TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE October/11 - I love the smell of powdered milk in the morning.
Smells like childhood.
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
EVERFROST. You in?
Our final issue dropped last week. People seemed to dig it. We got two reviews that really floored me in how well they were written and how much they cared about the text.
Thanks Lia at AIPT for the loveliness
Thanks Hank at Lotusland for the thought and care
When you get tweets like this, it’s a lovely moment:
A lot of people loved one scene in particular, a simple conversation, and that makes me smile. I know a lot of people didn’t see the end of the story, the end of Van’s journey, ending up the way it did, but it was definitely what flowed out of my fingers with the greatest ease.
Ending a story is a sense of relief and also then a weird empty hole inside you. You’ve successfully reached the summit, you look down from the peak, and you realise you won’t be atop this mountain ever again. It’ll be a memory, a postcard, a photo in a scrapbook. Maybe you’ll go back up it, you might reread it, but that’s like catching a helicopter to that same point of elevation. All the hard work is gone, all the feelings you get after an insane journey are not to be replicated.
Writing stories is weird and releasing them into the world is weirder. I don’t think it’ll ever feel normal or small for me.
But for those who came along with me for the ride, it feels like you’ve become old war pals. You saw the same shit go down, you experienced something together, something unique, and it becomes a bond. It really is a special experience.
So thanks to everyone that read along the way, that said nice things, that reached out in emails and messages. Every single time it warms my heart, and I can only hope my silly stories provide some kind of heat in the dying embers of a day and some soul sustenance for those out there yearning for more when they read a story.
THE TPB OF EVERFROST IS COMING!
It lands in December, and I want to see how hard and far I can push this. Can I get preorders up, can I get someone to buy it as a gift, can I infect more of the world with this bleak and yet wildly hopeful sci fi tale?
I’m excited to have this in its final form on my shelf. I’m just as excited to see it on someone else’s shelf, too.
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Random D&D Characters on Patreon.
Over on my Patreon, I write random character histories for random characters that I roll. It’s a really fun writing exercise, and the latest one went really well and I posted it up for free for a change.
They are a cool character and the history spilled out well. So well it caught the eye of artist Ignacio Di Meglio, and so he drew the character, which I thought was exceptionally cool.
So cool. Go give Ignacio a follow on twitter!
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ASD&D.
Due to Covid, my school D&D Club will not return this year. This makes me sad. It’s something I created from whole cloth, something I love, and something that’s resonated with the students. But it’s all wrapped up from the year and those kids only now get just over half a year of adventuring and nerdiness and I’m genuinely sad about it.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
A short comic about accepting your autism, on The Nib - this is a good insight into what autistic people feel about themselves based on what the world tells them to feel. I don’t know how many reality shows I’ve watched where every contestant gets to deliver their sob story to humanise them - a brush with death via disease or accident, a lost sibling or best friend, or an abusive home life - and sometimes the example they’ll give is the person with an autistic sibling. As if having a sister who’s autistic is the same as going a few rounds of chemo because of testicular cancer [do your balls get chemo? I don’t actually know...anyway]. The implication is: autism is a disaster for a family and something to be overcome.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s difficult. But so is having an overbearing ultra-competitive father, or a sibling who lies all of the time, or just growing up so close to the poverty line you can smell the powdered milk. But none of those usually cut it for reality tv, it needs to be shots in a hospital, or tears in someone’s eyes, not just the regular hardship that 50% of the viewership will say “No shit, Sherlock, it’s called life, yo!” So autism gets trotted out, and I even remember one contestant saying once that they hoped they could win so they could divert money to autism research so it could be eradicated so no one else, no other family, would ever need to go through it.
What a shitty thing for an autistic person to hear.
Also, don’t get me wrong, autism [or ASD], can sometimes be a very brutal affair - sometimes. But so can having an overbearing father, it can be exceptionally brutal, or so I’m told by that episode of TEEN TITANS GO! Where Robin defies his coalminer father to rollerblade down the Devil’s Tongue. But I digress, the point is: yep, sometimes it’s a real challenge. But, being a spectrum, sometimes it’s not, it’s just another familial quirk. The same as the father who can’t help himself, or the sibling who is cheeky, or the live-in uncle who is zany. Depending on where they are on the spectrum, it’s another piece of life. Ball cancer isn’t really a wide spectrum, it ranges from gonna kill you, to gonna lose your balls, to gonna have hurtin’ balls...and I don’t think it goes any lower than that.
But having an autistic kid can be like having a kid with superpowers. They fixate, they focus, they struggle to emotionally regulate. I kinda say, “Yeah, welcome to life, pal!” But then that might be hinting at my dalliances on the edges of this spectrum myself, ha. But a label of autism isn’t some kind of looming death sentence, or cross strapped to your back, no, not a guarantee. It can be another challenge, but raising any kid is a challenge. Being any adult is a challenge. But we don’t try to ‘eradicate’ other human traits, and I see a lot of ASD as that, just more human traits. Well, we try to eradicate absolute asshole abusers of the emotional/physical kind, but that’s a harder thing - although, honestly, I’d rather see money poured into that shit any day of the week.
In summation: autism, or ASD, is another thing, yep, it’s a difference, but it’s not inherently a flaw.
Also: it’s not caused by vaccines, so people can fuck right off with that. The end :]
GQ piece on Kumail Nanjiani - this has some really interesting quotes about his views on masculinity and him getting jacked at the gym.
“In fact, now that he's bigger, Nanjiani has noticed that guys are looking at him differently—like they want to fight him...“I just see the little child inside them, like a little child pretending to be a big, strong man,” he says, kind of chuckling but kind of not. “It's laughable if it wasn't so fucking devastating—and causing so many problems in the world. I just want to be like, Dude, if you learn how to cry, you'd just be a lot happier.””
It’s a fascinating look into something that’s completely ingrained in fellas right now - the desire to look hugely muscular because that’s the stuff we’ve seen in movies for the past 40 years. The “peak male” with completely ripped musculature has been shown on screen repeatedly for nearly half a century and it’s become the Ultimate Form.
I think back to movie stars from the 70s and before and you’d have Paul Newman looking muscly, but also looking lean. Dennis Quaid, Robert Redford, Elliott Gould, even Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, these guys looked fit but weren’t spending 4 hours a day in the gym mirror. You get actors today like Leonardo DiCaprio who have attainable bodies, but that’s up against the noise of Dwayne Johnson, Batista, John Cena - all notably ex-wrestlers. Even dudes like Brad Pitt and Zac Efron showcase something that’s a full time job to maintain - Efron being reduced to a near-nirvana moment just because he could once again eat pasta in his Netflix show was an eye-opener. Ryan Gosling has spoken about having pecs and abs as like having pets - they need their exercise and their regular diet of chicken breasts given to them constantly.
But this is still The Ideal. It’s refreshing to see Kumail see through it and talk about it in a way only some scrawny funny guy could, and yet also interesting to see he’s maintained this form he’s attained. And it’s not to say going to the gym is toxic, I think being healthy is a fantastic cause to give your time over to, but the cultural need/desire to look completely shredded is pretty wild.
I exercise 4 days a week, but I do it so I can keep up with my kids, and so I can afford myself that Friday night pizza ritual without worrying about it putting pressure on my knees or anything. I’d be lying if I said I wish I didn’t look better physically, get myself some Aldi versions of Gosling’s pets, but I also know it doesn’t matter enough for me to suddenly hit the gym for 2 hours after work every day and not see my wife and kids.
Raising kids in this culture, and teaching them, I try to offer better reasons to do things, and different examples of success and quality. I try, but being flawed as I am, I am sure I also fail. But I hope I continue to try. Reading accounts like this from Nanjiani is another quality ingredient for the right recipe.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
TED LASSO - it ended, and I loved it. This whole season being about people kind of fighting against depression and figuring out how to be mentally strong in the face of daily issues has been a wondrously small set of moments and things. Everyone faced some kind of challenge, and everyone stood up to them in different ways. I’d love to map out all the characters and their demons and journeys, I think there’d be something to learn there.
WHAT IF…? - I loved this show. Some really cool ideas, some really good twists on things. I liked how each episode took a zany idea, but also made it riff on an existing MCU flick, right down to the shot composition sometimes. Seeing that Avengers sweeping camera reveal of the team amidst the battle in the final episode was a great moment. The whole show is built on the already established knowledge and goodwill of what exists, so why not lean right into that with the same emotional pull of certain movements and camera techniques. The show wasn’t “a masterpiece” or anything, but it’s been something I have thoroughly enjoyed, and that’s something the year 2021 can do with.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
I’ve been reading a tonne of short stories lately. Just trying to fill my head with the best of the best for a teaching thing.
If there’s a short story recommendation you love, please drop me a line [and also maybe a link] because I’m gobbling up everything I can, but I love getting outside knowledge on such things.
Any genre, any style, any topic - and I don’t mind if they’re really short [that might even be a bonus].