"The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan

 So I've been reading this book on and off since the summer due to other commitments and also logistics of having to constantly return it to the library. You'll have to forgive me if this summary is a little haphazard as a result, but such is life.

This is the sequel to The Lost Hero and the second book of the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. While The Lost Hero followed Jason Grace and his arrival at Camp Half-Blood, this book follows Percy Jackson and his adventures at the Roman counterpart, Camp Jupiter. He's completely lost his memory except for one name, "Annabeth," and he has to navigate his way through a quest with new friends to defeat the god of death. New friends include Frank, a newly recognized son of Mars, and Hazel, a daughter of Pluto. Percy eventually regains his memory, and warns the Romans that Greek demigods are on their way to join forces with them.

The nice thing about this book is that it allows for a return to our favorite protagonist, Percy Jackson. The narration style is still different though, it's all in third person, so it's definitely distinct from the original Percy Jackson series. Still, it's nice to have a familiar face. Nico di Angelo also plays a role in this book, and serves as another bridge to both Camp Half-Blood and the original series. Having said that is it a little jarring to not be in Percy's head anymore. I was able to ignore this by the end of the book, but it's certainly an adjustment.

I also really enjoy the look at Camp Jupiter and the distinctions between the two camps. Camp Half-Blood is really for teens, while Camp Jupiter is more of a functional city where you can retire from killing monsters and all that. It's a little like Riordan picked up on some issues that his original camp could have and plugged them here! And of course getting to see how Roman traditions have been adapted to the modern day is always neat.

The new characters are also very endearing. Frank is described multiple times as a big teddy bear, despite being a child of the god of war, and it's hard to not adore him as a result. There's a prominent story line about his family that really fleshes our his character and background. Seeing how the Roman history gets combined with his Asian ancestry is really cool, and something that I could imagine Asian readers resonating with. Hazel is also a wonderful addition. Her backstory still has some holes to be filled, but we love to see daughters of the gods kicking butt and taking names! Both Frank and Hazel are the underdogs of the camp when we meet them, and if that isn't enough to love them from the get-go then I don't know what is.

No real complaints here, a solid continuation of The Lost Hero that reintroduces what Percy's been up to and catches us all up. Mostly just looking forward to when both parties (Greek and Roman) come together in the next book to actually start the real adventure!

This Is Beautiful: Animal Crossing Update

 I don't think I've talked about this yet, but I've been loving the new Animal Crossing Update! It finally feels like this is a full game haha. Much of the update is simply expanding the levels of customization and things like that, but there's some neat gems there as well. 

In particular, I love having Brewster in the museum! It's so fun to see who you run into at his cafe. And the gyroids! I've been expanding my collection and trying to collect all of the lil dudes and get them to dance together.

Will I put this down in a few weeks? Probably. But the update has renewed my interest in it for at least a little while which is nice!

"Moonflower Murders" by Anthony Horowitz

 You might remember when I previously wrote about two other novels by Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder. Well I'm back at it again with Moonflower Murders!

Similarly to his other two books, Moonflower Murders is really a book about mystery books. It's a direct sequel to Magpie Murders in that it still follows the publisher Susan Ryeland as she attempts to solve another murder mystery that has jumped from the page of a book and into her life. And that's really my main complaint about this book, that it's so similar to its predecessor.

There's a lot about both books to love. But in many ways, Moonflower Murders is just a rehash of the things he did in Magpie Murders that played with established murder mystery tropes. There's a book within a book that gets included in its entirety. The protagonist often comments on how similar her real life is to a murder mystery, especially at the end with the gathering of all the suspects and going through her logic. She also comments on the choices made within the book within a book, how cliche some aspects are. The thing is, when I read Magpie Murders this all took me completely by surprise. Now it's a little old hat.

I would have expected Horowitz to go a little further with how he subverts tropes here. He tends to simply identify the tropes, make a statement about how this feels like a film, and move on with it. Maybe commenting on how many conclusions the detective draws weren't based on evidence that the reader has access to, making it seem like it was a stroke of genius. Or deliberately avoiding tropes altogether and commenting on that! 

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time reading this book. And catching up on the characters was quite fun as well. It just left me wanting a little more. I hope that in whatever Horowitz tackles next, he pushes those boundaries more instead of rehashing what he's already done.

This Is Beautiful: The Beatles Get Back

 Over Thanksgiving break I, like many Beatles fans I'm sure, watched the entirety of The Beatles: Get Back documentary on Disney+. It's a marathon, there's about eight hours of footage split into three parts. But man is it fun to watch! 

You really feel as though you're in the studio with the musicians, seeing them have these intimate conversations and recording sessions. There's footage of Paul McCartney just pulling "Get Back" out of thin air, or John taking playful bites out of his microphone. There's many instances of them just noodling around and playing songs that they enjoy on their instruments. And slightly meta conversations about what they want this project to look like. It's all been wonderfully restored too, I cannot believe that this is from 1969!

Of course it culminates in the performance on the roof of their recording studio, with Paul gleefully embracing the possibility of them being arrested. The entire concert was included, along with captions detailing which recordings made it on the album, which in nice. In general I think it's edited really well, they tell you who everyone is and explain obscure references with images and text so it isn't hard to follow.

I totally get it if an 8 hour Beatles documentary isn't your thing, but it was a ton of fun to watch! You can put it on in the background, or sit and pay attention to every detail. The project rewards you either way.

"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir

 The way I was introduced to this book was by being told that it's about "lesbian necromancers in space" and let's be honest, that's really enough to get me interested. Plus last October Tor.com had it available as a free ebook for downloading and that is also enough to get me interested. (You can sign up for future books if you'd like!)

Honestly reading this book was a really bizarre experience. I had no idea what was happening half the time, the world building is hard to figure out at first, but I was still sucked in. I think part of it was hearing all of these details and knowing that they'll be explained eventually. A huge part of the appeal though is that the protagonist's voice (so Gideon's voice) is so distinctive and so so so incredibly hilarious!

Gideon is a swordfighter from the Ninth House, a planet made up of black depressing nuns who do the bidding of Harrow, the current heir to the planet. Harrow is a talented necromancer, her specialty is conjuring skeletons from individual bones to do her bidding. Gideon and Harrow have a kind of rivalry between them where they continually sabotage each other. At the start, Gideon wants nothing more than to get off of this planet, but Harrow foils her plans every time. Things get changed up when the Emperor calls a necromancer/cavalier pair from each planet to the First House to become a Lyctor, or a servant to the Emperor. This would be a great honor, so Harrow plans to leave and takes Gideon as her cavalier. Once they get to the First House, they meet the necromancers from the other houses, two through eight. And there they learn that they have to figure out how to become Lyctors themselves. So Harrow leaves Gideon behind and throws herself at the challenges. Eventually they learn to work together, as the others start dying off mysteriously. No one knows if this is part of the challenge or if it's murder. 

The end is devastating and I'm going to spoil it. One of the other necromancers ends up being a Lyctor in disguise, and this Lyctor is hell bent on sabotaging this gathering and killing them all. It turns out that the way to become a Lyctor involves the necromancer killing and eating the soul of their cavalier. Now the knowledge of death and swordsmanship are united in one, giving the necromancer more power. To defeat the Lyctor, Gideon sacrifices herself forcing Harrow to become a Lyctor and emerge victorious.

As I said earlier, the world building is incredible, but also incredibly confusing. I still have no real idea what a Lyctor is, what the other worlds are, or what's going on most of the time. Which I find enjoyable in fantasy, but also it was very alienating at first. I had no idea what the names of the other pairs were until I was very close to the end of the book. It was a lot to throw at the readers and I didn't have a ton of motivation to figure it out until I was most of the way through the book.

But Gideon is definitely the saving grace of the novel. She's absolutely hilarious, she doesn't care about becoming a Lyctor or anything like that. She mainly wants her freedom and to protect her friends. There's an additional level of humor where everyone thinks that she's a very serious Ninth House nun who doesn't speak and is very grim all the time, until she starts cracking sex jokes and bad puns. It's really entertaining getting her narration all through this book, and it's the main reason why I enjoyed it so much.

Another great aspect was the fact that this isn't a romance novel. No relationships spring up, despite the fact that we know from the beginning that Gideon is a lesbian, and figure out the others as we go along. It's a great model of how to make a character queer without focusing on relationships (since being queer is much more than that). Initially I thought that Harrow and Gideon would be an enemies-to-lovers situation, but even though it's clear by the end that they care very much about each other, they never get past hugging. It's so great that the book didn't have to rely on this to make you care about the characters.

I'm not sure if I'm going to read the sequel, Harrow the Ninth. Like I said, Gideon's voice was really what kept me going through this novel. If that isn't there, I'm not sure if I'll actually enjoy the rest of the series. But who knows, maybe the author figured out a way to make it work. Clearly Muir is immensely talented, and I do want to see what happens next.

This is Beautiful: Wisecrack's Hot Takes series

If you've been keeping track, I'm a huge fan of the YouTube channel Wisecrack. Literally since the very beginning, I watched every Thug Notes video when it came out and I've been thrilled to watch it grow over the years.

Recently the squad started filming a new series where one of the employees is assigned a hot take that they have to defend against a panel of other employees who are skeptical. A judge then declares one of the sides the winner: the person defending this hot take or the group trying to poke holes in it. And it's freaking hilarious, I knew going in that it'd be funny, it's a funny channel, but they really pulled out all of the stops with this one making it absurd and ridiculous.

Check it out for a good time! You can find it here on YouTube.

Queer Webseries

 There's a huge vacuum when it comes to representation of queer identities in media. So it's understanding that many people have turned to indie webseries to make their own representation. Or to just look there for representations of what they're experiencing. And in theory this can be really cool, many more stories can be told a lot better when people make them themselves. But I've found that there's plenty of reasons why these can... fall flat. Lack of a budget for one, and using people who are figuring out what they're doing as they go isn't always the greatest. Regardless of these reservations though, I think there's a reason why so many of these speak to people, so don't let my critiques here stop you from watching them.

One production that I think can highlight the highs of webseries really well is "I Put the Bi in Bitter." It tells the story of a bisexual high schooler with coming out, having a crush on a female classmate, talking to her family about being queer, and navigating college applications. I tend to promote this show to anyone who will listen to me, because I think it's a really great show and a lot of fun to watch. The cast is diverse, there's bi, gay, lesbian, characters and allies, and while the acting isn't sublime it's quite good. The writing also is great in that the writers know how to take their time. Most webseries only have about 10 minutes per episode and instead of cramming a whole arc in there, this show knows how to give us a single scene or interaction per episode. It shows that they have a great sense of timing and how to tell this story. Finally the cinematography is fun in that characters' emotions will appear as emojis around their heads. It's super simple, but really effective and helps the show to stand out from others that play it more conventionally.

To contrast, a show that I think misses the mark is "BIFL." I had heard a lot about this show since it features both an ace lesbian and an aro bi, neither of which you see often. I finally watched it and honestly, I didn't think it was remarkable beyond that. The characters seemed a little two dimensional, the ace lesbian is mostly mad all of the time, and the bisexual main character just pines over her best friend. The straight guy just wants his roommate to get together with his friend. There are some interesting side points, but the show doesn't have the time to flesh them out fully, like one character's struggle with mental health. For sure this show has less of a sense of how to effectively tell a story within 10 minutes. There's a reconciliation between two characters that felt really rushed and made their whole relationship difficult for me to believe after that. Plus, and this might just be my preference, the plot revolves entirely around romantic relationships. And there's two of them! You could have at least had one be romantic and pick anything else for the secondary plot. 

Having said all that, "BIFL" only has 1 season while "I Put the Bi in Bitter" has 3. So they've had more time to find their feet. And whether the show is good or not, I'm still glad that it exists and that people are making this. So if you check out the show links, they are crowdsourcing for money to make more episodes. Watch what they have, and if you like what you see, donate to get more produced! It's well worth your money dollars.

This Is Beautiful: COVID Booster

 Get your booster shot if you're eligible! I finally got mine this past weekend, which is really good because I was originally vaccinated back in February. I was exhausted and sore afterwards, but it was super worth it! I'm really not looking forward to the inevitable next booster dose, but hooray for antibodies and viruses!

Irony

 Alright well in a crazy follow up to the last 2 posts that I made, the club that I was complaining about not listening to feedback about making members feel safe has had a couple COVID cases in the wake of its first in person performance. I'm so mad. Finally the club is doing something to protect members, but it took the president getting COVID and potentially spreading it to other members of the org for anything to happen.

I haven't gotten the results of my COVID test back yet, I'm a little nervous because I was standing next to the infected person for part of the performance. If this is how I get COVID, I'm going to be so angry. At least the board has finally said no food indoors and to submit a negative COVID test the week of the performance. I already suggested this weeks ago, but glad that they're finally coming to their senses.

It's just incredible how little people care about things that they can ignore. If anyone else tested positive, I'm willing to bet that we wouldn't have made changes. Hopefully I get my results back soon.

This Is Beautiful: Performing

 This past weekend I had my first in person performance for flow arts in about a year and a half! It was so invigorating being on stage and seeing reactions to my group. I forgot how much I missed the sound of applause and little things like that. You get a lot of energy from an audience, and I've missed that for the past year and a half.

Leadership and Handling Complaints/Feedback

 There are somehow multiple organizations that have managed to made me mad recently so I'm venting and explaining how I view the responsibilities of an organization's leadership at the same time. It primarily has to deal with how they respond to and take feedback, or usually, criticism.

First has to do with what the follow up interactions should focus on. The feelings of the leadership in this case definitely should not be the focus, nor should it even come into the conversation. If you actually are in leadership, your concern should be with your members and what you can do to help them. Don't talk about how you were surprised by this, or if you'd like the feedback in a different form. Leadership should be happy to get it in any form, otherwise that gets close to tone policing. There's also the fact that there's a power dynamic at play here, most complaints aren't going to get to leadership just because of that. So anything that gets through is precious indeed.

Typically the reaction should be an attempt to get to some kind of compromise. If there isn't a good response, explain that and maybe offer alternatives. What the response shouldn't be is "well this was our thought process and this is fine." That becomes gaslighting of the members, and doesn't exactly encourage them to come forward with more feedback. If actions aren't taken to respond to and address complaints, they will stop complaining and stop participating as a whole. Members do need to feel valued (because they are) and reacting and discussing next steps is an important part of that.

Additionally what often gets overlooked is the method of receiving feedback. If someone submits anonymous feedback, then that feedback should stay anonymous. Only reason I can think of to try and figure out who it was from is to discredit the member who submitted it somehow. This thinking has its roots in the idea that some voices are taken more seriously than others which should not be the case. If the opposite is true, this is someone who supplied their name, then there should be a response to the individual person. If this person sent a message to the whole board, then the response can be generated from the entire board and can be considered more official. If though, the member just sent a message to an individual person, then they're probably looking for a more informal response from an individual board member. If these aren't matched, then that'll result in either being overly dismissive, or impersonal. If someone messages the whole board and gets a response from one of them, that appears to dismiss their thoughts without really considering it. If someone messages an individual and the whole board responds, that sounds like a crisis response and an impersonal method of dealing with it.

There's a lot of nuance to this, and many people get it wrong. I think that's because of the first point that I made, where they want to make it all about their feelings because now they feel bad. But that's just not relevant. And then the proceeding actions I think also say a lot about the organization, which is the rest of the post. But if I were to make one point, it would be to care more about the members, and less about the leadership. They volunteered for this, and they should behave responsibly.

This Is Beautiful: Donating Blood

 I managed to donate blood last week! It was super great. I was really worried about it because last time I went I had high blood pressure, and I sometimes have low iron levels, but it worked out perfectly!

I do think that I need to take a break from donating blood, it has been stressing me out, but I'm super glad that I was able to make it happen this time! I just feel so down in the dumps if I get rejected, it's not a great feeling at all. I'm working on trying to take it less personally but it can be hard. Especially since everyone else seems to have no issue donating regularly. But I did it!

Donate blood if you can, there's a lot of issues with the Red Cross, but people still need blood. Get out there and try to give yours.

Ace Week Wrap-Up

 This is a follow up to my previous post, but there was a lot of great things that happened this week and I just wanted to acknowledge them and celebrate them.

The Allusionist episode
First of all, a wonderful episode of The Allusionist, a podcast about language, released an episode about asexuality and aromanticism. You can find it here! I've been nagging her about doing a podcast about this for ages so I'm super happy to see it! It really was such a surprise for me and I was absolutely thrilled to see it drop and also to listen to it.

Disabled Aces Day
This year marked the first ever Disabled Aces Day! It was founded by Courtney Lane, a wonderful ace activist, and it aims to highlight the specific struggles of disabled aces. You can read more about it here, but the general idea is that disabled aces are often overlooked since all disabled individuals are assumed to be non-sexual. This results of erasure, of bot ace and allo disabled individuals. And in particular it can be hard for disabled aces to feel confident in their asexuality since it feels as though they're confirming a stereotype. So it's great that there's now a day for this community! Support and love disabled aces.

Racism in the community
Unfortunately there's also been a ton of racism online. Yasmin Benoit launched an asexuality-themed lingerie campaign and so many people have decided that this is too much or incomprehensible or whatever it is. I really wish that someday we could get to a point where this doesn't happen. Yasmin is a wonderful, incredible activist and she shouldn't be constantly harassed like this. Who cares what she's wearing? The whole point is that aces can wear and look however they want, that doesn't make them less asexual. Just another reminder of how far we have to go.

Happy Halloween!
And finally, happy Halloween! Aces get Halloween now, it's official. I hope that your week has been wonderful and tons of fun.

This Is Beautiful: ASHG

 This past week was ASHG, or the American Society of Human Genetics meeting. It has been virtual for the past two years now, which is disappointing, but good for safety since this meeting is HUGE.

I really enjoyed it last year, besides the fact that I started fighting people in the chat during 23andme's presentation on studying the genomics of gay individuals. It was nice to hear about other's research and to see what my larger field is like.

This year was rather similar! It had a nice sense of togetherness, even though we're all separated by a screen. Getting hype in the chat during my lab mates' presentations was definitely a highlight, but I always enjoy just popping into random sessions that look interesting as well. It's just really cool to be reminded of the bigger picture and what your field consists of!

Ace Week 2021

 This upcoming week is Ace Week (or Asexual Awareness Week). I try to celebrate it every year, it's really a highlight of the fall for me. This year I was able to celebrate by organizing events for my school's asexual community! Which is very exciting, we're going to have a community discussion, a student panel, a workshop on sex ed, and a social event. This is the first year that we've had a student panel, and I'm so excited for when that happens!

Having said all that, the ace community has a long way to go in terms of inclusion and diversity. More and more aces of color are speaking up about how the community is racist, and I've seen more disabled aces speaking up about how the community is ablest. We need to make radical strides towards making these intersectional identities more welcome.

But I also want to discuss the inclusivity of aces in queer spaces. So many people are still aphobic, possibly without realizing it. In particular, I want to highlight assumptions that get made when you tell someone "I'm asexual." Knowing that someone is asexual doesn't actually tell you anything about their relationship with sex. Same thing goes for aromanticism, knowing that someone is aromantic doesn't tell you anything about their relationship to romance. 

So it follows that not dating someone just because they're asexual or aromantic is inherently aphobic. Maybe sex is important to you and you want to have a lot of it. Great, there's plenty of asexuals who love to have sex. But you don't know that from knowing someone's identity, you have to have a conversation about it. Same as if you're dating anyone else. There's so much diversity within the asexual community, we need that diversity to be respected. Not being inclusive of all aces means that you aren't inclusive of aces at all.

So here's to another year of being asexual! And here's to hopefully seeing some improvements in diversity and inclusion over the coming year!

This Is Beautiful: Nice Try!

 When I found out that Avery Trufelman was hosting another podcast, I subscribed immediately. And it does not disappoint. 

Avery Trufelman was a host for 99% Invisible, where she got her start, and while she was there she made "Articles of Interest." This was a really cool series about clothes and how fashion affects and reflects society through its designs. She then hosted "The Cut" from New York Magazine for a year, and I loved hearing her voice weekly. Now she's at "Nice Try!" a podcast about home design. For this season, they're focusing on the interior and how the personal things we use everyday are political and affected by the world at large. 

The podcast is very 99pi in concept, focusing on the design of everyday items. But it's cool to hear Avery's voice again, and I'm excited to see where this season leads!

The Dave Chappelle Special: I'm not watching it

 Alright look, this isn't really about the special. It's more about how sick I am of this kind of discourse. I'm really really sick of someone saying inflammatory things and us giving them a huge platform for it by discussing it. I have no desire to watch this. If you want to see a decent breakdown of this, head to Jessie Gender's excellent video on it here. But I'm focusing on something larger than that.

It's just so exhausting seeing all of the transphobes come out of the woodwork and rally around this special and these comments. Everyone has some hot take on this one way or another, but rarely is the goal of these comments to learn and grow. It's more to just dunk on someone and yell about it. We all want to make a lot of noise, but rarely do we want to reflect on our opinions and what they say about us.

Particularly with people on the left, those that are defending trans people, they tend to virtue signal rather than really interact with the ideas. I'm very sick of people just taking a holier than thou stance and pointing out the contradictions instead of trying to contribute to work going against this. By educating people or dismantling the system of transphobia that creates people like this. (This is why Jessie Gender's video is good, she takes a lot of time to interact with it and doesn't just dunk on things and leave.)

Really the special is only popular right now because so many people are discussing it. We have made Chappelle so incredibly powerful instead of taking that away. If you want to cancel someone truly, stop talking about them. Don't even acknowledge it. No I'm not doing this right now, but I really need to vent and I'll go back to not discussing it afterwards. Interacting with these ideas just adds to their power, I doubt that Chappelle actually gives that much of a shit what we think anyways. Just walk away.

Anyways, I'm not watching the special, and I'm going to be super critical of anyone who does at this point because I suspect that they're just there to add fuel to the flames. And honestly shame on Netflix for putting it up on their platform. I'm exiting the system as soon as I can.

This Is Beautiful: acting?

 So it feels really strange to say this, but I'm acting again. I'm a very minor character in "Much Ado About Nothing." It's a little disappointing to be honest. But I'm having a good time doing Shakespeare again, and getting to say lines on a stage again. I really liked acting while in college and high school and middle school, so I'm hoping that this'll add some color to my life again.

But yeah, I'm acting! It's kinda fun. Good stuff.

“One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston

I’ve wanted to read this book since I saw it being described as “magic subway lesbians” in a magazine review. Previously I’d heard of Red, White, and Royal Blue which is McQuiston’s other book, but I’d never read it. So I was thrilled when my book club selected this book to be our next pick!

Let me preface this by saying that it is very good. It’s excellently written. All of the characters are hilarious and larger than life, from the transmasc psychic to the drag queen working at a diner. They’re all delightful and super entertaining to read about. And the writing is terrific! McQuiston clearly knows what she’s doing. Yes it’s romance, but it’s also about magic and being queer and finding your family.

Having said that, there’s a lot of elements that really rubbed me the wrong way. So much of the plot feels like McQuiston checking off all of the tropes that queer readers will love. There’s the protagonist who has a hard time opening up to other people. There’s SO MANY queer characters. There’s the roommate who never talks to anyone opening up about how his parents kicked him out. There’s the love interest who’s a radical queer feminist and covered in tattoos. We KNOW that we’ll love it, but also I can see what you’re doing there. It just feels like every plot point is designed to inject dopamine directly into my veins, which is fine, but I’d like something I can find new or different in the plot beyond the number of queer characters. Representation is objectively a good thing, but I expected a little more from the novel beyond that.

There’s also just the amount of sex. I’m fine with reading about it but wooooow that last chapter was a lot even for me. If you are asexual or aromantic, this might be a hard read for you. I also just left thinking, is that what allo relationships are like? Is that what people do? It’s all queer sex so I’ll support that being seen and written about, but I kinda wish that I had a bit more of a heads up.

Then there’s the ending. Yes it’s romance and it therefore gets a happy ending. But I feel like the story could have been a lot more interesting and stand out more if it ended differently. If Jane went back and they didn’t end the story together. There was a half of a chapter where this was teased and I thought that seeing August’s development and her coming to terms with it MUCH more interesting than the final chapter where they just had a lot of sex. You never see a book where that happens and the author goes through the recovery detail with as much care as the romantic details. (Which McQuiston is definitely capable of.) Queer happiness is a radical act, but queer happiness after a tragedy to me seems like something with more depth to it.

Definitely read this book and adore this book, and find other queer authors to read and love. But also, I think there’s areas to improve and make changes to in future works. And maybe that’s just for me, and that’s alright.

This Is Beautiful: The Lifespan of a Fact

 Last weekend, my partner and I went to go see a local play, "The Lifespan of a Fact." It was an excellent production, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it! It was at a local theater company that I saw once before the pandemic, I'm glad that they're still running and able to put on shows!

The play centers on an essay written for a magazine. A recently hired employee is tasked with fact checking it, a job that he goes to with zeal and enthusiasm. A little too much enthusiasm. He ends up travelling to the writer's place in Las Vegas to ask him some questions about the piece. There he's met with a writer who considers the crafting of a compelling and well-written essay much more important than sticking strictly to facts. Meanwhile, the editor of the magazine is trying to publish this gorgeous essay without offending anyone, and acts as the middle ground between these two extremes.

The writing is wonderfully done, it exposes the ridiculousness within both worldviews. But also how they both can have valid claims here. There also aren't any answers given within the play, the audience leaves not knowing if the essay was published in the magazine or not. But it really makes you think about what a fact is, and how facts should be used to serve the purpose of crafting a story.

Definitely would recommend seeing it if you can! It's a production that really makes you think and reflect.

On Living in a Hybrid World

 I feel like we are now at the worst part of reopening: when some things are virtual and some things are in person. The bulk of my meetings are still online through web conferencing platforms, but more and more things are at the very least trying to go back to in person. There's quite a few aspects of this that I find exhausting.

First of all there's simply logistical issues. It's really hard to plan my day when I'm not sure where I need to be when, and trying to find ideal locations for virtual meetings is harder than it seems. If my work is in person and I have a virtual meeting, is it then my responsibility to find a quiet, private place to have my virtual meeting in? I'm used to running around for in person things, but this feels like a different kind of frantic and inconvenient. Virtual meetings are very convenient in a lot of ways, and I think I've also gotten used to being able to hop instantly on and off calls. Now with more in person events, travel time is a thing and it's harder for me to do everything that I used to do easily. It takes some adjustment. This liminal space that we're in between virtual and in person is really highlighting this change.

Then there's the fact that I don't feel safe being in person for a number of events. The Delta variant is still out there being spread by vaccinated individuals, I'm not willing to take huge risks when it comes to that. So I constantly have to check what form meetings are in and how comfortable I feel about this at the time. This pandemic has definitely eroded my trust of others, I don't care if they say an in person meeting is fine, I personally may or may not be comfy with that.

The end result is that I feel way more exhausted than I would if everything was either online or in person. The constant back and forth of it all and trying to plan out where and when everything is taking place has been a drain on my energy. Plus I constantly have to think about whether I even feel safe in these in person situations when they do take place. It's a nightmare and a lot for one person to handle.

I'm not sure what the solution is though. The hybrid world is the one that we now live in, and it's probably here to stay. Possibly if the ratio of virtual to in person events skews one way or another it'll get easier, but the underlying issues will still be there. I'm not sure. All of which is to say, if you feel similarly to me, just know that you're not alone!

This is Beautiful: "Moonflower Murders"

 So I'm only a short way into the book, but Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz promises to be as good as Magpie Murders. I think. I mean I haven't gotten into anything that made me REALLY fall in love with Magpie Murders yet, but he's setting it up well.

I wrote about Magpie Murders previously here, and I adored the mix of perspectives and deconstructing what can make a cool mystery novel that happened. Moonflower Murders still follows the same protagonist trying to solve another mystery. There's a couple other returning characters, her husband and the lead Detective on the case of course. 

Hopefully I'll have a happy update soon! I'm sure I'll write more about the book once I finish it.

Google Docs

 I've been thinking about this a lot over the years, but the rise of Google Docs (everything else about the company aside) has really contributed to making things incredibly accessible. It's so easy to put together a document with important resources and things like that and just make it publicly available.

Think about how many Google Docs you've used recently. I've used it for sharing documents at work. I've also used it to create documents that give advice to organizations on how to run events and collect institutional knowledge. I've also seen so many people collect lists of links and share them that way. You can find free pdfs of textbooks and other artistic works through Google Docs. I've seen people conduct research surveys through Google Forms! 

What's miraculous about this is that Google is a really shitty company. Probably all of the information that we're sending to them through these files is going to come back to bite us. But somehow all of the bad press tends to go to Google as a search engine, rather than using Gmail or Drive or anything else.

Somehow this tech giant has made things super duper accessible, anyone with an Internet connection can access Google Drive and see all of these files. All you need is a Gmail account to get access. Not going to lie, I got a Gmail when I graduated undergrad just so that I could take advantage of how easy it is to upload and share files through Google Docs. 

I can't quite tell whether this is a trend and things are going to continue to be so open or if the other shoe will drop soon and we'll have to pay for this. As far as I can tell, this is an innovation that hasn't gathered a ton of press, not many people are writing about Google Docs as a platform. But knowing Google, something is going to happen to monetize this at some point. 

I sure hope that isn't going to happen! But you cannot guarantee anything in this day and age.

This Is Beautiful: Staged

 I only recently found out about the show "Staged" starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen. The two previously starred on "Good Omens" and I think this show was essentially born from that collaboration and their friendship. The show essentially follows David and Michael playing themselves as actors whose play has been cancelled because of the pandemic and how they want to continue rehearsing over zoom.

I have to be honest, this is the only portrayal of the pandemic that I am interested in seeing within media. It's a super funny and honest portrayal of how we were all going insane a little over a year ago. I think anything else just isn't going to hit the mark in terms of how discombobulated we were, and yet there's an aspect of absurdist humor. 

I will have to check this, but I think the first season was mostly improvised. And now with season 2 out they're pretending that the first season was scripted and now this is them actually talking. Which is just a funny concept to me. I haven't made it to the second season but I'm excited for when I get there! The chemistry between the two leads and all of the guests on vibe just so well, it's such a cool show. I honestly have no idea why I didn't hear about it sooner.

“Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity, and Histories of Art” by Griselda Pollock

My latest acquisition from a secondhand bookstore, this is essentially a collection of seven essays on feminist art history and art critiques. Now let me just preface this by saying that I have never formally studied any of this. I simply am an art enthusiast who likes to think about things and is a feminist. And that’s really it.

So having said that, there was probably a lot of this book that went wayyyy over my head. But there was also a decent amount that I was able to pick up on as I read as well. In particular, I really liked Pollack’s discussion of how there isn’t a trans-historical female experience. Assuming that women have been through the same things throughout history and that they have responded to these challenges in the same way over time erases so much of progress and so much of the context that the work existed in. I know that I’m guilty of this, if you see an image of a woman being bothered by a man, I tend to assume that that’s exactly what’s happening here. However, Pollock brings up that symbolism is different over time, this could be a portrayal of a country’s refusal to enter a trading agreement or have some other political connotation entirely separate from an individual woman’s experiences.

Similarly, I thought she did an excellent job discussing the context that art pieces existed in. Instead of taking a typical approach to why there aren’t female art masters by arguing that women made art just as well as men, she went about this by pointing out how the entire construct of art and what we appreciate is dictated by men and their viewpoints. Which begs the question of how we can even tell what female artists are great or not, but I don’t think Pollock is interested in that answer. She simply wants to expose the fact that the game is rigged and we don’t have a good way of getting around it at this time.

I do think that this book would benefit from more basic explanations of concepts. For example, Pollock repeatedly discusses the modernist movement, as well as postmodernism. Now I’m a huge fan of postmodernism, and I have a good grasp on what that movement entails. But both terms refer to such huge swaths of thought and ways of looking at art, that I was never 100% sure exactly what aspect she was discussing. Maybe there’s a specific angle to modernism that gets discussed in art history circles, but I’m not in those, I had to fumble my way through and figure it out as I went.

This definitely was a book worth reading, and possibly one worth revisiting later as I pick up more knowledge of art history and feminist theory. Even if I didn’t understand it all, there were arguments that I thought were very well explained and articulated that I will be thinking about for a while. I just hope that someday I can go back and understand the rest of it as well.

This Is Beautiful: Department Retreats

 Sort of a strange post, but my latest blog entry was late because I spent all of Friday and Saturday at my department's retreat. It honestly was really nice to be seeing my cohort in person and to be going to in person talks.

To be fair, this sounds like some capitalist nonsense of "I love working all the time!" and it's not quite that. I'm still exhausted and really tired and science-d out. I definitely wouldn't want to do this every weekend. But after being virtual for so long and not being able to see others present their work in person and not being able to present my work in person, this was a nice change. And it really made me feel closer to my fellow students. We don't often see each other so it was genuinely very nice to get together.

So like all things, this is a balance. But I was able to appreciate the nice aspects and get a lot out of this experience.

“The Shadow of Kyoshi” by F.C. Yee

This is the sequel to The Rise of Kyoshi by the same author. I wrote about it previously here. The sequel is very similar, in some ways it falls short of the original, but as far as sequels go this one was marvelously done.

It starts with Kyoshi doing her Avatarly duties and working against the criminals in the Earth Kingdom. She is then summoned by the Fire Lord to help him with a problem. She goes, and there in the Fire Nation is reunited with Rangi. They encounter Yun, the boy who was presumed to be the Avatar before Kyoshi, who threatens Rangi’s mother. From there they travel to try and commune with the spirits better, to see if Yun is possessed. It turns out that no he’s not, but Kyoshi had to talk to her predecessor, Kuruk, in order to be sure. She then has a showdown against Yun with the help of her friends where she kills him and ends this.

So what I really liked about this book is that there’s definitely more of a sense of humor to it. The original seemed very stiff, not exactly humorless, but also I didn’t laugh while reading it. This one definitely had some jokes thrown in, which made it feel like it was more a part of the Avatar universe.

But for a lot of this book, Kyoshi doesn’t really have a Team Avatar. It’s her, Rangi, Rangi’s mom, Rangi’s mom’s doctor, and Kyoshi’s Air Nomad secretary. They don’t really work as a team since it’s mostly Kyoshi doing things to connect to the Spirit World. As a result it feels as though the book has lost a bit of its core.

However, this book wraps up Kyoshi’s story incredibly well. I was three chapters from the end and was wondering how the author was going to tie up the loose ends! But Yun is defeated, Kyoshi’s friends from the first book return, and all ends up well once more. It nicely forms Kyoshi into the Avatar that we know and love, while wrapping up any remaining questions from the first book.

Definitely read The Rise of Kyoshi first, but this is an excellent follow up if you need more Kyoshi! (And I think we all do.)

This Is Beautiful: New Music!

 I don't know how this happened, but a lot of bands that I'm into have been dropping music lately. I guess it's just about that time that everyone puts out their quarantine music for the world to see!

The Wombats just released "If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You" as well as "Method to the Madness." Apparently soon next year they'll be dropping an album too!

Walk the Moon announced that they're coming out with an album later this year. Date TBD as far as I can tell.

Ed Sheeran announced a new album from him in October too! And new song, "Bad Habits" is out already.

It just feels like the next year or so is going to be great for music! I'm really excited.

“The Rise of Kyoshi” by F.C. Yee

Recently the book club that I’m in decided to read the Kyoshi novels. These are books written about the Avatar universe by a separate author, one who wasn’t involved with the show. It’s really cool to see what he’s done with Kyoshi’s backstory, she’s one of the most beloved characters but we don’t get to see very much of her within the tv series.

Kyoshi grows up in a world that didn’t have an Avatar for a while. After fruitless searching, the friends of Kuruk, the previous Avatar, identify Yun as the Avatar since he was a powerful earth bender and seemed to know things that only the reincarnation of the Avatar should know. So, Kyoshi is a servant in the Avatar’s household, until one mission where she demonstrates that she is also a very powerful earth bender. Tragically, one of the supposed mentors to the Avatar then brings her and Yun to a spirit who confirms that Kyoshi is the next Avatar. This mentor then leaves Yun with the spirit, murders Kyoshi’s father figure, and threatens Kyoshi. She runs off with her fire-bending bodyguard Rangi. They go to a group of outlaws that Kyoshi’s parents belonged to for help, and those outlaws end up training Kyoshi. By the end of the book, Kyoshi confronts her previous mentor and shows herself to be a bending master. Miraculously, Yun reappears and kills his old mentor. However, circumstances make it seem like Kyoshi is a criminal who destroyed the building this happened in. She then goes to the Air Nomads for sanctuary.

Alright so despite the fact that this is a book based on a children’s show, there’s a lot going on here. There’s plenty of questions about how a leader should act. Because despite her previous mentor’s flaws, he does take care of those in his charge. Or so it seems. Halfway through we learn that he’s a master of blackmail and manipulation, sullying his reputation and making the choice to kill him clearer. There’s also a lot of discussion about tradition, how Kyoshi has to do things the proper way to be a proper Avatar, and is breaking that by going to the outlaws. Traditions inherently have power to them, even the Avatar is a form of tradition, and seeing how those bonds hold the different characters is interesting.

Some of my favorite aspects of the book have to do with Kyoshi’s character and how the author used the information from the show to create this story. Kyoshi seems like a badass who kills without hesitation in the show, which is partially why she’s a fan favorite. But at the beginning of the story, they don’t even think that she can earth bend. Or when she can, it’s very clumsy and without control. Seeing her grow and change is a great part of the story. Plus a lot of the book is her learning about justice and how she as the Avatar continually has to make choices about who is right and wrong. You can see how this, combined with how she is viewed as an outlaw, make the severe Avatar that we meet later on.

And then there’s the gay. Kyoshi and Rangi start up a relationship about ¾ of the way through the book. It’s really sweet and shows how those two find comfort and family in each other when they cannot find it anywhere else. There’s some mentions of homophobia in the book, but nothing severe. Still, it’s interesting that homophobia in any form exists within this universe.

There’s one other book in this series, which I am very excited to read. I particularly want to find out what Yun’s deal is, now that he’s back from the spirit that kept him captive. Will Kyoshi be able to save the Yun that she knew? Or is he gone forever? Plus seeing her continual growth as the Avatar, and all of those adventures that she is bound to go on. It should be a fun time!

This Is Beautiful: Cars

 Alright well I was kinda hoping that this day wouldn't come, but somehow it has. I bought a car! 

I was hoping to avoid it because I love walking and taking public transportation, it's better for you and the environment. But here we are, I'm in a city without a great public transit system, and it just became necessary. I am now the proud owner of an orange Scion iQ which is this tiny, super cute, car. It's so small that it doesn't have a glove compartment! But it gets great mileage, very easy to park, and I'm into it.

Didn't think that I'd be excited about having a car, but it is nice that now I can get back and forth from my partner's place without him having to drive me. Plus can get groceries whenever I want. I don't know, it's just nice having that freedom!

Don't get me wrong, I will still be taking public transit whenever possible. But having a car is kinda nice as well!

“The Code Breaker” by Walter Isaacson

As a genetics researcher, I needed to get my hands on the new biography of Dr. Jennifer Doudna. She’s most well known for being one of the two scientists that discovered the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. This revolution cannot really be overstated, it has made manipulating DNA much easier, and ushered in a new age of genetics. Plus she won a historic Nobel prize with her collaborator Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier recently. So, I really wanted to read about her and figure out what her path through science was like.

To be honest, the biography itself was a bit of a mixed bag for me. It’s written by Walter Isaacson who has profiled many great figures in his writing over the years. What kept throwing me off though was how he kept inserting himself into the narrative. Isaacson kept discussing his own impressions and experiences with the subjects or just the topic of genetics which continually took me out of the subject of the book.

In all fairness, as a non-scientist, many readers probably appreciated his self-inserts to explain his personal experiences and opinions. But I can’t help but think that there’s a way to discuss this without mentioning himself as an author so frequently. At the end of the day, I’m not reading this book for Isaacson’s thoughts, I want to read about Doudna!

Isaacson does do a terrific job explaining all of these complex concepts to just about any reader. There’s full chapters on the science behind these concepts and how it changes over the years. There’s also further chapters on the ethical implications of these innovations and all of the different people and players who have impacted it over the years. At times, it leans more towards a profile of the field rather than a book about Doudna, but I did find it all interesting and enlightening to show the world that she was working in.

Of course the pandemic features heavily into the book. It starts with Doudna calling a meeting of her collaborators to prepare for the pandemic, and ends with vaccines being developed. I can’t help but think that the ending is more of a cliffhanger than anything else. The whole field will have changed in several years, and I’ll probably have to buy another book. Doudna is still working and publishing, and I’m sure that she is far from done revolutionizing the field. We shall see.

To sum up, this is a really well written book about genetics and science that’s accessible to anyone, whether you are a scientist or not. But it’s not entirely a biography of Doudna as a profile of the current field of genetics and one man’s impression of it. If you haven’t read The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee I would probably recommend reading that first, since it isn’t as up to date as this book. The two, regardless, go really well together, and we love spreading knowledge about science and genes!

This Is Beautiful: The Owl House Season 2

 I don't think I've written about this show before, but "The Owl House" is an incredible animated series from Disney that is gay! Because let's be honest, that's why we watch children's cartoons. It's for that sweet queer content.

The first season covered how Luz, an imaginative Latina teen, finds a portal that leads her to the Boiling Isles. Here magic and witches and mystical creatures all exist! Just like in Luz's favorite stories. Over the course of the season Luz figures out how to perform magic even though she's a human, and befriends Eda the Owl Lady and her demon friend King.

During season 2 the gay gets cranked up! Luz's classmate Amity goes from being a frosty cooler girl to wanting to ask Luz to Grom (it's prom but you also fight monsters, don't worry about it). The fact that there was an explicitly queer crush in season 1 was already ground breaking, but they finally ask each other out in the middle of season 2! It's super cute, I hope that season 3 goes more into their relationship since we didn't see a ton of it after they started dating.

The show is queer in other ways, Luz is confirmed to be bisexual and definitely isn't gender conforming. Her Grom outfit is intentionally a mixture of a suit and a dress, and it looks fabulous. Other characters also have queer parents and in general it's super LGBTQ+ friendly. Anyways, if you like gay cartoons, you are sure to like this as well!

Allyship

Let's talk a little bit about allyship shall we, I keep seeing misconceptions about it and would like to discuss what being a good ally actually consists of. So here’s a list of seven things anyone can do to become a better ally, and to just have a better understanding of what being an ally entails.

1. Being an ally is an active process, you have to do work. This is to educate yourself, examine your unconscious biases, and put effort into reading and researching the group you want to help. Only after that, does the real work start with educating others as well.

2. Similar to the previous point, don't expect members of the marginalized community to teach you everything. You need to do your own research, and talk to other allies if you have further questions. Don't expect minorities to do all of the work of educating you for free.

3. A good ally is out there walking the walk as well, just talking and teaching yourself isn't going to cut it. You have to go to the rally, donate to the charity, and call out bigotry when you see it.

4. Allyship is intentionally and consistently taking the backseat in the conversation. You are promoting other voices and opinions, not your own. In fact if you're a good ally, people will barely know that you are there they'll just know who you're promoting.

5. A good ally needs to be able to take feedback, you need to be open to being called out so you can improve. You are going to make mistakes and mess up, but being open to changing your behavior and being responsible for your actions helps.

6. You cannot (in fact) declare yourself to be an ally, this is a term that a member of the marginalized community gives to you. It's not the other way around. To declare yourself an ally when that has not been given to you is very disrespectful in my eyes.

7. Anyone can strive to be a better ally of any community, but very few people are really good allies. For example, there are many causes that I support, but there are few that I consider myself to be an ally of because I'm still learning how to best help. Be selective.

Allyship tends to get thrown around to the extent that it has ceased to really mean much anymore. But by fostering conversations around the term and what it means, hopefully we can stop that process and have there be some criteria for which to call yourself an “ally.”

This Is Beautiful: Neo: The World Ends With You

 I'm sure I'm going to be writing a lot about this game, but wow is it good! I have not finished it yet, but I already know that I adore this game. In a way I was going to love it no matter what, it's the long-awaited sequel to my favorite game of all time. Just the fact that it exists makes me happy.

There are a number of changes to the new game from the original one, like the fact that the streets are in 3D. I've talked about this previously when the demo came out. The art is certainly a glow-up. What's wildly different now about the game is that your opponents aren't so much the Reapers, the bad guys in the original, but the other Players in the Reaper's Game. I'm interested to see how much this one pits you against the others, because the original was a lot about teamwork. 

There's also been a couple references to Neku as a legendary Player that turned the game on its head. Of course there was going to be some sort of legend about him or whatever, but I'm also interested in seeing where this goes. I know he eventually appears, I'm fascinated to see how he changes over time.

Finally I've run into a pandemic reference, if in a roundabout way. I don't think the writers could fully avoid it, Rindo was designed before the pandemic and he wears a mask as a fashion statement. Essentially there's a reference to a pop group that is made up of germ-phobes that practice hand washing and social distancing. I think if that's all that it is, that's great and I'm actually amused by that. Hopefully that's all, I don't think I could handle the pandemic being in this game.

I am annoyed with some things about the game. You can't easily use HP restoring pins during battle, and battle in general I don't think is as great as the original. Might be a bit of a hot take, but I prefer the touch screen controls with the buttons that control your partner as well. In Neo, you control each pin with a different button. It's just less customizable to me, I'm just button mashing no matter what I equip. And the 3D fights make it harder for me to tell what's going on, which character I'm controlling. Maybe this'll change as I go through the game, we'll see.

Other nitpicky thing I'm complaining about is the shops. You can only eat within a restaurant now, and strangely enough you cannot sell pins in a restaurant? Only place you can sell pins is in a shop. So I continually have to leave the restaurant, head to a shop, and then return with money. It also means that you cannot buy food and save it for later. Which I'm finding increasingly annoying. And everyone has to eat in a restaurant. The details of this system I find pretty irritating, the original game's byte system worked just fine.

Anyways, this game is amazing and everyone should play it. I'm taking my time getting through it, but it'll for sure be back once I'm done with it.

Bilbao, Spain

This past 2 weeks I was on a hiking trip through the Basque Country in Spain! It was a very different kind of trip for me. We essentially arrived in Bilbao, Spain, then took a train out to the countryside. From there we hiked our way back over the course of a week, stopping in B+Bs along the way. It was wild! My feet hurt a lot!

So like I said we started in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country. It’s a gorgeous place, it actually reminds me a lot of Italy with the similar architecture and pedestrian streets. Many of the churches are in the gothic style, and there’s plenty of beautiful public parks and fountains that add to this. One interesting difference though is that Bilbao is on the side of a mountain, so there’s at least 3 different levels of streets that I could see. The whole city is stacked on top of each other! It makes for interesting views, and I imagine driving around is an interesting time if you end up on the wrong level.

We really only had time to see the Guggenheim museum within Bilbao itself, and it has an awesome collection. Before you even enter the museum, you can see the very shiny architecture and a couple statues outside of the building. The most popular is Puppy, a giant statue of a puppy covered in flowers. It’s regularly maintained and the flowers change, so the colors change over the years and seasons as well!

Once inside there’s a good number of larger art pieces on the ground floor, while the upper floors have changing exhibits and a permanent collection. I thought the selection was very cool, there was an exhibit on 1920s art, looking at how artists moved on from the trauma of the first World War. Very relevant.

After that, it was mostly a lot of hiking. The mountains were incredible, and we had a good number of ridge walks. Parts of the hike were difficult, but the views made it worth it. It definitely wasn’t my favorite way to travel, but I am glad that I did it. It made for a nice change to be out in nature walking around. We saw a lot of cows, as well as horses and sheep.

I do wish that we spent more time in the city, but it was an interesting way to experience northern Spain. I got to see more nature and rural towns rather than just the big city. It was exhausting and my feet still hurt, but the pictures that I have made it worthwhile!

This Is Beautiful: McCartney 3, 2, 1

 (Yes I am working on writing about my vacation, but this also has to be said.)

The Hulu series "McCartney 3, 2, 1" is surprisingly good! I am a card-carrying Beatlemaniac but whenever I see a new Beatles thing I am a little skeptical. There's only so much you can pull from 10 years of a band being together and at some point it's just a money grab since so many people are so into them. But this show is really cool to watch and listen to!

It features Sir Paul talking with Rick Rubin about his life and primarily his music. It takes place entirely in a studio with the two of them playing old tracks, separating out the different parts, and discussing how the song was made and came about. It's a lot like "Song Exploder", a podcast that does a similar thing, but Beatles edition. And there's a good amount of McCartney's solo work in there as well.

It honestly was really engaging since they paired the conversation excellently with old footage of the boys and of artists that influenced them. Plus, McCartney talks very openly about different songs and how they wrote all of the parts while putting it together. The focus is really on the music rather than anything else, which is quite refreshing since I didn't need another dive into his personal life or whatever. I've spent a lot of time reading about the Beatles' writing process and I learned quite a few things from watching this!

There's going to be a lot of Beatles content coming out later, and this show has set the bar pretty high! Definitely worth a watch if you are a Beatles fan, or just a fan of music and music production in general.

Summer Vacation 2021

 This is just an announcement to say that I'll be on vacation for the next 2 weeks! I finally am getting a break and I'm super excited about it. I'll be back posting the second week of August, so have a fun time until then!

This Is Beautiful: Art Fair

 This past weekend was the Art Fair in the town I'm in. It's a pretty big fair, lots of people come from the community and the local art guild or wherever. The weather wasn't great, but it was still so nice to be outside and looking at art and surrounded by people. I've really missed art museums particularly during the pandemic, and this brought a little bit of that back. Plus I just really like art!

Supporting local artists is very important to me as well, I usually try to buy something at these kinds of events. Artists have a really hard time making money so it's always good to support them, plus if you can afford it having art in your place is always nice. Everyone wins! Support your local artists. 

“The Lost Hero” by Rick Riordan

I’m continuing on my Rick Riordan revisit with this next series about Greek and Roman gods. Very exciting. So this is the first installment of the Heroes of Olympus series, and it’s in the same universe as the Percy Jackson series, but Percy isn’t the protagonist anymore.

What’s interesting about this series is that Riordan has changed up the structure. There isn’t one main character now, there are in fact three now. This book follows around Jason, Piper, and Leo. Similarly, the chapters aren’t titled amusing lil descriptions of the actions in them, they’re just called the character’s name who is narrating. Boo for the boring titles, but makes sense from a writing perspective. And it makes sense because this is a series that Riordan is writing as a more experienced writer, he wants to include more perspectives and viewpoints in his characters so he includes more point-of-view characters.

To summarize: once again this book follows Jason, Piper, and Leo. Jason wakes up with no memory in the back of a bus with Piper and Leo. This is a bus with 3 demigods on it who don’t know who we are, so naturally it gets attacked. They end up at Camp Half-Blood and figure out that Piper is a daughter of Aphrodite, Leo is a son of Hephaestus, and Jason is a son of Jupiter. Hold up though, Jupiter is the Roman form of Zeus, what’s up with that?

Anyways the three of them all go on a quest to rescue Hera, the queen of the gods, who is being held captive by a giant. Along the way they battle some storm spirits, save their satyr friend Coach Hedge, and rescue Piper’s dad who has been kidnapped by another giant. They run into Thalia (who you may remember from the Percy Jackson series) and it is revealed that Jason is Thalia’s brother. They battle the final giant together and emerge victorious. Only once they return to camp is it revealed that there’s an entirely separate camp for children of the Roman gods that Jason is from. The Roman and Greek demigods have a bloody history, so they have been separated. And it is likely, that Percy Jackson, who has been MIA for this whole book, has been sent to the Roman camp in exchange for Jason.

So the idea behind this book is quite cool, it’s very similar to American Gods where the gods can exist in different appearances and personalities based on what the population thinks they are like. So one god can have both Greek and Roman personas (so Zeus and Jupiter). It’s an interesting way to expand the world, Chiron alludes to the American Civil War being between Greek and Roman demigods. And that during the war against the Titans in the Percy Jackson series the Roman demigods took the Titan mountain on the west coast while the Greek demigods defended Mount Olympus.

And as I mentioned earlier, a strength to this book is that there are more voices and more diversity. Piper is a member of the Cherokee tribe of Native Americans, while Leo is Hispanic. They also are the children of Aphrodite and Hephaestus, two gods who we haven’t seen much of until this point. It’s cool to see how he brings in their families and stories about religion and spirituality into how they think about the Greek gods and this new family.

Honestly, the part of the book that I can’t stand is how Jason and Thalia are siblings. It feels forced and pretty unnatural. Thalia never mentioned having a sibling, supposedly because her mom lost Jason when he was very young, aka she gave him to Hera as an offering and Hera got him to the Roman demigods. And when they meet up Thalia keeps just talking to Jason unnaturally…? As in she knows that he lost his memory but keeps being all mysterious about where they should meet up, insisting that he knows where it is because their family went there. It feels like something a god would do to be all mysterious rather than Thalia, who is a demigod. And has been annoyed with gods previously for being mysterious on purpose like that. Also there could have been no connection between the two and the story would have worked just fine, didn’t need that bridge between the two camps. But we’ll ignore this and just keep going.

What’s clever about this is that Riordan takes a break from Percy for the installment book, gets readers interested, and the next book in the series (The Son of Neptune) is all about Percy once more. It’ll be nice to hear from him again!

This Is Beautiful: Catsitting

 So for the past week I've been catsitting for a friend of mine. She has these two munchkin cats and a really nice place and it's been a lot of fun! I think there's something about hanging out in a different place with a different person's pets that is just so nice and refreshing. I'm not sure, I think it's the change in pace and change in scenery but it's nice.

Also cats are so cute and fun! I love her munchkin cats, they're super small and cuddly. Pets are wonderful.

"The Stone Sky" by N.K. Jemison

 Well this is it, the ending of N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy. For the first two novels, see posts here and here. Honestly the ending was super satisfying, in a way that I haven't really read in ages. I think the key to a good ending is not to throw in any super huge plot twists, I should be able to look back and think that I knew this was coming, and to wrap up remaining loose ends while leaving the future open.

The story starts as Essun wakes up after the battle that ended The Obelisk Gate. She's weak, and has been in a coma for a while, but she now knows where her daughter is and wants to get there. First though, she has to get this comm to a safe place for them to live, which involves a deadly journey through a desert. Meanwhile her daughter Nassun is on her own journey to Corepoint, a place on the other side of the world to harness the gate and use it to end the world. On the journey though, Schaffa (Essun's old enemy but now Nassun's parental figure) loses his mind to Father Earth. Nassun arrives wanting to save Schaffa by turning everyone into Stone Eaters, essentially humans made of stone. Sprinkled throughout this are then a third viewpoint character: Hoa, Essun's Stone Eater friend. He narrates what his life was before he was changed into a Stone Eater, and what led to that transformation.

Of course the book ends with Nassun and Essun meeting at Corepoint. Nassun wants to turn all of humanity into Stone Eaters to save Schaffa, while Essun wants to bring back the Moon to fix the world. Their interaction doesn't last very long, but it's heartwrenching. All of three books was leading up to this. Essun wants her daughter back, but Nassun doesn't trust her anymore. Their relationship is truly broken beyond repair, but Essun can keep Nassun from using the Gate and turning herself to stone (the price for using it). Essun redirects the energy to instead turn herself to stone, essentially yielding to Nassun's wishes, and Nassun then changes her mind, and brings the Moon back instead of doing what she wanted. In the aftermath, Essun turns into a Stone Eater, and Nassun returns to help remake the world.

What's really touching about the ending though is the "Acknowledgements" section, where Jemison talks about how her mother's death heavily influenced the plot of the book. Clearly a lot of the ending particularly is her trying to work through these feelings of motherhood both for her mom and herself. It's really touching to know the source of all the pain and love in this book.

I've mentioned a couple times how the orogenes are a pretty apt metaphor for racism and prejudice. In this book, we learn through Hoa that the orogenes were originally made to serve as someone to subjugate. Basically there was a race of people, the Niess, who were rumored to be better and more sophisticated than everyone else. Once they were conquered, this was disproved. So, the people made their own Niess, as orogenes, to exploit. It's a pretty cool statement about prejudice, where people will invent things just to have someone that's lower than themselves.

But the ending, my goodness. It was super satisfying to see the war with Father Earth being ended, and most of the characters going to rebuild. I would have liked to know more about Essun's companions, like Tonkee, Hjarka, and Danel, or even those she left behind a little more. But seeing Essun emerge as a Stone Eater to continue her work was nice, if a little flowery how they talked about spending eternity with friends and family. Of course it's a hopeful ending, I don't see how it could be anything else at this point. This series puts you through a lot. 

I cannot recommend this series enough, I thought the whole journey was incredible and the ending sure does deliver.

This Is Beautiful: NEO: The World Ends With You Demo

 Last weekend I finally got around to playing through the demo that was put out for NEO: The World Ends With You (NTWEWY). I honestly was nervous going in, I've been waiting for this game for so long, the possibility did exist that it didn't live up to my expectations. Or that it didn't have the same feel from the original game. Or anything could happen that would ruin this for me for whatever reason.

None of that happened, the demo was incredible. The game looks so slick, the graphics are beautiful. The fighting is a lot of button mashing, but that's alright as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure I'll get better at it as we go. The characters are so charming and funny, the ones that we got to see anyways. There's more to come very soon. I love the characters and mechanics that return, like scanning and the red hooded Reapers. It was all so amazing that I couldn't put the game down for multiple hours, until I beat the demo.

Honestly it was so reassuring to play that and know that this game is going to be incredible. I can already tell that I'll play the hell out of it, and I'm so much more excited for when it comes out later this month!

“The Obelisk Gate” by N.K. Jemison

This is the sequel to The Fifth Season, a book that I previously wrote and gushed about. The sequel is just as good! It builds on the world and the characters extremely well.

To summarize, this book takes place in a fantasy world where orogenes are humans who can harness the earth’s energy to accomplish amazing feats. They can move mountains, or turn people into stone. As a result, they are feared and abused, seen more as a tool or a weapon to be used and disposed of than as people. Essen is an orogene, and she has two children who are also orogenes as well. She finds out one day that her husband (not an orogene, a still) has brutally murdered her son and ran off with her daughter. She vows to find them. She ends up in a city that’s underground, and welcomes orogenes as members. This is where she reunites with her old mentor, Alabastor, and he tells her that she has to use her orogeny to harness the power of these obelisks across the globe and bring the moon back. The moon’s orbit has brought it far from the earth, but if it can be returned then stability would reign.

Over the course of the novel we learn about Essen being trained by Alabastor and how she grows more powerful. We also hear from Nassun, who has been travelling with her father to a place where they can turn orogenes back into stills. The other point of view character is Schaffa, a Guardian. Guardians are superhuman people who can kill orogenes if they cannot be controlled anymore. Schaffa used to be assigned to Essun, he ends up founding a small training facility for orogenes and Guardians. This is where Nassun ends up. He takes care of Nassun, and the two share a close bond.

Then there’s also the Stone Eaters. These are a race of beings who used to be human, but centuries ago became more rock. They can pass through the ground as easily as swimming when they want, and they have their own factions and desires as well. Alabastor is friends with one named Antimony, and Essen has her own named Hoa. It’s revealed that Hoa has been going around attacking other Stone Eaters who would do harm to Essen, and he begins to reveal more about their world.

Essentially, only an orogene can activate the Obelisk Gate, the network of obelisks, and harness all of that power. But the Stone Eaters have been around for ages and want to influence who and why someone would do that. And it centers on the moon. In this world, periodically there are Fifth Seasons where the world becomes deadly. Returning the moon would fix that, but also get rid of orogeny. It has something to do with Father Earth where the orogenes (as the legends say) took away its child (as in the Moon) and Father Earth now takes his revenge on the humans. The book ends with both Essen and Nassun, who has recently started training with another Stone Eater, resolving to bring the Moon back.

As you can tell from the summary, there’s a lot of things going on in this book. Unlike the previous one, the three point of view characters are separate a lot of the time, other than Schaffa and Nassun meeting, the three lines stay pretty separate. The result is a lot of plot and story to get through.

One of the strengths is definitely Jemison’s world building. In the last book we learned about orogenes and how they are treated in this society. Here we now learn more about the Stone Eaters and the obelisks. Information about the Guardians is hinted at, but I think more of that will come in the finale to this trilogy.

Another aspect that I think is fascinating is how this series plays with myth and legend. So much of the information that the characters have about their past is through legends. It is hard to tell what is literally true, and what is false. For example, the story about orogenes taking away Father Earth’s child is present in the first book, but it isn’t until now that this is revealed to be rather literally true. Then there’s the Father Earth character. Is this a humanoid being? Or is it a force of nature? I hope that this is expanded on in the next book as well!

I wrote about this previously, but the diversity in the book is so great! At one point Nassun is said to have braids in her hair, referencing how people of color tend to wear theirs. Plus Tonkee, a trans women, starts a relationship with another woman. It isn’t a focus, but it’s nice to have casual queerness that doesn’t have to be justified.

I’m looking forward to the finale! What a read that’s going to be.

This Is Beautiful: Protecting Spaces

 The title's a little strange, but basically I recently had to remove someone from a queer group that I lead for being disruptive, rude, and offensive to other members. This has been in the works for a while, the main issue ended up that I had to convince the other two leaders that this was necessary (despite the fact that I attended and led many more of the meetings than they had). But it finally happened! I did have to go to the overarching organization to get this to happen, but we made it.

Members have been super great about this and saying that they want to come back to the space, I'm pretty excited to see more of them again! I feel horrible that I wasn't able to do something sooner, but I'm so glad that I was able to protect this space finally.

TWEWY The Animation: Episodes 11 and 12

 Episode 11

So the last episode left off on Day 6 of Week 3, Neku and Beat heading into the Shibuya River. They run into Miniamoto, who reveals that Konishi’s in Beat’s shadow. Konishi lets him through the barrier up ahead to fight the Composer. She then takes on Beat and Neku.

The fight was pretty similar to the game! You’re up above the city battling Konishi and her red duplicates. Then Beat basically rips Rhyme out of Konishi, and they all team up together to take her out. I thought it was a super inventive way of portraying how they get the Rhyme pin in the game, and it was overall a pretty cool battle.

From there, Beat and Neku end up in an all white room. They find the defeated Miniamoto and the white room shatters to show the Room of Reckoning and Kitaniji. Shiki’s also there, Neku has a cute and awkward explanation of how she was made his entry fee. It’s adorable.

Then it’s boss fight #2 with Kitaniji turning into the red serpent and Shiki being mind controlled. It ends when Mr. Mew replicates himself and then Neku chains them all together to squash Kitaniji. Beat and Shiki are knocked out as a result of the battle, and Neku intends to go on alone. But Kitaniji reappears, reveals that he also has a countdown clock on his hand, and turns into the gold serpent.

Episode ends there, what a cliffhanger.

So it looks like we are still on Day 6, which confuses the hell out of me. The Game Master can’t attack until Day 7, so none of this should be able to happen. Not to mention that I have no idea if they’ll even be able to tie up this loose end with only one episode left. But let’s just move on from that.

Other difference is that the anime took out a battle. After defeating Konishi, Neku and Beat end up in the Dead God’s Pad, the bar area that Reapers have been shown talking in. There they fight human form Kitaniji and Possessed Shiki. After defeating them, Beat and Shiki are KO’d and Neku goes on alone. He gets to the Room of Reckoning and faces Kitaniji again. By then Beat and Shiki have caught up, and they all fight red serpent form of Kitaniji again. After that is when the gold serpent comes out, absorbs all of Neku’s past partners, and finally he fights Neku.

I have no idea how gold serpent is going to work here. I’ve suspected that the ending would be the hardest part for the anime writers to tackle and I guess we’re seeing some of that now. One thing for sure is that I’m so excited for next week, it’ll be strange watching the wrap-up but so cool!

Episode 12

The final episode was so good! I was actually super happy with it. It starts with the final fight with Kitaniji. Neku, Beat, and Shiki all team up to take him down. This all happens before the title sequence haha. 

After that, they end up in a corridor covered in CAT's graffiti. Neku yells for Mr. H to come out, but Joshua appears instead and reveals that he is the Composer (gasp). Joshua starts to explain things, he's the Composer and he's been playing a game with Kitaniji for the future of Shibuya. Also he killed Neku to get him into the game. He then asks Neku to play a game with him for Shibuya.

Neku is holding the gun and crying. He then drops it instead of shooting Joshua, saying that he trusts him. Joshua shoots him (again) in response.

It changes to Neku at the Scramble Crossing, revealing that he's alive. He finds Beat, Rhyme, and original Shiki. It's super cute, they introduce themselves to each other again, and Neku removes his headphones. These scenes of them heading to Udagawa to look at some new graffiti and running into erased friends (Nao, Sota, the entirety of 777's band, etc) and interspersed with Mr. H and Joshua talking. It's different from the game because it doesn't have Neku's monologue anymore, and the focus is more on them than on Neku. It does make sense though because this is how they're incorporating the Secret Reports. 

Mr. H talks about how he makes graffiti that imprints on people which is more democratic than using pins like Kitaniji. And about how Joshua didn't destroy the town because Neku trusted him. It's a more clear cut ending than the game for sure, and it hits all of the important points. I do wish that the focus was more on Neku as the protagonist.

And that's the end! I still can't believe it's over. I'll be playing the demo of NEO: The World Ends With You all weekend if anyone needs me.

This Is Beautiful: Working Joy-Con

 Alright so I've had a Nintendo Switch since 2017, and I love the dang thing. But I've had a couple of technical issues with it. About a year ago my Switch decided to up and die, and I had to completely restart all of my save files on every single game. Lost my whole 3 star Animal Crossing Island, and my Breath of the Wild progress. I got back a new one, and then pretty soon after that the left joy-con had some drift. My character on (the restarted) Animal Crossing would often sprint north when I wasn't touching the joystick.

I finally decided to send it in to get fixed. The new joy stick just got back recently, and I'm so happy that it's working again! I'm playing a lot more just to revel in the glory of having a working controller. It's so great when technology decided to work as it should.

“The Last Olympian” by Rick Riordan

Finally finished the original Percy Jackson series! Very exciting. I honestly forgot how well this final installment wrapped up the series so well. All of the plot lines get wrapped up, and in a really satisfying way.

It starts off with Nico convincing Percy to do the Achilles thing and bathe in the River Styx so that he becomes invincible. Of course he does it, but then he finds out that the Titans are planning an attack on Mount Olympus in NYC, while another Titan distracts them by fighting across the continent. This leaves NYC undefended and perfect for Kronos to capture. Of course, Kronos didn’t think that our favorite demigod heroes would be such great fighters and stop him. The fight comes down to the throne room in Olympus, where Annabeth manages to get through to Luke, who’s hosting Kronos, and Luke essentially suicides to stop Kronos. And a lot of other things happen as well.

There’s so many separate story lines going on here. Nico and his father get acceptance when they come to the rescue of Olympus. Rachel becomes the new Oracle of Delphi, now that the curse has lifted. Grover rallies the satyrs and becomes their leader. Thalia returns as the head of the Hunters of Artemis. Percy apologizes to Hermes and realizes how much strength it took him to not stop Luke. It’s a very strong finale.

One sour note that I’d like to point out is that the first character to die is Beckendorf, a son of Hephaestus. He and Percy go on a mission to explode the huge cruise ship that Luke has made his base. The thing is, Beckendorf dies within that first chapter. Almost immediately after we learn that he’s started dating another recurring character in the series. Oh and he’s black. I have a couple issues with this, first of all, stop killing of the characters of color, second, don’t just stick someone in a relationship to make their death hurt more! It felt like a very cheap way to show that this would be a book where characters die from the beginning. Given all that though, none of the main characters die. It’s just an awful lot of the side characters.

My favorite part of this whole thing though was when Percy talks to Hermes at the end. Percy apologizes for thinking that Hermes was a bad father, and says that he didn’t realize what Hermes went through. Percy also says that he thinks the gods of Olympus can change, and can prevent this from happening again by claiming their children and respecting all of the minor gods. The ending really isn’t static or a “they all lived happily ever after one”, Riordan keeps the door open for further adventures and further growth. Which is really cool. Plus he writes a sequel series to this one so it makes sense.

There’s a lot more I could write about, but I think I’ll leave it there. Very excited to dive into the next series from Riordan!

This Is Beautiful: Inclusive Bosses

 I recently had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a co-worker where she was being really weird about my pronouns and basically interrogating me about the trans community. I had only just updated my email signature to include them (she/they for the record) and apparently this was big news.

Anyways it bothered me for about a week, but I finally told my boss about it and how I don't really want to be the one to deal with it. He was super nice about it and talked to her for me, it was really sweet. I have no idea how much he knows about the queer community, but he clearly knows how to be supportive and that's enough for me.

I wish there were more like him, it was so refreshing to have an affirming and supportive boss who wants to create an inclusive environment. :D

TWEWY The Animation Episodes 9 and 10

Episode 9 

So like I said this episode covers Days 2 and 3 of Week 3. There are some changes from the game, but it’s all mostly there. Day 2 starts of with the pair at Miyashita Park Underpass and Beat telling Neku how he and Rhyme died. In the game this occurs later when Kariya is giving them puzzles, but it does make sense for the anime to cut that since a puzzle wouldn’t translate over well.

From there they realize that the red skull pins are silencing the town, and free Eri from some Noise. I actually really like that they keep bringing Eri back, it keeps things in perspective with how Shiki is still basically a hostage of the game. The day ends as Uzuki and Kariya tell them that they have to do a mission from them to get Rhyme back.

Day 3 then is mostly Beat and Neku trying to take down Uzuki and Kariya. This was one of the coolest battles in the game, and I think they did an excellent job with it here! We get a Beat fusion as well! It’s then revealed that they weren’t given the real Rhyme, the Game Master played them all. Kariya hands them a keypin instead, and the episode ends with Uzuki and Kariya being taken over by the red skull pin while the Game Master melts into the shadows.

I am a little sad that they changed the mission that Uzuki and Kariya give them. Beat is still hilarious in the anime, but one of the funniest parts of the game is when Beat sneezes so loudly that Neku can’t hear the mission from Uzuki. And of course the mission from Kariya is cut in favor of Beat just telling Neku his backstory. The change makes sense, but still drops a fun scene.

Episode 10

Episode 10 was mostly Week 3 Day 5, plus the beginning of Day 6. Day 5 consisted of Beat and Neku figuring out that they have yet to check out Udagawa, and getting attacked by possessed Uzuki and Kariya. They defeat those two by removing the pins and realize that Mr. H messed with the Taboo Noise sigil on the ground. From there they head to Cat Street where they find the cafe trashed. They realize that Mr. H left a keypin there that'll get them into the Shibuya River. The day ends when they're attached by Taboo Miniamoto.

Day 6 is then just the two of them heading to the Shibuya River. Konishi materializes from the shadows briefly before disappearing.

I'm pretty confused by these changes from the game. In the game, going to Udagawa and going to Cat Street are two different days, so you don't head to the Shibuya River until Day 7. Which makes sense, that's where the big boss is, so that's where you go on the last day. What is the anime going to do with this extra day on their hands? It'd be pretty lame to just send Beat and Neku back to the Scramble Crossing after they get to the River. 

The other thing that they had to remove was in Cat Street Beat steals Neku's phone and takes random pictures of the past, one of them just happens to have Mr. H in it. It's a funny moment, and Beat is still hilarious in the anime, but I missed it.

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the anime from here. I have no idea what to expect.

This Is Beautiful: Pride

 June has started and that means that it's Pride month! I'm so excited that this year there's in person celebrations going on. It feels like it's a real Pride celebration. It's my first Pride in years where I'm not in a marching band for it. It's just so nice to have a celebration for who you are and a space to be yourself and be proud and not have to justify yourself to others. I forget every year how nice it is, and it really is radical just to exist when you're queer. Happy Pride!

“The Fifth Season” by N.K. Jemison

I’ll be honest, I’ve been in a bit of a fantasy slump lately. I absolutely loved fantasy for most of my life, I grew up on fantasy novels and absolutely loved diving into fantastic worlds that didn’t have the need to justify themselves the same way sci fi books do. But I haven’t been into it lately. I think I’ve been frustrated with the tropes of a lot of fantasy books. Most of them are horribly misogynistic, not exactly racially inclusive, and they fall back on the same plot twists. Not to mention that most of them are very sexually explicit and violent. And I’m not really into detailed descriptions of sex, thanks.

However, this book has restored a lot of my hope in fantasy books. It’s written by a very cool, Black, female author. So you know this is going to be good. You can tell that she puts in a lot of racially diverse characters, as well as queer characters!

The Fifth Season starts off with the story of Essun, written in the second person. This is very interesting in and of itself, the only other book that I’ve read in second person was If on a winter’s night a traveler. It tells you from the beginning that the book is going to be interesting! Essun just found out that her husband killed her son for being an orogene, someone who can harness the power of the Earth to do incredible things like moving mountains and quelling earthshakes. She realizes that her husband has left with her daughter, and she goes on a quest to find her.

There are two other voices that give narration. One of them is Damaya, a young girl who has recently found out that she’s an orogene and is being sent to the capitol for training. Orogenes are seen as weapons, not people, so they are inhumanely trained and bred at the capitol. Damaya’s perspective is key as that is how the reader finds out a lot about the world, through Damaya’s eyes. For example, we find out that Guardians are individuals who are trained in subduing orogenes. Damaya’s Guardian, Schaffa, breaks her wrist the first day they know each other to demonstrate his power and his willingness to stop her by any means if he needs to.

The other voice is Syenite. Syenite is a young orogene at the capitol, trying to rise through its ranks and gain respect. She’s sent to an older, very powerful orogene, Alabastor, to go on a mission together to a city on the coast. Their harbor is closing so they have been sent to clear it. Part of this mission is that they are supposed to be having sex in order to have a baby that’ll hopefully be a powerful orogene as well. That way the capitol continually has a supply of new weapons.

What is really fascinating about this narrative, as I alluded to earlier, is that the audience isn’t told much directly. You learn the vocabulary and the norms of the culture as you go, piecing it together from context clues. Damaya’s story is the only one where we are told much explicitly in the form of exposition. It’s world building and story telling at its finest really, you never feel like a reader, more of an observer. Especially with the second person narration!

The other thing I adore about this book is how it turns tropes on their heads. The powerful, magical individuals, the orogenes, are seen as less than human and used as weapons. Most other fantasy series that I have seen do the opposite where the magical individuals are worshipped and revered. So much of the story is about how these people are controlled and harnessed for the use of the civilization. People try and kill Essun when they realize that she’s an orogene, not that it does much since she’s incredibly powerful, but it shows how hard she has worked to keep that hidden. Syenite works hard to make sure that she and Alabastor are respected in the city that they have come to save. Even Damaya is shunned by her family when they realize what she is. It’s fascinating seeing how this works and how integrated into the civilization this hatred is.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the representation. Alabastor is shown to be queer and enjoy sex with men rather than women. Immon is another queer character, seems to be more bisexual, and openly flirts with men and women. Tonkee is a homeless ex-scholar that Essun befriends on her way to find her daughter, and she is revealed to be a trans woman who was rejected by her family. Many characters are described as having darker skin, or with kinky or curly hair. There are different races described in the society, I haven’t really plotted out which are Black or white, but clearly there’s a mix! It’s so good to see.

I initially started this book because of a queer book club. I’m so glad that I did that, this has been an excellent read and wonderfully enough, Jemison has many books, including the rest of the trilogy that this book is from. I’ll for sure finish this series, and hopefully get to her others. It just was so nice to revisit fantasy from an angle that I found more palatable than the usual junk.