Friday, March 15, 2024

“Baker Thief” by Claudie Arseneault

I picked up this book as part of a book club I was in. We wanted to read something with aromantic representation for Aro Week, and this came up as a book with aromantic and asexual characters in a fantasy setting.

The book opens with a police woman, Adele, being robbed by Claire, a purple-haired thief. Claire has taken Adele’s exocore, a sort of generator or power source. As a new officer, Adele makes it her personal goal to get onto this case as soon as she learns that this is a repeat crime. Meanwhile, Claude is the baker at a local pastry chain who is befriending Adele. His twin is in town, and he is anxious to show her a stack of exocores that he recently stole under his female name, Claire. (Claude/Claire is gender-fluid so I’m going to try and use whatever name is appropriate for him/her, but I’ll swap back and forth.) His twin senses that these are people, that those with powers (witches) are inside the exocores. Witches have been persecuted in this society for ages, Claude keeps his powers secret, but this is a new level of hate. Claire and her twin start investigating together, but when Claire’s twin disappears, Claude is distraught.

Meanwhile, Adele has not been making much headway in the case. She’s assisting a more senior officer and frustrated that she cannot lead it. A separate journalist puts the pieces together that Claire is stealing exocores, so she also turns her attention to the source of them. Adele also starts up a budding romance with Claude the baker, Claude is aromantic but they have a good time together. Things get kicked up a notch when Adele follows a lead to a manufacturing plant for the exocores and finds many abused witches trapped there. Claire followed and helped her get everyone out, as well as plenty of exocores. They set up base in Adele’s sister’s house for the time being.

Claire then follows a lead right to the manufacturers and gets captured, learning in the process that there’s a witch who betrayed the community and has been kidnapping witches to make into exocores and that the lead officer on the case is behind the whole thing. Adele comes to rescue her, they start kissing, and then Claire reveals her identity as also Claude. Adele is captured, but Claire makes it away. After Adele’s co-workers save her, they all come up with a plan to stop the opening ceremony of a brightly lit bridge that’ll be directly powered by Claude’s twin. They pull it off, everyone ends up ok, and the book ends with Adele and Claude figuring out what a relationship between then could look like.

So the best aspect of the book is the world-building. The characters speak a kind of modified French, with a lot of French words and some messed with a little. The neighborhoods are also very fleshed out and developed, you get a sense of where the characters are throughout the city. Because of what the book gets into, the politics and the political climate are also very present and accounted for as well. It feels very grounded in place as a result.

To get this out of the way though, I do think that the choice of having a cop as the main character is a little odd. For a book that aims to highlight queer experiences and has a pretty diverse cast, it feels out of place. This was published in 2018, so a little before ACAB really took off in the US, but recent enough that I’m thrown off by the inclusion of it. Related, so the characters are pretty diverse, but that doesn’t seem to go too deep when it comes to race. There are characters who are mentioned to have darker skin, but that is all that their race really impacts. There is no discussion of what Black culture looks like in this world, or is there is any racism. So, I don’t know, I’m hesitant to give the book that level of diversity.

There is diversity in terms of queer representation. Claude is aromantic, and Adele is demisexual. Many characters are referenced as wearing binders (including Claude), and Claude’s twin even talks about questioning her romantic identity towards the end. Plus there are instances of neo-pronouns (some that I didn’t even realize were pronouns at first) which highlights the gender diversity as well. And all of these are very natural, there isn’t any real homophobia or transphobia present. There is some explaining in practical terms what the orientations mean, but it doesn’t feel like the book is trying to teach us something.

The relationship between Claire and Adele is a good example. They have a conversation about what a relationship could look like between an aromantic individual and a demisexual (not aromantic) individual. And it is really cool to see that conversation played out! What I don’t love about it so much is that it seems like the relationship is based on adrenaline from them saving each other and things like that. I don’t know if I actually believe that the characters have any chemistry between them. And then also, this is a book that is supposed to highlight aromantic experiences. Why do the protagonists end up in a relationship? It seems to contradict the main point where aro experiences are all about celebrating not wanting a romantic relationship.

Overall it’s a pretty good book, I likely would read a sequel. I would say though that there’s a few too many ideas in it and it could benefit from some focus as well as cleaning up the relationship that for some reason the characters are in. And rethinking the cop thing. Ugh. But we will see if anything else ever comes from this series, right now it’s the only one she’s written.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

This Is Beautiful: Lots of Progress This Week!

 A week ago today, I submitted a manuscript to a journal. I had been working on it for several months, and had gotten a bunch of experts in the field to help me out with it, which was incredible, but I then had to coordinate a lot of edits and suggestions. So sending it in was a huge milestone and regardless of what happens next I'm really pleased!

The other thing I did was film the footage for my Dance Your PhD submission. I have also been thinking about this project for about as long, and just being able to get it filmed was a huge step. Now we just have to edit it and put all of the parts together! This is so exciting!

2024 is going to be a great year for me, I'm going to get so much done. I'm ready!

Sunday, March 10, 2024

The Princess Bride Shadowcast

 This past weekend I was in a shadow cast of "The Princess Bride," and it was so much fun! I decided to turn this into a blog post because there ended up being just a bunch of things I wanted to reflect on from the experience.

So many people mentioned to me that a shadowcast of "The Princess Bride" is so different because it was made to be a movie, and isn't based on a stage show the way something like "Rocky Horror" was. There are a lot of fast cuts and transitions that we just have to like approximate on stage and do our best with. But that does mean that there are some gaps, some transitions aren't the most smooth, and sometimes it looks pretty different from the screen. It might not be the most polished, but I was also told that our enthusiasm made up more than enough for it.

People also mentioned that they noticed things more while watching people act it out. A pretty popular one was the relationship between Rugen and Humperdink and how they seemed so much more gay this time around! I think part of it was the cast leaning into it and just making it more obvious by virtue of being there, but also yeah they definitely had something going on. I know for me, I felt like I was picking up so much more on the physicality of the characters since I was seeing someone else mimic it in front of the screen. Same with line delivery, Humperdink has a bunch of kinda awkward pauses that always catch the cast off guard.

I was continuing my type cast as an old lady with a bit part and playing the Ancient Booer. Just sheer shrieking at the freshman playing Buttercup. I got told that I made a bunch of audience members jump, and others didn't even recognize me at first! Just shows you how important the physicality is.

Anyways so a less polished post this week, but shadowcasts have been increased in my estimation, I didn't think much of them previously but now I think it's a really cool way to watch a movie! Especially one that you've seen before, having the cast there really changes things. I hope I'll be able to participate in others.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

This Is Beautiful: Manuscript Submitted

 I don't know if I'm going to say much right at this moment, but suffice it to say that I just submitted a manuscript to a journal. It's a project that has been really personal for me, and much of it has been spearheaded by myself personally. I'm so glad that it got submitted finally, because I was reaching my limit of feedback that I could take from the other authors, as grateful as I am that they are helping me out. Next up is feedback from the editor though, haha. Hopefully more good news soon though!

Sunday, March 3, 2024

"Single At Heart" by Bella DePaulo, PhD

 This was a great book to read, not the least because the asexual/aromantic group that I run at my university was able to get Dr. DePaulo to speak as part of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week back in February! She is such a cheerful, friendly person, and was a very charismatic and engaging speaker. I grabbed the book as part of preparing for her talk, and it is truly such an entertaining read.

The idea of the book is that being single is not something to look down upon, but something to celebrate! There is a subset of the population that actually prefer being single and are happiest this way, these people are called "single at heart" in this work. But throughout, there is evidence that single people are more stable, have huge support networks, and are really flourishing!

I think what was most interesting to me is that the single at heart community is made up of people who are all different sexual and romantic orientations. You can be aromantic and single at heart, but you don't have to be! Similar to asexuality, there are more asexuals and aromantics in the single at heart community than the wider population, but they are far from even the majority! That is just so fascinating to me, and it demonstrates that dismantling amatonormativity and emphasizing all of these things that the aromantic community has been talking about as well for years really benefit so many people.

I also have to wonder if being single at heart isn't just a special kind of like stability or enlightenment or something. Here are these people who are so satisfied with themselves and love solitude and quiet. There is also evidence that the single at heart are less neurotic, more stable. It definitely seems like something to almost aspire to. Personally I relate a lot to the single at heart community, but I'm not completely single at heart. I am in a relationship, and we do live together, and I'm pretty happy that way. I do value my alone time, but I also like sharing the stupid little things I do all day with him. I certainly think I'd be fine being single, but I'm also happy as I am. That being said, it makes me think if I could be single at heart, or if I would get frustrated trying to exist in a world built around couples. And is it something that I could become? Or is it more innate? I'm not sure, and the research isn't really there yet either haha.

This is a great read, for anyone, not just the single at heart. Discrimination against single individuals is rampant in our society, and most people don't even realize that this is an issue because they are so okay with it. Step one to dismantling this is going to be to educate ourselves and everyone around us about singlism, and then working to make the world a better place for everyone to live as they would like.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

This Is Beautiful: New Reed

 Alright so I'm a saxophone player, I've mentioned it a few times before now. My latest challenge that I'm tackling is circular breathing. It's something that you never quite think that you can do yourself, but you hear about others doing it and it seems SO COOL. I mentioned it offhand one day to my instructor and we've been working on it. Let me tell you, I could not get a single note out. I was practicing for weeks with a glass of water and a straw and getting that down, but on the horn nothing was coming out.

And then I got a new reed and everything just works now! It just works! I can get noise of out the horn and it's glorious. My tone sounds supported, everything is so much better. I really need to remember to change my reed more frequently, I tend to use them until they are absolutely dead because I'm cheap but there truly is no need for that. 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

“Wizards at War” by Diane Duane

Just finished the seventh book in the Young Wizards series (check out the first, second, third, fourth, fifthsixth, and seventh books I wrote about previously). This is also the last book that I read as a teen, and I kind of assumed it was the series finale for a while. It definitely feels like one for sure with the way it opens.

Nita and Kit have just returned from their little exchange program thing, and the other aliens are still over at the Callahans’ as well. Tom and Carl stop by to give some sad news, there’s a Pullulus, or a giant thing of dark matter, dramatically speeding up the expansion of the universe. It’s impacting wizardry in a way where spells aren’t working as well because they can’t update the metrics of the space in time, and it’s causing people to become disconnected, more irritable, and eventually will cause the adult wizards to lose their wizardry. So in essence, this is a warning that Nita and Kit are about to be promoted to Senior wizards.

Filif, Sker’ret, and Roshaun agree to stick around a help out, plus Kit calls Ronan over from Ireland. Ronan’s ability to channel one of the Powers That Be has given him some insider information about a potential weapon. Most of them head off with Ponch (after checking in with some old friends like Sree and Darryl on the moon with other recently promoted wizards) to try and find this weapon. Meanwhile, Dairine and Roshaun first update Roshaun’s parents and then go to see Dairine’s bot children. The bots manage to extract more information from Dairine that she didn’t know was there, and she learns that this “weapon” is a version of the Lone One (the Power that created death) that never turned evil. This is called the Hesper, and Dairine takes off to find Nita and the others. Nita meanwhile has gone home to try and check in on her dad, and learns that Tom and Carl have lost their wizardry. Sker’ret goes with her and they end up fighting off mercenaries on Sker’s home planet where they run into Carmela who has fled Earth to find them.

While Nita’s gone, the group disguises themselves as the giant bugs that inhabit the planet Ponch brings them to and the start poking around. Ponch though ends up bringing the Hesper to them where they chat about how life on this planet is around the collective, there are no “I”s and no individuality. Nita returns with Carmela and they talk to the Hesper, learning that her name is Memeki. They get found out and brought before the king bug that’s inhabited by the Lone One. Carmela ends up blowing it apart after the Lone One dismantles wizardry from working (she has a hair curler that doubles as a blaster). The Lone One manifests and starts being vicious, so Ronan sacrifices himself to release the Power from him. This triggers Memeki into becoming the Hesper, she cleanses the planet in the process. Ronan is dragged back from death and they head home. Filif breaks off in the process to check on his home planet as well.

The others book it back to Earth where the Pullulus has become a big problem. Multiple things are tried that fail, including Roshaun disappearing after blasting it with some sun power. Kit tells Ponch to take Carmela home and save their parents, Ponch refuses and then turns into a gigantic dog-shadow that rises up and fights the Pullulus. It gets revealed that Ponch is a sort of god-dog now, leading his species to further enlightenment. They head home and learn that they still need to go to school tomorrow, so there’s that to look forward to.

There is so much that happens in this book. Like truly so much, the narration jumps between Nita, Kit, and Dairine depending on who is doing what and there are many new concepts introduced. My favorite part though is that so many characters return and make another appearance which not only cuts down on the novelty a little but also shows the extent of this issue. Sree represents the Senior Wizard for like a whole ocean now, and Darryl helps to give advice. We get to catch up with Gigo and Logo on Dairine’s planet of wizard computers too. I really like that Ronan gets to come back though since we spend the most time with him and hearing about how he’s doing when Nita checks in on him. But there’s also how the world gets expanded, such as returning to the Crossings with Sker’ret and hearing about Sker’s relationship to his family, or seeing Dairine on Roshaun’s world talking to his parents. It hits a very good mix of old and new content. And not to bring this up again, but the fact that this powerful being isn’t on Earth is so great and so non-humanoid/Earth centric.

Now I’m sure that this was on purpose, but it is a little confusing to me that we do not get a great sense of what the Hesper even is by the end of the book. Yes they’re a Lone Power that never fell, but what does that mean beyond the Good Guys getting another warrior? In theory all of the other Powers work towards supporting life so it cannot be that different of a job. And part of this is likely because just so much of the Powers is outside our comprehension, they all exist outside of time and usually outside of space so really what hope is there for us to understand that? I hope it comes back in later books though because I would love an explanation.

Then there’s Ponch becoming the dog god. What a good boy. It is interesting that there are cat wizards and whale wizards, but no dog wizards. Ponch was probably the closest but apparently that’s being a god or something. I wonder if this means there can now be dog wizards or something? At the very end of the book it talks about Kit’s grief over this, over not having Ponch as a pet anymore. But before it gets too far into it, Ponch is revealed to be part of every dog ever and talks to Kit through a random sheepdog. Which is really sweet, as a dog person I was crying a little.

This is such an excellent book. It incorporates so much work from the previous books in the series, ups the ante considerably, and goes in some cool new directions. It’s a lot of what I like about this series all in one book. I’m excited to keep reading and get to books that I did not read in my youth as well though!