for those of us that didn't get to enjoy being a teenager
Recently I sent an IG story I found to Pat and I think Kumaran and Jun Kit, of a "herding cats" scenario. I likened it to my brain when I try to write something for this newsletter. This is still true - I think even on an average day my mind is always all over the place, but with these newsletters, it's worse. I write them so far apart from one another, and there's just so much I want to talk about or focus on, so many kittens, and in the end I can't do any of the many kittens justice.
Like, I'm looking at my drafts and saw a couple of posts I started back in July, when I was reading Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot novellas, and had started a whole post about simple pleasures and how hard they are to achieve/enjoy sometimes, and also on the self-inflicted burden of expectations and wanting/needing a "purpose". Of course, I didn't manage to write much at all, because these days being able to even think about things like newsletters and books is, well, not quite a pleasure, but definitely a privilege.
Then there were abandoned paragraphs, drafts, and book reviews from August and September. The posts were about finding and creating communities, about Magic: The Gathering, about D&D. And there was at least two weeks after the last newsletter back in June, when I was writing about how debilitating executive dysfunction and generally having a brain that sucks is, especially when they prevent me from participating in my own special interests, which I need to do to self-regulate, and then it becomes some sort of vicious cycle.
End of September, I had brief thoughts of writing a kind of "check in" post about getting older and changes in the horizon, and that kind of stuff, as well as how people can be so amazing and so disappointing at the same time.
And now I am thinking about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and my late sister, although these two things are not really related. I was thinking about my late sister because October through December will always be the hardest months for me when it comes to her, and how in these months I always feel so alone even when I don't get any alone time to actually recharge, because no one feels grief the same way, and no one knows people the same way, which is to say no one misses her the exact same way I do.
Around the first week of October, I was playing New Horizons for the first time since tanabata, and besides doing the whole birthday thing I was just checking up on my villagers (I forgot that I have Rosie on my island now.) And I was thinking about how when I first started playing ACNH and how it was the only way to "hang out" with my nieces and friends during lockdown and restricted movements, before one by one they all moved on to other games, and now being on my island feels so lonely because I remember hanging out with friends/family there, just chatting while our characters fish or swim or water flowers or whatever. Maybe it's time to delete and start a new island without those memories? I don't know.
Doing the birthday thing on my island does feel more "birthday-ish" than anything else I've done, though. I had really really wanted to spend the weekend playing MTG, and there was conveniently an event that weekend too, but I had family obligations, needed to save every penny, and also no friends lol. (Not that the last bit would have stopped me, if the other two weren't an issue!) And it was fine, because I was planning for my "revenge birthday" thing to be even better, because it would be after I got back from the work trip, so I wouldn't be trying to save as much, and we would be playing archenemy, and yeah Libra season would be over but it would be close enough to Halloween (aka Queer Christmas) that I could plan Halloween decorations, which I spent a lot of time thinking about and looking forward to.
Spoiler: didn't happen, lol. Another thing I was looking forward to after returning from the work trip is playing D&D, although the first session after I got back, my character died. So that was my "birthday", or should I say, unbirthday, since I basically spent almost all of Libra season working overtime. I haven't even looked at any NYCC announcements beyond the MTG x Marvel presentation! And keeping up with these stuff is part of my job!
But never mind that - this weekend, I'm going for my first prerelease, which is for Foundations, so I'm really looking forward to it. And I will be playing a new character in my brother's campaign, too, which is another thing I'm looking forward to.
There are also more important things I wanted to write about, but they're the sort of important things that require some time to think and reflect to write, and seeing that I haven't had that kind of time since, well, ever this year, I'm just going to send y'all my silly gaming updates instead of being silent for yet another month.
stuff i'm watching
Pat and I watched Agatha All Along which is SO GOOD and I am now so, so, so obsessed with, not only because they finally introduced one of my favourite Marvel characters into the MCU. (Okay, Billy was introduced in WandaVision, but this is the Billy, the Wiccan!Billy.) And I love this version of Agatha so much more than the comics version, although I do enjoy her character in the comics. (And Rio! Aubrey Plaza <33)
Right now we are watching season 3 of Heartstopper and as always, when I'm reading or watching this, it's so lovely and so heartbreaking and it hurts. It makes me feel so jealous of young queers now, especially when I read stuff like James Fenner's "The V*mpire" (it's on Reactor Mag, it's a short story, it's amazing, I also linked it on the discord, go read it) which brought back what it was like being queer in the 2010s (and also being on tumblr then) so vividly and I was much older by the time tumblr happened, but I was there, and as terrible as it was, it was still lightyears ahead of what we had in the 90s.
Oh and to make me feel worse I guess (lol) I have been watching this amazing web series, These Thems, which is basically everything The L Word could have been, if the people making it were trying to make something actually relatable. I wish there's another season. Also why are these web series (I'm also thinking of The Party, and Lizzie Bennet Diaries) a hundred percent better than the stuff on Netflix/HBO/Prime/whathaveyou? Dropout, please make some scripted shows again, then I really can just delete everything else.
stuff i'm reading
Okay obviously I have read a LOT of stuff since my last newsletter, since that was June, so I will just go through the "greatest hits".
* A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
These two books make me cry because I can't possibly afford physical copies. Some of my discarded drafts from July were completely about these books, that's how much I loved them. But, in the end, I can't find enough room/space/whatever in my brain to think clearly enough to write my feelings for/about these books down. So I will just say - read them. Especially if you loved The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet as much as I did.
* Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
Another one that I have several discarded drafts about. Kathleen Hanna was one of my heroes when I was a teen, and this book helped me see the messy terrible human side of her, and I love her even more now.
* The Chandler Legacies by Abdi Nazemian
By this point I don't think I can not love an Abdi Nazemian book. Like Kacen Callender. His books just feels for me, in the way that books so rarely are. This book is very much a Dead Poets Society kind of book, but one where we get to read the points of view of all the kids involved, one where the teacher is definitely not some perfect mentor, one where there are a lot more serious concerns than the concerns of a rich white cis(het?) boy, one that addresses what it's like to be so powerless in an oppressive system.
* Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender
Speaking of Kacen Callender! I have had this on my shelf for awhile, but only picked it up because I saw a poster for the sequel, Chaos King, which is coming out next year, during the work trip. I am still reading this right now. It's oh so good and if you know me I love good magic school stories and this isn't quite a magic school story, but it's magic school adjacent? One of the protagonists is a student at a magic school, that is. And the magic system, the worldbuilding, it's so very interesting - I have yet to read Kacen Callender's fantasy novels for adults, because I was worried about their ability to write fantasy (only because their literary/contemporary YA and MG are perfect) but I shouldn't have doubted them really.
* The Deviant by James Tynion IV & Joshua Hixson (illust.)
I am still reading this, but I only have one more issue to go (which isn't out yet), and the first volume only collects the first four issues, so technically I have finished reading the first volume. This is currently my favourite book by James Tynion IV, who is currently my favourite, Absolute Must Read, comic writer. The funny thing is, almost all of his comics that I've read are horror, and I always say I don't read or like horror. But. I guess this specific kind of horror, the kind that depicts the world as I too often see it, is something I find myself needing.
the work trip
Nothing much to say really, except it kind of made me dislike places I used to like, and that spending that long with such vocal terf-supporters, and walking through shop after shop filled with terfmerch, had me holding on to my copies of Infinity Alchemist and The Deviant like a lifeline.
A lot of people are getting sick these days. Please drink more water, wear masks in public, and rest more!