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Chit Chat and Recommendation Post: December 2023! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-01-01 05:17:46
Imported:
2024-01
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Content

Hello, all! Happy New Year's Eve! Welcome to this month's chit chat and rec post, a comfy space to update each other on what we've been doing lately and all the things we’ve enjoyed during the month!

I won't bore you with the gory details of how things have been going behind the scenes for me lately. Suffice to say it was messy and busy, to the point I completely spaced on last month's chit-chat post, and I'm thrilled to have the major holidays behind me. 2023 has had a lot of ups and downs for me, and I'm hopeful 2024 will be better.

I gave myself the Christmas gift of doing nothing but sleep and futz around during the days off I've had this month, and it's been good for me even though it made this month's channel event a bit more difficult to manage. Humans need dedicated downtime, which is a lesson I keep having to teach myself! Someday I'll get it down.

(Like tonight! Instead of having any more intense plans, I am settled in at my desk with a cup of coffee, a fuzzy blanket and a space heater. There's a good chance Noodle will come sit on me to purr for awhile because I'm so nice and toasty. Truly, the best way to ring in the new year.)

My recommendations are a bit slim this month, but I hope you enjoy them anyway!

Articles

Tyrian Purple: The disgusting origins of the colour purple: Before reading this article, what I knew about the history of purple could fit inside a thimble. Rare and regal since antiquity, easier to synthesize after industrialization, and that's about it. Now I know SO much more! Sea snails? Nymphs? Screaming popes?! This history has everything!

How a Fake Rent-a-Hitman Site Became an Accidental Murder-for-Hire Sting Operation Imagine you start a website in 2005 for the lulz and over time it becomes a tool for the FBI to catch would-be killers who think it's a legit place to hire a hitman. That has to be one of the weirdest career trajectories ever!

‘How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?’: the weird, secretive world of crisp flavours: Boring personal story time! A long time ago, a store near me got some Canadian ketchup chips in stock by mistake. I snagged a bag out of curiosity and have been low-key mourning their loss ever since. (In 2023, a friend got me a small case imported as a birthday present! What can I say, I'm a simple girl.) Now, I'll be on the hunt for all sorts of new exotic chip flavors to fill the void.

The Incredible True Story of the Collar Bomb Heist I'm not a hardcore true crime girlie , but I do love a good heist story, the weirder the better! This is a good one. 

The Ars guide to time travel in the movies: A list of twenty films featuring time travel as a central theme, rated based on scientific accuracy and entertainment value! Star Trek IV being given an entertainment score of 6 will take me some time to accept, but it's okay. ("I am a much more mature, well-adjusted nerd than I was as a child," I mutter through clenched teeth. "People are allowed to....be wrong about Star Trek sometimes.")

A Love Letter to Imaginary Worlds: The Prose of Science Fiction and Fantasy A short examination of the many types of prose in sci-fi and fantasy writing, with examples and recommendations based on each style! I love that kind of thing. 

That's about all I've got for this month! Wish it was more, but hopefully January will be a bit better.

How about you? Read/watch/play anything fun this month?


Comments

PsionicsKnight

Happy New Year, Vel and co. Good to see you all again, especially now on the official first day of 2024! I hope these last couple of months have been good for you all. I’ve had a very busy last couple of months, and not just because of the holidays. To be honest, I have some big news: I finally have completed my last college class, and I’ll be getting my diploma in the next couple of months! It’s really exciting to see that all my hard work is paying off, especially since in October I thought one class I had that was very difficult was going to be failed! So, this is a huge relief, and it’s good on a practical level since Web Design is such a lucrative field. While I do want to take some time and learn the ropes of Web Design tools before I go to work in that field—traditional or freelance—I’m thinking and hoping I can build up my skills for that work soon. So, Vel and co., if any of you want or need a website, well… you know where to find me. 😜 As for the holidays, they were… mixed in 2023. Putting aside the new job is, while not bad, kind of difficult—especially since I have to start at 3:30 AM and need to get up about two hours before just to get ready and go to work—the holidays were lonely on Thanksgiving since my immediate family went on a cruise, and then hectic because when Christmas came along I had to make a lot of last minute changes (basically, my Dad and Stepmom were going to come to my place, but then my Stepmom got sick and I had to travel to their place at the last minute). Not to mention that, as much as I love my Dad and Stepmom… there’s been tension with them for years due to their obsession with right-wing sociopolitical views, paranoia and intense disrespect about those who don’t see eye to eye with them, and the fact that they just assume constantly I agree with them (no matter how many times we basically have the same argument). And while the visit was good, the fact that they kept indulging in their addictions made things hard at times. Thankfully, I did get to see my best friend in the area, and we actually went bowling on the day after Christmas—which was fun and something we haven’t gotten to do for a long time! We were actually pretty darn good, if I say so myself. My Christmas with my Mom and Stepdad was definitely a bit better, even if it was a short one due to it being on a day where I had to go back to work the next day. I also got to see my Stepbrother and Stepsister-in-law, which was wonderful! And best of all, my Mom and Stepdad got me what I wanted for Christmas—a plane ticket to see my grandparents this month! I’m really excited, especially since it’ll be the first time I’ve seen them since their move to their new retirement home. Now, in other news, there are a few things I wanted to mention: For one, it turns out that Henry Cavill is starring and producing in a Warhammer 40k show for Amazon Prime. Honestly, I’m really excited to see this: Amazon definitely has the budget for an adaption of 40k, and considering Mr. Cavill’s love of SFF (as well as how he seems to prefer adaptions that are faithful to the source material), I think the show is in good hands. Now, all we have to do is wait and see what happens! For those who want to get more info, here’s an article that gives more info: https://spikeybits.com/2023/12/henry-cavill-set-to-star-produce-in-warhammer-movies-tv.html#google_vignette Next up, there is a show that I’m thinking some people here already know about, but I want to mention. It’s a Netflix animated show called Blue Eye Samurai, and is a historical fiction (as well as possible alternate history) taking place in the Edo Period of Japan—a time when Japan closed it’s borders almost completely, and from when mixed breed children were seen as subhuman abominations. Our story follows Mizu, a young woman (posing as a man) who is of European and Japanese heritage, who is looking to find and kill the Four White Devils: four European men who not only in the past traded in weapons, drugs, and slaves with Japan, but are all potentially Mizu’s father (at least, that’s what she and we think for now). Seeking to kill them for making her life a living hell, Mizu travels around Japan trying to find them—and along the way, gets caught up with other characters who slowly start to give her more reasons to live besides vengeance. It’s an incredible revenge tale, and I’m excited to see where it goes next. Especially because I feel the story does indicate that Mizu is going through slight character development, and I think (and hope) the story will have her go from being an anti-hero to becoming an out-and-out hero, something Terrible Writing Advice mentioned in their video on anti-heroes that I loved but I don’t think we see a lot of in media. Plus, one of the main characters is voiced by Brenda Song (of Suite Life and Amphibia fame), and she knocks it out of the ballpark as Akemi! It’s so cool to see her get to play more adult and serious roles. It was also a surprising treat to see Randall Park voice one of the villains, Heiji Shindo, since he’s more of a comedic actor. But he nails the role as well, and I love it when actors have both the chance and skill to do roles they aren’t usually associated with—especially comedic actors doing serious characters. Definitely give this show a watch, everyone—while it’s only got one season right now, a second one is confirmed and the creators have mentioned wanting to do 4+ seasons. I also want to point out that, despite what some say, the show is *not* anti-European/anti-white. It’s just historically accurate to the time period (one of the creators is a white guy himself), and considering both the show’s themes and how the first season ends, I’m pretty sure the next season will have Mizu (and others) come to meet more humane and kind European people. To cap this off and give what can be considered a “late Christmas Gift” I want to give the fellow creatives here some things I think they’ll find invaluable. First is the YouTube account Artifexian. A young man who helps people create scientifically-accurate worlds, his done a lot of videos regarding everything from the creation of galaxies and solar systems, to the formation of life and even language. And he does it all in very simple and entertaining videos—I actually have learned a lot about astrophysics just from watching some of his videos! Here’s his YT account, for any who’d like to check him out: https://youtube.com/@Artifexian?si=UC68C-CZEv8kkS0M Second is a similar video by a gentleman named Biblaridion, who also does videos on worldbuilding and conlangs (basically, construction of fictional languages). His videos are more “professional” and while I haven’t seen many of them yet, I also think they are a great source for people who perhaps want to do more “starfish alien” lifeforms for their worlds. His account can be found here: https://youtube.com/@Biblaridion?si=HyzhG1XI8uYwplVt Finally, for those of you who are fellow SFF writers, I’ve got something incredible. So, for those who don’t know, Brandon Sanderson teaches at BYU, and in 2021 he released a series of videos on how he plans and writes a novel, and put it on his YT account. So, let me be clear: the man has basically done a college crash course on writing, and put it online *for free*! This is priceless stuff, and one of my resolutions/goals this year is to watch at least a bit of the videos until I’ve completed the course once! For those who want to see it, here’s the playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ&si=4ziY0GJ7Lel0pwUJ That’s all for me right now. Thanks for taking the time to read this, everyone, and I hope that with my college done I can be more active on here and in other communities (and hope to get some scripts for Velvet and other VAs out soon). Have a great day and Happy New Year, everybody!

OrangeLightning

Happy new year Vel! Only been a patron for a month but I love what you do. Christmas was really hectic for me, had a bit of a disastrous road trip to see family. A lot of arguing ensued. But I'm now a proud owner of a PS5, and while on the trip I managed to find two things I've been looking for for a while. So I suppose I can't complain. Especially since my birthday is this week, woot woot! Been occupying myself with Sonic Origins, and DnD novels. Actually hosted a D&D holiday special last month. That was a lot of fun.