I Love All Of You

The bad news: Alecto is not finished. It will hopefully come out "soon" and will likely be fast tracked with few ARCs when it's finished.

The news you may take differently depending on your preferences: It is not being split.

The good news: It is not all written in Ye Olde Alecto speak (it sounds like Harrow's POV will be fairly major, but there will apparently be several narrators).

A slightly random selection of things I frantically scribbled down:

The protagonists of TLT would make an "absolutely shit" D&D party ("Palamedes and Camilla would be fine")

We could have had horse plinko and begone thot, but for the anti-meme ministrations of her editor. She would love an edition that puts all of the memes back in.

On Catholic imagery and lesbianism: "you ain't seen nothing yet"

"Harrow is now a believer without a church"

She said that while John and Alecto's relationship is not meant to be a 1:1 analogue to Humbert Humbert and Lolita, there is the idea of a man fashioning (something he thinks is) a girl into a perfect partner (the question of whether that is a sexual partner apparently may be relevant to ATN)

She does not have a favourite House and would just be a regular person in the world of TLT (though she would last about 0.5 seconds)

The tension between the Houses' ostensible gender equality and the misogyny that still persists is apparently also relevant to ATN. "John has set out to make a society on values he holds dear and cherishes and in some ways he has done really well... And in some way he has fucked it up beyond comprehension" (Maybe not an exact quote. My auditory processing is questionable.)

The backstory in NTN was planned right from the beginning

Lyctors "are not truly human any more. They've crystallised themselves" and "They have lost themselves and the only thing they've been able to hold on to is what other people make of them". She said she would have liked to make the Lyctors more alien but had to balance that with them being relatable narratively.

The Enshittificator

it's subtitled "A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching," an inaccurately voyeuristic title, because the glimpse is at Themselves.

two unemployed brothers (one an unemployed videographer, one nonspecifically unemployed who has a ferocious new interest in birds) decide: firstly, they are now birders. secondly, to start their birding adventure in a maximalist way by doing A For-Real Big Year.

what's a Big Year? they don't know, they just heard of it now. oh, what's that? they're going and seeing the greatest number of birds from Jan 1 to Dec 31 in the lower 48 by way of their shitass van. they also have about my own exact knowledge of birds, which is: there are bald eagles, great blue herons, crows, and a lot of small brown birds which are all called "sparrows."

a youtube comment correctly remarks that it's like watching oldschool skating videos, where you got maybe 480p of the finally-stomped kickflip down the stairwell, but the joy isn't in that, it's of the camera following the guy as he jumps into the bushes with three cheering friends. they are uniquely new to birding AND uniquely good at cinematography.

the documentary works because These Guys Love Birds. they love birds so much. they are signing up to rare-bird-sighting email lists. they are taking hour-long detours to find a kind of grackle that they later learn lives in every single gas station dumpster they've passed. they're interviewing just about everyone they come across, from award-winning birders to a guy walking down a freeway. they have an instinct for jon bois style stupid-but-emotional bits—they are calling every defunct bird hotline in old birding guides to see if any of them can give them a tip about a local bird; or to see if any of them are still connected at all. they are making fun of quails.

this all works WELL. it is beautiful wildlife cinematography cut with handheld camcorder-quality ski bum video. it is what documentary is for.

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

this is a comic about living with hyperfixations and how they tie into those happy feelings that are just gone after they end, that is until the cycle starts again, however far away in the future that might be, like something u can borrow but you can never really make it stay