I don’t even want to come in out of the rain
dear, dearest friends,
It's been five months, and in that time I have mentally written and send a half a dozen missives, at least. I've missed you!
Let's see, when we left off I was (checks notes) panicking about travel and obsessing about Star Trek Discovery. To catch you up: I spent 2 weeks in Morocco, continued the Disco obsession (I watched the season finale on my ipad on a bus in the High Atlas Mountains, quietly weeping), which turned into a deep dive into the original slash fandom: Kirk/Spock. I filled my kindle with star trek fic, and that's how I spent my time in Africa. When I wasn't marveling over everything I saw, of course.
Back home, the summer hit, hard and hot and humid and awful, as it always does. Some people experience seasonal depression in the winter, when the sun is gone for so many stretches of hours. I’m in the opposite camp: the high summer makes me unbearably depressed, keeps me trapped in my house from the heat. Since moving, I’ve tried to limit the amount of driving I do as much as possible, and in general I enjoy walking, quite a lot! But who wants to go anywhere when it’s 95 degrees outside with a humidity level of 73%? At that point, the air is soup and the idea of seeing or being seen by other humans is horrific. The brain trembles.
So I’ve been indoors, head and shoulders into video games. I finished the grand Mass Effect replay, all the way through Andromeda, and then I allowed the internet to convince me to give Dragon Age: Inquisition–a game I once bought, played a few hours of, and hated so much I deleted it off my playstation–another try. And folks, it took.
My friend Liz told me to be the giant ox woman I want to see in the world, and I was. For 120 hours over the course of 2 weeks, I was. And it was glorious. The thing about Bioware games–that includes both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises–is that they’re about choices and relationships. You can play these games over and over and experience each one differently every time, purely based on the choices you make within the narrative and towards your companions. A big part of that is romance, and I went into DA:I fully prepared to woo the heck out of someone. I was surprised that the most significant part of the game for me was my character’s entirely platonic friendship with a character I didn’t even have the option of romancing–as I was playing as a woman, and he is gay.
I jokingly started referring to Dorian Pavus as my best friend in real life and also in the game, because I liked having him in my adventuring party so much. His dialogue is insightful and funny, and he’s a powerful mage. Handy, when you need to set a bear on fire. But by the end of the game it wasn’t a joke. Dorian Pavus was my friend. I’d watched him come to terms with the horrible deeds of his home country and accept that he loved it in spite of itself, enough to want to see it become everything that he knew it could be, even knowing that it would neither accept him or thank him for it. It was, as the kids say, Relatable. And the way he is with you, the player, is vulnerable and kind, earnest and funny. Plus he falls for a horned giant of a guy, another thing I can appreciate on a personal level.
As a person with a very big soft spot for platonic relationships, it was everything I never knew I needed from a game. I finished it, told friends I was looking forward to being an active participant in my own life again, actually experienced my own life for the span of a work shift, came home and started the game all over again. So that’s where I’m at, this beautiful, horrible August! Hanging out with my best friend Dorian in Thedas, hiding from the sun.
How y’all been?
Dog Thing
Vista & me in our wonderfully overgrown back garden at twilight, the only tolerable time of day to be outdoors.
Mixed Media
In Search of an Art-Like Heritage, Anna Valdez
A Good Book: I can’t limit it to one, I’m sorry! It’s been too long. I’ll hit the highlights (mostly romance, as I went through a frenzy where reading romance was all I was doing). Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: a queer romance between the first son of the United States and a prince of England. I adored this–loved the tone, the voices, the whole chunks of it which were deeply romantic emails. Absolutely 100% up my alley, the whole thing. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: an exquisite enemies-to-lovers romance between the two executive assistants of co-CEOs of a publishing company who are vying for the same promotion. Some ao3 tags for you: pining, hurt/comfort, unrequited-or-is-it?? I spent a day while in Mexico for my brother’s wedding holed up in my hotel room ignoring my entire family while reading The Hating Game. A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole: I tore through Cole’s entire “Reluctant Royals” series and HIGHLY recommend it, but it was the final book in the series that really grabbed me. Fake engagement, a relationship between an African woman and a European man from a colonizing country which doesn’t ignore the fact or implications of that? Beautiful. Cole is such a deft hand with tricky historical issues and very good at romance.
A Good Album: You get two! Cuz I Love You by Lizzo is incredible. A revelation. Every track is a delight, but my fave is “Soulmate” if for no other reason than the lyric “I get flowers every Sunday / I’mma marry me one day.” Treat yourself to her Tiny Desk concert if you haven’t yet. She’ll take you to the church of loving yourself. My summer album has been Omoiyari by Kishi Bashi. Inspired by the lives of the unjustly imprisoned Japanese-Americans during World War II, Omoiyari is about compassion, reflecting on the ways the mistakes and lessons from 1942 should be reflected on today. And sound-wise, it’s incredible.
A Good Fic(s): Something Smart to Do by kianspo. My ultimate Kirk/Spock fic. So much fake marriage. So much. Unresolved by Phoenike. A continuation of the male Ryder/Reyes Vidal romance from Mass Effect Andromeda that is so. satisfying. Will we ever get more Andromeda? If so, I hope it’s at least a little bit like this. World Without End by Sorted. I admit it: this is the real reason I finally gave Dragon Age: Inquisition another try. I wanted to see the Dorian/Iron Bull romance as shown in this fic. I love the way this fic takes an entirely video game concept–that of the Bad Ending–and uses it as a jumping off point for some fix-it time travel.
A Good Show: It’s been so long that I nearly forgot that I watched the Good Omens mini-series two entire times. I liked it a lot! It does a very good job adapting a book which I would have previously called unadaptable. I definitely missed Terry Pratchett, but appreciated that Neil Gaiman didn’t attempt to fill the spaces which had been Pratchett’s with his own voice. An I am very very enjoying all of the ensuing fanworks.
Lastly
I’ve gone down a few art history rabbit holes recently, and I collected the results of the time I spent reading about Romaine Brooks in a thread on twitter, if you’re interested.
I also really loved this article about Catherine Called Birdy, a book I adored as a kid and never really thought about WHY until now.
xoxo,
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