragons

Flash

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

National Lampoon Christmas Vacation

Oppenheimer

The Room

Scrooged

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Spotlight

올빼미

TV

Adventure Time: Season 3

Adventure Time: Season 4

Last Week Tonight: Season 10

Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2

Loki: Season 2

Ms. Marvel

The Owl House: Season 1

Ragnarok: Season 1

Werewolf by Night

Podcasts

30for30: Bikram

Computer/Console Games

Wordle

Live Music

100 Gecs

311

Asking Alexandria

Beck

Bush

Breaking Benjamin

Candlebox

Cherry Glazrr

Cold War Kids

Collective Soul

Dandy Warhols

Disturbed

Explosions in the Sky

Fear Factory

Fever Ray

Filter

Franz Ferdinand

Garbage

Godsmack

The Hu

I Ya Toyah

Jinjer

Live

Live (unplugged)

Machinegirl

Matt & Kim

Metric

Mix Master Mike

Mushroomhead

No Second Troy

Noel Gallagher's Flying Circus

Paul Okenfold

Phoenix

Pixies

Stabbing Westward

Staid

Static-X

Silversun Pickups

Toni Smooth

Visors

Walkaways

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Live TV

AEW Dynamite

AEW Rampage

Tabletop Games

The Captain Is Dead

Delta Green one-shot

D&D Delian Tomb homebrew campaign

D&D Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

D&D Feywild homebrew campaign

D&D Homebrew campaign: Season 2

D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #1

D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #2

D&D Spelljammer Jpop homebrew campaign playtest



これで以上です。

Who do we appreciate? (Or, hello. A three day weekend means I have time to catch up on these challenges with an omnibus post. Let's see if I can keep on track for the rest of the month.)



Challenge #2

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


So I waffled a lot on how to answer this prompt, because there are so many things I'd like to promo, primer, or manifesto. Then I realized I could do that for a favorite fandom, character, and ship all in one fell swoop. Allow me to introduce ( Rasaad )

Just, gah. Play these games. Play them at least once with Rasaad in your party. Romance him too, if you’re inclined. It’s worth it.


Challenge #5

In your own space, tell us about 3 creative/fannish resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom or like many people at the moment, fannishly adrift right now) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

( Here )


Challenge #6

In your own space, post the results of your fandom scavenger hunt. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

( Hurrah, )


Challenge #8

In your own space, create a quiz or a poll (or tell us your thoughts about answering quizzes/polls). Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm not a paid user and I try to avoid third party websites with a gazillion tracking scripts and cookies, so we'll do this old school. English-language fantasy? Yes! But which one?:

• The Dark is Rising Sequence
• Discworld
• Harry Potter
• The Lord of the Rings
• The Mists of Avalon
• The Prydain Chronicles
• The Queen's Thief
• The Sandman
• Temeraire
• Other

これで以上です。

The house has been cleaned, champagne jelly bars have been cooked, several other errands attended to, and now all that's left to do is sit tight till it's time to meet up with folks to ring in the new year. As that's not set to happen for several hours, I figured I'd knock out this year's reading meme in the meantime.

This was not a banner year for me, as far as reading goes: first, because I was too sick for much of it to read much at all, and second because many of the new (or at least new-to-me) books I did read this year were lackluster. By the time October rolled around, I'd pretty much defaulted to rereading tried and true favorites. Still, I did read several good new ones, and the old favorites are old favorites for a reason.

How many books read in 2023?
In 2022, I read 101 books cover-to-cover, defined as always as reading every chapter, glossary, index, author’s note, etc. in the volume.

Favorite first-time read?
Fiction: Melissa Albert’s Our Crooked Hearts, which, in terms of plot, characterization, and descriptive prose was everything I want out of a book. (Runner up: Ray Nayler’s The Mountain In The Sea. Getting to speak with the author in person about the book was just the icing on the cake.)
Nonfiction: Dorsey Armstrong’s King Arthur: History and Legend (runner up: Max Smeets’s No Shortcuts).

Least favorite first-time read?
Fiction: Neal Shusterman’s Scythe. OH HOW LITTLE I CARED FOR THIS LAZILY WRITTEN BOOK. (Runner up: Moshid Hamad’s The Last White Man. Talk about a promising premise ruined by rushed and pretentious execution.)
Nonfiction: Nicole Pelroth’s sophomoric This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends (runner up: Julianto Simanjuntak & Roswitha Ndraha’s Mencinta Hingga Terluka for its Neanderthal Roman Catholic attitudes toward gender, domestic violence, and LGBTQ+ people).

Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio? 84 fiction : 17 nonfiction

Author gender breakdown? (Counted by volume, not number of distinct authors.)
Women: 51
Men: 42
Nonbinary: 1
Multiple authors or anthology: 7

Most books read by one author this year?
I read nine by Beatrix Potter. I also read four by Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen, and three each by: Jon Klassen, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Tynion IV & Werther Dell’Edera, and Martha Wells.

Any in translation?Yes, four, all from Chinese:
Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation vol. 1
Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: Heaven Official’s Blessing vol. 1
Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System vol. 1
Shuang Xuetao’s Rouge Street

In languages other than English? Five.
In Dutch: Vosje by Edward van de Vendel and Marije Toman.
In Indonesian: Mencinta Hingga Terluka by Roswitha Ndraha and Julianto Simanjuntak.
In Japanese: 蟲師 7 (Mushishi vol. 7) and 蟲師 8 (Mushishi vol. 8), both by 漆原 友紀 (Urushihara Yuki), and 観音経の話 (Kannon-kyo no Hanashi) by an unattributed author.
This is the lowest number of books I’ve read in languages other than English in at least twenty-two years.

Oldest?
Like much of the Internet, I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (published in 1897). I also read the Harper & Row edition of Edward Lear’s The Scroobious Pip, wonderfully illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Lear started writing this in 1872, but as it was incomplete at the time of his death (Ogden Nash fills in the missing bits in the Harper & Row edition), Dracula wins this category on a technicality.

Newest?
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s The Three Billy Goats Gruff just edged out Ray Nayler’s excellent The Mountain In The Sea for this honor by a matter of two weeks.

Longest Title?
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton.

Shortest Title?
観音経の話 (Kannon-kyo no Hanashi) by an unattributed author narrowly beats out several English-language books with six-letter titles.

Longest book?
In terms of words per page, probably Jon Pomfret’s The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Shortest book? Again, Nancy Ekholm Burkert’s beautifully illustrated edition of Edward Lear’s The Scroobius Pip.

Format of books read?
Paper: 60
Ebook: 37
Paper/Ebook both: 2 (I was not about to lug the one-volume edition of The Lord Of The Rings around with me on trips to faraway relatives' houses.)
Audiobook: 1
Great Course: 1

Re-reads? 29

First book acquired:
Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Heaven Official’s Blessing vol. 1

Last book acquired:
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s The Rock From The Sky, which arrived today. Seriously, finding out that these two had published two books I hadn’t known about was like Giftsmas all over again.

First book finished:
Lon Milo DuQuette’s Homemade Magick, which was easily the most engaging thing he's written.

Last book finished:
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, which I wrapped up yesterday.

Book that most changed my perspective:
James Neil Sneddon’s Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar, which really fleshed out my understanding of the language. I also read a fair amount of philosophically inclined fiction (think Jo Walton's The Just City), but none of it changed my perspective per se.

Favorite character:
Azhanharad, from Katherine Addison’s The Grief of Stones. I do love me my prickly (fantasy steampunk) Victorian-era detectives.

Favorite scene:
I mean, anything with Faramir or Treebeard in it. The Mines of Moria. Bree. Weathertop. The Barrow Downs. Pretty much the entirety of Megan Whalen Turner’s Thick As Thieves. The conclusion of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s We Found A Hat. The Herdmans burning down the shed at the start of Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

But these are all from books I’ve read before. In terms of books I read for the first time this year, I’m going to go with Thara Celehar repeatedly learning he’s woefully misread Azhanharad throughout The Grief of Stones.

Favorite Quote:
India Holton's The Wisteria Society Of Lady Scoundrels made me laugh aloud repeatedly. Men! she thought irritably as she went. Their hysterical nature was a trial to any rational creature was a particular favorite; though as with most humor, it's at its funniest in context.

And, "I want you to fuck me," he said. "I want to feel like I can't get away from it" from Freya Marske's A Marvellous Light is also pretty damn hot.

Number of in-progress books as of December 31
I started, but have yet to finish, 16 books this year, to which count we can add several more that have been on hold for even longer.

What do you want to read in 2023?
I’m really out of the loop in terms of what’s set to publish next year; the only thing currently on my radar is Jacqueline Carey’s retelling of Kushiel’s Dart from Proto-Beshelar—I mean, Josceline’s—perspective. And yes, I will read it because: Josceline. Otherwise, I hope to read all the stuff that published in 2022 that I didn't manage to read this year, Natasha Pulley's The Half Life Of Valery K and Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves being at the top of that list.

Finally, for last year’s Snowflake Challenge, I made a list of 50 books I theoretically wanted to read within the year, and as of today I've read 18 of them and Little Free Library'ed three more. Not as good as my 2021 record of 30 (which is 33 now, seeing as I read an additional three off that list in 2022). But still, not bad! I'll probably do the same again this year...stay tuned.

Happy New Year, everyone!

これで以上です。

Because better late than never, eh?

How many books read in 2022? I read 121 books cover-to-cover, defined as always as reading every chapter, glossary, index, author’s note, etc. in the volume.

Favorite first-time read?
Fiction: The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell (runner-up: The Curses by Laure Eve.)
Nonfiction: i’m just a person by Tig Notaro (runner up: Eat the Buddha by Barbara Demick.)

Least favorite first-time read?
Fiction: Things in Jars by Jess Kidd (runner up: A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.)
Nonfiction: Anam Cara by John O’Donohue (runner up: Experience the Mystery of Tarot by Katalin Jett Koda.)

Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio? 80 fiction : 41 nonfiction

Author gender breakdown?
Women: 73
Men: 37
Multiple authors or anthology: 11

Most books read by one author this year?
Three each from Terry Pratchett and Megan Whalen Turner.
Pratchett 1&2, Turner 1, and Pratchett 3; Turner 2&3.

Any in translation?
Made-Up by Daphne B. (from French)
Yearning for the Sea by Ester Seligson (from Spanish)

In languages other than English?
I read two nonfiction books and five manga volumes in Japanese, which is easily my worst record for reading non-English language books in over two decades.

Oldest?
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Newest?
Made-Up by Daphne B.

Longest Title?
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Shortest Title?
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Tarot by Jessica Hundley
Rowan by Robin McKinley and Donna Ruff

Longest book?
In terms of wordcount, I’m guessing it was either Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Ceremonial Magic by Lon Milo DuQuette & David Shoemaker (eds.) or Women of the Golden Dawn by Mary K. Greer.

Shortest book?
We Found A Hat by Jon Klassen.

Format of books read?
Paper: 87
Ebook: 28
Paper/Ebook both: 5
Great Course: 1

Re-reads?
More than once in 2021: The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell and We Found A Hat by Jon Klassen.
In 2021 and an earlier year: 13

First book acquired:
Saiyuki Reload Blast vols. 1-3 and Shuten Unknown vols. 5 and Gaiden, which arrived as a group from Kinokuniya in early January last year.

Last book acquired:
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

First book finished:
The Bass Rock by Evie Wild

Last book finished:
A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult by Suzannah Lipscomb et al.

Book that most changed my perspective:
i’m just a person by Tig Notaro

Favorite character:
Inspector Cutter, from The House on Vesper Sands

Favorite scene:
Hakkai telling Gojyo he's being too temptingly sexy in Saiyuki Reload Blast. Yes, it's blatant fan service, and 20 years later, I'll still happily eat it out of Minekura's hand (runner up: anything involving Inspector Cutter from The House on Vesper Sands.)

Favorite Quote:
The entirety of Chapter 9, “God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle” in i’m just a person by Tig Notaro, which is the mic drop to end them all.

What do you want to read in 2022?

I’m excited about Katherine Addison’s The Grief of Stones, Melissa Albert’s Our Crooked Hearts, and Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves, all of which are set to publish this year.

For last year’s fourth Snowflake Challenge, I made a list of 50 books I theoretically wanted to read within the year, and read 30 of them—not bad! I might do something similar again this year...stay tuned.

これで以上です。

And why not? It's Sunday night, I'm procrastinating, and this stuff is fun. It was pretty clear from even a quick glance that the list was probably driven more by marketing considerations than by fans' votes. (How else to explain the inclusion of Ishiguro's The Buried Giant if not to nudge readers toward Klara and the Sun, which NPR could not believably have claimed had made the cut.)

The "How We Built This" sections, in which NPR confirms that they gave themselves a free hand to ensure that any book they wanted to make the final cut, would make the final cut, are pretty fascinating to pick apart. Even so, I was still surprised to find that some of the titles I assumed would be shoe-ins didn't make the cut; for instance, Naomi Alderman's The Power and Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy are nowhere in evidence.

It got me thinking, what books would I have put on the list. ( Wonder no more. )

So what did get any particular book onto NPR's list? ( These factors seemed to help. )

And, because after all that, I can't very well not, here's ( my reading tally of NPR's original list. )

これで以上です。

Challenge #12

In your own space, resurrect an old meme. Have fun with it! Which is the goofiest meme you can think of? Put on your party hat and be silly!! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

The 13 memes in the challenge post are a great deal of fun, but my favorite meme from back in the day is actually the first line fic meme, in which I take the opening sentences from some of my fics and anyone who wants to play along at home picks their favorite and uses it to write a drabble or ficlet in the comments.

I like this one because it leaves room for silliness, but also seriousness and everything in between. As an added bonus, it dovetails nicely with Challenge #11 too. So without further ado, ( the first lines. )

And of course, post on your own DW, if you are so inclined. ✩


これで以上です。

( Let's do this. )

これで以上です。

I meant to get this posted several days ago. But hey, friending meme!



My entry is here, for those who want to take a look.

これで以上です。