tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59212996767725664452024-02-22T08:07:58.683-08:00Quick Sip ReviewsShort(ish) Reviews of Speculative Short Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction. Word counts are approximate. Opinions are my own. (also, probably SPOILERS ABOUND!)Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.comBlogger1863125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-63139630061561328222023-10-23T12:10:00.005-07:002023-10-23T12:11:17.316-07:00Regular Sip - Understudies by Priya Sridhar (Hireath Publishing)<b><a href="https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/understudies-by-priya-sridhar" target="_blank"><i>Understudies</i></a> by Priya Sridhar (Hireath Publishing)</b><div><br /></div><div>In this follow-up to <i>Offstage Offerings</i>, The Haunted Basilio Theater is back, and this time it’s (fraternal) twin sisters and playwrights Stella and Evangeline, the Stardust Sisters, who are leasing it to put on a show and make a name for themselves. Part Faustian bargain, part late stage capitalism, the story follows the pair as they make a deal with the strange beings who own the theater and deal with the fallout from their bargain. </div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Part of what I appreciate most about the story is just how nakedly it lays out the ways the world is already full of predators waiting to exploit creativity and passion. For the sisters, getting a sketchy offer isn’t all that unusual, and that it requires some...unusual provisions really doesn’t throw up more red flags than normal. Both are used to people taking ruthless advantage of people wanting to turn their dreams into reality. But Stella, at least, isn’t quite willing to cross the line and become one of the exploiters. Eve, however...</div><div><br /></div><div><b>“We would have prepared better for real demon curses”</b></div><div><br /></div><div>What’s particularly heartbreaking about the story is just how preventable it all is. Indeed, after the events of the previous story, closing the theater seems like it would be a good idea. But while it’s discussed, it’s also almost immediately abandoned. Because it would be the loss of an opportunity, and a loss of jobs. Because, for real, people value that over stopping an obviously evil location. And the thing is it rings so true. What is becoming increasingly obviously from places like the-social-media-site-formerly-known-as-Twitter and Facebook and more is that despite them being used for clearly evil purposes, and despite that mostly being upheld by the law and their own terms of use, people can’t always afford to walk away from them. Not if they want their chance to make it.</div><div><br /></div><div>And beneath all the clearly damning social critique, it’s also a very fun read about sisters and the mistakes they make. The ways they hurt each other. The secrets they keep. And the ways they try to do right by each other. The ways they try to help each other survive and make something good. And this story works for that, showing how people stumble, and how that sometimes means Very Bad Things. Because the path to Hell is lined with good intentions and creative aspirations. But if all paths lead to Hell, then suddenly the particulars start mattering a bit more. It’s weird and it’s fun and it’s very much worth checking out!</div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-43642377021892552792023-06-23T07:25:00.003-07:002023-06-23T07:25:39.998-07:00Quick Sips 06/23/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEETP-qnGPyCbycP3NOcDmhUTYvr8yGXcPm3Ow-g4Niu0x19ugeZpEZ32gt9oGX_FEW3_QfOaJoIkpRJf13Pxuc6VhdzTBhjdRQ4BGGzA-yPEGQUeYfSf2OBkmLyHCw1cTYckDtivnB7LOfUpKRCl_DNlK6gLQinFAapb_WnO5ZkIhGy5jVM9mvWusRej/s5248/cuddle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="5248" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEETP-qnGPyCbycP3NOcDmhUTYvr8yGXcPm3Ow-g4Niu0x19ugeZpEZ32gt9oGX_FEW3_QfOaJoIkpRJf13Pxuc6VhdzTBhjdRQ4BGGzA-yPEGQUeYfSf2OBkmLyHCw1cTYckDtivnB7LOfUpKRCl_DNlK6gLQinFAapb_WnO5ZkIhGy5jVM9mvWusRej/w640-h360/cuddle.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><b>In which I...</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- give some brief updates</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- share some reviewing advice</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- am very tired</b></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Well I continue to be rather tired, so I thought I'd share this picture of Morn being very cuddly but also basically asleep because that's what I'd like right now. It's June and I'm mostly trying to enjoy it being warm but also wishing I had some more time and energy to get out on my bike and hit the trails with my husband. Geocaching and the like. Because yeah, good times. Instead I'm mostly in a cycle of taking care of business, doing chores, and waiting for the next minor emergency to crop up. But maybe things will calm down. We shall see.</div><div><br /></div><div>Really there's not too much to report at the moment, aside from having turned in my latest Locus column. I did, however, want to maybe talk about that because I feel like I'm finally mostly settled in after a year and a half of doing this to the point I can reflect and maybe offer some pointers to people who are looking to start reviewing. I'll break things out into some categories.<br /><b><br />1. Style</b><br /><br />This is probably the most important thing because everything else is going to come out of this. When I say style I mean really the type of reviewing you want to do. I think the most common sort of review column is one that casts a wide net and then tries to find the "best" of the bunch (the reviewer's favorites). These kind of monthly or other regular columns are the most accessible to the general reader and the most called for by people who want some help navigating the large field of speculative fiction and poetry. This is what I did at Nerds of a Feather with The Monthly Road and at Book Smugglers with X Marks the Story. <br /><br />But there's also reviewers who look at complete issues and review *everything* in them. This both removes the need to specify what works you liked best and pushes you to engage with works and review works that you might not like. This is what I did at Quick Sip Reviews. <br /><br />And finally there is a hybrid approach where you're not just reviewing your favorites but you're also not reviewing all the works in every issue that you read. You mention some of the works, and maybe on top of that you also mention your favorites. This is what I do now at Locus.<br /><br /><b>2. Workload</b><br /><br />And then we come to the question of how much you want to cover. That in part will help guide you through the decisions to be made on what style of reviewing you want to do. Because it's harder to have a robust recommendation column if you don't read a lot of stories. In general, I strive to recommend roughly 1/10 of the works that I read. The top 10% for me is a good indication that these were the stories I really liked. The A stories, if you will. <br /><br />And with that, you can sort of work backwards. Want ~5 stories in your recommendation column? Then aim for reading ~50 stories total. This does mean if you want a more robust column of 10 recommendations/reviews, you are looking at upwards of 100 stories. But then, this doesn't need to be every month. Many columns cover two months. Or four. It's really up to you but I do think that keeping a 1/10 rule recommended/read is a pretty good metric for reviewing if you're doing a regular favorites column.<br /><br />For reviewing everything in an issue, that also depends on how much bandwidth you have for it. Reading 50 stories and reviewing 5 of them is a lot less work than reading and reviewing 50 stories. As someone who reviewing over 50 stories a month for years, it's A Lot and will probably burn you out. But that's mostly a discussion to have with yourself.<br /><br />For hybrid approaches, it somewhat depends on the word count and etc that you're aiming for. My Locus column is supposed to be ~3000 words, and I keep pretty close to that these days. At ~150 words a mention/short review, I can include ~20 works in each column, and aim to mentions somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of what I read, with recommendations of ~1/10 what I read. Now, if I had 5000 words a month I'd probably actually just write more on each story rather than adding much more to read, because right now 60-80 works is just about manageable to read every month (100, which I do occasionally, is just a bit much).<br /><br /><b>3. Adjustments</b><br /><br />What I would recommend as well is that you always leave room to make changes to what you do. Transitioning from Quick Sips to Locus did take some time (and going over word count by quite a bit a few times), and there's always some give and take between what you want to do and what you'll be able to do. I do suggest starting smaller and then scaling up, but never be afraid of scaling down. Sometimes you scale up too much and don't realize how much that will effect your work. Sometimes life gets in the way and makes needing to do less necessary. Sometimes you'll just find the groove that works for you and that might be less than where you're at. Don't fight it (unless someone is paying you good money to fight it but that's pretty rare in reviewing). <br /><br />I still think reviewing is a wonderful thing and a useful practice for readers and writers alike. It stretches mental muscles and is an art in itself. And I like reading reviews, so maybe I'm just greedy in wanting to see more of them (though also please just don't be an asshole about it). But anyway, there are my thoughts on that.<br /><br />In other news...uh...I'm getting a little better at playing Tears of the Kingdom, and did get a few nice days to sink into it over the last weekend. But it's slow going (and there's nothing wrong with that). And that's been about it for me lately. I hope life is treating you all as well as possible. Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlzStgf8xJ0IWy1S-_hqRNDvTyFlCQfTYNMSZfCoZCGyxqEhyM0wcZROnHhEM5Zj3sRWsXDt2piAYoHBEY5AC2eAmyEt1CE4JKASB7Ehh3fd5s70uFxPmCdKijinIuJ_OdPM7PFClSowfeh09vFNRade26Hl07zrWTgUG_a8-SiB15K2_2ng40oNqSeQJw/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-28040734752941680412023-06-16T14:18:00.003-07:002023-06-16T14:18:41.750-07:00Quick Sips 06/16/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigvcdhbCKgAy1WJWf6gI4uw5BJipql2nxYp6cWPfQMQb3F3rYMEv49_jP4WhpfsT1TPUXQWVTcR1JMEU3gjjkb2EcJxCImry-L2PX7ku0EdQ7ze1dEaDC2Gx6ginPXLmJ65vm5kkceE_TASpS-hbzr_zRTnOlHpvt-BCmQ4d2TGesvN8Pi9X67IIN-Rw/s5248/dramaticlighting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="5248" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigvcdhbCKgAy1WJWf6gI4uw5BJipql2nxYp6cWPfQMQb3F3rYMEv49_jP4WhpfsT1TPUXQWVTcR1JMEU3gjjkb2EcJxCImry-L2PX7ku0EdQ7ze1dEaDC2Gx6ginPXLmJ65vm5kkceE_TASpS-hbzr_zRTnOlHpvt-BCmQ4d2TGesvN8Pi9X67IIN-Rw/w640-h360/dramaticlighting.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>In which I...</div><br /><b>- give some brief updates</b><br /><br /><b>- share a new story out</b><br /><br /><b>- admit that I am not that good at Zelda...</b><div><br /></div><div>Hi all—your favorite disaster here, checking in after a week away due to everything happening. But I've brought a Morn picture to soothe the fact that I was too crunched last week to do much other than get ready for the local Pride in the park event, which is something of the highlight of the social calendar for the organization that I volunteer at. And, as always, it was a bit of a mess and the weather played spoiler, for while it was mostly okay, we got hammered by rain and wind just before we'd have otherwise been closing down. I was so soaked. Sigh.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>It wasn't all bad, though—I was at the table for the Zine that my husband edits and which I do the printing for (we split the work of folding, stapling, and cutting). So I got to give away a lot of Zines that hopefully have remained dry for people. Even if they didn't, though, there is an online/electronic version that people can check out here: <a href="https://www.cvlgbt.org/zine">https://www.cvlgbt.org/zine</a><br /><br />For the third year in a row, I have contributed something to the Zine, though this year we weren't short artwork so everyone is spared my attempts to make visual art. Instead, there's a little flash fiction called "Fairy Circles For Broken Hearts" and it's a little historical fantasy that's hopefully cute and a wee bit sexy. Like with all my flash fiction (and especially those with a 500 word cap), I went long and had to do some creative trimming to get it under word count, but I do like it. These are really fun to do. <br /><br />With Pride done and dusted, though, it's also sort of crunch time for a lot of things I'm behind on. I have turned in my editorial/intro to We're Here 2022 (and if you missed the ToC announcement, that's here: <a href="https://www.neonhemlock.com/news/were-here-2022-toc-cover).">https://www.neonhemlock.com/news/were-here-2022-toc-cover).</a> I have finished all the blurbs and documents for the last of smutty sff stories being released at JMS Books (you can find the list of those here: <a href="https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/)">https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/)</a> and will be putting together the first collection that will be available in book form soon. Oh! And We're Here 2021 is part of the Pride StoryBundle so if you haven't seen that, there are SO MANY books to get through that here: <a href="https://storybundle.com/pride">https://storybundle.com/pride</a><br /><br />I am...still behind on a lot, and very tired, and a series of car problems haven't exactly helped. But I'm trying. Thank you all for your understanding and patience through all this. Oh, and I guess I got back from WisCon, which was A Lot but also rather great. Just...keeping on as best I can.<br /><br />I have now officially started Tears of the Kingdom, too, though I have not gotten very far yet. It's...well, I am very excited about it, and really liked the intro sky island, even as I'm much more overwhelmed by this game than by Breath of the Wild. Part of it might be that the familiar aspects that I leaned into in BotW are absent and replaced, and it'll just take some time to settle into TotK. I think a big part has been just being a little slow to adapt to the fusion system that has basically wholesale replaced weapon farming in BotW. I got very good at knowing where to find very good weapons in BotW, and I always prioritized upgrading armor, so starting the game a little behind the curve in those respects has led to a somewhat frustrating time.<br /><br />Part of it might also be that I just haven't had time to really sit and settle in, though, grabbing what I can an hour here and there. And with such a massive game, that's hard to build momentum doing. Still, I am very eager to see everything the game has to offer, even if I'm a little slower than I'd like, and have been dying a bit more than is good for my ego. And no, sorry, I have not attached a Korok to a rocket...yet. My building skills are also pretty limited. But we'll see how it goes as I progress.<br /><br />I am actually intrigued by the lack of amnesia in this game, and how that's impacted the early hours, especially once you hit the ground and find that the world is much changed from BotW and a lot of things Link should know he just...doesn't. Which, I mean, Link is something of a himbo so mood, but I'm interested in how the frame does impact some of my own expectations, making me want to know why the game is withholding some information that Link would have, especially when it comes to knowing people who obviously know him. <br /><br />But yeah, I will continue to report on that as I slowly play more. Otherwise, I will try to stay sane and on top of my stuff as much as possible. Hope you're all having a wonderful June! </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUo7Bu2TlFqgAAfBZVI4rQy6fuaG_h8_fwHcpsPetsuIHz81mEE-Dc-iHSe79P-ma_4KFHWftZRmz-He924JWn6raMMTUWd0KtHZ_GbACuIy9kJSH6QAThDqO8HuN1hsHJ8SaoXt39wRp4JIe_7Wh5VtABTYLZDnWajsNYI-KqJdOQagtDl37SbapYg/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-25348326362359443272023-05-26T07:03:00.005-07:002023-05-26T07:03:48.254-07:00Quick Sips 05/26/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7In_3kSTvh7RHzBmNUhcQPw2mwVpkUeQXwuexR1EYHhQcgq2r-xfZUVzwwbWBoCvrss5tanW_4RbZIhmJ3OByODno0KvytVJgPDP19f28vuR9EN-Y4bOkQu6raOIKbJ96WOjn_xgAIkC_HMaK0UD7nHts4WHsXFc6-N46id3Ic59VNCIeuU4TQurLg/s1102/MornFacedown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="620" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7In_3kSTvh7RHzBmNUhcQPw2mwVpkUeQXwuexR1EYHhQcgq2r-xfZUVzwwbWBoCvrss5tanW_4RbZIhmJ3OByODno0KvytVJgPDP19f28vuR9EN-Y4bOkQu6raOIKbJ96WOjn_xgAIkC_HMaK0UD7nHts4WHsXFc6-N46id3Ic59VNCIeuU4TQurLg/w225-h400/MornFacedown.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div>In which I give...</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- my WisCon schedule</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- random updates</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- weird pre-convention musings</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Hi all! So it turns out this week is WisCon. AHHHHHHH! Ahem. I mean, joy! Really, though, WisCon is always amazing but also involves a lot of people and travel and general stress. But I am rather excited. And I did manage to print my little poetry chapbooks so I'll have some swag to purchase if you run into me (probably at the SignOut where I will also have copies of The Burning Day and the 2020 and 2021 We're Here. So yeah, hopefully I will also have change!</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I suppose I should give my schedule for the convention, for people curious. It is...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Where Are the Pans of Yesteryear?<br /></b><br />Assembly • Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing Science Fiction • Fri 9:00 PM–10:15 PM<br /><br />In an era of continuously declining book coverage, a single review can make or break a book, particularly one without significant marketing resources behind it. Many reviewers choose to highlight books they loved and ignore those they hated, whether out of personal preference, awareness of limited review space, fear of inciting online harassment against an author, or deference to an ethos that conceptualizes criticism as unkindness. What space exists (or should exist) for the negative review</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Trope Subversion vs. Embracing with Caveats</b></div><div><br />Assembly • Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing Science Fiction • Sat 2:30 PM–3:45 PM<br /><br />When writing a queer romance do you prefer to subvert a cishet trope or embrace and queer it? When tackling a theme common to settler narratives do you want to see it subverted in some way or told straight but with the POV's switched? There can be value in upending harmful or reductive tropes, but also in allowing marginalized characters to claim the power of the roles usually relegated to their oppressors. As creator or consumer what do you prefer and why?</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Past And Future of Feminist Time Travel</b><br /><br />Conference 4 • Feminism and Other Social Change Movements • Sun 4:00 PM–5:15 PM<br /><br />Roundtable discussion. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's This is How You Lose The Time War and Annalee Newitz's Future of Another Timeline both introduce women striving to edit a single timeline. Are these examples of feminist time travel? What makes a time travel story feminist? How do feminist time travel stories differ from those that are not?<br /><br /><br />So it looks like it'll be a fun time. Apparently this year the con is also having a round-table panel, which is what the time travel one is, which I guess is where I moderate a talk just in a big group. Haha that sounds...well, I'm willing to give it a shot! Not that I'm super familiar with the works cited in the description, but I have read a lot so LET'S DO THIS!<br /><br />They're all super interesting panels, though, and already I'm starting to think about what I'll say or what might come up. The first panel on negative reviews seems like it could be a bit...contentious, shall we say, because of the central idea that negative reviews are in the decline. And I'm just not sure they are, as the continual Discourse surrounding negative reviews, often published at high-prestige print or online publications, is not infrequent. The description lists off some reasons why people *might not* write negative reviews, but doesn't exactly get into the idea of if there is an actual shortage of them.<br /><br />I think part of the issue is just that...people are less likely to share negative reviews. They might read them and enjoy them but there is a different...landscape and positioning of readers, writers, and reviewers these days because they all share a lot of the same spaces. And when you share a lot of the same spaces, there is a tendency to not want to share out the more negative things like reviews that pan the work they cover. So there is a discoverability aspect to this conversation, and how sometimes what *seems* dominant and widespread might not be or might not be as much as it seems. <br /><br />Further into that is the question of what reviews are. Literary criticism? Journalism? Both? Something else entirely? In most of those cases, being negative is often seen as being more "fair and balanced" and so there isn't exactly a tendency to be too glowing with one's praise. So why is there this mentality that there are not negative reviews being put out? Anyway, I am sure that it will be a lively panel. Because there is something to be said about...why does it *feel* that negative reviews are difficult to find? Is it more that there is a kind of guilt that many people feel when putting out a negative review? Are we self-censoring and, if so, what might that mean? All very interesting questions and ones that I know I ask myself fairly regularly, especially as someone who has often been criticized as being "too positive" in my reviewing. So yeah, look forward to this panel.<br /><br />The trope one is interesting, too, especially when looking at romance stories (and even, let's be real, fanfiction). I'm still percolating on that one, though, so I'm not sure I have everything figured out. Also I might be moderating that one haha I *just* saw that oops. Well that will be fun and I guess I better get my thoughts together a little sooner on that. I am a mess.<br /><br />Anyway, I hope you like the Morn picture. And I hope to see some of you at WisCon! Feel free to say high even if I look panicked and awkward. Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vwTfyF0ik3MiPoyQRRJbNjZ-FjE1w06Ggxi6Zb6R6V0N2z_X0-ZdeTeDOf9vYcYl6g73lcu18-3WD7GvNzrVyTA4v2IDGpzYX1RUOKp7dEqRQ5bjR74zdT5RSo7G9cwiyzW-x3mpWJ2g4uZhvt2Mb0O2DCOGz5cqI039dlsE_KZ4qzLOz-PlUIKhjQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-83608926615747954632023-05-26T06:59:00.004-07:002023-05-26T07:00:19.411-07:00Quick Sips 05/19/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDqp0FlEp4PX3mKLFI837zcBdP14F5PHS0w6Qi8fhbKVw0BRhrCzojcWLud6z751LYtsKSMcIXKOan4dhUmUCaJPjSmT90iQOMbVEao6yZDu1PC7XdPvZBhydbDSVbpjwEG0oBnRlbLnuoa3b-VhdUXvJ5qWBFG7FXN0OA_FSx8RsLGa4Hc36bPsw-yA/s1102/paws.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="620" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDqp0FlEp4PX3mKLFI837zcBdP14F5PHS0w6Qi8fhbKVw0BRhrCzojcWLud6z751LYtsKSMcIXKOan4dhUmUCaJPjSmT90iQOMbVEao6yZDu1PC7XdPvZBhydbDSVbpjwEG0oBnRlbLnuoa3b-VhdUXvJ5qWBFG7FXN0OA_FSx8RsLGa4Hc36bPsw-yA/w225-h400/paws.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div>In which I...</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Share a mood with Morn</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Give some brief updates</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Discuss amnesia in Disco Elysium and Breath of the Wild</b></div><div><br /></div><div>So I've made it another week! Yay! Though I am also still in full struggle duck mode. For those not familiar with the struggle duck, it's a bit like the struggle bus but is a duck and therefore more adorable, grumpy, and tired. Yeah. Anyway, I am basically Morn in this photo, which means exhausted and Done with everything and just wanting to let those paws dangle. The battle is not over but Morn is no longer fighting. Let the storm sweep past, let it batter itself on the mountains and over the seas. Morn will weather what comes, preferably while sleeping. Which...a mood.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, not too much going on with me at the moment (a lie, but I will not bore you all with the details). I continue to have stories out at JMS Books (you can find them here: <a href="https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/">https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/</a>) and have finally (finally!!!) finished having to write up blurbs for them, which let me tell you is A Lot. I can now start to think about putting together some collections of this amazing smut. I'm also looking ahead to WisCon, though honestly I'm probably not preparing as much as I should. I do have some panels and etc and we'll just have to see how that goes. Hahaha</div><div><br />In media, I managed to finish an initial play through of Disco Elysium, and am happy to report that the game did indeed subvert some of the things that I was a little hesitant about earlier on. Namely, it did turn things around regarding some of the morality checks and etc., which often pushed you to chose among a bunch of options that were all bad. And while having to make those kind of no-good-option decisions is real and worthy of exploration in its own right, the game did end up framing many of those as the result of your unconscious (the various voices in your head) trying to actively discourage you from trying, because trying is hard and leads to emotional pain and (at times) self destructive behavior because caring so much in such a deeply broken system just isn't great (or healthy or etc). <br /><br />But finishing the game for the first time also reminded me that the other big game I played through recently, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has a pretty big element in common with Disco Elysium—both of the main characters begin the game with amnesia. And both characters have voices in their head who are trying to "help" them navigate the world. In BOTW, the voice is that of Zelda, the princess who is caught in a magical struggle with Ganon and who needs Link to get back in the fight so that they can win. <br /><br />One of my only complaints with BOTW, actually, was that the game frames Link's quest as one where he rediscovers who he is, and ends up falling rather neatly back into the role that he was in before his near death experience. The game is basically about Link remembering who he was so that he can be that person again. When the game ends, he has put himself back into the same kind of relationship he had with Zelda before. What was lacking here was the chance for Link to define himself outside of that role. Away from Zelda. Away from the expectation that he be the Chosen One and save the day. He doesn't really develop a different personality, and he can't. Which isn't necessarily great, given that he wasn't entirely happy in that role, in that life. <br /><br />In Disco Elysium, though, Harry's loss of memory is never really framed as something that he'll get back. Where Link recovers his memories and re-becomes himself, Harry is given a lot more freedom to become...anything. Or almost anything at least. He's not on a journey to re-become himself. Rather, that self was obliterated (there are different theories as to why exactly) and the game is a process of growing him/changing him/etc into a different person. Maybe a better person. Maybe not. But it wipes the slate clean so that you can start over, keeping what you like, discarding the rest. The result is a Harry that might be able to live in this world, fight for this world, where the old Harry was just done, completely burned out, etc. <br /><br />In pure game mechanics, both characters have amnesia for the same reason—to let players decide how they want to focus on powering the characters up. But the results couldn't be more different. Just look at the end results. Players can decide what to focus on in BOTW (grip or hearts), but if players stick with it they reach the conclusion of that, which is the same for everyone. Your Link in BOTW is the same as my Link in BOTW unless you didn't do all the shrines. But Harry...Harry can grow in a lot of different directions, customized by stats, by skills/ability, by thought garden, by copotype and political affiliation. Your Harry is almost certainly different than my Harry.<br /><br />And that really gets into the themes of the games in some interesting ways, and shows how they use amnesia to pursue two different thematic avenues. For BOTW, the amnesia provides a way for players to come to terms with the fate that's at the heart of Link's character. Though it can be long avoided, the game cannot be beaten until players go after Ganon and take him down. The game is about accepting responsibility, putting aside the exploration and crafting and making good on the prophecy, always with the voice in your head urging you on, assuring you that you're doing the right thing (and kinda laying on a bit of guilt that Zelda has been doing this on her own for so long). Now, you can always just...not. The game doesn't force the player to progress the story, which is nice. You can just avoid the end boss forever. But you are not rewarded narratively for doing so.<br /><br />Disco Elysium, meanwhile, frames the voices you hear as almost anything but helpful. They are misleading when not outright hostile, trying to convince Harry to give up rather than pursue solving the mystery and learning who he was. But the game also has a ticking clock, a set expiration date, and players really don't have many options other than progressing the story when it comes to things to do. Though the voices discourage Harry from finding out who he is, the game really doesn't let you avoid it without just sort of checking out. Your amnesia becomes part of the mystery you are solving, and so you're rather locked in to solving it, but solving that mystery in fact does not lock you into who you were. <br /><br />Hilariously, the amnesia in both games is where I find my small but present frustrations with both games. With Link, because he's not allowed to grow beyond what his role was. Isn't allowed to speak, isn't allowed to really go his own way. And with Harry because, for all that the memory loss has wiped the slate clean, you still have to be a cop. And for all that I appreciate a lot about Disco Elysium...ACAB. <br /><br />But as much as there were things I was ehhhh on, I'm also just interested in how both games took this common video game device (that really is designed to hard bake in world building and exposition) and took so drastically different tracks. And made two such different but wonderful games. So yeah, just sort of stewing with my thoughts and figured I'd share. That's about it for now, though. Stay awesome! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vwTfyF0ik3MiPoyQRRJbNjZ-FjE1w06Ggxi6Zb6R6V0N2z_X0-ZdeTeDOf9vYcYl6g73lcu18-3WD7GvNzrVyTA4v2IDGpzYX1RUOKp7dEqRQ5bjR74zdT5RSo7G9cwiyzW-x3mpWJ2g4uZhvt2Mb0O2DCOGz5cqI039dlsE_KZ4qzLOz-PlUIKhjQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-74613379309426117482023-05-12T05:55:00.003-07:002023-05-12T05:55:33.115-07:00Quick Sips 05/12/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBw88LigiDmXXNj6yvHw_eV5fIBTqnGcGRokAoF_Aflh93PUNtDL6wp2WjDYvMtOV3B1UZjRaurBTPAbd6qnI8DdN4gtxKOrhiYrksdB7ZbUpwHADdjlZHQVhccLAuAhh6sOFN8wB5eA_uWN8vFMMStQk3xEWx2cQUxxhqPFYVMPnt41VoD6dnEA1LA/s5248/SleepyMorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="5248" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBw88LigiDmXXNj6yvHw_eV5fIBTqnGcGRokAoF_Aflh93PUNtDL6wp2WjDYvMtOV3B1UZjRaurBTPAbd6qnI8DdN4gtxKOrhiYrksdB7ZbUpwHADdjlZHQVhccLAuAhh6sOFN8wB5eA_uWN8vFMMStQk3xEWx2cQUxxhqPFYVMPnt41VoD6dnEA1LA/w640-h360/SleepyMorn.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>In which I provide...</div><div>- Fur analysis on Morn</div><div><br /></div><div>- Some brief updates</div><div><br /></div><div>- First thoughts on Disco Elysium</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay let's go! First off please take a moment to appreciate Morn in all his sleepy glory, here captured in an apparently comfortable(???) position. He's something of a goof but a soft one. Unfortunately with the weather turning we are entering into one of his least favorite seasons...clump season! You see, Morn is not the most fastidious of groomers, and when it gets a bit more humid, he gets these fur tangles (despite being a short haired cat) that we lovingly refer to as clumps (or if we're channeling our inner Lumpy Space Princess, his lumps). Which means our son needs to get brushed more regularly, which he is mostly against (mostly because he doesn't mind brushing when he doesn't have clumps). He much prefers the colder months because 1. heat vent is on and warm; 2. no clumps because it's dry; 3. no birds to mock him. So it goes...</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Otherwise, there's not too much going on. I'm busily splitting my time between a number of things, as usual, and working on getting my reviews done because there will be plenty of travel and etc in the coming months. Blarg. But I'm getting a bit of writing done, and putting together a poetry chapbook that I'll be bringing with to WisCon, and doing things with the non-profit that I'm on the board of helping do social media, printing projects, document wrangling, etc etc. Lots of things to do! And of course my previously published (but mostly out of print) SFF romance continues to drop at JMS Books: <a href="https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/">https://www.jms-books.com/charles-payseur-c-224_557/</a><br /><br />In media consumption, Matt and I are rewatching Vera (again, yes, okay, we like it) while we wait for some other mystery shows (The Bay, Sister Boniface, and...something else?) to finish releasing their full seasons. I'm watching Midsomer Murders meanwhile (which Matt had no interest in) and finding it good stuff to fall asleep too (just don't ask me the plot to most of the episodes...). And, following a Twitter poll on what to play next, I have started playing Disco Elysium.<br /><br />And before you ask, no, I have not finished Final Fantasy VI yet. As much as I rather like that game, though, the spell grinding is rather tedious and I wanted a break, and people have had lots of good things to say about Disco Elysium (it also won the poll with over 50% of the votes, where next-runner-up was Final Fantasy VIII in the low 30%s). So, first impressions!<br /><br />1. Gameplay<br /><br />I do love the way it plays, the whole update on the old Sierra-style adventure game (like King's Quest) where you're mostly just moving around, finding things and talking to people. Unlocking clues, completing little side questions, etc etc. It's a murder mystery (kinda) at its core so I mean there's just a lot that makes it My Kinda Thing and I appreciate that. I even like the weird liminal/cerebral elements where you don't know who you are and have to figure that out, too, while contending with trauma and a world that's pretty fucked and all that. Good times!<br /><br />That said, the game is rather glitchy on the Switch (sad especially given that was something people were counting against Pokemon Violet, which was also in the poll). I keep on crashing things and having to restart and given that a lot of things require skill checks this has been a mixed bag in terms of results but also just frustrating. It's not unplayable by any means but it isn't ideal.<br /><br />2. Story<br /><br />Again, I like most of the story elements here. The situation in the city and the larger world, the way that's mirrored onto the main character, the way all the other things swirl around it. It takes a rather mature look at unions, politics, and much more, so yay to all of that. The twists in the case are compelling so far, and the more you explore the more there is to discover and participate in. That the story is unfolding under a deadline (I assume, as time is passing and I'm told if you take too long things progress anyway) is interesting and adds a sense of urgency but so does needing to find out about yourself and all the things you're missing. <br /><br />That said, the thing that's letting me down somewhat is that the game is so...straight? White as well? Or...hmm...how to discuss this? So, if the protagonist were a trans person of color (for instance), then so many of the "choices" of the game wouldn't work at all. The real crux of a lot of the moral and etc choices in the game come down to the fact that the protagonist has access to basically all levels of privilege as a cis-het white man (plus cop). And I do think the game does a good job engaging with the guilt of being in that situation, and wanting to do the right thing, and striving toward a better and more just world. But a lot of the choices in the game are still rather...limited to a more 101 level of x vs y vs z where none of them are really great choices (which implies there *aren't* better choices). Which in a game mechanic makes a lot of sense. But personally it's a small frustration. That we never get to see how being outside of the most privileged demographic impacts how the world seems/how you can move through that world (you get some indications based on how people treat Kim and others) means there are times when I feel a bit talked down to. But so it goes.<br /><br />And it's a fairly minor complaint, in that I am still enjoying the ride the game offers and etc. And there are *first* impressions so it's possible that the game will do some more interesting stuff but is easing players into it and maybe I'm just being arrogant to feel that some of set-ups and choices in the game aren't as provocative as they could be.<br /><br />3. Etc etc etc<br /><br />The music is good, the voice acting is rather great (even when it's *terrible* and *annoying*). The graphics and all that are fitting. I'm enjoying myself while trying not to get too grumpy about the frequent crashes and glitches. Also trying hard not to save scum because the game does rather reward it (skill checks are roll based so random enough that if you really want to you can hold out for a better result). Unless the game is secretly keeping track in which case we'll see (I don't feel I've done it much but that's not to say I haven't at all). <br /><br />So yeah, that's it for now. I think. I hope you're all doing well! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibdBxEhM_Cb46ClRHJnYg8yhvoVa7z1JwaIYq1sjnEMwdYsMD8_FHTrSwpzvDaY5RD__q_HgQNSQttutb-D1Zfi28xMqiJ3HmBeDlV_2PF6iSmwDhcJnRNi_k-9K6Vj_r0stiZJIcNdSOW_LBHW8L99GiW6l9k2Y7szowy8J85cGtgcrtc3Id03qcpzQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-79083074344218348412023-05-05T13:45:00.001-07:002023-05-05T13:45:08.376-07:00Quick Sips 05/05/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGv2spWd50jKF-LSDtpt3HGkSapwDGp0Md3MmenVLz53XdNb1NispqrvwPaBZAQcyc06eXKraJpI9tP5vlVDUI5x7elhtbCxq_4ZmowmE7ReYP7VgB4cG2ajPE3Ic_M06KFgcu1nDxywrXDD-5rhSOsQwuDrQTbVE7NF69T1xwoOqHWQGhNkNxbP-AbQ/s5248/DubMorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="5248" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGv2spWd50jKF-LSDtpt3HGkSapwDGp0Md3MmenVLz53XdNb1NispqrvwPaBZAQcyc06eXKraJpI9tP5vlVDUI5x7elhtbCxq_4ZmowmE7ReYP7VgB4cG2ajPE3Ic_M06KFgcu1nDxywrXDD-5rhSOsQwuDrQTbVE7NF69T1xwoOqHWQGhNkNxbP-AbQ/w400-h225/DubMorn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>In which I...</div><div><br /></div><div><b>- Admire Morn's Little Face</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Give some updates</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Discuss Star Trek: Picard Season 3</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Why hello there. Morn couldn't help but notice that he's directly on your chest, just inches from your face, and you aren't currently scratching his ears or telling him he's a pretty boy. How will you make this right?</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, apologies for the judging Morn-face, but I came across it while looking through some older photos and had to share. I forget when this is from, but definitely years ago as that bench is somewhere completely different and the keyboard has been banished to one of the upstairs/loft rooms, along with the futon that I was lying on when I took the photo. Anyway, it's a great face for Morn, with the full weight of "why aren't you petting me?" going on and I hope you all appreciate it.<br /><br />A week hasn't brought too much change to the world of Charles. I am still rather behind on a lot, and chipping away as best I can. I am actually in the middle of writing up the intro to this year's We're Here (with amazing guest editor Naomi Kanakia), which is always interesting. I'm normally tasked with sort of giving a state of the field with regards to queer speculative fiction (mostly good this year in terms of places putting out queer SFF but also it was a year where some ready and regular sources of queer SFF closed, so hmm). I admit that I am a bit starstruck working with Naomi, who picked out a fantastic ToC that I think will be public soon. She wrote "Everquest" (among many other amazing works), which was in the first We're Here, and which is still a story that fucks me up on the regular. There are stories that come along that really get you to look at the world and yourself differently, and that's one of them for me. Just wow.<br /><br />That aside, I'm reading and reviewing and trying to stay sane. Husband (Matt) and I did manage to spend a whole day just lounging in bed binging the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard (which is not Star Trek: Picardo but I do think that would be a really fun show where Robert Picardo aka The Doctor plays every crew member). And my thoughts on the show in general and the third season in particular are...conflicted? I like the show a lot, in part because Picard himself is fascinating (and well acted) and because the show has a sort of nostalgic taking the toys out for a new adventure feel. <br /><br />Something I'm a little ehhhh on is that they went the Star Trek 2 route and gave Picard a secret son (always a son). I'm never a huge fan of the trope and that they've done it before with Kirk (and Worf) means that I'm just not that impressed. That they also made Picard's son a Chosen One is...well, I guess to be expected but also not my favorite thing. I did rather enjoy the evil Changelings and their motivations (not agreeing to the peace because of the war crimes of the Federation), even if as my husband pointed out they made their "liquid form" decidedly...meaty. Maybe to show that these are more...fleshy Changelings? Who knows.<br /><br />I did also like the work put in to Riker and Troi (less so Crusher and I was hmmm on La Forge because the thing that kept running through my head was "are his kids half hologram???"...Worf and Data were fine). Like the last two seasons, a lot of this one was about putting the past to rest, and here at least we get the family that Picard built on the Enterprise to help him do it (something that I do feel was missing from the last two seasons). That said, it also feels like...an alternate season two rather than a season three, because thematically they hit a lot of the same points and because, well, they also use a lot of the same elements (the Borg especially but Q is there and all and etc).<br /><br />Do I feel like making the Borg the main villains after using season two to kind-of redeem them was a good call? No. And I dislike especially that the fallout from season three's Borg attack would likely set the whole idea of integration/collection defense/etc way back, even casting it as dangerous in the face of what happened. Do I feel that making younger people brainwashed to believe collective action is good while murdering the older generations is a good move thematically? No, unless you want to cast hyper-individualism and "get back to the good ol' days" style messages as positive. Which...heh, no.<br /><br />To put it another way: Season two gave us a Borg who could value consent and it was beautiful. Season three brought back the Borg as the bogeyman who would seduce the youth. Season two found Picard's legacy in his curiosity and his commitment to being open to new life and new civilizations even given his traumatic journey. Season three limited his legacy to a literal offspring who acts as something of a Chosen One. Season two shows that growing old doesn't mean becoming conservative. Season three seems to step back from that, insisting that some conservatism is necessary to defeat enemies who will destroy progress if left unchecked.<br /><br />Which is way more negative than I want to be about the final season of Picard. Again, I did like it. Just...sometimes I can't turn off my reviewer brain. It is what it is. Maybe my opinions would change if I watched it again. Until then, though, feel free to tell me I got it way wrong. Otherwise, keep on being wonderful. Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_vOtdxhdQqQz9SxldCO5Xm39FiSCbTQYJVNAxOLjMc0NErM6uhTo7A070IKoUTby3Bvg62Ryzh_pawcSsX7nbvDUh5HPSeKbkUN_m9sHw2hk2Iwr_jUF8_rjMLsWAJW6fOkryJxe86wrarbwjleJFFrR__EqwECrr99KKieyrfyiCbWa4SR1Xo6wOQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-81615954391689308892023-04-28T16:50:00.001-07:002023-04-28T16:50:13.189-07:00Quick Sips 04/28/2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLVBIepjDEl4H134-kGrZrYs-A736rLgoZfLoe7XGsjVqqWTJVs-no0rqvEzE53M4KEMnXQksZjMtvxRP1OA2tM0kBWiOsFCsO9e0CgU1Qp7n4noczNTACb2JTMHCM6vag9RQHfVQq1MImKe1SgPFojAi4xgG9XaUyJVczE7gpuKd2prTZWODN51U8A/s5248/MoreMorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A tuxedo cat lounges on a cat tower" border="0" data-original-height="2952" data-original-width="5248" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLVBIepjDEl4H134-kGrZrYs-A736rLgoZfLoe7XGsjVqqWTJVs-no0rqvEzE53M4KEMnXQksZjMtvxRP1OA2tM0kBWiOsFCsO9e0CgU1Qp7n4noczNTACb2JTMHCM6vag9RQHfVQq1MImKe1SgPFojAi4xgG9XaUyJVczE7gpuKd2prTZWODN51U8A/w400-h225/MoreMorn.jpg" title="Morn, My Cat Son" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>In which I...</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Give some personal updates</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Apologize for being a mess</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Look briefly ahead to WisCon</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- Discuss why I don't like Kefka (FFVI)</b><div><br /></div><div>Hi everybody! I spent last weekend traveling, and what a difference a week makes. The weekend before we had temperatures in the 80s F, and it was gorgeous out. Since then we had a blizzard and temperatures closer to freezing, with plenty of snow, rain, sleet, and freezing rain all thrown into the mix. It made for a rather gloomy adventure, but husband and I still managed to get out and do a little bit of geocaching, and see some sights in the UP of Michigan. Not a bad weekend, all told.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Among some other general news is the update that I actually managed to do some writing recently. Just in a rather silly novel that husband and I have long been poking at. It's a queer romance/epic fantasy comedy/parody full of magic, barbarians, prophecy, and elves. We actually wrote three whole novels in the series back in the day, but it's one of those things that's probably best cast into the pits of time, as it was when we were still very much figuring ourselves out and we probably weren't as good about playing with fantasy tropes in the same way we are a decade later. I've also been poking at a different possible novella/novel idea that's kind of foodie sci fi mysteries inspired in part by the 90s British mystery series Pie in the Sky.<div><br />So that's all good. I am still, alas, rather behind on a lot of things, but I am trying to figure out how to find a balance in what I'm doing, and I deeply appreciate your support and understanding through all this. Please enjoy the Morn picture included with the post as my way of trying to make it up to you all that I don't really have my shit together in any sense of the word. But onwards!<br /><br />Some other excitement is that WisCon is coming up (Memorial Day weekend) and I will once again be making the journey down to Madison to participate. Though I was typically late in getting sorted out and registering, I did still manage to beg my way onto some programming, including some panels and a new thing called a roundtable, where I will be moderating a group discussion with anyone who shows up? It'll be interesting. I think the roundtable is on feminist time travel and the panels are on "negative" reviews and...something else? And I'll be at the Sign Out with copies of my collection and We're Here, and maybe even some exclusive poetry chapbooks! We'll see!<br /><br />Otherwise, I have managed to pick back up Final Fantasy VI, which I had dropped for a long time as I played through Breath of the Wild and Fire Emblem and etc. I was just at the point where the game opens up, which is always a struggle for me and Final Fantasy games. I do think it's an interesting approach, essentially making you re-recruit your party, which has been scattered to the winds. Each recruitment is rather fun, though, and the World of Ruin is a neat place, even if it's mostly bad times.<br /><br />My main complain with the game continues to be that Kefka is not exactly an inspired choice for primary villain (though maybe that title should go to Ultros, the pervy octopus?). Which is something of a disappointment, because I think I've seen plenty of articles saying that he's one of the great villains of the series/of rpgs in general. And...really, he's not. There might be an argument to be made that he's the embodiment of toxic nerdiness, but I'm not sure I really believe that. Because, really, he's not much of a nerd. He's not much of anything. He's a clown, and while he exposes the ways that having a clown like him in power just because he sucks up to those in charge is a very bad thing, Kefka in himself is just...pathetic?<br /><br />So my main thing with Kefka is that there is no plan beyond opportunism. He waits and he sucks up and he betrays and he rises through the ranks. He uses other people's skills and claims it as his own. He fails up. This isn't really unrealistic in that way. It's that he's uncharismatic, unliked, and incompetent. Yes, he's able to slime his way into more and more power but if anything he's almost as much an ally to the "heroes" as he is an enemy, because his own mistakes and shortcomings foil worse plans than his from winning the day. When the Emperor tries to take control of the great power of the espers, things could have gone Real Bad. Not that the World of Ruin is great, but imagine a world where one person used that power to actually rule absolutely, becoming a god with a vision of dominating the globe and destroying their enemies. Instead, Kefka foils the Emperor and unleashes that power and then...fucks off to a tower where there is no plan. The world is broken, and Kefka is powerful, but that it. There are no efforts to stop the party, or consolidate power, or rule anything.<br /><br />Perhaps the terror is that a fool with the power of life and death is indeed terrifying. No one wants a clown to have the launch codes for the nukes because in a tantrum they might just use them. And Kefka does. But his own end is a foregone conclusion, because he never bothers developing a plan beyond the moment, beyond he wants he wants he wants. All the damage he causes is as much a mistake as willful action. Left to his own devices, and he'd self destruct more. He might take the world with him, and that indeed does speak to something, but narratively speaking it doesn't make him complicated or menacing. Just in need of a solid ass kicking. Which I plan on delivering, just as soon as I level up, gain better equipment, and learn more magic. <br /><br />But okay, sorry for the rant and further apologies if you really like Kefka. I do like FFVI a good deal. Anyway, that's all for now. Cheers!</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdgM7-qsZ72uvsjPDaam3Ht3CKBXIOs_9-UljHGhOeB6u1uWsTtEFaI4euTBl2_52j9e7zua7EI0PBjo2AkMKxSTOpdVdaw1hHO2xhx7A45S6-rFpckOZGFmdj97YWSZ2UvJkbMq0wge7p3g1e2owscpxNdemKZ-gP7xqNLMdTdvIBLP3c818JDdSRg/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-8156401265506554232023-01-13T10:31:00.003-08:002023-01-13T10:31:39.147-08:00Quick Sips 01/13/2023Still here. Still trying. Basically the song of my life for the last…while. I do wonder some times if you can just be sort of stuck in a loop of burnout and productivity. I mean…I do things. Many things, really, from reading and reviewing to participating in a number of other initiatives, plus my day job, plus plus plus. Heh. But somehow I am still stuck in the thinking that I should be able to do more, and I am sort of a disaster when it comes to communication, staying on top of deadlines, and generally not feeling like a wreck. But that’s been the case for a few years now. Whew.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>But today I guess I want to talk a bit about my day job. Which I don’t often engage with in this space, because it’s sort of incredibly dull. I work in prepress for a commercial printer, and have worked this job for over fifteen years now. Which…wow. It was my first job out of college, and while it has been a bumpy road for a number of reasons, it’s also been fairly consistent and by now I’m fairly good at it. I mean, if you want to know about color correction, the Adobe line of programs, XMF for sheetfed and web offset and large inkjet printing, Fiery for digital printing, etc etc, then I can probably tell you a lot of interesting but also niche information.<br /><br />Anyway, one nice thing about the job is that it’s union, and while Wisconsin has gutted its Union movement in the last two decades, it’s still nice to be part of a union and having access not only to the various ways to make sure I’m not being fucked over, but collective bargaining and all that sort of thing. We just signed a rather nice contract for the next five years, and given that for the first five years I worked here we had no raises, having gotten to this point is appreciated. I probably should pay more attention to the union as an organization, but still.<br /><br />Anyway, in the interest of letting people imagine what I do in a given day, most of it is spent at a desk looking at print files, making proofs (electronic and using oversized printers to mock up offset laydowns to make paper proofs), running one of three digital presses, doing laydowns, preflights, etc, and generally waiting for things to rip/print/upload. It’s part of how I have time to otherwise shove in other things, because my brain resists being full idle and I cannot really do things like browse the internet or likewise because it’s against policy. Is reading things copied from the internet or pdfs on my phone not against policy? Well… let’s ignore that for now.<br /><br />It’s interesting too because the job is like stuck between blue collar and…not. It’s in front of a computer a lot of the time yes but also involves making plates, using some heavy machines, being exposed to interesting chemicals, and knowing about lockout tagout things and a lot of OSHA requirements. Which…I did have an amazing joke while Matt and I were watching a historical mystery and a character/victim got pushed into a machine. I cringed and said “Oh…Sha!” and it was very funny trust me.<br /><br />But yeah, that’s what I do for most of my day. It’s not glamorous, and I rarely talk about it, but fifteen years later I’m probably fairly good at it. Day jobs…weird. But yeah, I have thrown off the mystery about my employment. Hope all is well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjckVmnNgbP21MVIcf9jWi4FR-TlVyVHGK5iKAWaLOQOkMFdlFitp--U-g4EOfo8Cv2JLnF8FVlf1oyEp5KX6Wu-MiKqnYqCRVdJiHD5GZtORtkRZvcWJ0q3Bb0hv55Ca0gr8ixSyk6jsVJnWX2YlZDDBAF_BOlg7lHhfQOQ3HUuN1RmyfimVHEgzfFtQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-10093766907632706512023-01-06T09:15:00.003-08:002023-01-06T09:15:48.703-08:00Quick Sips 01/06/2023Sorry about the recent absence! The end of the year just kicked me in the teeth and honestly I haven’t been settled enough to sit down and do an update. For all that, I don’t feel there’s even much to report. I am behind on a lot of things and in the middle of a lot of things and generally screaming. But that’s not precisely new. With the new year I will renew the resolution to be less of a fuckup than last year, but I haven’t had much luck with that historically, so… well, hope remains!<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>There are some little announcements. I do have a new poem out at Kaliedotrope, and my short SFF smut continues to be released two stories per month at JMS books. I am still not doing much in the way of writing, but maybe that will change soon? Maybe? We shall see! Anyway, I’m also doing a lot with the non-profit I volunteer at, including putting together a panel discussion on LGBTQ+ representation and presence in publishing with a number of awesome writers. Just as an fyi if you feel like supporting that, we’re taking donations here: <a href="https://checkout.square.site/buy/7CFF5FKZIG6HL5AHZXTOZU6K">https://checkout.square.site/buy/7CFF5FKZIG6HL5AHZXTOZU6K</a> (if prompted at any point, feel free to say that it’s for the panel event). This will be recorded and posted for anyone to view, so I’m really excited to get to put this together.<br /><br />In other news…heh. Well, I’m trying. I’m still failing mostly to stay on top of my things, including putting out a recommended reading list. Sigh… I am still hoping to. What’s not helping is the winter continuing to cycle through annoying week-long snow systems that seem to eat up a lot of time. Between that and other commitments, it’s just treading water. I do think I might have a reprint sale incoming, though, so that’s nice if it pans out. And…yeah.<br /><br />Media-wise, I’ve mostly still being poking at Breath of the Wild. It’s a fun game, and while I’d like to see a bit more done with the character of Link, I think the gameplay is wonderful and there’s certainly a lot to do. I’m contemplating getting the expansion pass to do even more, but I’m not in a huge hurry there. We’ll see how it goes.<br /><br />It does, however, remind me of something I have vague opinions on—the silent protagonist in video games. It’s something that many games do, preferring to have a protagonist that doesn’t really speak or have much in the way of personality. It gives players maybe more of an opportunity to put themselves into the character because it’s not distinct enough to push them out. Which often leads to a sense that there’s an openness to headcanon that other games might lack, which can be further great because headcanon remains the greatest source of queer content in videogames. But it can also be rather annoying, because without a voice, the character tends to lack a huge amount of agency.<br /><br />I am reminded of the Suikoden series, which has often had a mostly silent protagonist. Then Suikoden III happened and there was a rather strong pushback because that game had all the character have personalities and names (there were other complaints but the loss of the “silent” protagonist was cited quite a bit). That, however, led to the rather unfortunate choices in Suikoden IV and the ridiculously silent protagonist who was…well, rather boring. Who nodded but otherwise didn’t do much, and this in turn lead to the blended approach in Suikoden V, which found a mostly silent protagonist who at least got dialogue options and more of a personality.<br /><br />With Breath of the Wild the issue I have is that Link is defined fairly heavily in the flashbacks as silent because of the weight of the expectations put on him. Because of his family, because of all the people around him who are waiting for him to fulfill a prophecy. And I just personally could have liked to see, especially after losing his memories, a personality and voice begin to emerge. Without that, the whole point of the game isn’t breaking a cycle so much as it is about restoring it. The cycle of the great hero Link, and the princess Zelda, and their victory over Ganon. But what victory is it when really that’s the expectation and it’s always met? This victory has been delayed 100 years because of what happened, and in many ways it’s really impressive that Zelda has been fighting that long. But it’s still the story about the return of the status quo. The first part of that being Zelda’s magical power, which she didn’t have for most of the flashbacks.<br /><br />And that lack is actually framed as a lack. It’s not something they get around, not something where she finds that her skills as they are will be enough to triumph against Ganon. It’s the same powers that she couldn’t activate despite desperate effort that end up saving the day, as they were “supposed to” and the fault for it, such as there is fault, is still hers for not figuring it out sooner. I actually would have liked to see this all play out a bit differently, and there be more of a focus on breaking cycles that CLEARLY ARE NOT WORKING. Ganon just keeps on coming back. If the moral is that constant effort against the forces of entropy and corruption are necessary and often require periods of brutal violence/revolution, then okay maybe. But it’s a grim, fatalistic moral. And wrapping it in nostalgia isn’t actually something that manages to hide that fact, for me at least.<br /><br />Maybe it’s just me wanting a Zelda game to not be a Chosen One narrative and it’s always going to be one. I wish though that Link could get some relief from the weight he’s carried consciously about being this fated warrior and body guard. He gets to have some goofy and less serious moments in the game, and it seems like that could be a part of him he never got to really lean into or express, and instead he’s being pushed back to suppress his desires to save the day, fulfill his destiny, etc. And I just think that more could have been done to subvert that. Though hey, maybe the game will surprise me. I just doubt it.<br /><br />That’s about it for now, though. I hope you’re all having a happy new year so far! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAO995Nl0zgpSYkZl9yIlaiLKBmR6lmq5nOhhPiySyR7xrhMwjasV9eQnYGPuMUeJgDndqh4HGgdi9ZZdHHwBfwbHvo2TdLH4qBCwnAyfSBLcmhrEjxpJFu5GsUX9dlH6wgT8guTSdoA045feNTEtcZW0hfBSO8JVp93KJasFXgVpCRNF85ZMXGvOcg/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-25655168771731570422022-12-16T08:48:00.005-08:002022-12-16T08:48:43.089-08:00Quick Sips 12/16/2022Snow. It has officially returned here where I live in Wisconsin, and I’m not a huge fan. I don’t exactly hate the snow. I’m well used to it now, really, having lived with it for so long. But it’s also a pain in the ass, and shoveling it is never my idea of a good time. But it’s here, and that’s what’s happened. Sigh. Other than that…well…there’s not a huge amount to tell.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>And okay, that’s perhaps not true. I continue to release my smutty SFF at JMS books (I’m up to three stories out) and that’ll continue for the foreseeable. I’m still very much busy doing all the things as the end of the year looms. And I’m doing things with my local non-profit and with my family and etc etc etc. I am still rather tired. But I’m trying and maybe things will improve as long as I just sort of hang in there.<br /><br />In media, I’ve still been poking at Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s a fun game, and despite dying with some frequency it’s a game I don’t seem entirely awful at. I’m slowly building up my arsenal and remembering where good things are and trying to get myself to a place where random encounters aren’t quite so deadly. It’s a game with a lot to collect, a lot to optimize, and a lot to…cook! Yes, that’s right, I do rather enjoy the cooking element of the game, and am disgruntled that I can’t hold more food items because come on! That said, I’m still moving very slowly, trying to upgrade my armor mainly. I figure with good armor I can stand getting knocked around as much I tend to be (poor Link…).<br /><br />One aspect of the game that I find interesting is the idea that Link here has lived an entire different life and has no memory of it. It was presumably a happy one that he fought hard to keep but he also lost that fight. What’s left now is something much different, and there’s the feeling that he’s being pulled to fulfil his part in this prophecy despite maybe having changed some. Maybe not, but it’s interesting to me to think that Link’s personality is a bit different now. More laid back, more comical. In the flashbacks so far (I’ve only seen two) he’s so serious, but in the game he’s having a bit more fun. At least I think so. So there’s a sense to me that getting his memories back is firstly kind of a shame and secondly will mean he has to face what he wants in the face of what he might have wanted and who he wants to be. I doubt the game will get into that but then there’s always fanfic.<br /><br />Otherwise, we’re mostly floundering on what to watch. We went through what’s available of Star Trek: Prodigy and it is a really good show. I hope there are many more seasons. Can’t wait to see what’s coming with the season finale. We’ve also been watching a bit of a show that Matt saw in college called Mr. Meaty which is a nightmare hellscape of puppets but also rather funny (one of those for kids but not exactly for kids shows that work well). Sadly, I think I saw a tweet about a mystery show that sounded good but I didn’t like it and so it’s gone forever now. I want a meaty mystery to sink into but most things we haven’t seen are either one season and then it was cancelled or a million seasons but it’s the most boring thing imaginable. Sigh. Oh well.<br /><br />Anyway, that’s me for now. I hope things are going well with you all! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4IL8nrIeTeb4Wo_42KxC3nQByZf5vBh9UbTQHj_tQt40Lchicb4PNE_YGBw01S9RKIX85_iXJPL9TzEhi43XbgJ2MzAtznCGNGwgBzwvS1-lZAHD0gK2NNoRFC-_LXSwzPzwotbjrYNRTuLimgKx42IQ_dG307ly-KtaSeC3RXJIKvuY5FUxVeFaaA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-22389764147561335232022-12-09T12:07:00.001-08:002022-12-09T12:07:20.300-08:00Quick Sips 12/09/2022 Eligibility PostIt's the end of the year so I guess it's time that I do an eligibility post? That is what people do, and as much as I am struggling at the moment with most things, I will push myself to try. Because, while it's possible I did a little less in 2022 than 2021, it's not like I still haven't done...a lot. My fiction output might not be the highest, but I've still written many reviews, lists, and other things to help people navigate short speculative fiction, as well as co-edited with the amazing L.D. Lewis the second volume of We're Here: The Year's Best Queer Speculative Fiction. So for ease, I'll separate out my award eligible work into three categories.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><b>FAN WORK</b><br /><br />Here is where I am the most prolific, and while my output on Quick Sip Reviews was way down in 2022, I still did quite a bit. So here I'll say I'm eligble for...<br /><br /><b><i>Fan Writing in general, including the Hugo for Best Fan Writer</i></b><br /><br />This for my work at Quick Sip Reviews, Locus Magazine, my Patreon, and anywhere else I'm missing. That includes 10 short fiction review columns, over 40 (there will be 52 by the end of the year) recommendation posts, 11 (there will be 12 by the end of the year) lists of Queer Short SFF, a number of comic book and other reviews, and my weekly musings on short SFF, video games, media, and etc that I still post on my blog.<br /><br />and <b><i>Best Fanzine for Quick Sip Reviews</i></b><br /><br />I've mulled this one over and decided that I did enough on it to say sure, one more time. I go back and forth on this a lot but I still do post weekly and did a lot in the first few months of 2022 that for one last time, I'll put this forward. After this, unless I revitalize the blog or do more than weekly updates and the occasional review, I will recuse myself. There's certainly the argument that it'd be nice to see new finalists, but also fuck it, I did the work in 2022, so there it is.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>SHORT FICTION EDITING</b><br /><br />While I only co-edit a single reprint/best of anthology series, I'm also not going to self-reject this. It's work I'm incredibly proud of, and so...<br /><br /><b><i>Editor, Short Form (*WITH* L.D. Lewis) for We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2021</i></b><br /><br /><b><i>Anthology or Collected Fiction (*WITH* L.D. Lewis) for We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2021</i></b><br /><br />The important thing here is please do not nominate me individually for any editing related award.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>SHORT STORY</b><br /><br /><b><i>"Ember Hearts in Ashen Bodies" (in Dreams for a Broken World)<br /><br />"The Demolition of Trucko Brahe" (forthcoming in Luminescent Machinations: Queer Tales of Monumental Invention)</i></b><br /><br />Two stories, neither available for free online and one presumably coming out in late December. The odds are very long, but I'm also rather proud of these as well.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And there we are, my SFF output for 2022 in award eligibility format. Not nothing, certainly. Thanks to everyone who has nominated me in the past for things! You're all amazing!!!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_qW_EYzYBJOZ_THkFf8XDZiBc1_RWe6K5mefh6hW8nJY3Q-JfYjTGihNctUFC4CMneg4-ZR-yvUDAqyVoNJh2yygAw3z2Qbwk6KU0h0_hopo9Akf6nZGCSA6i6clsSxbHIfKPem3TbV_G4i2y4UIPasEOkwywP0fTa0qnKMlpIf6xQuo8KkPI4Zj2A/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-83723268683065573942022-12-02T11:31:00.003-08:002022-12-02T11:31:33.470-08:00Quick Sips 12/02/2022Still here. Still trying. That’s basically my mantra as we move toward the end of the year. There’s a lot yet to do (so, so much yet to do), but I’m determined to do it, and to maybe catch myself up some. Patrons will have noticed that I slid way behind on Sips of the Week, and I’m starting to catch back up. Hopefully I’ll manage to close the year out strong on that. Some other things are still in the works. My recommended reading list is A Mess. My extra projects likewise. But I have gotten through worse. I will get through this. Thank you so much to everyone’s support during all this. You’re wonderful.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>In other me news, I have more smut coming out. So far the first of my Spandex and Superpowers stories, “Defying Gravity,” has released, and my very explicit but also very fun fairy tale twist “Riding Red” has dropped. December will see the science fiction “Beta Tester” release as well as the second of the Spandex and Superpowers stories, “How the Supervillain Stole Christmas.” I’ve also turned in the stories that will release in January—“Comic Book Romance” and “The Assistant’s Contraption.” It is nice to have these out again, and it’ll be great to have everything out in one place. Woo.<br /><br />In media, I’m a bit lost in terms of things to watch. We rewatched the BBC Marple show with the two different actor’s playing the lead role. We tend to watch and rewatch Bee and Puppycat during lunch because it’s just so great. We’ve been fans of the series since it first released, and I should see if I have all of the comics because apparently those are collector’s items if the price on Amazon is anything to go on. But we’re not really sure what to watch next. We’re caught up on most of our mysteries and such, have seen all the canon Star Trek, and hmm. I’m not watching the latest season of Grantchester because no thanks to gay indecency trials and the queer guy going to prison. I want to keep watching Star Trek Prodigy but episode 10 seems to be missing? I need to look more into that.<br /><br />Anyway, we tentatively started watching Monk because I remember enjoying it but it’s…not aged well we’ll say. Go figure. Maybe it gets better in other seasons, but so far… ouch. Anyway, we’ll figure something out.<br /><br />I’m still playing Breath of the Wild and quite enjoying it. Because I don’t tend to get long stretches of time to play it’s probably hilarious because I’m mostly just exploring and generally fucking around and finding out. Lots of dying, but it’s still lots of fun. I do like that there’s the autosave so even dying dramatically isn’t he worst thing in the world (and I do die dramatically fairly often). I’m not sure I’m at the point where I could write fic about it, but it’s rather enjoyable as a whole. Indeed.<br /><br />Anyway, that’s about it for me. I hope all is well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKn93wnID-V-j0y9oaVAfa2P-3h7opLv5L10fvv6sNe_KXETI_n4JQYTXZpQFXeMvBhUDGbDtzvvq_5eestmuXVz4dQZv45Pg5-6BTpGOVWLe02aUUNO6epgkeCtSJQniyLf6j8MPJBqTW2p2om_tNamFIEGAaI6MexayPdgtYFARdfL5AJRaVV3BztA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-55755870201076878962022-11-04T08:20:00.003-07:002022-11-04T08:20:44.918-07:00Quick Sips 11/04/2022Wow I’m behind on a lot of things. Hmm. I mean, I guess it’s about time to check back in with how the year is going, and what’s working, and what’s not. After all, I’ve made some big changes over the last year, effectively stepping back from Quick Sip Reviews and stepping into my role as a columnist at Locus. I’ve also been settling in as series editor of We’re Here, and that’s been something as well. But…well, we’ll get there.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>On the reviewing front, it’s a little hard to say if what I’m doing now is less work or more work. Certainly at the end of the day it’s less writing, and I’m putting out less reviews than before, though I do still tend to write quick notes on everything I read, so there’s more…waste? Which is a weird way to think of it, because it’s not wasted, but it’s never seeing the light of day, so that’s different. What happens now is that I’ll read and take my notes, and then when it’s closer to deadline I’ll go back, decide which of the works to mention, and then use my notes to write more coherent (I hope) reviews for the final column. This also is what I’ll go through when I’m looking for recommendations or for stories for my queer short SFF lists, as that’s where I make those marks.<br /><br />Because the process is a bit more involved and includes going back over things multiple times, it does mean that I’m reading less, which is rather blah. But then, I was reading a rather unsustainable amount of works before, so something had to give there.<br /><br />Outside of reviewing, though, I feel in some ways that I have more time and in some ways that I have less time. I’ve been writing less creatively, and I still want to change that, want to get to the point where I have a better balance. Honestly, part of that is just wanting to be out of panic mode in my private life, between projects at home and other catastrophes. Not that I have a super lot to complain about, but it seems like we were running things down and it’s a relatively good thing that we made changes when we did so that we could have a bit more financial freedom. The problem is that with that everything we’d been putting off because we couldn’t afford to deal with it is coming due in terms of stuff breaking down and etc, which sucks and is stressful but there it is.<br /><br />I have managed to do a bit of gaming, and do manage to watch things with some regularity. Even there, though, I wish I could be a bit more consistent, and “free time” is something of a laugh, though that’s mostly because of the choices I’ve made to get involved in the local queer non-profit, which has been an adventure in weeping. But maybe that will sort itself out a bit more and things can just settle down (insert manic laughter). It would be nice.<br /><br />And of course there’s more I’d like to do here on this Patreon, like stay on top of my recommendations and maybe bring back personalized recs and things like that. I have plans. Such plans! Unfortunately it’s all been pushed back as I struggle through life in general, which is frustrating, and I apologize for being late on things. Just…sorry.<br /><br />In media, not much has changed from last week because I’ve had to shift away from relaxation mode and back into serious business mode, reading for review and doing some other work. So other than getting to rewatch some DS9 and Marple, there’s nothing new to report. We’ll see if I can manage more soon. Anyway, I hope all is well with you all! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiESvuWDjHnmZb4wLuuKFP2vIM2UxNcb1T0YEp21Lj4MG6ZpAthpC4OG-0GpOWEdf5qPWBUrQPJ9Ewx-pFoeCV4BLF2AzE6JNAKl3k-TVLKpN9uyVbpoKUCoqP0LjAmiSnDdqqlccqHpRzIU842QU9DNyAHJCXeZAFkkMII4vFwGARQAYQg_tRuVJDLtw/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-48286485002559435312022-10-29T07:19:00.003-07:002022-10-29T07:19:43.835-07:00Quick Sips 10/28/2022Apologies for skipping last week, but things have been a bit busy around here. After the dog-tastrophe that happened a few weekends ago, there was the car trouble, and after the car trouble (or more like around the car trouble), there's been helping my husband get through some surgery and recuperating, and after and around that, M'Ress has a little cold. That, and *still* dealing with the non-profit drama with the local non-profit, though that hopefully will be improving (I live in hope). Just general screaming, really.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Luckily, I was able to get my column in on time for Locus, which at least was that off my plate. And the time in Rochester (Minnesota) was, while not exactly...relaxing, was at least away from most things. It's going to be a busy end of the year, as it always is, but I'm trying. It's swinging into year-end things, and I'm starting to work on that in earnest. And, perhaps most importantly, it's almost Suikovember. Suikovember! The month of Suikoden fan-works, including fan fiction. I probably won't be able to write as much as last year, where I managed 30k words, but hey, anything is better than nothing.<br /><br />And in my relative downtime, I was trying to relax a little, which meant I splurged and spent the $14 on the King's Quest Collection on Steam, which has the first seven games in it. This is a highly nostalgic purchase for me, as I played these games a lot as a kid. We had King's Quest II on one of our first computer's, and I got to play some of King's Quest V early, too. Later on, we got the whole collection as well, which came bundled with some other Sierra games. However, as a kid, they really weren't games that I could beat. We eventually found out about walkthroughs, and with those we were able to beat a few of the games. <br /><br />So I sort of set myself the mission of beating them all while on "vacation." First up was KQ7, which is the one with the "best" animation, though it's more cartoonish than the earlier games, and in some ways one of the easier ones. I then went back and played them in order from the first. It's a fascinating progression of games, and I do appreciate that the series sort of gets more and more into its own history and backstory. Especially starting with the third game and the introduction of Graham's family, the games have a wider mythology and connection (I do like how the third game even briefly returned to the screens of the first game). And of course the third, fifth, and sixth games all have very strong ties to each other while the fourth and seventh are also nicely built on each other.<br /><br />I think the sixth game is my favorite of the bunch, because it's one of the more complicated and because it brings together the parts of Alexander's gameplay (especially the spells that were first introduced in the third game) while maintaining a pretty high difficulty (timed tasks, plenty of ways to die, etc) but a nice sense of variety, weirdness, and fun. The fifth game is well done but a little too serious (it makes sense given the situation but it borders on taking itself too seriously). The fourth game is probably my second favorite of the bunch for similar reasons as six (it's fun and has some nice variety without being silly), though it's not quite as hard or long as the sixth. The seventh gets a little silly (the art style plays into it too). The first two games are just a bit too simple, and the third game is way too hard (without a guide, dare I say, it's close to impossible). But as a whole it still holds up as a series, and it was great to go through them.<br /><br />In watching, we've moved through a few mystery shows, though nothing super memorable. I wish there were some better shows that had two women leads, as the ones we've been watching have been rather...not that great, even as they're probably better than the worst of the British mysteries that I haven't even bothered to try (Morse, or whatever, and some of the others). <br /><br />Anyway, haha, I should probably be concentrating on things that aren't old adventure games, but here we are. I swear I'm working on getting caught up on things, I'm just...still a mess. Thank you for your patience! I hope all is well with you! Cheers</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1L-MI71PvZxEqMq4T2C0buGT9OMuC31ZmeqGDgP8xGsS_9JcyEXtNEnW18nPhrZWllqMrB2AX1FUWZMqzDLLrXWsn3WyFhSbSUTIWEB-Kc4fnaH8OkABKfNh_TUnJIFKsHiVgew4y00oIkFvMV2T_3zqcAccj95uldz2Uz9H1jxBUZ8rMC53-HOJekQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-50096454737976720252022-10-14T10:30:00.003-07:002022-10-14T10:30:38.394-07:00Quick Sips 10/14/2022I’m a bit late in writing this up this week, mostly because it’s a weird time of year and this week has just been A Bit Much. First, one of our cars broke down and has been in the shop for the last week, which means we’re back to sharing a car. It…mostly works, in that Matt works 3rd shift (nights) and I work either 1st or 2nd shift (mornings or evenings). Because of my evening shift, and because that’s what I work more often, there’s really no conflict there (unless Matt gets called in by the hospital). But when I work mornings there’s really no time in between our shifts so I have been having to get in a little late and stay a little late. Not a huge deal, but I was also running an event for National Coming Out Day and have in general been trying to do other things and just…yeah, it’s a bit much. But I’m trying.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>In publishing news, the first two of my smutty stories will be released by JMS books next month. They are “Defying Gravity” and “Riding Red.” I chose them in part because I feel they go well with the autumn/coming off of Halloween. “Defying Gravity” is also the first of my Spandex and Superpowers stories, and one of the few that isn’t specifically winter holiday themed. It’s actually quite a bit different than the other Spandex and Superpowers stories, in that it’s shorter and doesn’t have any sex in it. It’s the seed that grew into a larger setting, though, and I still enjoy it and the ridiculous plot and characters (with a cosmic shark that eats realities!). Balancing it is the longer and much more explicit Riding Red, which is actually an M/M/M story about a pair of conmen (Red and Big) meeting a third conman (Jack) while on a job trying to scam an old lady out of her wealth. Things don’t quite go to plan, though, when said old lady is running a con of her own, and one that typically ends in blood.<br /><br />“Riding Red” was one of my favorite smutty stories to write, and you can probably tell that I was enjoying myself as I wrote it, because it embraces camp and weirdness and sex and violence. It’s weird to think that in my “regular” SFF I tend to write a bit angsty and grim, often straddling the line of horror, but with my smut I lean much more into the camp side of things. These are stories where bad shit does indeed happen, or almost happens, but there’s an energy and a brightness that can’t be extinguished. The characters in some ways know what genre they’re in, and that there’s a happy ending waiting for them. So they are a bit more free to push forward, to meet challenges head on, and to not get too bothered when everything seems to go to hell.<br /><br />So yeah, these two are the start of my triumphant return to smutty SFF. I can’t wait to share even more about them (covers, etc) as we get closer to launch. I’ve also turned in my December stories (and cover and blurb forms) so I’ll share what those will be soon. Exciting!<br /><br />In other news, I’m a mess. I’ve gotten back a little to Final Fantasy VI, playing more of the World of Chaos bits, but I’ve not made all that much progress. I’m just bouncing around, really, trying to get to a million things. But some things are still going forward. I did get my contributor copies of We’re Here 2021, and also bought myself an art print of the cover art which is amazing. I have to get that framed but it’s weird having that. I’m really hoping people enjoy the second volume as much as they did the first. And I really need to get some more official work done on the third volume. Internal screaming!<br /><br />Anyway, that’s about it for me for now. I hope everything is going well with you all! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZBt3zH23Z6TfnZmy_PUZJ3eRVDAcSwEJnwP6ZJef5xxXAT_N8AyKHk6lQZIUGYF4LzNNj1IjGo44hjLmo5T61ynfQjVqaVee6geSthB5CVXnWGekSKNuaUthhUt6w8Ko30Ro7gotsqQCZQPqF5qWO1Ed7CkeSJObvQSaLOA3yMYrwCBTBRzOFEQhj1g/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-33305803611562469152022-10-07T15:43:00.001-07:002022-10-07T15:43:30.707-07:00Quick Sips 10/07/2022We made it to October! Spooky season can officially begin! Though in truth, I’m not 100% sure I know how to celebrate. At the moment, I’m trying to enjoy that we recently bought a new bed frame (our first big “adult” furniture purchase), which is indeed quite nice. Unfortunately, our dog Leia has been sick and that has meant having to clean a lot of carpet with Resolve and ewwwwww. Anyway, that aside, I’m also rather deep into a number of projects and trying to take moments to appreciate just how awesome it is to have a gold Ignyte Award medal of my very own (so cool!). I’m here, trying to try.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Media-wise, I have to eat my words a little as Star Trek Lower Decks did have a DS9 episode with Kira and Quark and it was lots of fun. Rather sad we’ll no longer get to have Odo return (or Nog). Sad days indeed. After the flurry of Star Trek, we moved onto Dead End Paranormal Park, which was a lot of fun (I had seen it before but got to watch it with Matt so bonus points). I think it’s getting a second season soon so looking forward to that. Not sure what we’ll watch in the immediate future. Maybe Star Trek Discovery. Hmm. We’ll see.<br /><br />I also finally got through maxing out people’s magic in FFVI (except Gau) and so got to push forward to the floating continent and the incredibly annoying dungeon that turned out to be. Just SO MANY random encounters, and many of them annoying as heck. But I got through them, and beat the boss, and waited for Shadow. The world entered Chaos mode and Celes woke up after sleeping for a year in the care of Cid (shudder). Saving Cid was no doubt THE WORST THING because for a long time I didn’t get that the thing is timed, so I would start getting closer and then get frustrated and try to figure out what I was doing wrong which turned out to be the problem. You just have to run the entire time it’s bullshit. Anyway I got through it only to promptly die in the first random encounter in the new area (one character and got petrified so instant KO) before I thought to save and ARGHHHHHHH<br /><br />But anyway, that’s how that’s going. I’m excited to enter into the end mode of the game, and truly overpower myself. We’ll see how that goes, and then I’ll have to decide what to play next. I really need to read some more comic books, but it seems like every time I’m going to have time to carve out, disaster strikes and I am left with severe inability to do much other than be a vegetable. Sigh. I’ll hope to get back to that soon so I can finish up Wolverine Origins and begins Excalibur! I want to, believe me!<br /><br />Anyway, no real discourse from me this week. Things were mostly quiet and though I saw some things I could revisit (should authors read a venue before submitting there?), I’m just not going to because I do not have the energy right now. Imagine a really good hot take, though. And that’s about it! I can’t believe we’re getting this close to the end of the year. SHIT! Ahem. I mean, uh…yeah. Anyway, I hope all is well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GMhmakgtCTTMGp6BlL9o2pBoG2DF8cFshoUrB7eLJgSHKfzim1aKvEbP5UZ_4WMdYLEl-lek7R0-zoeFyjTtcnnUl0MU9yNjFMfPpxFAAblrq4t2h8siOKRkIgqeGVw3HksXmVhg2nLkKQhZ3YlC9C22_wcDdRZSN06rXDCXNEiqZ0mABcGvlwnNFA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-72930260785371160412022-09-30T10:22:00.002-07:002022-09-30T10:22:38.618-07:00Quick Sips 09/30/2022For those who hadn’t seen it yet, We’re Here 2021 is now released and out in the world! It is super pretty thanks to cover artwork by Paul Kellam, who did a fabulous and colorful cover for Fiyah and whose Insta is incredibly gay and thirsty so obviously it was a fabulous fit for the second year of We’re Here. I do recommend people check out snag a print copy as soon as possible, because they tend to go fast. But it’s exciting launching year two now that the inaugural volume is a Locus and Ignyte award winner. Onward!<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>There’s actually a lot of stuff going on, including me finally pulling the trigger on getting all of my smut back out into the world. Though I’ve been putting it off for quite some time, I’ve signed a contract to republish all 18 of my previously published SFF queer romance and erotic romance stories, which range from a flash piece I’ll be giving away for free to a ~20k story that will be getting released on its own for the first time. All of these will be coming out at JMS Books over the next year, at a pace of 2 stories/month starting in November.<br /><br />It’s actually…quite a bit of work. I had been almost hoping that I could cheat and only release most of them as a collection, but apparently that’s not how it’s done so the collection will come only after the stories have been released individually. And really, it’ll be more like two collections, one that’s all of my miscellaneous stories, and one that’s the superhero Spandex and Superpowers stories. But that won’t be for a while now. Until then, it means rereading, reblurbing, and getting cover suggestion stuff together for almost twenty different works. I’ve finished up most of the work on the ones that will be coming out this year, but that still leaves 14. Oof. This will be interesting.<br /><br />Aside from those, not much new to report in the realms of publishing. In the realms of discourse, someone seems to have taken issue with my calling the Hugos a popularly voted award. If I understand the argument well enough, it’s basically because you need to know about the awards and pay to vote on the awards, and because there is some expectation that you read/peruse the finalists before voting, that it is a curated and juried award. But honestly, I don’t buy it. There’s no requirement that voters read/check out all the finalists. There is no actual boundary between a person and voting aside from the money required for membership. So…I just can’t consider that a curation/juried process.<br /><br />Indeed, it tries to frame the monetary component of voting as something other than a rather corrupt attempt to keep the popularity contest limited to “popular among the people who can afford a WorldCon membership.” Now, there are some initiatives to make those memberships more accessible to people who otherwise can’t afford them, but it’s always going to be something that strikes me more as a tool of gatekeeping/corruption rather than a sign that it’s working to ensure integrity in the system. After all, the Puppies specifically were able to have an oversized impact because they were able to mobilize people with the money to spend, something that we’ve seen historically is going to favor more dominant groups.<br /><br />Don’t get me wrong, I understand that WorldCon needs money to operate as a convention, and the Hugos are a fairly large part of that. I don’t have an alternative to paying to play, given that the Nebulas also have a monetary component in SFWA membership fees, etc. I just…don’t think the monetary elements of the awards make them not popularly voted. It’s still a popular vote, just as the Nebulas are. There is no requirement to consider all of the finalists, and just in general with juried awards you tend to think that the jury members have been chosen because they have some sort of qualification more than $50 in their pocket they’re willing to hand over. So.<br /><br />In media, we’ve finished watching the two seasons of Star Trek: Picard, which is an interesting show. I was actually a little disappointed with the ending, not because it wasn’t good but because it maintained a certain kind of focus on sacrifice that I’m still a little ehhh about. It allowed JL to put some of his own guilt and shame aside, but it also sidestepped that not all of his actions, not all of the ways he’s kept himself from happiness, have been about guilt. Or not just *only* guilt. They’re still very much in the “the needs of the many” category and forget that even Star Trek questioned and rejected that line in the very next (though rather bad) movie, where they offered up the reversal looking at “the needs of the one.”<br /><br />But maybe because “the needs of the many” comes from the more warmly regarded movie, we’ve gotten show after show that sort of holds that up, and Star Trek has been all about personal sacrifice, where people who question that, who mess with that, are the villains. I was hoping that Q was out to teach JL not just to let go of his guilt, but to choose himself sometimes. Over Star Fleet. Over commitments. Over the many. And really he hasn’t still. Taking a chance on romance and love might seem a step in the right direction, and I agree with that, but imo it’s still not really enough. We didn’t linger enough on Chris’s choice to stay in the past, and in any event it became too much about the good he could do there, rather than just about making the decision that made him most happy. And…sigh.<br /><br />Anyway, it was good. We also watched the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy, which was good. Lots of good beats there, and still in the standard U Star Trek so yay. Unfortunately, despite the fact that DS9 is very well regarded these days, I’m a bit disappointed that it’s being ignored in terms of connections to any of the current franchises. All of the standard U shows are pulling from TOS, TNG, and Voyager mainly. And cool, cool. But DS9! Come on! Please! Revisit Cardassia! GARAK!!!!!<br /><br />Ahem. Anyway, that’s that. Not much else to report right now. I hope all is well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6NbfB7ag70qrfmAJgP63hwhpZLwGsgq9LyILy7uer9qTU-3DtSLgerGh9Nmm8sj6Z6lID9pkDfBIGJ2NbIwsOm8nQ7KXSLl41fJ25qHKIiFRjDBZseE-rmk9n3Ck_p-M-hejp-K_yj8NYX-c27DCY65KhKjQ5fgsvdvTcctxbFhSCVeTDwGOMz4OxaA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-74865592460206252212022-09-23T04:58:00.002-07:002022-09-23T04:58:39.420-07:00Quick Sips 09/23/2022It turns out We’re Here 2020 won an Ignyte Award! Which means that I, as one of its editors, gets a shiny gold medal! Fucking right! I am incredibly honored by this, and incredibly proud to have had the opportunity to work with C.L. Clark and all the authors featured in the anthology. I was a bit too shocked and fuddled during the ceremony to make a great speech (in part because I think I was booted from the stage before I could and then wasn’t sure what was happening so I panicked to some extent), but basically what I was trying to say is that I’m incredibly grateful that I can do something that I love, that is all about reading great stories and sharing them. The hard work, that of the authors who wrote and got the works published previously, is arguably the more difficult, but I’m really happy all the same to be a part of it, and am floored that the We’re Here 2020 went undefeated for the awards it was up for. Thanks to everyone who voted for it!!!<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Otherwise, I do see the old Fan vs Pro debate making the rounds again, as it does just about every year. The debate is presumably about fairness and relevance, though there are actually a few different discussions being had. But probably the most important/central question is: “What kind of fan work should be recognized by the Hugo Awards?” Because really, for all we might be talking about other things, that’s really the only question that we can impact. Trying to define Fan vs Pro is ridiculous for all the reasons that people are already enumerating: “pros” are also fans; fan work that isn’t directly compensated/for direct compensation can still be indirectly compensated; uncompensated fan work is easier for those with means/privilege; name recognition/power imbalances are not unique to the fan categories; etc etc etc.<br /><br />People get rather touchy about pros in the fan categories, and not always for the worst of reasons, though I think the biggest of them is the dominant SFF fandom treats wanting to win a Hugo as a sign that you don’t deserve a Hugo. It’s why campaigning is frowned on by a lot of people, especially when it results in people/works on the ballot who are deemed otherwise unsuitable. The reluctant hero is still something that a lot of people in fandom really like, and so there’s a certain romanticism to finalists being people spontaneously recognized for their work rather than people who want to win an award. For some, being honest about wanting an award is enough to invalidate that person’s award-worthiness. When really and honestly, I am 100% sure that even the people who are loudest about wanting and liking awards are not in the field simply to do so.<br /><br />But what about pros who decide they want to win a fan Hugo award and wade in just to snag a trophy so they can put Hugo Award Winning in their bio and on their book covers and then never to a fannish thing ever again? And seriously, what? Like winning a fan Hugo is some sort of easy task. Like voters are swayed simply by a name. Let’s put aside the fact that all winners have to first be nominated, and then have to actually, you know, win enough votes in a system where voters can be petty and punitive. Fan Hugos are often the work of years of fan work and tireless efforts in the SFF spheres. Even when people claim a finalist or winner was only nominated because of a few articles or essays at Tor or Uncanny, there’s the invisible work in social media and other spheres of fan activism, engagement, and effort.<br /><br />So let’s circle back to the question we started with. “What kind of fan work should be recognized by the Hugo Awards?” If you answer “the kind of fan work that is underappreciated and deserves recognition” then I’m sorry, that’s not what a popular vote award is going to give you by definition. Already appreciated fans, fanzines, fancasts, and fan artists are going to have the advantage because by virtue of having fans of their own, they’ll get more votes. If you want awards that will seek to award people doing thankless and vital work, you’re going to need a juried award (both steps, too, because even a juried first stage, popular vote second stage is going to probably favor already popular fans).<br /><br />And I could propose that we get together and create The Fannies (bwahahahaha), but that again is avoiding the question again. “What kind of fan work should be recognized by the Hugo Awards?” Like with all the other categories, the answer is that we should recognize the fan work that was the most popular in a given year. Yes, platform will effect that a lot. Money will effect that a lot. But unless we’re going to seek to correct for wealth, access, and privilege across all the Hugo categories, singling out the fan awards without reckoning with the current shape and state of SFF fandoms is pointless at best. Might as well just say with your whole voice that you don’t think specific finalists or winners DESERVE the recognition. At which point everyone can see what it is you’re really doing.<br /><br />Do I think the fan categories of the Hugo Awards are currently broken? Well as a seven time finalist…not really. But maybe that’s just because I like being a finalist? I mean, maybe I should say yes they’re broken because I likely will never win a fan Hugo. But again, I’m not owed a Hugo for the (amazing and prodigious) fan work I’ve done. There probably just aren’t enough people who really care for what I do for me to win, and you win the award by getting the most votes. That’s the system, not a flaw in the system. Trying to restrict voting, changing eligibility, and otherwise fucking with things to try and make sure that the undesirables can’t win is…actually not something I think we should be considering, especially given how our democracies at large are under attack along the same lines.<br /><br />We just really have to be honest about if we think the system is broken. Is it? Do the finalists and winners truly not deserve the recognition. Don’t counter with people you feel deserve it more. *Do the winners and finalists not deserve the recognition?* If you’re unwilling to say yes to that, then we’ve answered our other core question: “What kind of fan work should be recognized by the Hugo Awards?” The answer is, the fan work that is currently being recognized by the Hugo Awards.<br /><br />Good day.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODnapoIKuBmqn12NByhkCYf__msmT8OSAzWhsnYpvSO3iMBmb-_oKUPNPp6alXh48FL6VtqB8vt-SIIA1df_TgDDztsJ4Lbr_VynpT8hfw4N0jrUHm_AKtPcGZC24JZ-0Oi4WkSCNcb4yXSgryDncVA-CcK4_HA5CHSn-SM9xnBW0o6i5QyNtrlWr2Q/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-62236243851979533142022-09-16T10:58:00.004-07:002022-09-16T10:58:43.933-07:00Quick Sips 09/16/2022So I’m back to being behind on things…kind of. I mean, I did catch up on Sip of the Week posts (and hope to have another one out today for patrons, but I also just feel behind in general. Most of that is purely personal—for whatever reason there’s a lot going on. Some of it’s good, some of it’s not so good, and all of it is taking something of a toll. So the struggle bus continues to roll its way.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>But did you hear the news that Suikoden I and II are going to be remastered and released on multiple platforms, including the Switch? Because I am very excited about that. Yes, I’ve played them multiple times on the Playstation, and still have them, but new platform! Yay! And perhaps a renewed interest in the fanfiction! We…uh…we’ll see on that one. Anyway, it’s news that I’m happy about even if it isn’t news of a Suikoden VI. Maybe if the remaster sells very well? Anyway…</div><div><br /></div><div>I feel like a lot of my life has just ground to a halt. I have no real updates to my X-Men comics reread. And I’ve really only been trying to get people their magic/espers maxed in Final Fantasy VI, so no real progress there either. The only thing in the realms of SFF that I’ve been doing, aside from reading a lot of short fiction, has been watching some actually new Star Trek with my husband and watching Sandman on my own. Which, I mean, I do have some thoughts there.</div><div><br /></div><div>I’ll start with Star Trek because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any new Star Trek. I saw the first of the new Star Trek movies and noped pretty hard off of them. I’m sure that I’ll go back and check out Discovery at some point, but that’s just not my favorite timeline. The first thing we actually watched with fresh access through Paramount+ (through Prime) is Star Trek: Lower Decks. Which was surprisingly good. Not only is there good queer rep, there’s also just a sense of fun while playing with the long history of the franchise (and the original franchise, not the reboot). It’s a comedy but has its emotional beats and big action moments, and there’s a lot to enjoy.</div><div><br /></div><div>After that, we stayed in the original universe with Star Trek: Picard and it’s much less a comedy. In many ways these seasons are shaped like movies, and I really liked the first one with the focus on androids, synthetic life, and possibility. The second season, moving to time travel and (I hope) self care, is just as interesting (even if my husband grumbles about the time travel and Q elements). I really actually hope that (but no spoilers please) the real lesson that Q is trying to teach here is about not sacrificing yourself. About valuing yourself and looking for other ways, and being willing to live, and live invested in your own happiness. Because duty and sacrifice are all well and good, but without happiness, without prioritizing that, they don’t really lead to great outcomes. Anyway, that’s me hoping but also vaguely predicting how this season might end, that Q might here want JL to pick his own happiness for once. But we shall see.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for Sandman, I admit that I’m less invested in it than Star Trek. I did very much enjoy the series when I read it in graphic novel form. But I wouldn’t consider it transformational for me, and I still prefer the X-corner of comic books. I admit I’ve appreciated most of the updates to the original so far, and I am enjoying watching the series. It’s strange, in part because Dream was always something of a weird protagonist, incredibly overpowered and aloof. As an introvert, as a fantasy enthusiast, it was always easy to identify with Dream, but in the show so far I’m a little less so, perhaps…I don’t even know. Perhaps because seeing him played by a human makes him seem less…something. Or maybe I’ve just changed. I’m not sure. But I’m on board to see where it goes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, that’s me for now. Hope things are going well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqZgSbaqTmkqr6kcv0UK-wma6UPqRqz6VC1Q7oZdxIZd983EXhkxpl8mlDt3fzgx0v5gZqyrT7fRzEOti5YKUdm1pSD3N3WA8GijNSi045HcqgabtQLeTQqvsCZuZhiBcIa-YWJ6siaBNEI8SlBqeS-dOzKgLTzsspiX4XIG_4f3YPLYCoqI9d0qjnQ/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-39802720932794743072022-09-09T17:09:00.004-07:002022-09-09T17:09:46.639-07:00Quick Sips 09/09/2022Well, I didn’t win a Hugo Award. Indeed, Quick Sip Reviews ended up tied for fifth place with the estimable The Full Lid. Which is about as high as I’ve ever placed in the Hugo Awards. So it’s humbling in many ways—in that I’m humbled to be honored as a Hugo finalist, and in that I’m faced once more that I’ll probably never reach that particular brass ring, or at least not as a dedicated short fiction reviewer. Which…fair. As I’ve said before, what I do is rather niche, and it’s hard to be particularly angry that it means that it’s always going to be a far stretch to compete with projects/blogs/writers who cover a wider (and arguably more popular) field.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Though it’s also difficult at times to not be discouraged about that, too. But then, it’s not new. I’m always reminded of fanfiction when it comes to these kinds of feelings. Full disclosure, I write fanfiction, largely in the very small Suikoden fandom. Which…doesn’t exactly play out like fanfiction does when you’re talking about large and popular fandoms. I do remember people saying that writing fanfiction was a way to get validation and instant feedback, a sense of community where short SFF often lacks that. And yet when I write fanfiction and post it, it’s rarely to the instant feedback and engagement that many people might experience. And it’s because not all fanfiction is equal. There are popular fandoms, and popular pairings and tropes within those spaces. Writing weird fic from a video game series that hasn’t had a new entry in a long time means that I’m lucky to get over a dozen hits, and even one kudos.<br /><br />Yes, I could probably write for more popular fandoms and get more engagement. But that would sort of defeat the purpose of, well, writing what I want to write. Same with short SFF reviewing. Yes, if I changed *what I covered* and maybe even the way in which I covered it, I might stand a better chance of winning a Hugo. Maybe. The thing is, also maybe not, because while I probably could do a good job of it, it’s not what I really want to be doing, and that might show through. In the effort to chase after greater traction and popularity, I could find myself in the same situation of close but not quite, and I wouldn’t even be enjoying myself as much. So…sigh.<br /><br />There is always an element of “why aren’t my interests more popular” when navigating fan spaces. That particular sentiment is a huge fuel for online complaints and general toxicity. Yes, I would love if suddenly more people engaged with short SFF and more people suddenly found and really loved what I do. 1000%. But I can’t blame people for liking what they like. Yes, I’d love to win awards. Awards are cool. Yes, I’m occasionally frustrated that I’m not more popular, and in times when I was less financially secure I *really* wanted to be more popular so that could translate into more money and stability. But I do also love doing what I do. If I change things, I want it to be because I am chasing what I love, not what I think will get me an award. If I end up getting an award, I’d rather it because there was finally enough overlap between what I am most passionate about and what resonated with the most people.<br /><br />I would have loved for Quick Sip Reviews to get an award. For 7+ years it has been a labor of love. But four Best Fanzine nominations on top of three Best Fan Writer nods means that it wasn’t really overlooked. A lot of people really did appreciate it, and I appreciate all of them. All of you. I’m still undecided if I want to throw QSR up for Fanzine next year. I’m still here, and I still put out a lot of reviews in the first part of the year. But honestly I’m more plugged into other things this year, and I’m not sure how I feel about everything.<br /><br />There are other things to be said about if awards *should be* popularity contests. And honestly, that’s a big and thorny issue, and one that I obviously have a vested interest in. I do think there are different ways of doing things, but not while driving the same kind of engagement that the Hugos offer. And everything has its drawbacks and issues. So…<br /><br />So the work continues. As always. And sometimes the work changes. For now, I’ll wait for my fifth little rocket pin representing seven times as a finalist. And I’ll wait to see if next year people want to nominate me or my work again. And if I find new projects to launch, or new initiatives to join, I’ll consider that, all while trying to find my way in fan spaces that are sometimes wonderfully accepting, sometimes terribly excluding. And if you find me out there, muddling my way, feel free to stop and say hello. Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYxK8nOtIZRHWhfMek4zbXKVx_0uhJtB8SsX5WkGfY7FmbNPtBmGZERej3IuOTQx3G7R2uNp1-WvZSBMB7W49vkR9ClSbg0xaIgb3H29jp3-aHewaZpY9i2O6RvByqVcPVoCNqi1ztYyQvdBDI-Tb_W8_jQ5VFgYVdd-FaFSpIiuXOaIc62yvEq0iezA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-38747666225400965882022-09-09T17:09:00.003-07:002022-09-09T17:09:40.464-07:00Quick Sips 09/02/2022So it’s WorldCon week and alas I am not going to be there in person. It’s my fifth year as a hugo finalist, and I’ve only been able to attend in person once, though for the past three years that has been at least in part pandemic related. The rest has been down to not being able to afford to go. Indeed, the only way I attended in San Jose was because there was such an effort to get finalists there who couldn’t otherwise afford. It was incredibly appreciated, and definitely a highlight in my time as a finalist. I had hoped, what with Chicago so close, that this year was going to be a sure thing, but some complications, including a lingering pandemic, have made it impossible. Boo.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>My life otherwise has been bouncing between trying to get reviewing done and trying not to break apart under the strain of multiple stresses. I’m…still here, at least, which is something. And I’m planning on still being here for the indefinite future. And I am looking forward to paneling during the virtual programming for the convention. Talking reviews, stories, and probably not winning a Hugo (that’s what booze is for). It’ll be fun.<br /><br />Outside of that, I’m working on catching up on all the things. I owe some recommendations, a drunk review of the final chapter of Wolverine Origins, and need to get the queer short SFF list up for August. It’s going. Sorry things are a little late. I have at least been keeping up with posting pictures of my pets, so hey, that’s something. Media consumption has been pretty sporadic, though. I’m enjoying moving through the David Suchet Poirot, at least partly as a sleep aid.<br /><br />In video games, I’m still playing through Final Fantasy VI, and at a point where I can probably mostly work on getting magic points and leaving Gau some more techniques and such. Unfortunately I was hoping that doing so with Strago in the party would help him, too, but alas most of the enemies aren’t casting any blue magic. Maybe that will change. In the meantime there are a lot of espers to master for people. A Lot. I’m sure it’s easier to do later in the game but I’d prefer to do what I can now so it’s more manageable then, especially because there’s going to be even more espers and even more characters. Whew.<br /><br />In reading, I did get through the last of what was available for Generation X, and I’m not really a huge fan of how that series ended. Ev dead, Chamber recruited to the “adult team,” Sean headed into the unknown, Emma kinda sorta evil again, and the rest of the team…kinda up in the air. And of course things don’t necessarily go well for them. Chamber and Husk each have stints with the X-Men, though it doesn’t really work out for them. Jubilee is almost killed, while Skin is killed. Jubilee and Chamber are both depowered on M Day. I guess I need to read the New X-Men title to find out if there’s any more interesting stuff that happens with the younger people. Only M seems to land rather solidly with X-Factor investigations, but who knows how any of them are in the newer comics. Not me, certainly.<br /><br />Anyway, with that done I was sort of bouncing around a little finishing up some series that have significant holes in them. So I’ve now gotten through all of what’s available for X-Factor and Alpha Flight (which at least includes the Northstar is gay issue but is otherwise ridiculously spotty and seems like it would have been a fascinating read… ah well). I’m now moving through X-Force and after that will probably do Cable, because those titles are fairly closely linked, as well as X-Man just because I don’t think there’s much at all of that on Marvel U. After that, hmm. Then I might get back to following the “core” titles of Uncanny and X-Men a bit closer, with Wolverine for good measure. Those were the titles I actually consistently followed, so that will have some nostalgia at least. Still kind of slow going, but I’m having a good time. Onwards!<br /><br />And that’s about it for now. Safe travels to everyone going to WorldCon! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYxK8nOtIZRHWhfMek4zbXKVx_0uhJtB8SsX5WkGfY7FmbNPtBmGZERej3IuOTQx3G7R2uNp1-WvZSBMB7W49vkR9ClSbg0xaIgb3H29jp3-aHewaZpY9i2O6RvByqVcPVoCNqi1ztYyQvdBDI-Tb_W8_jQ5VFgYVdd-FaFSpIiuXOaIc62yvEq0iezA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-68604757230821126132022-08-29T04:44:00.003-07:002022-08-29T04:44:38.294-07:00Quick Sips 08/26/2022<div><i>[apologies this is getting up late, but Friday I wasn't feeling great and so I've been low key the last few days and starting to catch up now. Thanks for understanding!]</i></div><div><br /></div>Hi all! This week brings a mild annoyance of my air conditioner not working, which is kinda blah as it’s been warm (though admittedly not nearly as hot as many places in the country and world where things are much more so). Perhaps not surprisingly it’s made sleeping more difficult, as I like to sleep in the cold and even in the basement it’s been warm. Sigh. Anyway, a service person is coming out and at least now the prospect of a bill of an air conditioner fix or even a new air conditioner isn’t something that’s doing its own kind of chilling. I’m sure we’ll be able to afford whatever it is, though it’s still rather unwelcome. Plops.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Otherwise, I’ve been trying to get to this and that. I did turn in my latest Locus column on time on the 20th, which is a relief. I’ll be trying to catch up on some other things now that’s in and I can maybe have a breather soon. We’ll see. And of course the Hugos are just over a week away, and I have some programming otherwise to get ready for, including a “So You Want To Be A Reviewer” panel that I’m very excited about because it’s got a lot of really awesome people it will be fun to talk to. I’m still not sure really what to say on the subject. Hmm.<br /><br />One thing I was poking at recently was the About Me section here on Quick Sip Reviews, because I’ve let it get rather out of date (same with my works/publications page). I’ll be working on fixing those in the coming weeks I hope. But it did give me some perspective as I was updating everything, and chasing down links, and otherwise thinking about my reviewing journey, which has been rather wild. I started at Tangent in 2014 and it really wasn’t a good scene. I kept doing that and joined Nerds of a Feather in late 2014, beginning my long running The Monthly Round column, where I’d pair short fiction and alcoholic drinks. It’s still one of my favorite projects I’ve done. Anyway, I then started Quick Sip Reviews in January 2015. At that point I was still reviewing for Tangent, too. Thankfully, I backed away from Tangent toward the middle of 2015 and shifted focus to NoaF and QSR.<br /><br />Things continued mostly unchanged until the middle of 2016, when for financial reasons I launched my Patreon. There weren’t really any changes to that, then, until 2018, when I stepped back from Nerds of a Feather and got my first paid reviewing gig at The Book Smugglers doing X Marks the Story. Through all of that, I continued to run and expand Quick Sip Reviews. 2019 saw The Book Smugglers stop their paid publishing, and for the first time I was only doing QSR and my Patreon. That lasted until 2020 when I restarted X Marks the Story irregularly as an unpaid thing. That continued through halfway through 2021 when The Book Smugglers largely stopped putting up content.<br /><br />In 2021, however, my attentions were pulled to the release of two books—my short fiction collection The Burning Day and Other Strange Stories and We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020 (edited by C.L. Clark and myself). I was then approached in late 2021 to take on a review column for Locus. I accepted, as I began that I also began winding down work on Quick Sip Reviews, closing out my 2021 content in February 2022 and moving to the format I’m in now, with weekly updates but only infrequent reviews.<br /><br />It’s interesting, in part because “So You Want To Be A Reviewer” is part of this journey. I did want to be a reviewer, and so I set about reviewing as much as I could as well as I could, shifting with my abilities and my life situation otherwise. But aside from the money I made through my Patreon, it took me over three years to get a paying reviewing position, and I lost that after a year, only to get a different paid reviewing position after over seven years of being a reviewer. It pays to persist, I guess.<br /><br />Anyway, just sort of looking back on this all and thinking. I also got to track my award nominations, which began in 2018 with being a Hugo Finalist for Fan Writer, and continues to this year where I’m up for a Hugo in Fanzine, an Ignyte for Best Anthology/Collection, and won a Locus Award for Anthology for We’re Here alongside C.L. Clark. There again, though, it took over three years of doing a whole lot of work to be nominated for anything, and my first award win wasn’t for reviewing at all, though my review work and We’re Here are definitely both linked. But yeah, looking back is a hell of a thing.<br /><br />And that’s about it for now! In media, I continue to play Final Fantasy VI rather slowly, am now watching the final season of Sherlock Holmes, and am almost through what Marvel Unlimited has for Generation X. I hope all is well with you! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXilcSQKktx285QZ26AkkS2L00CtSVMNn19SO9umNGm28c0RD7w3hIDAt9hnxSpliOIuLOiHIkhQOB72usYQjH3mOa0PHLKwvNl9x82ku6EMDzMfKchwy2iLui_ue6n5q04VMeeFZhFHaY0ey-iCOBIN1d2CsHZK0Nd0J8c-g6SzQ1Vx0waMUpmzLUw/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-35062448200615313522022-08-19T08:14:00.001-07:002022-08-19T08:14:19.249-07:00Quick Sips 08/19/2022So there’s not a whole lot to report right now in the land of me. I am busily working to turning in my next Locus column, and have read a whole lot to get that done (another 90+ month). That has put me behind on some other things, like recommendations, but I hope to catch up on those soon too. Until then, I’m just trying to try.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Most of my attention otherwise has been taken up by my non-profit work. I’ve talked about it some here before, but I volunteer with a queer center in the city I live in and we’re going through a rather long process of structuring/restructuring, which is full of possibility and frustration. I’m finding that I’m enjoying the process of trying to figure out what kind of work I want to be engaged in doing along those axes, and how the structure of the organization can be used to make that work easier and more effective. It’s kinda nerdy and wonky but mostly enjoyable, or would be if it were solely an intellectual process. Alas, it is also a very practical process, and in reality it’s full of conflict and resistance and a general lack of engagement.<br /><br />I will admit, I’m just not a huge fan of Pride the celebration. Not because it’s not important or vital or anything like that. I just really don’t like parties, even queer ones. Too much noise, too much people, too much all of it. So I get a little frustrated that the biggest accomplishments of the organization have been to put on this one event every year. It’s a nice event and I’m always happy to help with it, but I do wish (desperately) that there was a bit more enthusiasm for the rest of the year and making sure there was support and assistance and things to do for queer people in the area…the rest of the time. But sigh, this is my own pettiness leaking out into the world.<br /><br />I’m still hopeful that I’ll be able to make some sort of difference, and that we can build a bit more of a robust organization. I want to avoid the drama. Wish me luck.<br /><br />In media, I’ve still been poking away at Generation X and enjoying for the most part. It was stuff I had been forced to skip before so getting the chance to read it is nice, and see some of the personalities of the characters emerge. Banshee is a strange person in this story, though, in part because of how he’s positioned relative to Emma Frost, who does come off as a bit more complicated and damaged, given that this is part of her rehabilitation after losing the Hellions. Everyone is pretty fucked up, and it’s only sad that it gives this much more diverse group of characters a rather doomed feel. Though some of them at least made a nice transition to the “adult” team. Except now I remember the whole Warren/Husk thing and I’m cringing again. Hmm.<br /><br />And I’ve been watching Poirot, which is a show that just puts me to sleep, but as I’ve been watching it to fall asleep, it’s been doing an admirable job. Suchet does a fantastic job in portraying a detective that is thorough and methodical and a bit full of himself. Moreso than Holmes, who cared nothing for credit or even his reputation. I’ve also been watching the Jeremy Brett Holmes and apparently didn’t realize that part of why I love it so much is that Brett brought his big queer energy to it. Really it is a very queer portrayal, and Brett seemed to be loving every moment of it. Such a fun series.<br /><br />That’s about it for now, though. Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFu__4c6bl2ULvTGAKSXZmIqn6E_8OTlSlIWcJXMRHJ6Pow-m4p3MOE4zJ5oCvxnk6sCNST7KhCeGGqKdyYUX8_daBqoCfawqvHGQZJFDqT4uMFSmRMKBvIoAUISpYZGM8j9GfflYHJGqnEUunJ5-frnaLKK8QnVqeUs4fm3SSPCmx2DuvoowZTQxuZg/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5921299676772566445.post-47463255581093589162022-08-12T06:35:00.001-07:002022-08-12T06:35:22.859-07:00Quick Sips 08/12/2022Hello again! By the time this releases publicly, voting for the Hugos will have closed, and I hope if you had a membership you took the time to vote. It’s a slightly strange place to be in, as a finalist once more in the Fanzine category, in part because it’ll likely be the last time that QSR is up for that prestigious award, which means it might also be my final time as a finalist. Maybe not, but there’s a strong chance. Coming off of winning the Locus, I find that it’s a little harder to push down the hope that QSR might win this year, but I also know that historically my little review blog that could doesn’t fare well in the final voting, so I will try not to let myself hope.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Time this week I think to check with my old friend, burnout. In part because I think that this time of year is always kind of hard for me, not just because it’s award season but because coming off of conventions, reviewing tends to ramp up a bit as publishers who maybe have been a little behind because of the travel and everything catch up and bury us poor short SFF reviewers. Or maybe it’s just that as summer wraps up and winter looms it’s harder to get out of the doldrums. For the most part, though, the change in how I review, the move to Locus, has been a good one and I’m definitely I feel better able to stay on top of that work.<br /><br />I’ve also been less present on social media, though I do try to tweet about when my reviews go live, and I’m otherwise trying to do things that bring me some joy (like livetweeting my playthrough of FFVI). My relationship with social media has just changed, in part because the landscape surrounding having opinions on the internet is complex and messy. And experience has taught me that some things, some conversations, just can’t happen well in such a public space. There are certainly things I regret about some of how I’ve acted on social media. Not because I was ever less than honest, but because I think I wasn’t as careful as I should have been.<br /><br />Social media has always I think prevented me from doing some personal and introspective work on me. Not that I dislike social media. But I can tell that my anxiety about it stems from a lot of really toxic bullshit that I’ve been sitting with. My biggest joy remains finding and sharing queer short SFF, and that’s work that I continue to exert myself for. It helps me to understand myself better, and to more fully engage with the world, not just online but in my activism work as well. Just…sometimes you gotta brood with some shit, and at the very least it’s helping me I think have a healthier relationship with social media and myself. Yay.<br /><br />Anyway, I’m happy that We’re Here 2021 is getting close to release. It is a gorgeous book and L.D. Lewis was a joy to work with, and selected some phenomenal stories. Just really excited to share that with people. Looking ahead, and I’m a little scared about next year’s collaboration, but that’s mostly because of how big a fan I am of Naomi Kanakia’s work, especially 2020’s “Everquest,” which appeared in the first We’re Here. That story… just wow. It’s so raw, so visceral, and so vital. I really cannot say how much it’s meant to me.<br /><br />Moving to media, and I’m still playing Final Fantasy VI and am still relatively early in the game (just before the Opera House). It’s fun so far, though the characters are rather uneven to me. It’s neat that the story is willing to go so dark so often, building a truly grim world in this pixelated setting. But then grim is Final Fantasy’s style, by and large. And there’s certainly an interesting mix of elements and moving parts. From the espers to the relics and all points between, there is a bit of strategy that goes into just about everything and keeps it all rather interesting (if also occasionally frustrating). So yeah, I’m enjoying it so far. Thinking that next up I’ll be looking for a PS2 game to play (probably Wild Arms 3, Persona 3 FES, FFXII, or…something else I’d have to check). It’ll be nice to at least get away from the original Nintendo graphics that I’ve been in for the last while.<br /><br />Otherwise, I did watch Dead End: Paranormal Park and thought it was well done. There’s a lot of explicitly queer themes in the show, with one of the main character’s a gay trans man and the other an autistic queer woman. Lots to enjoy, including the adorable pug wizard. A lot *about* queerness and family and that sort of thing, which can get a little cringe at times but just because those are messy things and the show kinda sorta aims at putting on a happy and accepting face and so your mileage may vary if that sort of happy ending just isn’t possible (the show assumes that people’s hearts are in the right place and that everyone is fairly reasonable and not, you know, how actual bigots are so there’s that and it’s a fine choice to make, especially in a kid’s show). Anyway, yeah, that’s about it for now. Hope you all are doing well! Cheers!</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/quicksipreviews" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1400" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdOnvzqi8uQKmWN-yvAhz_MeLw_KGJqdKKlhI4FIjnJjV2kGzrSXTb3wVYi42GUiUFqdfCKe9oVH-JtBoRIl9YdEEqCAaiAlUSwi84Bzg1ukAuzVfbWOzNHFoWX5p9kqtAtCiaSkrwUfwLw6EXRzMtCinxl2Jp3olq5dRwtWYNYZZI-ojIztzdzzhkA/w640-h458/PatreonFooter.jpg" title="Support Quick Sip Reviews on Patreon" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Charles Payseurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04573698060020195566noreply@blogger.com0