This Is Beautiful: Wedding and Visiting Hometown

 This past weekend I headed back to my hometown for my cousin's wedding. It was a really nice time, the traveling wasn't horrible and it was nice to get a break from work. It also meant that I could see my hometown again for the first time in about seven years, and could introduce my partner to some friends and family members and show him around.

It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, but we hit all of the important parts. I know that my hometown isn't really a part of my life anymore since I'm never back there, but I feel like it's an important part of me that I want to share with others who are important to me. So it was really nice that we got to do that. And I was so happy that I could make my cousin's wedding and share that experience with her! I haven't seen her in a while so while we didn't have time to catch up, still good to see her and be there.

"The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan

 Continuing with my rereading of Riordan's works, we have The House of Hades. I completely forgot until I popped the book open that it started with an apology from the author for the previous cliffhanger that the book before this one left on. It isn't part of the story, but I think it's really nice when an author has a sense of humor about the pain that he's leaving us in!

The book starts with Percy and Annabeth making their way through Tartarus. Along the way, they meet up with an unexpected ally, Bob the Titan. He used to be a bloodthirsty enemy, but after Percy dunked him in a river that forces you to lose all of your memories, he now only remembers the demigods as friends. This is a really nice subplot, it allows the book to get into the morally gray areas of both the heroes and the villains. Is Percy good for taking away his memories? Is Bob now good if he's helping them?

While that's going on, the other demigods are trying to make their way to the House of Hades, where they'll meet Percy and Annabeth. As part of the journey, Jason makes the decision to not be Roman anymore and throw his lot in with the Greeks (and his girlfriend). In the process, he makes Frank a Roman leader to take his place. Leo also gets lost and ends up on Calypso's island, where Percy was a few books ago. He ends up falling for Calypso and swears that he'll make it back to break her free. This is another plot point that I much appreciated, as it gives some continuation of Calypso's story and let's Leo have his own thing going and stop being the seventh wheel in their group. Plus Nico is revealed to be gay, with a bit of a crush on Percy. I had totally forgotten that this part of the story existed, it was nice to revisit and see some queer content!

Eventually the two stories come together at the end and are successful in shutting the doors to Tartarus. But they now have an even bigger battle ahead of them (of course) so they sail off to finally confront Gaea. Hooray for more books in the series!

My favorite part of the book was the part that deals with the morally gray area, of course. While Percy and Annabeth are traveling with Bob, he's continually forced to question his past, and how he feels about it. Percy is now regarded as a friend, true, but he hasn't visited Bob at all over the years until he fell into Tartarus and accidentally asked for his help. Does that mean he's still a friend? And how does Bob fit into his larger Titan family, some of whom he meets along the way? What I really like about this is that the demigods are shown to have flaws, and not be perfect victims here. They cause a lot of harm in the world as well with their adventures.

Plus there's the gay representation. I forgot about this, and I hope that it gets fleshed out more in the coming books (I'm pretty sure it does). Right now, it's a sad gay Nico pining after Percy, and ideally there would be more queer joy there than this. But I'm happy right now with the idea being introduced and we can nitpick later after this plotline is more fleshed out.

Onwards to the next book! I'm excited to see what we have in store as I have almost completely forgotten these later ones.

This Is Beautiful: Communication

 Alright well similarly to my last post, I finally told my partner that I'm struggling more than I thought with caretaking. And that I felt bad and that he deserved a better caretaker. He was incredible about it, and said that I was doing amazingly even if I feel like I'm not. Caretakers don't have to be perfect, you just have to get the job done.

I'm not sure what I expected, but that was so reassuring that I feel a lot better now. Probably should have done that earlier, but oh well.

Caretaking

 Caretaking is so much harder than I thought it'd be. This is going to be an incoherent post since I'm still sorting it all out and haven't had much time, but that's the general idea.

I genuinely love taking care of my partner, but since he's had surgery it's been difficult. I think I ended up being much more worried about him than I thought I'd be. Any type of surgery is scary, even ones with a low probability of issues. 

I also realized how much time it takes up. He does a lot around the house and now I have to do it all! Not that I didn't appreciate it before, but I didn't fully internalize that I'd be doing the work of two people.

And it creates a sort of strange power dynamic. Your partner is supposed to be your equal, and now I'm looking after him and worrying about him. It's an adjustment for sure.

I'll probably have more fleshed out thoughts at some point in the future, but for now, that's what's going on.

This Is Beautiful: "Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers"

 I finally popped open my Steam account and downloaded the sequel to "Arcade Spirits" that I've been waiting for all this time. I am not very far into it, but I already adore the game!

One great improvement over the original is the amount of customization. You can pick your name, nickname, pronouns (from many options), body type, clothing, and you even get to design your rival! It's really cool especially to see all of the pronoun options, there's the typical he, she, they, but also many more like fae, ze, it, etc. What great queer representation!

Then there's the characters. These have always been the strength of visual novels like these. I immediately fell in love with Grace, a wonderful Black lady scientist. She just resonates with me so much as a fellow scientist. Then there's Locksley, who was clearly inspired by Robin Hood. Robin Hood in the legends is originally from Locksley, plus the character wears a green hoodie and is a rogue game repairer who values justice and fairness. I'm obsessed. Plus there's a super cool disabled character, Jynx, who I also love. And others, but those are the main ones so far.

I'm so excited to see how the story unfolds and how the game mechanics come to life like the original. Here we go!

"Witchmark" by C.L. Polk

 I'm veeeery slowly making my way through this pile of free ebooks that I've been able to download from Tor.com each month. I think this one was from back in March, haha. But I finally finished it.

Witchmark is a book set in what I think is a fantasy, alternate reality England where witches exist and specifically shape the weather. The witches themselves are divided into two groups, there's the Primaries who are able to sing and control magic through their voice, and the Secondaries who are typically seen as support and are forced to bind themselves to a Primary and give their power to them. The protagonist is Miles Singer, a Secondary who ran away from home to become a physician rather than be bound as a servant. He has been making a life for himself, until he has a patient who is another witch. He dies, but not before telling Miles that he was murdered. The bulk of the plot is a murder mystery as Miles tries to chase down the killer. Along the way he meets Tristan, a mysterious person who intrigues Miles and clearly also has an aptitude for magic. (Queer romance incoming!) And Miles' sister Grace eventually finds him and Miles' past finally catches up with him.

There's so much to love about this book. There's a gay romance that's really sweet and lovely, and it gest into aspects of classism and racism that are relevant to our contemporary society. For example, witches of a lesser social standing are persecuted in this reality, for no reason other than the fact that they are poor. Miles comes to this realization partway through the book, with Tristan's help. I think having that perspective of someone who is slowly realizing that the system is rigged is really helpful for those who are experiencing a similar realization in real life.

My main complaint is that the politics of this world are super complicated. It turns out that the witch leadership and the mortal leadership are both all tied up in this murder and different people profit and gain power from the status quo. I couldn't really keep up with the logic, who was doing what, things like that. But I just kept going and you get the gist of it really. I imagine though if you keep reading the rest of the series that it all comes back in the end.

Having said that, this book stands on its own really well, and feels like a complete story. I might check out the rest, probably not, but maybe if I stumble on it. I did really like the characters and the world that I was introduced to, it just felt so complete and wrapped up entirely. I'm not intending it as a complaint, it's rare that you don't see a series that promotes later books, but it does mean that I won't go out of my way to read the next one. All that to say, check out this book! The first of this series is really incredible.

This Is Beautiful: Performing

 The performances are now open for Shakespeare in the Arb's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in which I'm playing Puck! It's so nice to be performing again, especially in such a gorgeous setting and with such a fun character.

It's exhausting, don't get me wrong, but there's also something so energizing about it. Part of it is certainly that I have to do this physical work, but it's also so fun and joyous. I'm really glad that I did this and am part of this performance.

Pride Month 2022

 Happy Pride, but just to everyone who doesn't feel fully part of the queer community!

Whether that's because you're single, uninterested in romance, uninterested in sex, not a fan of alcohol, closeted, a person of color, not from the US/UK, disabled, "not queer enough," unsure of where you fit in, or anything else. This month is for you! There is a community here to support and accept you!

I hope you're able to do something fun and empowering this month, which might involve attending a formal celebration or not! And if you don't have a supportive community already, then I'm your community now.

This Is Beautiful: Big Experiment Done

 I've been planning a huge experiment for MONTHS and have just run into all of these setbacks. But I finally did it last Friday and now it's going! We'll know in a few weeks how it came out.

It's not the usual "this is beautiful" subject, but honestly I've felt so good since that got done that this counts for me haha.