Sara Reine, Author at Egregious - Page 16 of 44

sara reads the feed

more fuzzy head complaining, rats in EA & warehouses, Werner Herzog on Barbie

2024-03-05 /

Quitting caffeine is so much harder on me than quitting weed so far. I spent so much time yesterday staring at my screen, trying to write, unable to think of any words. I hate stimulants. Mild use, for me, apparently means heart palpitations; quitting it once I’ve got a dependency means becoming an utter zombie with relentless migraines.

Guzzling iced tea got me into more of a thinky place by the end of the day, but that’s not really a long term solution.

I have to believe if I quit-quit, it will all be better in a month, but I have already sacrificed a month to babysitting myself through weed withdrawal and I’m so reluctant to do it again so soon. On the other hand, from what I’ve learned about substance dependency the last two years, I really want to…not be dependent! On anything! It just sucks because caffeine is in so many things, like basically every drink I enjoy, and also chocolate, and even OTC migraine medications.

On the bright side, I’m not even thinking about weed much anymore, which I never would have thought possible two months ago. Two years ago. Eight years ago. Sober life is pretty neat.

~

Another reason it’s good to be off weed is because studies may link cardiovascular disease to cannabis use. (Ars Technica) The more you use (especially daily like me), the likelier you are to have a heart attack or stroke. Considering my heart palpitations became a THING when I was quitting, I totally believe this. There is a big cardiovascular involvement.

The classification of cannabis with far more dangerous drugs has prevented studies like this until recently. America’s drug war has made drugs more dangerous on multiple axes.

~

If you watched the John Oliver episode about dollar stores (YouTube), you won’t be surprised that Family Dollar has been fined over rodents in its warehouses. (NPR)

~

The CDC recommends covid boosters for ages 65+. (Ars Technica) If the CDC, who recommends you should try licking that light socket, is suggesting the booster, y’all should get the booster.

~

Game industry layoff gore continues. EA is laying off 650 employees. (Engadget) Yikes, EA.

~

For the time being, Star Trek is safe from David Zaslav and Zaslavian destructive management style. Paramount won’t be acquired by Warner Bros. (Ars Technica)

~

I have to share this for the great headline, which you MUST read in his voice: Werner Herzog Watched 30 Minutes of ‘Barbie’ and Asked: ‘Could It Be That the World of Barbie Is Sheer Hell?’ (Variety)

~

Montana, of all places, says that a woman’s right to abortion is tied to her right to privacy. A judge declared three anti-abortion laws unconstitutional. (NPR)

~

The Oscars loves snubbing horror movies (NPR), as evidenced by the fact Nope should have cleared the 2023 Oscars and did not.

~

Two days ago, Ars Technica reported that X revived its anti-deadnaming policy.

Today, X bent over to suck right wing interests and killed the policy again. (Engadget)

~

Sophie Boutella defends ‘Rebel Moon,’ and rightly so. (Variety) The movie itself was bad, in the opinion of my review. But Sophie Boutella acted her ass off in it. She committed herself to some of the absolute worst dialogue and gave some absolutely excellent line readings. It’s not her fault the film sucked. She’s right to want to see it treated better when she did her part so well.

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Sara Reine

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doc martin

Doc Martin s1e1: “Going Bodmin” (2004)

2024-03-04 /

Doc Martin is the greatest TV show ever made. I can’t tell you exactly why this is true. I can list things that I love about the show, but what about these things makes it “the greatest”? I’m not entirely sure. But I love Doc Martin in a way that I have never loved a show on my first watch-through.

I adore the titular character, Martin Ellingham, though I initially found him off-putting. You need a keen eye to see actor Martin Clunes’s comic chops through his dour, neurotic, wooden-faced performance as Dr Ellingham. After a time, it becomes clear the only reason this character (who is incredibly autism-coded) works is because Clunes is a genius of physical comedy. He delivers the driest English humor and most restrained-yet-cartoony gesture work.

Martin is wish fulfillment in a character. He says what’s on his mind and tells people to shut up, go away, etc without a hint of shame. His incredibly logical approach to this batty small town feels a lot like being an autistic person in real life. It’s never quite clear why we’ve left someone miffed when we’re just speaking the unfiltered truth. Martin speaks with thorough medical confidence, which makes it all the more frustrating when he offends an entire village with his frankness.

The main appeal of Martin, for me, is competency porn. He’s really good at his job, usually. Mistakes can be made, but it’s seldom because he doesn’t care enough. If he realizes someone is in real danger, he cares deeply, and he won’t let go of the case until everything has been handled. Some have said medical shows are the hospital version of copaganda; it gives an unfairly glowing idea of a system that is incapable of producing sleuths who care so much and commit so many resources to any individual case. As someone medically complicated, I like dreaming of a doctor who could fix me.

Martin alone isn’t enough to make this show The Greatest. It’s a lot of things, big and small, that make Portwenn feel real and keep me returning to its Cornish shore.

The closest comparison I can make to an American TV show (at least, one that I’ve watched) is Elementary, another 1/3 of my all-time favorite TV shows, along with Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal. Elementary also stars an English lead who is autistic-coded with terrible social skills. They’re both shows oriented mostly toward mysteries, too. They’re procedurals where the central detective isn’t a cop. There’s also a female lead who I find extremely appealing: Lucy Liu in the case of Elementary, and Caroline Catz in the case of Doc Martin.

Doc Martin is funnier, though, and often less reassuringly predictable than Elementary; some of the episodes sincerely stress me out. But that excitement is part of the appeal too. Hence why I want to review THE GREATEST TV SHOW EVER MADE, episode by episode (if it suits me). I am obsessed, it itches my brain, and I have mentally moved to Portwenn. I’ll send you a post card.

Please note: All of these posts will have spoilers. I highly recommend watching the episodes before my recaps because the guessing is part of the fun.

~

Episode Recap

Doc Martin flies into the small Cornish town of Portwenn to accept a new job as the general practitioner (GP). Before his surgery has been prepared, he’s already facing his first medical mystery.

It’s called “Going Bodmin” in reference to an asylum in Bodmin. The giggling girl chorus that remains *delightfully* consistent throughout the TV show calls Martin Bodmin from the get-go. They’re right, but can you blame him? You can imagine why when he’s losing his cool over the dog in the surgery, the narrow roads, and a town that wants to do everything but allow him to work peacefully.

The real story here is that Martin hates small-town life, but he doesn’t have any choices. He’s gotten himself driven away from his fabulous London job. The problems from London will follow him everywhere because the problem is Martin. He has to make this terrible town work, because he’s terrible at being human. And Portwenn desperately needs a doctor. The GP preceding him, Dr Sim, left behind a complete mess.

The medical mystery: Why does an older gentleman have gynecomastia?

Martin thinks it’s because enboobied Colonel Gilbert Spencer’s wife, Susan, is using way too much oestrogen cream, but when a surfer also shows up with gynecomastia, Martin loses confidence in that theory. There’s some question whether the water in Portwenn might be contaminated–which comes up again later.

It’s easy to predict the reveal yourself before Martin figures it out because the answer is unspooled from the very beginning. You can see Susan bustling away from her affair as soon as Martin arrives, and her distracted surfer paramour loses his car to high tide.

You already know the affair is coming long before it’s discovered at the worst possible moment. People love spoilers, especially when they spoil themselves. But you can easily understand why Martin, who is terrible at predicting human behavior, would not understand the mystery sooner.

Louisa & Martin: Martin and Louisa meet for the first time on the plane into town. Martin does the thing where he stares intensely at a woman until she thinks he’s a pervert, but he whips out a diagnosis that defuses the situation…kinda.

Louisa Glasson isn’t convinced that Martin is cut out for the village. He’s spent 12 years as a surgeon, who see people as bodies rather than people. And oh *boy* are the residents of Portwenn “people,” not bodies.

But Louisa begins respecting him when she realizes that Martin was correct diagnosing her with glaucoma. Much like myself, Louisa loves a competent man. She’s soft and generous and expansive this early in the show. She goes from angry to friendly in a snap. Martin’s attraction toward Louisa is subtler, aside from a couple darling moments where he gazes at her through a school window and sees she’s wearing an eye patch. Hey, it’s someone who actually took his medical advice! What’s not to love?

Worth noting that Martin Clunes has a great pining-face. You can trust me on this one, I’m an expert.

Also, it might look like Martin is too old for Louisa, but the actors are only eight years apart in age. Caroline Catz is just very beautiful and Martin Clunes is very square-headed.

The Larges: If you get competency porn feelings from Martin as a great doctor, you will not from the Larges. Bert and his son Al (presumably Albert and Albert Jr) are plumbers who show their dreadful skills in this episode by busting a pipe and flooding Martin’s surgery. It’s hard to believe these two doofy dudes will persist throughout the show, but they do!

Plumbing is their first of many failed ventures, and you can’t blame Martin for going Bodmin about it. But Bert Large also quickly becomes one of Martin’s access points to the town. Bert entreats Martin to care for the humans who have always been his neighbors, and his working class sensibility is exactly what Martin needs to concede his pride.

The Assistant: We meet Elaine in this episode, played by legendary evil step-sister actress Lucy Punch. (You might know her from one of my favorite movies, Ella Enchanted.) Elaine is unprofessionalism wearing white girl dreads. She won’t take notes he requests, uses his phone for personal calls, and wants to be paid even when she doesn’t actually do anything.

Elaine has been foisted upon Martin by the town in much the same way as the dog. He is surrounded by things he doesn’t want. But maybe there’s something here he needs?

The Auntie: Aunt Joan is introduced in a chicken coop. This is a woman who helped raise Martin when he visited her farm in summertime, and when we see her practical personality (including a quick chicken neck snapping) it quickly begins to contextualize Martin’s personality too.

~

Louisa’s Hair Rating: 7/10. It’s a little flat. Her fringe isn’t at it’s fringiest, either.

Infuriating Level: 5/10. Martin’s more annoying than the town at this point, but don’t worry, things swing around quickly.

Episode Greatness Level: 10/10. I just love the Old Man Boobies episode, I won’t lie.

Comment

Sara Reine

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2024-03-07
movie reviews

Movie Review: Lisa Frankenstein (2024) ***

2024-03-04 /

“Lisa Frankenstein” is a revenge fantasy for depressed girls who read Jane Eyre at graveyards in the 1980s.

Diablo Cody says the name is a “coincidence” because she was naming the character after Lisa from Weird Science, and she didn’t mean to invoke “Lisa Frank,” a brand which might be litigious if the writer said otherwise. The movie definitely has a lot more to do with Weird Science than Lisa Frank. It’s about a magically resurrected person who exists to fulfill the teenager’s romantic and sexual fantasies. Thank you, magical lightning!

I was sold on the concept from the get-go. The lively teaser trailer had me pumped, and the movie certainly fulfills the expectations of the trailer. But there’s not a lot more than that. If you search up the version of the trailer that is ~4 minutes long, that is almost exactly the movie, except Lisa Frankenstein has been extended to ~90 minutes.

I’m not saying this as a complaint. The trailer should tell you whether or not you’ll like the movie. This is all button-pushes without much substance: amazing goth aesthetic, melodramatic performances from talented actors, and an Edward Scissorhands aesthetic homage.

If you want early Tim Burton done with feminine sensibilities, then Zelda Williams has you covered.

If you want Jughead Jones doing a mostly dialogue-free Demon Barber of Fleet Street, you’re in the right place.

If you’d like a whole lot of new screenshots for your angsty colorful Tumblr mood board, then there may have never been a better movie for you.

My question for moviegoers broadly is, do you love the idea of a tanning bed resurrecting Frankenstein’s Boyfriend so much that you’ll get something out of the movie version more than the trailer?

I did, but it’s less because the movie bounced on my buttons and more because debut director Zelda Williams did an amazing job. I was so obsessed with everything visual that I literally could not resist drawing while I worked on it. What a strong style. I look forward to more from this director, and I hope she drags her cinematographer along.

The story, eh. Diablo Cody’s writing often feels hollow to me. Concept is made king because Cody doesn’t create fully realized characters that feel human. There is something terribly flat and mean-girl about the way that Cody draws characters in every movie I’ve seen outside Juno, and sometimes I really wonder how Juno managed to be so human given the givens.

The story *mostly* works if you see it as being written by someone with a grudge toward certain archetypes which may or may not actually exist. It’s all emotional catharsis without needing to grow up. Our heroine can remain forever in a stunted state of teenage love.

Fabulous performances cover a lot of shaky ground. Kathryn Newton is divine as a very old high schooler (she looks and feels 27, even slouching her way between lockers, but this is normal for the Hollywood High School Cinematic Universe). Liza Soberano is precious. Carla Gugino puts a lot of work into realizing her villainous stepmother. Jughead Jones joneses Jugheadily.

Show up for the concept, stay for the aesthetic, and just kinda step over the writing. Lisa Frankenstein is fabulous fun.

Comment

Sara Reine

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documentaries

Documentary Review: The Greatest Love Story Never Told (2024) **

2024-02-29 /

Have you ever wished you could see J.Lo trying to pick the mud she likes better, and conclude that she wants to choose the drier mud but make it wetter?

Have you ever wished to feel much better about your own marriage by seeing a couple communicate through sarcasm, disdain, and eye-rolling?

Have you wished that you knew what it was like to be a fifty-year-old woman with so much insecurity and so much money that you can surround yourself entirely with sycophants, bullying anyone who isn’t willing to support your bubble of delusion?

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to show up for the Olympics without doing any training beforehand and being bummed out when you can’t perform at Olympics level?

Twenty years after J.Lo released her last album, this woman really thought she should jump into an absolutely massive three-part project (album, movie, documentary) without having spent the intervening years cracking on any of the related crafts. She can’t name any projects that remind her of her own project except for “Purple Rain” by Prince, and somehow everyone has the tact not to start listing things like Rhythm Nation, Moonwalker, and Lemonade.

She doesn’t know what gels are. She scoffs at Ben Affleck being excited by the expensive movie equipment, while Ben Affleck is incredulous that cheating on her before their wedding was emotionally devastating (their breakup “was mutual!” he says, while she disassociates on camera).

Meanwhile, Ben Affleck is horrified and humiliated that she shared all their personal correspondence with a bunch of strangers in a professional setting. He was not asked first. Or even notified.

The documentary is clearly edited by someone who hates J.Lo and cut in a lot of moments that mock her by demonstration: for instance, J.Lo insisting “you forgot I can dance!” and then cutting to a really low-energy rehearsal of the worst number in the movie. Or when she calls someone “like a sister” and then they show her acting annoyed and eye-rolling at her sister-colleague.

A lot of celebrities refuse to be in the movie. J.Lo says they’re afraid. Nobody challenges her on that, either.

She may have demanded Derek Hough cancel his appearance at an IRL wedding to marry her in a fake wedding!

The celebrities who agree promptly show up and start shit-talking the project.

Sadhguru arrives and she greets him mimicking his accent.

At some point, I whited out and lost track of existence.

I’m so supportive of J.Lo’s vanity project. I maintain that I would rather watch *all* *of* *this* before sitting through a single viewing of any Avatar movie, James Cameron’s vanity projects. I genuinely like a couple of the songs in a normal pop music way, and I think her more visually ambitious sequences have a delirious appeal. But I am genuinely concerned that J.Lo is not okay, even a little bit, and that the whole “learning to love herself” narrative is actual total denial. Because this woman obviously does not love herself. She may have identified the problem (and she’s right!) but she is not healing, and she’s not in an environment where that is possible.

It’s actually overtly alarming to see her reenacting abuse from past relationships when she’s so very much NOT OKAY. No wonder she’s so miserable and snappy about the mud. She must have been in a constant haze of PTSD flashbacks doing this to herself. I actually think Ben Affleck’s attempts to talk her up without any clear-eyed evaluation of her capabilities may have been more harmful than a loving husband thing.

If you’re like me (the living embodiment of the Marie Kondo ilovemess.gif) then you can’t miss this, but it’s…alarming. It hates its own subject matter. It’s BANANAS to the point of being painful.

This entire trifecta project is 10/10 but also somehow 1-2 stars.

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Sara Reine
sara reads the feed

Sara is so totally psychic, method acting snark, and articles far more interesting than those I write

2024-02-28 /

I have this running joke* in my family about how I am totally psychic. I have made multiple accurate predictions. There are really funny probably-coincidences I can attribute to myself as psychic predictions, too. I’m not reading minds. It’s nothing like that.

*When I say I’m joking, I’m saying that there’s a 50/50 chance that it’s just a bit (I live for The Bit) or I actually believe it myself. There is no delineation between these two things. I live by Calvin & Hobbes rules. The fact it is funny to bring up frequently is the entire point.

Last night I dreamed about finding an exciting house perfect for my family. Unfortunately, renovations on the house turned out to be performed by scammers. The house fell into a river. The dream wasn’t very stressful; it was kind of funny.

Today I woke up to some external stimulus that had me looking at houses. I had forgotten the dream by this point. I saw one house listing that was really exciting! A good price, a good size. The downside seemed to be its rural location. I asked my online friends what considerations I should have in regards to rural life.

Through a chain of research, I eventually discovered this house is at risk of flooding. It’s unexpected for a house in the middle of the desert. But there’s no denying it: the house is uninsurable due to its flood risk.

I didn’t make the connection between my dream and the house at first. It’s awfully weird I was dreaming about houses falling into rivers before this weirdo chain of events though…right?

So yeah, I’m a psychic. I can’t say this psychic power is *useful*. I am psychic nonetheless.

~

Bright Wall, Dark Room reviewed a 1989 documentary called “For All Mankind.” Interesting read!

For All Mankind demonstrates a playful self-awareness of its identity as a movie about making movies. Reinert cuts together footage of the astronauts peering through cameras, filming each other, and waving. The men of Apollo 8 hold up notebook paper signs reading “Apollo 8 Home Movies” and “Staring [sic] Bill Anders, James Lovell, and Frank Borman.” In other footage, a tape recorder floats through the module playing the fanfare from Richard Strauss’s 1896 Also sprach Zarathustra, best known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

It can feel as if Reinert, who set out to make a movie about the moon, instead attempted to make every movie about the moon.

~

Crooked Timber shares a thought-provoking essay about managers and their waning power in the office, using the church as an example.

In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI made his fateful rejection of all forms of artificial contraception. As an attempt to exercise and shore up authority it failed completely. The realities of raising large families and dealing with unplanned pregnancies were far removed from the experience of priests and theologians. And the church’s evident demographic motive (the desire for big Catholic families to fill the pews) further undermined the legitimacy of the prohibition.

~

Lawyers, Guns, & Money sound as annoyed by the semaglutide craze as I am.

~

Rebecca Ferguson was reportedly harassed by a costar on set. The Rock wants everyone to know it wasn’t him and he will flex his biceps over it. (TSFKA Twitter) Way to make it about yourself, Dwayne!

In similar entertainment news, Jonny Lee Miller related his reaction to abuse of a woman in the entertainment industry. (The Independent) I appreciate his desire to not make it about himself.

“My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember feeling fury,” he says. “I actually wanted to be more proactive about it, but it was 100 per cent her decision and you have to swallow your male bulls***. I was gonna hire someone to f***ing…” He trails off. “But I didn’t. I had some connections.” I laugh, nervously. Miller does not. And Jolie told him not to? “Yeah. Because it would mean it becomes about you, right? And you wanting to prove how much you care – ‘No one’s going to f***ing do that to my people.’ But what you need to do is listen to your partner.” He smiles, warmly now. “Amazingly, that was the one thing I was able to get right. You know, I was raised by women. I have three sisters. And [Jolie] is a very smart lady. She knows what’s best for her.”

~

Florida’s government is all like “let’s make measles great again!” (NPR)

Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, has so far not urged parents of unvaccinated children at the school with the outbreak to get their children vaccinated, or to quarantine them. In a Feb. 20 letter, Ladapo left it up to parents to decide whether to send their kids to school.

It’s wild to me that one of the easiest, best, cheapest tools for public health has become so politically polarizing. I can’t think The People actually want this.

~

I’ve been waiting to watch Poor Things, and now it’ll be on Hulu March 7th. (Variety) I feel like I have to make an addendum about how I fully expect to hate this movie any time I bring it up, because I am not planning to evaluate it fairly. idk man, I can be petty.

~

Are you surprised to hear that Amazon is up to fuckery with the Roadhouse remake? (Ars Technica) They don’t want to pay the original screenwriter for the adaptation and rushed through AI voice work to make that happen. Any interest I had in watching a greasy Jake Gyllenhaal kickpunch his way through the titular roadhouse has vanished.

~

Engadget reports that the Apple Car has been cancelled. Word on the street is that they’d like to refocus on AI. I think of Apple as being one of the less-evil corporate feudalist lords simply because they want to keep our data to themselves (no privacy, but it stays in their walled garden), and you pay a premium for their devices and services to get that. I am not optimistic about how long that vibe is going to last.

~

The New Yorker wonders if you can want an Oscar too much. Of course they’re talking (in large part) about Maestro, BCoop’s extremely thirsty plea for Oscars attention.

Also from the same source, a review of Dune 2 that makes it sound like I won’t love it for the same reasons I don’t love the first one. But how much can we trust The New Yorker on this when they talk so much about conlang and point to Lord of the Rings as a major source of our fascination when I got into conlang from a Klingon dictionary vastly predating the other properties they’re talking about? They barely mention Star Trek in passing, then spend a bunch of time caring about the Game of Thrones conlinguist (I might have just made up that word) who I am not especially fond of.

Speaking of Dune 2, Stellan Skarsgard talks about Austin Butler (Variety) like Brian Cox talks about Jeremy Strong (“have you tried acting?” to paraphrase), and I never get tired of this kind of story about over-enthusiastic actors with poor boundaries between work and reality.

~

Odysseus plopped onto its side on the Moon and will be freezing to sleep forever faster than expected. (Ars Technica)

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Sara Reine

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bluesky, facebook

a couple weeks of wordvomit

2024-02-24 /

Posted on 2/12/24.

I am getting my bff cat’s cremains back this afternoon and I’m a wreck all over again

I have found I do okay the day after they die, and a couple days beyond, but receiving cremains makes it feel extra final and devastating

Posted on 2/13/24.

Sunshine wants to use my ouija board to commune with my cat Annie, who died a week ago today. On one hand, I want to encourage him to explore ways to process his grief. On the other hand, I’m still way too sad to feel up for a cat seance. On another other hand, what even is this life.

Posted on 2/14/24.

Playing BG3. Halsin hits on me. Invites me to be with him, and bring my boyfriend Gale. I’ve been really enjoying Gale. I broke up with Astarion for Gale. But I go tell Gale that Halsin is interested in sharing, and Gale is SO OFFENDED. I don’t actually want Halsin but I’m not owned by Gale.

Torn because I am offended by how offended Gale was, but I wouldn’t pick Halsin over Gale, aside from this one element. The fearfulness and jealousy of forced monogamy is GROSS.

omg all the monogamy i hate it so much, i belong to NOBODY but MYSELF. if i choose monogamy it’s from joy.

irl i am ethically nonmonogamous (or polyamorous? idk the difference) but i haven’t dated in ages just because i’m so happy with my spouse and i don’t have any unfulfilled needs or desires, and we’re busy. so it’s like, chosen monogamy. i think that’s nice.

possessiveness and jealousy is theeeee biggest turn-off in the world to me, i just don’t wanna be with gale anymore but idk that i’ll hook up with halsin either. just, i’m not into halsin in this play through. i’d rather be single than be with someone jealous and possessive.

insecurity and jealousy should be approached with an open heart, curious mind, and full honesty. multiple relationships are never a competition but an expansion of one’s heart. i can (and have) love multiple people at once, the way i love both my kids, all my cats, and there’s no comparison

really the main limiting factor with romantic relationships is time. i don’t have time for more right now. but i do flirt, and so does my spouse, and then we come home and over-communicate about stuff and reorient ourselves all the time, even though we usually find ourselves unmoved.

in a video game i have played for 800 hours, time is not a concern. to say the least. lol

give me the fantasy of healthy relationships that support rather than confine, stupid game.

anyway gale isn’t a nice fantasy for me anymore so we broke up. Killdead the Slayer is single on the streets baby! watch out Baldur’s Gate!

Posted on 2/15/24.

My gothic fantasy book was written and edited entirely on psychedelic doses of THC, and this is my first time reading it sober-sober.

Frankly surprised the book is readable at all, tbh. ahahahah

God I love this thing

Posted on 2/16/24.

thinking about also pirating doc martin (i have an acorn subscription) just so i can watch ahead in the show without my 13yo realizing i’ve cheated on them

maybe if i download the episodes to my ipad, disconnect from the internet, watch the episodes, then delete the app before reconnecting to the internet

My first actual novel was a fabulous 100k-word fantasy novel about five girls who each controlled the elements in a world without men (I was 12)

Before that I wrote the most amazing novel length Animorphs/Sailor Moon crossovers

I didn’t start writing terrible books until my 20s tyvm shit was GOLD

Notes—

I did include lesbian relationships. Gender apocalypse books sometimes don’t.

Babies were all divine foundlings or divine pregnancy, but gods were girls too.

I did not have a nuanced understanding of gender and it was actually sex based. And I didn’t know about intersex conditions.

My first major series published as an adult (after the teen werewolves) had a central intersex woman as the heroine and she remains my most popular ever character. I figured it out eventually lol

My first fantasy book had the heroine dying and going to a Hell-like place! A recurring motif.

The fantasy series led directly into my popular urban fantasy series, which I began drafting when I was 15, and reuses several elements from the fantasy book. When I tell you guys I have been at this for a long time, I really mean one thing specifically 💀

It was all really excellent tho

I am turning 36 this year and I wrote my first original novel about 1/4 of a century ago. It’s wild, man. I wrote that first book (and its fanfic predecessors) on an IBM compatible, in WordPerfect (iirc), saved to 3.5” floppy. Eventually upgraded to windows 3.1 with a GUI to make editing easier.

I did my 8th grade book report on my own novel. My mom used to let me skip school whenever I was finishing a book. It happened 1-2x a school year. I wrote longhand in classes and told off teachers trying to interrupt me.

I think 2023 is the only year since ~1998 I haven’t written at least one book*

* I finished one novel from a previous year and started a couple others tho

Posted on 2/17/24.

I think 3/5 of my cats are autistic as fuck

I have two cats that are normal levels of cat weird (which is Very Weird) but then I have three with obvious sensory processing issues that make them EVEN WEIRDER in various ways

omg self do not even type out comments like “crush me mommy” on hot author lady photos without hitting enter, someday i will hit enter on my intrusive thoughts and there will actually be consequences

i’m gonna complain in the style of an Internet Old via greentext. (if you don’t know what greentext is, just read these as a weird blog post, it’s fine.)

> be me
> login to website host to register a new silly domain
> notice my payment info expired
> panik
> realize I have a Really Really Important domain that will expire in 2 weeks
> domain is registered somewhere else completely
> cannot login to Somewhere Else
> try recovery with every email I know
> fail
> panik
> submit request to recover account managing domain
> will take 3 days
> panik
> consider backordering my own domain so i can bid on it if this fails
> realize that this domain came from one place originally but does its management from yet another place
> start logging into every related site via Really Ancient Email i barely remember
> find that my payment info has expired on all the sites
> autorenew is disabled for domain
> cannot enable
> definitely going to lose my website in 2 weeks
> PANIK
> update payment info literally everywhere because i can’t tell where the renewal actually occurs
> still can’t enable autorenew
> finally access Somewhere Else
> update payment info there too
> still can’t enable autorenew
> can’t renew right now because that’s disabled too
> initiate transfer to normal website host
> still panik but less
> remember that i have now asked to have access restored to domain management that i am simultaneously trying to transfer
> worried but incapable of doing anything about it
> realize i would have never remembered to check on this or do anything about it in time if i hadn’t quit weed
> PANIKKKK
> remind myself that never would have happened because i’m psychic and my psychic powers clearly compelled me to start this journey tonight
> optimistic that everything will turn out ok as long as i didn’t clusterfxk it with multiple recovery attempts
> suddenly 10pm
> too wired to sleep, still kind of PANIK

Posted on 2/18/24.

I kinda think everyone should learn to crochet *only* to make socks. Socks are really fun and easy to make. Plus, I can churn out socks while watching tv/movies, and then I just like…have lots of socks around. I use yarn so distinct that they’re easy to scoop out of the laundry. They fit perfectly because I crocheted them to my foot shape. They become incredibly soft in the washing machine.

also i had a great hair hour yesterday, between taking down my bun and brushing my hair. I’ve been trying to treat my hair like it’s curly to see if I’d get more of a wave pattern. Eldest Moonlight has the most amazing naturally curly hair, like big heavy ringlets, naturally as wide around as your fist, that lay across their back gorgeously. I suspect this happened bc of my family’s slightly-wavy genetics and my husband’s much-thicker hair follicles (mine is fine but dense). I mess with my hair so much (SO MANY CHEMICALS) that i don’t have a clue what my actual texture is like. But I’m sleeping with a silk bonnet, *usually* combing with a wide-tooth comb rather than brushing, squeeze-drying, and doing curly-specific conditioner, and it does seem to be helping waves form.

FWIW moonlight loves having their hair brushed and played with and that makes me feel SO LUCKY. They got all the good genetics but at least i get to play with their hair

If you’re an American, it’s really fascinating to search for the indigenous names for local features. I was looking up indigenous names for the Truckee River. My region sits on unceded land home to Washoe and Northern Paiute.
Northern Paiute call the Truckee “Kuyuinahukwa”, wherein Kuyui- refers to a type of fish (the cui-ui) that you find in Pyramid Lake (called Kooyooe Pa’a Panunadu – note again the “kooyooe” as cui-ui). Washo calls Pyramid Lake “Á’waku dáʔaw” meaning Trout Lake.

Meanwhile the Washoe have different names for different parts of the Truckee River, which makes a lotta sense. The river goes through a lot of different biomes between Tahoe and Pyramid Lakes and has different characteristics in these areas. Át’abi wá’t’a would refer to the Truckee nearer Pyramid; Dawbayódok refers to the Truckee nearer Tahoe.

If you’re not familiar with my geographic region, Lake Tahoe is a cold alpine lake in the Sierras, while Pyramid Lake is in a much more arid region. You’d drive through there and say “oh this is a proper desert.” In between, we have a mix of wetlands and whatnot. The whole thing was prehistorically underwater in one giant lake mass we call Lahontan.

It’s fascinating to think how definitional the fish in the system are/were to indigenous folks. The nation who live around Pyramid Lake have a name translating to (sorta) the Fish Eating People. When I think of my area, fish are the last thing I think about, but the source of water and food for our predecessors would *obviously* be so important. It should probably still be important. But life is so muddy on a day to day basis, I have so little connection to the actual hyperlocal conditions that I live among. My brain is on the internet, I eat stuff out of wrappers from a grocery store, I walk around a golf course inhabiting wetlands.

Management of Pyramid remains in control of the Northern Paiute afaik, and I really wanna read more about local indigenous involvement in ecological matters. I believe that American land resources should all be under the management of the nations who used to manage them, but I don’t know what that looks like. How different would things look with non-colonial watershed management, food supply, etc? Why don’t I eat more pine nuts?

One of the reasons I’m thinking about local indigenous populations is reading more about my own Irish background, and learning about indigenous Irish people, and kinda trying to draw parallels between my own ancestry and the indigenous folks I have as neighbors. My bloodline isn’t remotely noble or recently indigenous (we’re very working class city people), but we were cut off from our indigenous language only two generations back (for example) and it’s fascinating piecing together a puzzle of what human life looks outside of empire.

(My apologies if I have shared any improper detail or inappropriately Westernized spellings; my intent is to be accurate & respectful but I am not fully aware of my own biases, as most people are not and cannot be, and it’s wholly possible I am being unknowingly offensive somewhere here.)

still waiting for my 13yo to realize that having young parents means that their tastes are nearer my cringe tastes than not

gonna laugh my ass off when they realize mid-Millennial and Gen Z/Alpha cusp are not so different and start looking at real estate on zillow for fun

mock me now, beloved offspring, because if you mock too long into the abyss, the abyss will mock you back

Posted on 2/19/24.

I’m slowly studying French. If y’all want a recommendation: I’m really enjoying an app called “Learn French” by Reword on iOS. It’s not expensive, like $10/year? I really like the flash card and review method.

This is mostly for expanding vocabulary, not learning language rules. I’m also watching dubbed Disney movies and bothering my family by gargling random French words in their direction. Like grabbing my kid’s ear and shouting “l’oreille!” and saying aujourd’hui every time I have any excuse.

Posted on 2/20/24. Facebook.

The ONLY thing I don’t love about French is having l’accent aigu est l’accent grave. You don’t need two. Pick one.

I’ve been having funny heart symptoms since I quit weed. Not sure how to describe the sensation. Just like, I can feel my heart sometimes, like it’s beating funny, or I’m anxious for no reason. It’s an incredibly common experience quitting weed, but I thought I ought to get myself into the doctor for an EKG regardless.

The *important* part of this story is that my EKG doesn’t show issues, although she heard a PVC while listening to my heart (beating “out of order”). We’re gonna look at my thyroid again because I do have a thyroid autoimmune disorder and if that’s all good then I’m going to see a cardiologist for a more thorough scan. But right now everything seems ok.

The *unimportant* but *hilarious* part of this is that I saw a new-to-me nurse practitioner. She’s so hot. Probably around my age, dirty blonde, slow to speak, very dry and sarcastic. Soooo hooootttt. I was VIBING ON HER. And I think she liked me too (probably not in a gay way) so we were bantering.

Well Hot Nurse is listening to my heart. She’s standing close enough that I can smell her perfume even through my mask and I’m getting all ~gazey~ at the pretty lady. She remarks, “Well, your heart rate just went up.” My husband SNORTS. He instantly knows I am in a GAY PANIC.

So I had to lay through this EKG for my heart rhythm when I am bantering with the HOTTEST SARCASTIC NURSE and I’m like, lady, you’re gonna have to be way less hot to get reliable results out of this. (I did not say this part out loud.) But she kept remarking on how my heart was perfect, just perfect, and I’m like, omg you’re perfect.
My husband was just cracking up, he loves witnessing me do a lesbionic flopsweat. I was grinning the whole way home lmao.

I had a doctor appointment today. She walks in and asks if some program can listen in via her phone to make transcripts easier, analyze the appointment for the associated hospital, etc.

I asked, “Is that powered by AI?” Yes. Yes it was.

reader, how quickly i said no

i let them use me for medical student practice and stuff, i honestly have no shame. but i’m also a writer and artist and at this point, if i can say “NO” to having AI absorbing *any* part of my life for usage, i’m gonna say no.

Keep thinking about an author who posted something that said (paraphrased): “everyone has books they read to make them feel better about their writing, don’t lie”

Because I seriously don’t and i don’t know why you would

I am very secure in my writing. But even if I weren’t, why would it make me feel better to get judgy and mean about someone else’s writing? What would I learn from that? Would it make me feel more confident REALLY, or would it make me think people hate-read me to feel better too?

Writing is so subjective. I am a really good writer and still, loads of people have no time for what I write because it’s not to their taste.

Very few people write to my taste. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world is *bad writers,* but just kinda up to something else. Yk?

I have increasingly little time for commercial genre fiction because I find it hollow, unambitious, and inauthentic. Hate-reading would only make me feel worse. I still would never say it’s Bad Writing because it’s like falling in love…there’s something for everyone.

Professional jealousy is completely normal among authors; it’s weird and difficult to handle. I have never found that feeding into professional jealousy will give me anything. Good things always come out of acceptance and collaboration.

I think the professional jealousy thing springs from personal insecurity. A desire for external validation you aren’t getting. Writing is one of the most vulnerable arts (imo) because it’s very unfiltered and personal and solitary; you’re REALLY putting it all out there.

What’s strange about publishing success (probably all successes) is that none of it is going to make you feel better if you don’t figure out how to internally validate yourself. It will never be enough. You will always want something else. Even once you get your type of success, you can be bitter.

It’s a brutal industry; odds are never good. It can be frustrating to see others succeed and feel like you lost that opportunity. But you didn’t lose an opportunity. You weren’t gonna get that thing. There is nothing to be jealous over. Literally nothing. You must be secure in yourself + writing.

This isn’t about anyone in specific. I’ve just been around ages and the Professional Jealousy Bear rampages all over. I don’t know many people who haven’t struggled with it tbh. But some people really feed into it and that’s why you get some VERY strange author drama.

Looking for validation from an industry with extremely narrow odds of the loftiest success is a quick path to misery. It’s never gonna heal your hurts. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for success. Just means you should also strive to feel good inside yourself despite it.

Posted on 2/22/24.

If you’re feeling bleak about the news today, make something. Anything. Make something pretty or ugly and awkward or meaningful or silly or…whatever occurs to you. Build something new. Add something to our world.

Currently reading My Year of Rest & Relaxation. Just finished Boy Parts.

It’s weird reading litfic in the subgenre of “horrible women being dreadful” because I relate *so* strongly. I’m like, oh, who went and wrote about my entire twenties for me?

I should write one of these books. It’s basically the horror for the mundanity of a white woman’s existence writ large.

Posted on 2/23/24.

I wish I were an owlbear.

Posted on 2/24/24.

I want to start a web ring for people who maintain websites that are interesting, independent, and mostly not paywalled. We’re losing an internet where we could have All The Information straight from passionate interesting people and discoverability engines are just about selling products.

This isn’t a project I’m embarking on just yet, but eventually I do actually sincerely want to make an old-fashioned web ring. It’s how we used to find our way around to random interesting and semi-related websites in the 90s. Literally you’d have a couple buttons on your site that led to others.

Thing is, I’m not even sure where to go looking for people who have fun independent websites these days. All the interesting people are still on social media or some platform or other. Substack and Patreon have paywalled most blogs of substance and benefit dodgy companies.

Nobody seems to have the time, money, or inclination to wing it anymore. Or at least, if they are winging it, the discoverability engines are making sure it never crosses into my space!

(oh, medium is another one, medium is also where a lot of the people are atm)

My lil blog Egregious is almost entirely movie reviews, though it does have flash fiction, short stories, personal diaries, etc too. Basically wherever my ~special interests~ have been leading me. I just wanna have a web ring with other people who have ~special interest~ websites. It’s my dream.

I am so sober you guys~ ❤

Over four weeks without weed now. I’m still “peeing dirty” (which is to say, my tests are positive) so it’s STILL in my system aplenty. I think withdrawal is really going to just be a long slope of symptoms cresting and receding as my brain/body reorganizes itself. I’m certainly not at a baseline yet.

If anyone else has an addiction history, here are thoughts I find helpful:

1) Whatever problems (in the world or in your life) send you to ~Substances~, remember the ~Substance~ isn’t going to change it. Period. At best you get to turn your back on it for a few minutes (but does it reeeaaally console you? be honest). All you’ve done is spent money on another problem to babysit.

2) Withdrawal means you’re free. You don’t have to have the Thing around anymore, you’re not captive to the need to keep it around, you don’t have to pay for it. Use cravings as a chance to think “Ah ha, that’s the sign I’m getting out of this! I’m freeeee~”

Also: if you’re addicted to something (especially something with a high-demand pattern like nicotine), you’re already experiencing lots of withdrawals in between using. So you’re actually dealing with it already. Don’t drag it out. Face the withdrawal and it’ll end this time, *forever*.

These two thoughts are actually so helpful that I’m quitting caffeine at the same time I’m dealing with the weed stuff. When I left nicotine, I was so shaken, it took me over two whole years to work myself up to quitting weed. I think if I’d understood these (should-be-obvious) things, I might have quit weed sooner. I can handle weed + caffeine now. Kinda cool.

I also would have quit sooner if I’d known that weed would be easy! The dependency is NOT the same. Weed really is a friendlier friend than the other guys, but it was weighing me down. The relationship didn’t serve me anymore.

It’s nice that I have positive associations with weed but don’t wanna use anymore. It feels like I’ve broken up with a girlfriend who I’m still distant friends with. I think break-ups are almost never failures, but a natural stepping stone in life, and it’s healthy to say “thank you, I have so many fond memories, I love what I got from you, but it’s time to move on.”

Unlike with nic and booze where I’m like “omg f0ck you so much, you f0ckerito.” Still pretty shaken by my experiences with those. No love lost. Abusive boyfriends, the both of them.

Fond feelings about weed aside, I’m looking forward to having non-stoner cognition back…at some point. I still can’t keep track of a darn thing. Where are my headphones? I literally JUST HAD THEM. A month out and I’m still halfway tonked. omg. you guys.

wake me up when timothee chalamamalala is walking around ass-out in the robot titty suit.

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Sara Reine

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movie reviews

Movie Review: Priscilla (2023) ***

2024-02-24 /

“Priscilla” is a movie following the courtship and marriage of its titular character to Elvis Presley, beginning as a hazy teenage dream of romance with a pop star and ending with disillusionment and divorce.

This is my first Sophia Coppola movie, but most everything I have to say about “Priscilla” seems to be normal for her films. As a claustrophobic, shallow confectionary, “Priscilla” is as much aesthetic as plot. Interiority is inferred rather than explicit. We are tightly limited to Priscilla’s perspective, and as the one who is left behind at Graceland while Elvis lives his life, there is little opportunity to guess at greater context unless you know what’s going on.

I’m not an Elvis fan. I’m too young to have any opinion about his legacy outside of the weird fact he’s a major element of Lilo & Stitch. I couldn’t even get through the first few minutes of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” So I’m coming at this with virtually nothing.

I expect that people with more cultural context will find more meaning in the film. As a standalone, Priscilla really doesn’t have a lot going on outside of its aesthetic.

The beginning of the movie immerses us with 14-year-old Priscilla as she becomes immersed in a world-famous man with enormous influence who is a decade her senior. We can make guesses about why a famous pop star would want her specifically (versus any other fawning teenage girl), but there is so little context on Priscilla as a person that I initially assumed it was a weird sex thing.

Except Elvis declines to have sex with Priscilla until she is older; it appears that he mostly wants a cute little “pure” doll who will do whatever he wants, and that tarnishing her would make him lose interest. They have a playful sexual relationship for a period of time but he is distracted by older, more experienced women. In a typical virgin/whore dichotomy, Elvis again loses sexual interest in Priscilla once she bears their child.

Ultimately it feels that Elvis mostly wants a staff member who will put up with his shit while fulfilling his idealized role of girlfriend; reaching the point where he “must” marry and procreate isn’t really what he wanted, but life is moving on, and Priscilla is growing up.

Once Coppola has made her point about Elvis’s initially predatory relationship to Priscilla, Coppola seems to lose interest in the subject matter, too. As Priscilla becomes more of an individual with agency, the movie speeds along at a faster clip, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that Coppola doesn’t care all that much about Priscilla once she’s no longer a more easily manipulated teenager.

As such, this feels like a really aesthetic way of saying “your hero was a shitty human,” without putting all that much work into the main character whose long-lashed eyes we are always looking through. While searching around for more context on the movie, feeling like I was missing important details to make it more meaningful, I was struck by how powerful Priscilla-the-human seemed to be — how willful and intentional she must have been in order to live the life she has lead. We get glimpses of this from Cailee Spaeny’s performance, but Coppola doesn’t want to hang out with a Priscilla who is breaking free of her cage.

The fact so many people are in denial about Elvis’s abusive, controlling behaviors toward Priscilla makes me *want* to five-star this in a bite-my-thumb-at-you type maneuver. People are offended by the bare facts involved because facts make Elvis look bad. As the “Priscilla” movie is based on her autobiography “Elvis & Me,” it’s wholly fair for her to be frank about the conditions of a relationship where she was groomed and dehumanized, even when she also seems to have sympathy for the man himself.

This movie gave me the clear impression of a cosseted man whose flaws were never challenged or given the attention needed to heal; he just turned toward addiction and sycophants, like many people with power do.

I don’t even mean Elvis levels of power. This is far from the only imbalanced relationship in the world, and it’s pretty normal for people who have done well at something to find themselves trapped in the amber of their own success, paralyzed by enablers. What I’m saying is that it’s completely human to demand exactly what you want and become ruined when you get it. It’s extremely easy to believe this portrayal when it’s extremely common for women to get smacked around by a man who doesn’t know any coping mechanism outside the veneer of control.

There’s no reason to think Elvis was worse than this, either. Priscilla and Elvis apparently remained good friends until the end of his life, and Elvis seemed to need genuine friends. He’s an icon of stunted man-child nonsense that generations of women have indulged.

I wish that Sophia Coppola had cared more about Priscilla the human outside the time of her life where she was most confined. I wanted to jump through the screen and pummel the adults allowing Priscilla to be obviously groomed for the first half of the movie, but I kinda wanted to ask Coppola “what the fuck?” at her evident disinterest in the complicated adult who developed from those circumstances.

It’s a good movie, though – based on my standards of good movie, where a creator sets out to tell a particular story, and I believe Coppola accomplished her intent. It’s skillful and beautiful and kinda boring. After a quick read about Coppola’s other movies, and what has become defined as her style, I almost wonder if Coppola herself isn’t trapped by her successes too, incapable of moving beyond one type of heroine in one type of setting. Most creators have a particular story they want to tell. This one could have used bolstering from someone with more of an interest in the entirety of the woman.

(image credit: A24)

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Sara Reine

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