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therainbowfishy · 1 year

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100 Things That Made My Year 2022

Austin Kleon’s 100 Things That Made My Year lists, which inspired this one.

That it finally felt like an actual year and not like I’ve been sitting, unmoving, in the same chair like it had for the past two years. Starting to feel more like myself again.

Starting a new job, this time in small publishing at Hub City Press, on a small but mighty team. Can’t believe I applied for the job about 15 minutes before the application window closed…a good reminder to not procrastinate and just do the thing.

Learning more about small presses and independent publishers. (If you so happen to need a decentralize publishing t-shirt…)

Bookshop cat, Zora, and illustrating postcards and even a tote with her on it

Keeping in touch with my bookseller friends from Avid Bookshop…

Including a visit from my bookseller friend Elizabeth in October and having what felt like a sixth grade sleepover weekend (eating snacks in a cemetery, wandering around on foot, hanging out in the kitchen, watching cartoons, talking good nonsense) and hunting the giant skeletons of Spartanburg.

And taking the Amtrak to Atlanta (the stations in Spartanburg and Atlanta reminded me a lot of the one in Poughkeepsie with the wooden benches; I love a fall train ride)

to go to another bookseller friend’s wedding! It was exclusively fun and games with a magical forest ceremony. I also got to eat the best rectangular potatoes I’ve maybe ever eaten.

My new apartment. Very grateful for my parents’ help with the entire terrible moving process and the delirious roadtrip to get here. Also for the lamps they bought me for Christmas. (Also my entire life and livelihood, just basic things.) Getting out of Florida!! Filling up my space with art and books and snacks. Sitting with the backdoor open and reading when the weather is nice. Having a dishwasher, a laundry room in the basement, and windows that actually face the sun.

Space & calmness

Living next to the library and being able to walk to work. Libraries and living across the street from one.

Biking around town, especially down the rail trail.

The y’all giraffe. The yellow ginkgo leaves. The clouds reflected in the distorted mirrors on top of the fire station. Corporate Denny’s park. The creepy little art park and its riddles. The best-stocked little free library that tells you how far the actual library is. The trains in every direction.

My surprise, last-minute New York trip earlier this year, where I got to see old friends in person again. Visiting familiar places; new and old bookshops (Yu & Me Books! Terrace Books! Codex! McNally Jackson!); bagels; Mitsuwa in Fort Lee; snow in late March; walking and wandering.

Tofu Takes Time coming out in April and the incredible virtual launch party at Avid Bookshop!

WOODEN OVERCOATS!!!!!!!!! Becoming completely obsessed (making fanart, joining a discord server levels…) with this charmingly dark British comedy about rival funeral homes. Listening to the last season as it came out and streaming the liveshows.

Subsequently diving into the wacky, imaginative world of audio drama. Some highlights: Wolf 359. The Axe & Crown. Life with Leo(h). (Please send more recommendations.)

Other podcasts: Books Unbound. Dear Hank and John. SciShow Tangents. The annual episode of Home Cooking. Houseguest interviews.

North Carolina Thanksgiving with family and dogs in pajamas

Going wedding dress shopping with my sister :-O

Dori dog, always

Launching a new online art shop (and finally being free of Etsy!) Paper JAM Studios with friends

Tabling at the local art pop-up at Pharmacy Coffee and meeting creative people

TV: Better Things. Ted Lasso. Dickinson, season 3. Only Murders in the Building, season 2. Never Have I Ever, season 3. The Owl House. Abbott Elementary. Anything Goes on PBS. Rewatching Bee and Puppycat. A little bit of Doctor Who because of this interview with David K. Barnes, head writer of Wooden Overcoats.

Going to the movies with my parents to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, and Downton Abbey: A New Era.

Keeping up my Duolingo streak (day 962 as I type this)...still gamifying French, but also starting Mandarin again because I always disappoint desperate Chinese tourists in transportation hubs.

Cooking. Notably pan-fried scallion steamed buns, accordion potatoes, and shrimp toast

Soup! Finally finding this recipe and figuring out how to make this zucchini soup that my host family made a bunch in France. Trader Joe’s corn poblano chowder. Various potato soups.

Receiving potato gifts this year: a potato cookbooklet, potato-shaped soap (a gift from a previous year, but I’m finally using it), and a straight up bag of red potatoes

Giving my dad and sister personalized book subscriptions for Christmas where I send them each a book based on their tastes every other month. My dad is a voracious, eclectic, and picky reader and my sister’s tastes are pretty different than mine, so it’s going to be an interesting challenge!

Speaking of books…I got more into poetry this year: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón, When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen, and Cleave by Tiana Nobile became instant favorites. Watched the livestream of Ada Limón’s U.S. Poet Laureate inauguration and enjoyed hearing her read her work aloud.

Enjoyed a lot of graphic novels/memoirs: Landings by Arwen Donahue. Ducks by Kate Beaton. Scout is Not a Band Kid by Jade Armstrong. Mamo by Sas Milledge. Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal.

Stayed true to my kid lit sensibilities. Favorite picture books: Mina by Matthew Forsythe. If You Were a City by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Francesca Sanna. Mac Barnett’s and Jon Klassen’s hilarious, genius retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Favorite Middle Grade: Hither & Nigh by Ellen Potter.

Favorite YA: The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes. The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan.

And fairytales. Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark contains the most creative fairytale analysis mixed with memoir writing about these stories deep in our bones. Another upcoming release that I read early: Kelly Link’s latest collection of short stories, White Cat, Black Dog. My favorite stories in the collection are “The White Cat’s Divorce”, “The Lady and the Fox”, and “Skinder’s Veil.” Did you also know she runs a bookshop with her husband, Gavin J. Grant, Book Moon, where you can join the Moonlight Club? She also occasionally co-edits the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet at Small Beer Press. If there’s a magic potion for it, I’d like to be Kelly Link when I grow up.

Reading the Moomin comics during the summer and learning more about Tove Jansson’s life

Rereading the Olivia Kidney books

Enchanted Lion Books and their latest imprint-in-progress, Unruly

My epic pre-move flip flop tan and my closet consisting of 3 gray shirts (a button down, a sweater, and a sweatshirt–good for all occasions when I had to change out of my daily uniform of gym shorts and tie dyed t-shirts)

Going through old stuff in my room while packing to move out. My neon orange PayDay wallet with the following inside: my Des Plaines Public Library card, a pool pass, a ticket to visit the Colosseum, 3 Disney World key cards, a National Jr. Honor Society membership card, a name meaning prayer card, a Blockbuster receipt, a Borders gift card, a Books-A-Million discount card, two $2 bills, and my old Food Bazaar card from Queens. Drawings from elementary school, mostly of girls, princesses, horses, and Golden Retrievers. A friendship checkbook. My tiny retainer from fifth grade. Non-roll crayons.

Flipping through journal entries from the same date, years ago

Listening to more music this year

Lady Lamb!! Her lyrics are like poetry--visceral and crammed full of haunting imagery. Her song structures are also unconventional, going from melancholic to upbeat and back again. Favorites: Crane Your Neck, Regarding Ascending the Staircase, Hair to the Ferris Wheel, Vena Cava, Billions of Eyes, Even in the Tremor, The Nothing Part II, Milkduds, We’ve Got a Good Thing Going On, Rooftop, Dear Arkansas Daughter.

Ezra Furman, particularly: Restless Year (for first half of the year) and Watch You Go By (second half)

Also these songs

Looking at the sky

My New York plant Alex is miraculously still alive!

Slow mornings with no technology. Breakfast with coffee and crossword puzzles.

Karlotta Freir’s illustrations were SO. GOOD. this year, and she was also so generous in providing art resources, advice, and community.

Making collages

Of art that I made this year, these are my favorites: Skunk. Bat. Daydreamer

Animal Adventures Week

Making more comics, like this journal comic, this script-based one, and this lyric-based one.

Banana Pocky sticks

Eating strawberries all summer long after having been a lifelong strawberry hater

Strawberry banana smoothies

Practicing ukulele again

Zoom Ballet

This ABT and Nationale Opera & Ballet gargouillade showdown cracked me up.

Getting an Edible Arrangement with chocolate dipped pineapple flowers for my birthday

Kelli Anderson’s kinetic paper sculptures

Substacks, blogs, and newsletters: Robin Sloan. Rebecca Green (Her Patreon is an incredible illustration resource, especially if you’re working on picture books). Magali Franov. Slow Motion Multitasking by Julia Pott. Slowpoke by Carson Ellis (especially the Butter & Egg Parade post and the Egg Sisters series). Comfort Soup by Dasha Tolstikova.

Playing phone puzzle games: Tile Snap. Boo! Water Sort.

Revisiting The Enchanted Bookshop comic for Inktober/Spooptober and making a Goodnight Moon parody

Doing JaNoWriMo (NaNoWriMo, but in January, when it’s less hectic) with my writing group at the beginning of the year and writing the beginnings to a lot of fun, weird short stories (2022 was about starting things or muddling through the middle, and I hope 2023 will be about finishing them).

Also writing a few abecedarian microstories

Reading picture books over video calls to writing group

Creative projects, especially ones in collaboration with friends

Starting new art and writing projects

Thinking about bookshop astrology (more on this later)

Remembering more of my dreams

YouTube: TwoSetViolin, This Savannah Brown video, Jessica Richburg yoga. Leena Norms, Honeybunch of Onion Tops, Simone Giertz, Furry Little Peach, Rosianna Halse Rojas, Marion Honey, Megan Wang, AnswerinProgress, ItsRadishTime, Leigh Ellexson, Frannerd, Ariel Bissett’s DIY home renovation

This short film

Walking around Falls Park with Sarah and Kevin in Greenville

Cutting my own hair a bunch of times and then letting it grow really long again

Art Patreon: Frannerd, Rebecca Green, Jamie Green

Daily 11am coffee break walk

Finishing a sketchbook and starting a new one. Getting new art supplies like caran d’ache crayons and colorful inks.

Painting with an underlayer of ink, and then using gouache and colored pencil

Lost my aunt this year (she was an ex-nun and still really sharp even at 90 years old), but she got to see my finished picture book, and I’m grateful that I had a nice phone call with her in the spring.

Making jiaozi with my parents for Lunar New Year and with Dad and Sarah on Christmas Eve

Tumblr continuing to be tumblr and Daily Dracula (in theory, not in practice cause I can’t read my emails that consistently, but what a great concept) and the endless stream of art, animation, poems, and weird bits of information

Continuing to avoid covid *knock on wood*

Keeping in touch with faraway friendships thanks to phone calls, letters, texts, and FaceTime

Voice notes with Kandace and Natalie

Hearing updates from friends and seeing them make big moves (Getting book deals! Getting promotions! Getting engaged! Getting married! Having kids! Buying houses! Quitting their jobs! Moving! Reevaluating what they want! Realizing there’s no one right way to live your life!)

Monthly video calls with my publishing mentor/friend who doesn’t work in publishing anymore

Spicy hot chocolate and peppermint Christmas lattes.

My dad texting videos and pictures from around Edward Gorey’s house/museum to me while he was on a business trip to Cape Cod

Running around the office as a sheet ghost

Being around people who say funny things and writing down quotes again

Going on a quest to find the kudzu-eating goats

Crispy tofu from Monsoon

Jalapeño Cheetos popcorn

Being out of high school for 10 years now and thinking about what I’ve done and made and where I lived and how I’ve changed and grown in that decade

Getting a surprise care package from Avid with intriguing ARCs and a bookmarked essay in an issue of the New Yorker about Margaret Wise Brown

Enjoying (mild) seasons again

Feeling a lot better now than when I started the year

#2022 #year in review #100 things that made my year #100 things #recommendations

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shadowtraveled · 1 month

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"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them.#hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore.#but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

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