Lets's start now… Fuck this, I'm going on tumblr

merry crisis

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Harriyanna Hook, who focuses on nostalgic properties through the lense of a black woman.

Jacob Geller, a Jewish man who does deep dives into various media. Mostly horror and sci-fi.

Kennie JD, a black woman that does this excellent series called bad movies and a beat every week on Saturday. A series where she reviews bad movies (often terrible romantic comedies and bad horror movies) while putting on her makeup.

D'Angello Wallace, a black man that focuses on internet culture, media, and people of interest. Sometimes shorter videos, sometimes deep dives. He used to be an art channel but now focuses more on culture than art.

Xiran Jay Zhao, a Chinese woman in who looks at media and focuses on the tokenism and appropriation of Asian culture.

T1J, who talks about culture, media, and social issues through the lens of a black man. He also has big Dad Energy.

Lady Knight The Brave, a Jewish woman who does deep dives into various media, often ones that have big fandoms attached.

Ada on Demand. A black woman that talks about social issues and culture, with a focus on pop culture.

Reignbot, a Filipino non-binary person that focuses their content on horror and ARGs and true crime.

Kat Blaque [social commentary, celebrities, and other topics]

Macdoesit [lots of comedy, but also social commentary]

Salem Tovar [essays, celebrities, all kinds of topics]

Jenna Brown [daily vlogs, social commentary, and other topics]

Miss Darcei [mostly beauty, and commentary about beauty products]

Seasonal Frostbite [doll customizations, just very beautiful art]

Asia Jackson [Beauty and beauty products]

Cheyenne Lin [Video essays, social commentary, entertainment, etc.]

Likelihood Art [digital artist]

Mei Yu [Digital and traditional artist]

LLAG Media [ personal favorite tbvh, p.s. Race, Politics, and Culture]

Thumin [Digital Artist with a bit of commentary here and there.] 

I Am Eloho [As she describes on her channel, Beauty, Storytime, and Magic] 

Oxlack Investigador [Paranormal and etc] [Spanish]

Yalitza Aparicio [wouldn’t you know it, our fave girl has her own YouTube.] 

F. D. Signifier - primarily breaking down toxic masculinity

CJ the X - just. a fucking weirdo

internet shaquille’s basics but especially:

making rice

making scrambled eggs

making oatmeal

levels of cooking meat

using & storing vegetables with recipes in the description (this one has a bit of Sassiness directed at people who dont like vegetables but the content is solid)

food safety + a recipe to demonstrate

how to learn to cook (just a list of subtopics, no actual tips)

cooking techniques playlist

how to cut x

basics with babish s1 & 2, but particularly:

freezer meals,

weeknight meals,

kitchen tools (although the specific suggestions are pretty expensive even with the lower end scale items the basic categories are solid, and you can evaluate what items you will realistcially need - eg. if you dont need to read temp for steaks etc the temp reader will not be relevant) &

kitchen care (mid-high advanced home cooking)

basic knife skills

picking the right pan for each recipe

j. kenji lopez-alt’s tips and tricks playlist

egg recipes

a little more complicated, involved, and longer than any of the rest of these but good breakdown of flavor & how and why to use the basic seasoning/flavor profiles

and then recipe channels representing various cuisines:

j. kenji lopez-alt (various)

marion’s kitchen (southeast & east asian, western/asian fusion)

maangchi (korean)

future neighbor (mostly korean)

the western supermarket playlist of chinese cooking demystified (more recipes available but these are accessible if you dont have “specialty” ingredients)

family recipes playlist by made with lau (chinese)

not another cooking show (various)

cooking with boris (bear with me here i know he does it exaggeratedly humorously but a lot of them are actually solid and beginner cook friendly. mostly slavic/russian)

you suck at cooking (also falls into the intentionally humorous category but most of the recipes are pretty solid anyway)

how to cook that (baking, also does debunking videos of viral cooking hacks - breaks down the reasons the hacks dont work, pretty important to understand those basics imo)

internet shaquille (various)

babish culinary universe (various)

i REFUSE to recommended joshua weissman because he is fucking insufferable but if you want you can try if you can deal with it, the techniques/recipes seem fine for the most part

And then I starting driving by myself over the summer, and I’d go spend a Saturday at his house, playing video games and watching movies, and after the whole day I’d drive home and think “wow, I miss him already, I can’t wait to see him next Saturday,”

And then I went to college in a different state and the drive between us was hours instead of minutes and it was only once in a while that I could visit and we’d spend the whole weekend together and I’d drive home and think “wow, I miss him already, I can’t wait to see him next month,”

Yeah…that went well. I shoulda squashed them first, because now they’re just floating at the top and not doing anything.

Tried squishing them against the glass, but they’re refusing to pop.

add water?

Get some more honey. I use 3 pounds for a batch of mead. 

Take half a gallon of water. Heat it until just simmering, then remove from heat and stir in honey. Once it cools a bit sprinkle in…oh, in this case, maybe a teaspoon of yeast. White wine yeast works best but regular will work ok too. 

Sterilize something to let it ferment in. A milk jug would work. Splash a little bleach in there, fill with water, let sit a bit, then wash out well. 

Once fermenting vessel is sterilized, pour the honey/water/berries/yeast in. Take a balloon and stretch it over the top of the jug, and prick a pinhole in it. This will keep outside wild yeasts out but let out co2 as it ferments. 

Leave it for a month or so. 

Then, bottle and drink!

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg is a self proclaimed crafter. A week ago she made a stuffed dinosaur from scraps on the space station. The little T-rex is made form the lining of Russian food containers and the toy is stuffed with scraps from an old T-shirt. While many toys have flown into space, this is the first produced in space.

Terry Pratchett has just passed away, and it’s terrible. For everyone. He was dying, and that was bad, and he is died, and that is even worse. I don’t like to tell “people I have met at publishing parties” stories (for reasons that will soon become clear), but I am going to tell this one. Because Terry Pratchett is cool. He remains cool in death. He gets that forever.

The year was either 2004 or 2005. I was newly published–just one or two books out–books that had come out to pretty good reviews but really no sales. I was sent to Book Expo America, which is a very large publishing convention that happens in late May or early June each year, usually in New York. That year, it was in New York, and I went. I knew nothing of publishing. I was in it, but I knew *nothing* about any realities of it. I think things were different then, because it feels like all new authors now know a lot about publicity and sales and all sorts of things–or at least, they’ve heard enough thorough the grapevine to maybe have some sense of things.

Me? Not so much. The info wasn’t out there. I’m not sure I would have sought it out if it was, because I like to get a sense of things for myself when I can. My publisher sent me to their party–which was the Big Party of the whole event. Everyone wanted to go to this party, and I got an invitation, and my agent (who is also my best friend) said that was awesome and I would go.

So I went. It was at a restaurant in the West Village. I walked in the door and went to the check in area marked off for authors. There were loads of name tags there, many with famous names on them. My tag was nestled between two particularly famous people. I was given my tag and told to have a nice night. I looked around the restaurant–which was absolutely packed–and realized I knew absolutely no one. No. One. So I made my way in a bit and took a drink from a tray, then I made my way in a little bit more. People started to approach me. They came RIGHT UP TO ME, squatted down a little to read my tag, decided I was not important, and walked away. This happened about five times, at which point I decided this party sucked and I was leaving. I sent my agent a text: PARTY IS HORRIBLE I AM GOING.

The quick reply: DON’T YOU DARE THIS IS IMPORTANT! TALK TO PEOPLE!

She meant well. She was trying to help. No one wanted to talk to me. It became more and more obvious and people jostled past me and flicked glances at my nametag and again and again registered that I was Not Famous.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, I said. LEAVING.

Now, I’m not anti-social at all. I just don’t do mingling things very well. I’m not a networker. I’m not the kind of person who sizes up the room for potential contacts and works it. I’ll talk to anyone about anything, but I won’t just stay because I am in the presence of Important People. I much prefer sitting at home in pajamas to that.

I AM COMING, she texted back. I AM RUNNING THERE NOW. DO NOT GO OR I WILL JUMP ON YOUR BACK LIKE A SPIDER MONKEY.

I was about to leave anyway when someone passed with a tray of mini ice cream cones. I had never seen a mini ice cream cone before. I really like small foods, and this was something that I considered worthwhile. I would get a mini ice cream cone. I would try to get two or three, I decided, and take them to the bathroom and hide in a stall and eat them there and THEN I would go.

So I followed the mini ice cream cones along, through the crowd, and managed to get one. By this point, I was trapped in a corner, so I ate it there. There was only one other person in this corner–a man with a beard in a hat. He looked much like I felt. After eating my ice cream cone and doing all that I possibly could have pretended to be doing on my phone (pre-smart phone, this was not much), I decided to say something to the man.

“This is awful,” I said. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Neither do I,” he said, nodding.

I got the sense that this was the first thing he’d heard all night that he could really get behind. We stood for a while in a pleasant silence, then we talked a bit more about how this was really no good. I explained that I wasn’t famous, and how people looked at my nametag and walked away, and he agreed that that was no good at all. We got along really well, this man and I, and we started to smile. I said that mini ice cream cones were a pretty good thing, and we discussed that and agreed that this was true. The party was bad and forced mingling was bad and being told we had to stay was bad, but mini ice cream cones were something to be appreciated. 

This was going well until someone came over and started doing a heavy schmooze on the man, and in the course of this, I realized the man in the hat was Terry Pratchett. He didn’t wear a tag. He looked uncomfortable with this and gave me a look of apology that said, “It’s come for me. I gotta go.” And I did a “sorry I didn’t know who you were by sight.” Because I knew Terry Pratchett the writer, but didn’t know what he looked like. Good Omens got me through the flu. I read it four times.

Now, perhaps this doesn’t sound like the most impressive encounter, but I’ll tell you what–it set everything right for me. I’ve had to do many, many things like that since. I know more people now. It’s easier. But I appreciated that he didn’t care that I wasn’t famous–that you didn’t have to put on any special airs to be a writer. I could actually be honest about how I felt about things and situations and I could be myself. Be nice, but give no fucks. That is what I got. He made me feel okay, and I always felt okay after that. Somehow? That gave me the confidence to deal with the more public aspects of a job I didn’t particularly understand I had.

As it turns out, publishing is not evil or particularly scary. Most people at these big events feel pressure. I can enjoy these things more now. May I never ignore someone because of their nametag. And sometimes, you have to take the tiny ice cream cone and run, especially if it is a fine summer night.