yuer 雩兒 (YuEr ✔️; Yuer ✖️)
they/she | ’02
chinese/taiwanese-american
eng/中
interests (ordered by current engagement frequency)
sports | nhl, nba, pwhl, f1, unrivaled, wnba
gacha games | genshin, hsr, lads, tot
kpop | nct, aespa, h2h, xnghan
baihe/danmei novels | ning yuan, tang jiuqing
animanga | daiya, saezuru
cdramas | nirvana in fire, the blood of youth
I will come back to actually update the links but I thought publishing this might help me figure out whether I want to pull my fics out of a hidden collection or just post on Dreamwidth. I don't think I ever really had a writing identity and I jumped pseuds/users so many times to hide from bullies, but I'm no longer 16 or 18 and I can't bring it in myself to care in any capacity. It doesn't really get worse than being doxxed by BNFs as a minor, let's be real...
Doyoung/Jaehyun
A Glow in the Darkness | Rated G
my funny cat valentine | Rated T | 4,516 | office au, 5 + 1, jaehyun rides a motorcycle to work | 2024-02-13
Ten Points From Slytherin, Jung!
Renjun/Haechan
Central Pause
Renjun/Yangyang
Rain Is For Rainbows, Not Because the Gods Are Crying
Unwind My Tangled Heart
Jeno/Haechan
Tinted Sunshine
Sungchan/Eunseok/Seunghan
sober reverie | Rated E | 4,974 | college frat au | 2024-02-14
Byungchan/Subin
Here Comes Another Storm
Minhyun/Seongwoo
Did the Stars Align For You or For Me?
Jihoon/Woojin
your warmth is my home
title not in order.
as you may or may not know, i have been consistently posting on dreamwidth this year, more than i have in the past years. full-blown book reviews, media roundups for q1, and other miscellaneous accounts. i have really enjoyed posting more regularly and writing. the peace and quiet is unrivaled, and there's less judgment, mainly due to a way smaller audience and the fact that people don't like to read longform texts, no matter how miniscule or grand of a message you want to convey.
this is all to say, i am BEHIND. very much so. no media roundups for april, may, or june, and this is making me consider doing quarterly ones moving forth, especially since i have great fluctuation in levels of engagement across the board; i have been consistently reading, but the same cannot be said for my music listening habits OR sports viewing. i think a quarterly media roundup will do me some good so i can focus on my book reviews. i still have 7 in my drafts, but i might not post one of them until i reread that book (it's at her mercy, and yes, i'm using the fan translation title by douqi because i started reading this before we got the ugly official title). another is the grace of kings, which i do not find worth summarizing because it's … literally a copy and paste of the historical chu-han contention, down to the pacing? other things of note: cdramas i watched in 2024/2025 (lol) and a piece on raye's latest album.
( read more )It's been more than two weeks since the draft party and a little less than since the prospect scrimmage, and I forgot to pen down my thoughts. I completely forgot this was a thing, and even after washing the two rally towels I brought home, I had somehow wiped it from my memory. Perhaps there was a part of me gearing for the off-season that made me forget, or maybe it's the amount of priority I have been putting into my individual book reviews, to the point I have neglected three months' worth of media roundups for the second quarter. Anyway, here I am, with my best effort to recollect my experiences and feelings at the time, and whether or not I will be attending these events in the future, with whys to accompany them:
( read more )I carry exile in my heart. It animates my poetry and my politics; I will never be free of it, having lived outside of Teixcalaan for so long. I will always be measuring the distance between myself and a person who remained in the heart of the world; between the person I would have been had I stayed and the person I have become under the pressure of the frontier. When the Seventeenth Lregion came through the jumpgate in bright star-snatching ships and filled up the Ebrekti sky with the shapes of my home, I was at first afraid. A profound discontinuity. To know fear in the shape of one's own face.
—from Dispatches from the Numinous Frontier, Eleven Lathe
Ch. 20, pg. 415
Is it possible to publish SFF without being an academia snob about your studies while exploring them in your fantasy novels? Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire may walk that line, tilting its tracks toward "Yes." Drawing inspiration from empires like the Byzantine Empire and Aztec Empire, Martine paints a story of political conquest and colonial resistance, all the while weaving linguistic perception into the text.
Barring the prologue, in which I feel thrown into a political scheme meeting right off the bat struggling to ensure I am a transparent ghost observing, it took me less than a chapter to buy into the story. One may argue that the first chapter is long, but let's flip to the second chapter on page 38, which is less than 10% into the book, and acknowledge that I rarely take interest in a story so quickly. I often find myself forcing my way through the first 100 pages of a book before really deciding whether I want to drop it or continue, but that was not the case here. I wanted to learn more about the universe, and I wanted to understand the main character's struggles. I wanted to know what she was going through, and I wanted to know why things had turned out the way it did. Though the worldbuilding came off as more "tell" than "show" at times, I find myself attributing this to the author spending a lot of time on linguistic differences, which can only really be explained and not heard when in text. The setup was not overkill, with just enough words for me to vividly imagine the empire without needing to stop at every intersection just to "take in the new environment." The characters were pretty memorable in the sense that I did not need to flip 30-40 pages back just to figure out who this person was, and each personal introduction in relation to the main character didn't feel forced. In spite of all the praise I have for this book, the pacing seems to diminish many key moments. Is this due to the way it was written, or was it deliberate from the MC's POV? The ups and downs toward a climax felt a little too level, as if I had been asked to ride a children's roller coaster. Enjoyable, but not exhilirating.
At its heart, A Memory Called Empire walks readers through a journey of diplomacy and colonial resistance. Mahit, a young woman chosen to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Yskander Aghavn, loses connection with her imago-machine, which holds Yskander's consciousness from over a decade ago. The imago-machine implanted into her brain is meant to guide her as an ambassador and save her the embarrassment of stumbling through Teixcalaanli custom and etiquette. Without access to outdated Yskander and only a cultural liasion by the name of Three Seagrass that functions as her right hand, Mahit seeks to find out how Yskander died—not by food poisoning, that's for sure. Mahit must place trust in Three Seagrass even though they have only just met, and scrambles around trying to figure everything out. Who were Yskander's friends and foes? Who can be her ally? Who is out for her life, and how long will it take for her to figure out why everything is blowing up in her face, figuratively and literally?
Key to understanding Mahit is how she is tethered to Lsel Station through her loyalty, and how her upbringing there nurtured her relationship with Teixcalaanli culture.
[S]he wanted her imago-line back, she wanted it preserved. She wanted to be a worthy inheritor of memory. To safeguard it, for the people she was meant to be serving here, as an extension of Lsel Station's sovereignty. For the people who might follow after her, and carry her mind and memory onward on her Station.
Ch. 14, pg. 304
She feels a sense of duty, not just because she is ambassador and is meant to carry the imago-line, but because she has been taught that it is morally right to do so, to carry and expand on the knowledge of each generation, to continue the imago-line and fulfill her role in this process. Successors are determined based on aptitude similarity, and cutting off the imago-line is seen to be a waste.
[A] person could take up an imago of their lover who had died—tragically, usually, this was a daytime-entertainment holovision plot—and carry them around instead of allowing that imago to go to the next aptitudes-identified person in the line, and destroy both themselves and the knowledge of generations in the process. That felt immoral.
Ch. 14, pg. 302
Her whole life, Mahit has studied Teixcalaan. What it means to live in that world, that empire, that city, what it means to be Teixcalaanlitzlim. How to carry herself as a Teixcalaanlitzlim would, and to study literature like she was one of them. To be cultured back on Lsel Station was to be well-versed in Teixcalaanli culture. She's proud to be from Lsel Station, to boast what she has learned, but it is also a place that immersed herself in another world.
It made her jealous in a way she recognized as childish: the dumb longing of anoncitizen to be acknowledged as a citizen. Teixcalaan was made to instill the longing, not to satisfactorily resolve it, she knew that. And yet it wormed into her every time she bit her tongue, every time she didn't know a word or the precise connnotations of a phrase.
Ch.7, pg. 159
Martine ensures that we witness the psychological effects of colonization shouldered by Mahit, but without a chauvinistic approach that can easily lend itself to dangerous ideology translated from the real world. I know, I know, it's fiction, but it's more common than not to see authors' dangerous prejudices and biases, whether conscious or not, seep into their writing. I really appreciated this bit, that Mahit does want to push back, but there are these feelings she has to acknowledge. Take it as intrusive thoughts, if you will. This, however, did make me uncomfortable, as Mahit is viewed as a "barbarian."
"That's a barbarian," said one of the newcomers.
"A foreigner," another one said, as if making a weary correction he'd made a hundred times.
Ch. 17, pg. 363
"Barbarian" is the Teixcalaanlitzlim's default when referring to Mahit, and even Three Seagrass, who is one of her main allies and claims to take interest in everything with regard to Mahit simply because she is not from Teixcalaan, jokes that Mahit is "her barbarian." Even explaining that Mahit has dedicated her entire life to studying and scoring high in Teixcalaanli studies is not enough to stop the others from looking down on her.
[S]he disliked Nine Maize's acknowledging smile, the condescension in his nod: of course new works were celebrated in backwater barbarian space. For that dislike, she went on, "But I've never before had the honor of hearing one of your pieces, patrician. They must not be distributed off-planet."
Ch.7, pg. 160
As mentioned above, I felt that the ups and downs in this book were a little too level. Even the climax being the emperor's death did not feel that impactful, though I cannot discredit the story for focusing on the humanitarian aspects instead of forsaking the characters, something many stories do. I don't know what to attribute my lack of enthusiasm to: the fact that I read this in three days? That I read this faster than I normally do a book? I cannot tell. I did, however, vastly enjoy the fact that Three Seagrass's cry for help to Nineteen Adze, one of their allies, had turned into a weapon of The Emperor.
The Emperor took two steps backward, into the center of the raised altar. With my blood I sacrifice for us, he said—broadcast, unstoppable, to every Teixcalaanlitzlim in every province, on every planet in Teixcalaanli space. Released, I am a spear in the hands of the sun.
Ch. 21, pg. 436
I admittedly did not anticipate The Emperor's death in any fashion. Perhaps I was still stuck on the faction wars and did not think that this was one way to end it so swiftly. I did not mind this one bit. Better to see a transfer of power to someone that was not expecting it and was not in the running for that position.
I do have a complaint about the romance, though. Or lackthereof?
<You have been flirting with her since the morning you met,> Yskander commented.
Ch. 18, pg. 386
There isn't really any romance in my books. What they call "flirting" is not flirting to me; it is called knowing how to have fun and not be a bore as a conversationalist. I was shocked when I hit this line. I know that the author was trying to weave in some subtle skin-to-skin moments, but they were not really doing anything for me. I guess they kissed, but the setup was not all that well done. Disappointing, once again!
I have received reports that the second book in the duology is not as good, so while I will look forward to it, I think I will also be annoyed. Here is to hoping I will somehow find the originally written in English book of my dreams.
"No one is dead," Mahit said carefully, "who is remembered."
Aftermath, pg. 446
The tricky thing with novellas is that you can only do so much with them before you start thinking, "This should have been longer to make the story more meaningful," or "This should have been shorter because most of the sentences are a waste of space and are not pushing the narrative. I have somehow landed in an odd place for Amal El-Mohtar's The River Has Roots, where I have no qualms with the length, but I find that the story seems to be neither particularly meaningful nor alive, despite all that the magic system seems to do.
Because the last book I read was A Memory Called Empire, where differences in languages are explained and subtly illustrated, the constant emphasis on "grammar" and forms of communication driving The River Has Roots felt too in the face. The simultaneous over- and under-explanation of how everything worked was frustrating, and I'm not sure I cared about any of it despite it being the whole point of the story! I cared about the sisters, Esther and Ysabel, but that was about it. I didn't care for the romantic relationships, failed pursuits, and neither did the magic system make me want to learn more about how the peoples carried themselves in relation to all of it. I read the sentences like I was meant to fall in love with them, just to turn away because they were not doing anything for me.
This piece is conceptually intriguing, but the execution falls flat. I do give credit to the verses though, since they contain rhyme and rhythm. A short, whatever read is how I would describe this novella.
Do you want to read about LESBIANS? is perhaps the greatest sentence to have plagued the internet. It is also the most misguiding set of words I have come across being online for so many years, but I have read them enough to prevent myself falling into a trap. Being aware about the trap, however, does not equate to me not reading those works, so here I am, with a review of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir because it is constantly talked about like a top five SFF lesbian book.
Is it a top five SFF lesbian book? I can't answer that question because I'm not sure I've even read five in that category. I'm trying! I really am! It's just that every book is so bad I have to take a one-year break after reading it. If you let me include baihe novels, then my answer is a definitive "NO!" Is it SFF? Decently so. Is it lesbian? Hm … NO. I want to say I was lied to by the internet's hype, and all I can say is that I am that gullible purchaser who did not read the fine print warning me there would be no sort of romance in the first book (not that I would have known where to find this fine print because this book gets glazed to the ends of Earth).
( do not read if you don't want to read about gideon the ninth bashing )If there is one thing to really know about me, it is that I take interest in things without much basis, and the things I touch often do not align with things I like. How does that make any sense? Well, for example, I don't read fics for my favorite ship despite there being thousands of them. Though I spent large amounts of my time curating baihe reading lists and creating resources for those who wanted better accessibility to them, I take little interest in other sapphic media, though I suspect that has to do with media trends and less to do with an actual lack of interest. I think many have mistaken my interest in baihe for interest in sapphic media as a whole, and I'm sorry to say, I'm just not there.
It should be no surprise to anyone when I say I have not watched The Handmaiden, despite it being a critically acclaimed film that has grabbed the hearts of many. I am not a film person for starters, and any movie I watch is either family friendly for the purpose of hanging out with my friends while cooking and putting together puzzles or just me doing catchup homework on Chinese cinema. It did, however, put Fingersmith on my radar, as a film inspired by said novel, especially after I needed a breath of fresh air from what I call "mediocre popular sapphic literature." The timing of Red Velvet — Irene & Seulgi's Tilt teaser controversies further sparked my curiosity for Sarah Waters' novels, which were implied to be referenced throughout the teaser rollout; I have my reservations about the thematically put together still life not aligning with the teasers of the members themselves, but that is a conversation for another day or perhaps never. More than half a year later, I got ahold of a physical copy from my university's library, then spent way too long trying to read it because I kept trying to borrow other books (in my defense, it was not fun to carry around because it was so thick and could barely fit in my backpack, and I did not want to risk breaking a brittle library book I would get charged for if I did not return it in the condition I found it in). Six months later, I finally finished it and I do not regret picking this book up.
So, what are my thoughts on Fingersmith? Fun, a breath of fresh air, and the type of reveal I want in a mystery novel. The plot follows Sue Trinder, an orphan who grew up in London, and her involvement in a plot conjured by a con man, Gentleman, to seduce Maud Lilly, inheritor of a vast inheritance, in which said inheritance is to go to Gentleman, with a portion for Sue and Mrs. Sucksby, who has raised her. Here's where one's ability to write comes into play:
( spoilers ahead )Tune into a queer retelling of "Sleeping Beauty" surrounding grief, dreams, and suicidal ideation is how Cindy Pham's The Secret World of Briar Rose was advertised to me as I scrolled past the cover on my timeline at multiple points in time. I have long grown immune to the concept of "cover bait" and find that retellings are more of a miss than hit or me, but the potential themes appealed to me.
The story opens with Corin searching for her sister, Elly, who has gone missing. As sisters living in poverty, Corin, the elder of the two, has always prepared for and seen the worst in things while Elly, the younger of the two, turned to hope and dreams and fairy tailes. In search of Elly, who she assumes has gone off to search for Princess Amelia, said to have been sleeping for nearly a hundred years, Corin falls into a portal, leading to another world. There, she meets Malicine, the demon who originally cursed Princess Amelia, and Princess Amelia herself, who prefers to go by the name "Briar Rose."
I wanted to like this book, I really did. Unfortunately, it fell flat in many places, from the prose itself to the pacing and to the underdeveloped themes. The chapters alternated between the "present" and the "past," the present covering Corin's journey into and in the Otherworld while the past unraveled the truth behind Princess Amelia and the fall of the kingdom. It was something I could have appreciated had the pacing not made the story feel so flat, especially for the first, maybe, 80% of the book. There is a plot twist in the 60-70% range of the book I am not quite sure how to feel about because while it roots the story, I did not like the premise of it at all. I did appreciate that, in the middle parts of the book, one chapter seemed to "pick up" from where the last one left, with similar actions being repeated. I would like to hope it was deliberate, but it was not maintained throughout and I wish it had stuck all the way to the end.
The writing itself spends too much time describing things around the characters, to the point where I kept getting distracted. I think it was what made the story flat for the most part; there were too many descriptions that felt meaningless. It was as if I had been dropped into a storybook and had to do a 360 to describe everything before I could get started on the journey, and it was tiresome.
There was a suicidal ideation warning at the beginning, and as someone who has gone through those, I do not think any of those moments really hit for me. Obviously, everyone works differently, but I felt like the author was dangling it in front of me, then beating it over my head, as if that was the only way to convince me of it rather than immersing the reader in that feeling of desperation.
I am not someone who normally rates books with numbers, but it's a 2/5 for me. It was kind of a chore to get through the book because I was constantly getting bored and wanted to read anything but, and the concept and ideas felt too ambitious and thus fell short in the actual execution.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
Note: I had planned to put EVERYTHING into one big post, but given that I'm too under the weather to bring it in me to properly write about NCT and all my feelings, I've opted for a mini series, as I would like to call it, documenting every step of my journey with NCT.
It's April 6, 2026, as I'm writing this. As indicated in the title, I want to write a post documenting how I got into NCT and my journey as a fan since 2015. I had in mind mini letters to each member, not really for them to see per se, but for myself and a reminder of why I have loved NCT for the past decade plus and why I will continue to love them for the years to come, barring controversies. They won't be covered here; I always have way too much to say, and trying to write consistently on Dreamwidth has made me realize I really yap so much. I have can'tshutupitis.
( read more )disclaimer: rpf, mixing reality and fiction. just one angle of many because i like to angst it out lmao
( read more )Pour in queer horror, mix it with the medieval times, and you get The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling. The narrative centers around three characters—Phosyne, a supposed nun who has whipped up sorcery to save the water crisis in Aymar Castle without any logic or reasoning to back up her work; Ser Voyne, a loyal knight who finds the lunacy of Phosyne a threat to the people and a waste of resources to keep alive; Treila, a serving girl who wants nothing but to escape the castle and find vengeance against Ser Voyne—as the castle succumbs to the control of divinity that have appeared to heal the sickly and solve the food crisis Aymar Castle is under as a result of going without help for months. The Constant Lady and her Saints have charmed nearly everyone, even Ser Voyne who immediately kneels to serve the Constant Lady, at the negligence of her king. Sounds exciting. In execution, kind of a bore at times, with so many plot points unresolved and so many lore drops left unanswered.
( Read More )About three months ago, I read Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, intending to watch the movie with my cohort when it came out. I had no expectations going into the book because even though this read was a "recommendation," the merit of reading the book was more about the community I've stepped into and less about determining which authors could drive the next generation of science fiction (of which, Andy Weir is far from qualifying as a candidate, in my opinion). It should not be a surprise to anyone when I say the book was just okay, not groundbreaking, but still scratched an itch for the more nerdy/STEM side of me that probably would have not vibed with many others. In some ways, that bit of the experience reminded me of my feelings toward Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, which I have yet to finish to this day.
( Read More )Welcome to my post where I cover literally every single order of food I had during my week-long stay in NYC :)
photos on tumblr
( everything goes under the cut because i yapped too hard )There are certain expectations when you compare something to Mulan, whether it is the original Ballad of Mulan from the 6th century, the 1998 Disney animated film, or the 2020 Disney live action film. It is not just a tale of crossdressing or a woman leading an army—it entails filial piety, patriotism, and honor that comes with protecting a country that has more continuous history than most regions can imagine. This set up some expectations when I went into She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, and unfortunately none of those expectations were met.
( Read more )this post ended up being much longer than i anticipated, but no one should be surprised as i am a chronic yapper. everything under summary drop downs, so it's not clogged
- finished reading bunny by mona awad. it was … an interesting experience and to summarize, felt like someone's horror fetish but not in a way that i enjoyed. it feels like a lot of people are into this book but i'm not, and my IRL was right that i wouldn't be a fan. i'm not sure if listening to the audiobook made the experience worse than it could have been? the narrator sucked, but at the same time, i'm not sure i could have brought myself to care about any of the characters throughout the book.
- read if we were villains by ml rio, which was recommended to me by an irl, who said she had read this in her "dark academia" era. it was enjoyably dramatic for a story about a bunch of shakespeare-heads but the structure (attempts to emulate a shakesperean play) fell apart toward the little. i've heard it's a worse version of the secret history, but i did like the tidbits of queer romance in the book, so i'm not sure they can be compared on a 1-to-1 basis. there were a couple of jarring lines that made me think the author was racist, and when i went to dig up the author's racial background, i couldn't find anything … don't love it but there was just no reason for those two throwaway lines to appear in any capacity
- wanted to try some old sci-fi with ray bradbury, so i picked up quicker than the eye, a collection of short stories written by him. short story collections always feel harder to assess as whole. it's improbably to love every single story, and this one is no exception. it was good insight into the sff genre in the 1990s. my top 3: "zaharoff/richter mark v," "the very gentle murders," "dorian in excelsus."
- i'm not someone who gravitates toward the mystery genre outside of the chinese direction that mixes mystery and thriller and revolves the narrative around a string of cases, but i'll pick it up occasionally. this time, i read the decagon house murders by yukito ayatsuji, which was surprisingly enjoyable! i liked the geometrical setup (as implied in the name) and how much it resembled and then there were none, which i read a few years back. in fact, i think i enjoyed the decagon house murders even though it clearly took inspiration from agatha. not a fan of the prose or the reveal, but i'll have to read more of the genre to figure out if reveals are just not for me
checked out albums:
- kevin abstract blush: i don't think i was in the right mood to listen to this, but i liked it much more on second listen. will revisit sometime
- ella mai do you still love me?: as everyone knows, my favorite nba player jayson tatum is dating ELLA MAI, so it was very funny when this tweet dropped. like what do you MEAN "executive produced by jayson tatum…"?? hilarious. of course i was going to tune in. i wasn't super into the album though, the only track i have saved from this being "luckiest man"
- xg the core: favorite song was "gala" by far, not sure i was listening close enough at the time to dismiss the other songs though
- one ok rock detox: i'll never say no to a one ok rock album, and i actually listen to them often enough that i'm surprised this album only popped up on my spotify a month ago? it dropped over a year ago when i was in taiwan for my grandmother's funeral, so i'm going to assume that's why i missed a bunch of music releases then. top 3 tracks, in order: "party's over," "dystopia," "nasty"
- lorde melodrama: a byproduct of an IRL blasting "green light" in her car, really. great album, and i wish i had more to say, but unfortunately, i was just looping "green light" for a while
singles:
- flo "mamacitas": dude this song is so good. so glad my friend dropped a leaked version of this in our group chat to put this on my radar. 10/10, no notes
- hearts2hearts "RUDE!": this is such a cute song with a fun MV, but once again, what is the direction sm is going for with their newest gg? i'm kind of lost and don't mind the sounds they have done, but it doesn't feel cohesive enough right now
- wjsn "bloom hour": nice song, but will i get murdered if it gives a graduation/goodbye vibe? a "this will be our last song" release, if you will
- raye "nightingale lane": i wasn't super feeling this song on first listen, but then i listened to the live version and it got me!! i can't wait for the rest of the album and see how this fits into it :)
and shoutout to loote's "this is how u feel" and 16's "make no sense" for making it into my spotify on repeat playlist after nct wish used these two tracks on their posts
wow i won't actually share what fics i read, but the total word count for fics i read was apparently 1.3 million. i read almost double the number of fics i read in january, but branched out a little more, reading ships i know nothing about (aka, digging in the hrpf tag for random pairings instead of sifting through the willmack and sidgeno tags, which i find too great of a task at the moment). i've … yet to comment on anything, which i feel really bad for, but i also need to sit down and let my olympics feelings die a little before i go back and properly comment. i very briefly considered leaving this, as i remember getting so mad when someone commented on my NCT fic mentioning an ex-member and praising (?) their characterization, but as a friend has mentioned, i cannot control how a writer reacts to comments on a fic i cannot even gauge how they feel about. and really, i should not be responsible, when my goal of the comment is to PRAISE the writer. i did read one willmack fic though…so i'm making progress on that front
i continued to watch … a lot of hockey. 8 nhl games, 1 unrivaled game, and as a reward, a singular 1 giants game from spring training. only 8 nhl games? well, there are only so many one can watch when the OLYMPICS are happening. and yes, like i have done every olympic cycle, paid for a peacock subscription. for figure skating, i watched everything from day 3 of the team event. i'm not deep into the sport, but i'll always tune into it during the olympics. call me a four-year fan if you want. i'm not sure i have enough energy to expend for this sport in particular. for hockey, i caught four of the women's hockey games. unfortunately, i did not get to match the gold medal game as i was occupied IRL (and wanted to prioritize figure skating for their stupid copyright reasons). i ended up not watching the full game replay anyway, but did watch the highlights. on the other hand, for men's hockey, i watched 18 of the games. funnily enough, i watched every USA game, as my office said it was fine to watch the olympics while doing my work. i caught the replay of their game against latvia, as i was excited about jack hughes playing more minutes than i was expecting (keep in mind he's still not playing that much). going into the olympics, i was rooting for team canada for gold, but i stopped caring after switzerland got defeated. i was also up at 3am at times catching some of these games, especially the switzerland ones!! absolutely insane…anyway, i do love watching the olympics. i have too many bitter feelings from it still, watching team usa shit its bed and my favorite player blow up his reputation, which is something i will have to properly revisit at a later time (i keep seeing this, and then grow my to-do list by tenfold)
hope i don't regret this, but i will attempt to cover every single thing ever from last month:
books: i finished one book, which was project hail mary by andy weir. a fascinating experience, to say the least, and the main reason this was at the top of my priority list was because the other two in my cohort had already read it, and we're planning to watch it together in theatres. it would be overkill to say i liked it, but it would be underselling my experience to say i didn't like it. it was a weirdly gripping read, and very nerdy, which worked in my favor. i started bunny by mona awad and am almost done with it. i'm listening to the audiobook for this, and i am surprisingly into it, despite my issues with the narrator.
fics: i read 37 fics, which is kind of crazy because i am such a terrible fic reader. in any case, i was camping in the nicojack tag for that entire month, and now i have a crazy backlog of fic comments i need to work on. i read about 891k words in fic, but i want to say it's actually more because there were fics i reread and didn't account for that. i also kept rereading parts that made me cry for a few fics, so perhaps the real number is closer to a million?
movies: i actually watched a single movie, mr. and mrs smith, because um, it had been sitting in my netflix to-watch list and it was leaving the platform oops. admittedly, i have never really been an english-speaking movie watcher. or, movie watcher of any kind… anyway! fun movie! hopefully i don't think too hard about an AU to write and let those urges subside.
music: checked out 6 albums, half of which were tate mcrae's. i have listened to so close to what tracks a LOT, but i still stand by i used to think i could fly being her best album to date. carly rae jepsen's emotion was half of a first-time listen. i've heard some tracks, but never fully listened to this as an ALBUM. 13-year-old me had no concept of pop albums. i listened to gracie's abrams the secret of us, but i got kinda bored outside the single "that's so true." which, haha, i guess i am basic in a way. the album reminded me of taylor swift (derogatory). the last was kevin abstract's blanket, which i need to revisit. i liked "madonna" but the other tracks didn't really make a strong impression. full "on repeat" for the month playlist here.
sports: i watched 37 sports games in total, but not all of them in full. 34 were hockey games, and the remaining 3 were basketball. i will probably be watching less this upcoming month, with the semester picking up and olympic break putting a large gap in the schedule. a third of the games i watched were sharks, of course. put me out of my misery or whatever LMFAO
aka. Year One with the San Jose Sharks and the Consequences of a Heated Rivalry Hyperfixation Snowballing into NHL RPF Brain
aka. My Hockey Origins and How It's Driven Every Reverse Pipeline the Past Month and a Half
( this baby is nearly 2k so everything else is going under the cut )Yesterday (2026 January 3rd), I attended my first ever NHL game in person, and probably my first ever SPORTS game ever? Growing up in the Bay means I'm no foreigner to the SAP Center, not when Disney on Ice is bait for every child within driving proximity, but the last time I had been here was the SuperM concert that happened right before the COVID-19 shutdown. I went with my friend and parking was crazy. By the time we'd gotten in, it was 20 minutes until 1PM, in the middle of warmups. I was watching Mack toss pucks to children on a side completely lined with Macklin posters. Amazing.
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