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Crossposting from Tumblr; Christmas
Dec. 28th, 2018 01:48 amI fell down a rabbithole that began with "crosspost my Corpse Party liveblog from Tumblr" and ended somewhere around "crosspost everything of substance that I've ever written." Some of these were added to old posts, including archiving favorite quotes alongside reviews; the rest were posted directly to my DW (not to reading pages). Some highlights include:
In further blogkeeping, I'm tempted to add by-author tags; an intimidating prospect because I have a lot of backlog and when I set out to organize, I tend to be exhaustive in it (although if that's the case, I should probably also update links on my list of book reviews which I ... very much have not done). This is a project I will schedule for another time, because there's a lot of projects right now:
Yuletide releases! Flight Rising's Night of the Nocturne, which is yearly my favorite festival and which this year has fantastic apparel. (Speculating the day before it started, I told Devon I hoped it was something with ornate jewelry—and then we got exactly that, with bonus! semi-transparent, layer-able pieces.) Overwatch """holidays"""" event, which has still yet to give me either of the skins I want! I & my overtasked wrists are busy enough.
Christmas was about as hard as I should have expected, had I thought about it in advance. My dad's birthday was the 21st; they did a friends-of-the-family get together thing, very casual, a sort of mini-wake I suppose; I didn't get an invite, but more because they knew I didn't want to attend wake-like things than because I was forgotten. Mum & Allie & Devon & I did homemade pizza Christmas evening, which is the traditional family event food, but this was the first time making it entirely without Dad there. It went fine, and panicking while practicing a skill for the first time counterbalanced the mourning and sense of absence to relative neutrality.
But Dad always liked Christmas as a family event, and his absence was noted. And as I recoil more and more from Christmas in this, our era of cultural Christianity and fascism, while I come to terms with which experienced I've granted/denied, and why, I make Christmas increasingly non-joyful—but I still have cultural expectations that it's supposed to be joyful and that if it's not, it's because something is Wrong. Things are wrong! things are very wrong, on multiple axes, only some of which are "because I'm being sort of silly about it." And it's made a season already prone to melancholy and navel-gazing that much more so.
A pity, too, because winter in itself is as always fantastic. I love autumn, but appreciate almost as much the apparent-endlessness of winter's cold, the constant sound of rain, the want (human-body and cat-body alike) for blankets and snuggling, the cold walks and cold fingers, the excuse to live in my ragged hoodie. This year I've managed even managed to pick up winter-set reading in the appropriate season! So Christmas is as always is problematic, but there's always the long cold of January.
Interpersonal relationships, trauma, hurt comfort, and socio-political commentary in CJ Cherryh
A recommended list of recommendations lists (of books)
On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, particularly OT3 feels
"Apocalypse" in The Path (some of these posts are super old, ergo poorly written; I also like to reference my own essays like the big loser that I am. they're important writing, to me)
AI, bond animals, and the relationship between technology and projection
A lot of feelings about Deep Space 9
How to write fourth-wall-breaking meta game narratives
Too many things about books, featuring mental illness as plot twist and James Tiptree Jr. and Joanna Russ
Cosmic horror in Mass Effect and breaking down the divine in Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
The optimism of Dark Souls's pessimism
In further blogkeeping, I'm tempted to add by-author tags; an intimidating prospect because I have a lot of backlog and when I set out to organize, I tend to be exhaustive in it (although if that's the case, I should probably also update links on my list of book reviews which I ... very much have not done). This is a project I will schedule for another time, because there's a lot of projects right now:
Yuletide releases! Flight Rising's Night of the Nocturne, which is yearly my favorite festival and which this year has fantastic apparel. (Speculating the day before it started, I told Devon I hoped it was something with ornate jewelry—and then we got exactly that, with bonus! semi-transparent, layer-able pieces.) Overwatch """holidays"""" event, which has still yet to give me either of the skins I want! I & my overtasked wrists are busy enough.
Christmas was about as hard as I should have expected, had I thought about it in advance. My dad's birthday was the 21st; they did a friends-of-the-family get together thing, very casual, a sort of mini-wake I suppose; I didn't get an invite, but more because they knew I didn't want to attend wake-like things than because I was forgotten. Mum & Allie & Devon & I did homemade pizza Christmas evening, which is the traditional family event food, but this was the first time making it entirely without Dad there. It went fine, and panicking while practicing a skill for the first time counterbalanced the mourning and sense of absence to relative neutrality.
But Dad always liked Christmas as a family event, and his absence was noted. And as I recoil more and more from Christmas in this, our era of cultural Christianity and fascism, while I come to terms with which experienced I've granted/denied, and why, I make Christmas increasingly non-joyful—but I still have cultural expectations that it's supposed to be joyful and that if it's not, it's because something is Wrong. Things are wrong! things are very wrong, on multiple axes, only some of which are "because I'm being sort of silly about it." And it's made a season already prone to melancholy and navel-gazing that much more so.
A pity, too, because winter in itself is as always fantastic. I love autumn, but appreciate almost as much the apparent-endlessness of winter's cold, the constant sound of rain, the want (human-body and cat-body alike) for blankets and snuggling, the cold walks and cold fingers, the excuse to live in my ragged hoodie. This year I've managed even managed to pick up winter-set reading in the appropriate season! So Christmas is as always is problematic, but there's always the long cold of January.
