All of your support is extremely appreciated, from simply reading and reviewing to tossing in a few pennies to help make ends meet, all of it helps me feel like what I do is genuinely worth the effort of doing it! But there ARE some special perks I want to ensure that I provide for my Patrons, which you can explore in the Patrons Only section of this site or on Patreon directly!
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Featured Updates:
Whelp... I'm not mad at it. Which, despite being the lowest bar ever set, still makes this the best thing SJM has released in years. Seriously, the last time I wasn't actively disappointed by an SJM release since 2016. House of Sky & Breath is very much a relief, because I'm not actively angry, but it's also still kind of disappointing because even though I'm not offended there's not a lot to like.
READ MORE. 
When I was first introduced to it, conceptually, I was deeply skeptical. It seemed like a wannabe Hamilton at best, and a garish, misinterpretation of history at worst (and most plausible). It seemed like a tragedy waiting to happen.
But I quickly warmed up to it. The songs are hella catchy. It does the opposite of Hamilton, rather than attempting to cover a factually true-to-life History in its full context with a modern lens to view it under, Six takes snippets of well-understood, deeply personal modern stories, and slips them backward in time to re-frame an audience's interpretation of the dramatics of History. READ MORE. |
UKRAINE | НАША УКРАЇНАGLOBAL SOLIDARITY VS ETHNOCENTRIC PAIN, A BREAKDOWN
What's happening in Ukraine is an absolute travesty of the very worst and very best Humanity can offer. Ukraine is rising up and standing strong in the face of inconceivable terror. Russia's act of invasion is vile and horrible and nothing but pointless, arrogant, unbridled aggression perpetrated against a nation perceived to be weak. And the world is rallying behind Ukraine like the whole future depends on Ukraine's success (because it does). 
But there is a distinct element of racism in the way the world has galvanized behind the Ukrainian cause, but not behind Palestine, or the Hmong, or the innocents in North Korea or South Sudan. And yet, at the same time, it would be a drastic mischaracterization of what's happening to say that the world's reaction simply exposes the true level of racism in the so-called 'modern' world... Ukraine DOES matter more, in some key geo-political ways. And it doesn't make you a racist to feel like Ukraine simply hurts more for you than, say, Yemen.
Here, I break down what's happening in Ukraine, why it matters to Western Governments far more than any of the other human atrocities on-going in our world, and why it genuinely hurts more for western audiences to see destruction in Ukraine than it ever has for bombings of historical buildings in the Middle East. READ MORE HERE. |
As another installment of the Grisha Verse, I knew this would be a good one, but Leigh Bardugo pulled out all the YA Fantasy stops to create a truly epic MASTERPIECE! The accurate depiction of psychology alone makes it extremely well worth reading, and the healthy depictions of coping mechanisms (and the explicit calling-out of unhealthy ones) is just an exceptional example of beautiful writing and elegant storytelling is properly nuanced literature. READ MORE.
BEHAVE: the Biology of Humans at Our Best & Worst - Robert M Sapolsky Every so often a book comes along that genuinely makes a viable case for a complete paradigm shift. This is certainly one of them!
Reading this is a massive undertaking, being that it's nearly 800 pages of intensely detailed scientific rigor, but the result is entirely worth the effort! I will say that some parts of it, particularly a few of the early chapters, are a slog for anyone who is not familiar and keening interested in the finer points niche sciences. Sapolsky's writing is exceptionally clear and his points in these early chapters are well laid out, but, even so, the material is simply dense. It's still, absolutely AMAZING, however, and I highly recommend reading it all the way through, even if you may wind up skipping a chapter or two that feels too intense. READ MORE HERE. |
Well, this month might not be one for my record books, per se, it's still the best month I've had in a LONG while. It's the most I've written period since July of last year, and the most original fiction I've written since March of last year. I didn't quite tip the balance over from writing mostly school / admin stuff and reviews over to writing fiction, but I got pretty dang close (I'm only like ~300 words off the mark). READ MORE about the specifics of my progress!
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Ahsoka, age 23 and fully established as the Rebel info coordinator known as ‘Fulcrum’, finds something odd while scouting for a new planet with potential to host a Rebel base. She doesn’t exactly mean to touch it, but a tug in the Force and a leap of Faith towards the call of her own instincts quickly have her stepping into an unknown space.
Where she ends up is a place both well-known and entirely foreign; a place from her past, but not quite as she knew it. How long she might be staying within this limbo is an unanswerable question, as is what she and those around should do about any of it. Together, they meet a swath of long-dead ghosts and yet-unborn phantoms as they navigate their upended relationships, and what changes occur inside them because of these encounters may just be enough to change everything… New Chapters Post Every Week, on Thursdays, with Early Access on Patreon! Now also with it's own side-ish story, Dal Segno, Al Fine (Make it Brighter), posting sporadically on Ao3 and HERE every 2 weeks... |
Announcements:
Due to the rigors of Job-Hunting and my involvement in various Special Projects, I'll be city-hoping on rather short notice, so updates may be delayed and irregular.
I may even be entirely absent for extended stretches of time, but I'll be back and posting eventually!
Wish me luck! (Or better yet, get in touch with me personally.)
I may even be entirely absent for extended stretches of time, but I'll be back and posting eventually!
Wish me luck! (Or better yet, get in touch with me personally.)
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