Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 10

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Morty's house is this inexplicably So-Cal style stucco...thing, with a wrought iron gate, an overgrown
lawn, and fake gargoyles. It's clearly meant to be ominous, and failing catastrophically. Mortimer Lindquist actually walks out past Harry, carrying a suitcase, so Harry goes inside to wait for him. The interior is done up in much the same way as the yard. Plastic skull, red and black candles, a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica with the titles scraped off the spines, to make them look like spooky tomes. The details each, inside and out, except for the hand-carved monsters on the wooden dining chairs, which are minor foreshadowing for a thing later in this chapter. Not even foreshadowing, really. Setup. 

Mort comes back in, Harry says they need to talk, and Mort immediately denies any involvement in what's been going on. Which is, you know, kind of suspicious, since Harry didn't say anything yet other than "we need to talk". Mort insists that he doesn't know what's going on, that he's leaving town, to look after his sister, who's sick. This is a pretty transparent lie, but rather than pressing the issue directly, Harry starts talking about Mort's books, how he used to be a pretty good ectomancer, but now he has to fake it most of the time. Mort says he provides a legitimate services, and Harry counters that if he really believed that, his powers wouldn't have dwindled. That's interesting, because it means he started holding fake seances while his powers were still intact. Either he was deliberately giving up his magic (although this idea will not be introduced for another five books), or people weren't reacting well to what their dead loved ones really had to say. The second thing seems a bit more supported, since he seems upset by talking about the loss of his abilities. I haven't seen many other indicators that Jim Butcher read the Young Wizard series, but he was about the right age for the first ones when they were coming out (for those who haven't looked it up in a while, and vaguely remember Young Wizards as a mid-90s series, So You Wanna Be a Wizard came out in 1983), and this idea that pretending to use your magic (or using it to make it look like you're faking it) is like, bad for your powers, is very much in there. As, it occurs to me, is the fundamental idea that magic is about life. So I guess we'll add influences from Young Wizards to the list of things to keep an eye out for.

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Mort knows about what's been going on, even without his magic, he still has contacts even in places that other practitioners don't. He refers to one of his books, which Harry only skimmed, They Shall Rise, which describes how the barrier between worlds is gradually wearing away. This extremely interesting theory has been neither confirmed nor denied as of the most recent book in the series. He doesn't, as Harry initially assumes, claim that the barrier is failing now, after all this time. Instead, he explains that it's not really a wall - it's squishy and flexible, and something has made it go extra wiggly of late, leading to more spirit activity, and those more powerful. Newly created ghosts, especially angry ones, are gonna be stronger too. Harry asks if Mort knows what could be causing it, and Mort goes on an apparently unrelated rant about how hard it is, living with his particular abilities, having ghosts come bother you when you're minding your own business, and how how what people want isn't actually to know whether their dead relatives forgive them or whatever, they want confirmation that they live in a world where their dead relatives can and should forgive them. 

Last night, apparently, something big came across. Mort won't commit to whether it's a ghost or a demon or what - he says it's a nightmare, but since Harry doesn't consider the possibility that it's literally a creature out of dreams, presumably the reader isn't meant to either. 

Morty's ride to the airport is here, but Harry can't let him go without trying to help. He advises Mort to take a break from fake seances, read and relax, that his power will come back, and he'll be better able to handle it now. Mort acts dismissive, but at the last minute, literally yelling out the window of the cab, he tells Harry that there's a drawer in one of those carved chairs, and in the drawer are his notes, which may be of some use if Harry really wants to go up against this thing. 

The journals are leather-bound, and smell inexplicably of paper, even though they're made of vellum. The handwriting starts out neat, but becomes scribbly later as the stress of Mort's abilities started to get to him. Butcher's is really bringing his detail game on this chapter. Harry doesn't dive into them right away, he calls a cab of his own so he can study them at home. While he's waiting for it, he considers whether Mort is right, about the barrier. This is the first time we encounter the phrase "power has a purpose", although I'm not actually sure we see it again between here and Cold Days. Harry's intuition is that this "nightmare" is here for a reason, maybe was created for a reason, and that he's unlikely to enjoy finding out what it is.

NaNo Retrospective 2022

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I have three objectives for NaNo this year. To the surprise of absolutely no one, I didn't actually accomplish any of them, but I got close on one, and made what I would consider creditable progress on another. The third, I didn't even touch, but we'll get to that. 

I wrote fiction, like, actually made progress all but two days this month. The two missed days were the seventh and the twenty-eighth, for whatever it may be worth. On the seventh, I was trying to someways rearrange my sleep schedule, and lost track of which calendar day it was. On the twenty-eighth, I definitely opened up the document, maybe even put on my writing playlist, but apparently I just didn't get any words written. It must be emphasized, before we move on from this point, that "progress", in some cases, meant two or three words, not even a full sentence, but hey, two or three is a lot more than zero, and some of the days it was more like a few hundred. The added pressure of "gotta make progress every day" didn't really change anything once I had the document open, but it was an additional incentive to actually do that part. So, that's our lesson learned this year, for you and me both. Open the document. Look at it with your eyeballs, every day that you can.

I did not finish the final chapter of Ghani. I wrote most of the second scene (of three), but it's slow going. Perrin's not too hard to write for short or casual conversation, but there's a lot more of him in this one, and it's hard. Also having some of that, y'know, wrapping up a project anxiety. This is the final chapter of, by word count, a novella, and it has to work as an ending, even though this fic is also the first in a series. At least, with no release date for season two, I don't yet have a real deadline, just a general sense of urgency. 

I didn't even start on trying to write, on the computer, 5000 words of the park service faeries novel. This one was always kind of a reach - the idea was to start on it after I finished Ghani, but I didn't finish Ghani, so. I'm not terribly upset, but it does mean I'll need to create another opportunity to try drafting fiction in a word processor. I'll probably take a stab at it after I finish Ghani, even though it won't be NaNo anymore, assuming I can finish Ghani before the new season comes out, and if I can't do that, I'm not really sure what we're doing here. I do have some kind of feelings about the fact that it's been most of a year, a year less a few days perhaps, since I worked on any original fiction of any kind. Even the work I've done on things other than Cierto/Ghani has been on other fanfiction. Those who follow me on AO3 will see that work eventually, but for the time being they're side projects, and prioritized accordingly. 

So, that was NaNo 2022. Uneventful, as these things go. We will resume your regularly scheduled programming later this week. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things.

NaNo Goals 2022

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 As longtime readers know, I don't try to write 50,000 words in November. This is the first year on record when 50,000 words would not, indeed, exceed my entire annual fiction writing goal. I do, however, always try to do something, to both contribute to and benefit from the general "getting lots of writing done" energy of the month. This year, we have three goals. 

1. Write fiction every day. I already write every day at this point, even if it is sometimes only for like five minutes, but maybe, I don't know, 1/3 of days, all of that is blogging, freelance work, or other things that aren't fiction. I don't ever, ever set annual goals that can be "failed" by a missed day, but NaNo is different. We'll see how well we do.
   
2. Finish Ghani. That's my Wheel of Time TV series fic, of which I am currently writing the last chapter of the current installment. Any day now, we could get a release date for Season 2, and I already needed to finish Ghani before it begins, but I am also and specifically going to have this final chapter completed and published before the end of the month, even if it becomes clear in a few weeks that Season 2 will not start until later. 
3. Write 5000 words of original fiction, on the computer. This is the big one, and it's kind of a reach. I wrote more than 5000 words of fiction in October, but it was pretty much all fanfiction, and this goal is on top of an already rather ambitious goal for progress on my fic. The big thing, though, is that this is my attempt at actually drafting on the computer again, for the first time in years, which, if successful, should improve my overall speed considerably. 

 So that's what we're doing. As always, the exigencies of NaNo may put some strain on the usual blog posts, although it is my hope and intention to have the next Dresden Files post - which is currently partly completed - ready for you in the next couple of days. There will be a follow-up at the end of the month to discuss how I did and what I learned. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things.

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter Chapter 9

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Harry has nightmares, unsurprisingly. The first dream is of Lea, bleeding him in a crystal cave. He's restrained with thorn manacles, although they are not named or really described here, and would not be readily identifiable except on a reread, since they aren't formally introduced for another two books. She comes to him, and kisses him, and the cold pleasure of the fairy magic in her lips is described as "almost like a drug". I mentioned, when we were talking about Fool Moon, that Harry has a certain vulnerability to anything that relieves or reduces the physical and emotional discomfort which he otherwise constantly experiences, and this moment feels like both reinforcement of that and important setup for what's coming later, with the vampire venom. She tells him he's almost ready, and we proceed directly to what he's almost ready for, the final moments of Harry's confrontation with Justin, as he watches his former teacher burn to death, and the point at which he finally looks away. We don't know where the dream would have taken him after that, because he's woken up by someone pounding on his door. 

Harry, displaying well-earned paranoia and a healthy sense of self-preservation, retrieves his new, very large gun from the kitchen drawer, and points it at the door. Susan backs up, to clear his line of fire, which, see? See?! If a slobbering monster or a deadly assassin is at the door, she knows what to do, and does it unprompted. Harry informs whoever's knocking that they won't be able to break down the door, but it turns out it's Michael, not a monster or an assassin. Something tried to get into the church last night, after Harry sent Lydia there, and he'd like him to come take a look around, see if they can figure out what happened. 

Susan retreats into the bedroom to finish sleeping, and to avoid letting Michael see her wearing nothing but a blanket. Harry tells her to stay covered up, so she doesn't get sick, adding an unexpected note of domesticity to the scene. Michael comes in while Harry gets some caffeine and food into his system, and nonjudgementally surveys the wreckage of the living room. He asks if he should lecture Harry on sex before marriage, but he's more cognizant that he ought to disapprove than actually disapproving. He wants Harry to have good things, wants him to have safety and warmth and comfort and pleasure, and while he'd rather add stability, respectability, and compliance with God's will to that list as well, he recognizes that they're less of a priority. Harry takes a second to look in on his girlfriend, and his cat, before they head out. He also gears up with the shield bracelet and the force ring, although we are not yet told the functions of either, just what they look like, both of which are newly introduced as of this book. 

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We get a description of St. Mary's, in all is slightly overdone glory, and of Harry's discomfort with churches, which is here presented exclusively as a question of Christianity's unfortunate history with magic users, and not Harry feeling like he's done anything in particular to make God upset with him. The cars outside have been smashed up pretty good, and show signs of having been mauled about by something with claws. The rosebushes by the delivery entrance are in similar condition, but there's no blood, and no footprints, meaning that whatever did this didn't have a real, physical body. Michael asks if it was a ghost, and Harry says he hopes not, because a ghost that can exert that kind of physical force would be way too powerful to deal with. 

They go inside and talk to father Forthill, who apparently once blessed a 5 gallon drum of holy water for Harry. Almost the first thing he says is that he looks forward to the day Harry gives his life to God. Is this foreshadowing? And if so, "give his life" in the sense of devote? Or in the sense of sacrifice? If it is foreshadowing, I don't think it's come to pass yet, so file under "things to keep an eye on". He describes how Lydia arrived last night, in pretty bad shape, and he got her some clean clothes and food, but then she had a seizure, which Harry thinks might have been Cassandra's Tears, and Forthill thinks might have been drug withdrawal. (He says "narcotics", but opioid withdrawal doesn't cause seizures in adults, withdrawal from alcohol or benzodiazepines does), and about ten minutes later, the spirit showed up. Forthill tried to compel it with his priest powers, and it did not like that, started tearing things up. Lydia wanted to go out to it, so it wouldn't hurt Forthill, but he wouldn't let her, and they hung out for a while while he read to her from the gospel of Matthew (I don't know the Gospels well enough to speak to the significance of the selection without something more specific), and eventually she fell asleep, but then he went to check the doors and windows and she sneaked out the back. The wording is sort of important here, from a dropping hints perspective, Forthill said that she "went to sleep", not that she seemed to, or anything along those lines. On a first read, a normal person will assume that she either wasn't really asleep, or woke up after Forthill left, but it's important that neither thing is said, because neither thing happened. It's not exactly foreshadowing for the possession thing, but it's going out of its way to avoid misdirection. 

Forthill makes it clear that he intends to tell the police that vandals smashed the cars and tore up the rosebushes, and asks Harry and Michael to maintain "discretion" about the situation. Harry gives him a little bit of a hard time about it because, y'know, lying is sort of unpriestlike, and Forthill responds that letting word get around would spread fear and potentially give whatever this thing is more power. 

Once they're back outside, Harry says he's gonna talk to a "psychic" who's reasonably clued in about the spirit world, and ask Bob to hit up his contacts as well. Michael doesn't approve of either, and asks if there isn't a spell Harry could cast instead. Harry does his best to explain that no, there isn't a "what kind of being did this" spell, and Michael reluctantly concedes that the point and says he'll follow up with his contacts to see if they can find Lydia. 

So we're gonna finally meet Mort in the next chapter. That should be fun to talk about. I'm sorry this post has taken so long, also - really was hoping to be more on top of things this year Next post ought to be in a week or so. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read all the things! 

2022-2023 Eeveeyear Goals

 So I'm gonna go ahead and call this year a qualified success. I fell short of nearly all my goals, and the one that I didn't, well, that was a whole thing. I accomplished unprecedentedly little on every non-new goal except fiction writing, in both absolute and percentagewise terms. If you look at the screenshots of the spreadsheet, at the bottom of the review section, you'll see goals, new and longstanding, on which I actually accomplished less than 50%. And of course, this was the year I added a bunch of things, and the first year I had working time tracking, but I spent a solid chunk of it without a laptop, and we need to talk about all of that. So let's go through these one at a time, and discuss what exactly went down. 

Reading
Yeah, 57 was not a dazzling accomplishment. That's barely more than a book a week, and only 54% of the target. One of the things that happened there is the damn game manuals. They would take a longer time to read than their often intimidating page counts suggest, even if I didn't tend to pause in my reading to discuss them with my partner, whose conversation doesn't exactly run to the concise. (To be clear, the problem here is not the length at which he goes on - I could just like, not say "Hey, what do you think about this" every few pages). Between the small text size and the density of information, it takes me three or four times as long to find my place again after an interruption, self-imposed or otherwise, as it does with a novel. And that adds up remarkably. Also I had a really heavy workload first semester last year, and much of that included reading nonfiction that was nearly as dense as the game manuals. 

Blog Posts Read
This was one of our new ones, and it went a lot worse than my very tidy, just-enough-to-make-this-goal-higher-next-year 245 (67.12%) makes it look. For most of the year, I was struggling to not have this fall off the map completely. I was consistently one of the things I was most behind on. The problem, and this is exactly as irritatingly cyclical as it sounds, is that I don't read enough blog posts. Oh, and I guess that two of the bloggers I follow had fairly major life crises that affected their posting, but I don't like to cast blame on external circumstances. See, when the next thing I need to do is read a blog post, I go through my RSS feed until I find one, and then I read it. My RSS feed is a mix of blog posts, news, webcomics, and YouTube videos. I don't look at every article from Publishers Weekly, and at this point I'm mostly just scrolling past Dresden Codak (this is a reflection of my current ability to engage with information-dense webcomics, not the quality of Dresden Codak), but I read or watch almost everything else, and the problem is, right now, I'm often hitting two YouTube videos, some of them as much as 15 minutes long, between each blog post. That's not conducive to smooth progress, especially since the range of circumstances under which I can watch a video is more limited than the set of circumstances under which I can read a blog post, so a lot of the time, I'm multitasking, as I do, on a boring phone call or something, and I'll scroll past six PW headlines that have no bearing on my particular corner of the industry, reach a video, and then not be able to proceed. The way to get that to happen less, obviously, is to subscribe to more blogs, but to do that, I need to get through the backlog of one, which I don't do until I'm caught up on my RSS feed, and I can't do that if I'm staring at a YouTube video I can't actually watch. I don't have great solutions on this one, but upping my goals on both YouTube and blog posts read, and upping the target on YouTube more should help with actually getting through the damn RSS feed, and any time that's done I can read through backlogs, and eventually get a better blog/video balance on the feed. 

Handwritten Pages
Honestly, depending on how this year goes, I may drop this goal. Normally, handwritten pages reflects both fiction writing and blog posts, and goals have been set with that in mind, but last December my life got taken over by a fanfiction. This was good, in a lot of ways, including or my fiction word count, but I write fanfiction on my phone, not in a notebook, so the contribution of my unparalleled-since-grad-school fiction word count to my page count has been very low. That's also why I didn't end up playing around with writing sprints like I said I would. The only thing that page count as a goal is doing for me as it stands is making sure my blog posts aren't under-length, and it's not really scaled for that. I was consistently further behind on pages written than on blog posts, and feel free to tell me if you disagree, but I don't think my posts have been too short. Because of the way averages work, even multiplied by 1.25, my goal is lower this year, and who knows. Maybe I'll finish Ghani before Wheel of Time season 2 starts and I'll squeeze in some work on my original fiction. We'll see. 

Fiction Word Count
I may only have completed 56.3% of this, but holy shit you guys, I wrote more than 28k, and in so doing exceeded last year by about 12k. A lot of this is down to the fic - overriding compulsion will, as it turns out, do a lot for your productivity. I played around with timed sprints in Octover and November, but mostly I wrote a short fic, and the first four chapters of what's looking to be a sex chapter sequel, of which I hope to complete the last two before the beginning of Wheel of Time season 2 in...sometime in November? I don't have a lot to say here - I did much better than I expected on a hugely ambitious goal, and the reasons are not complex, nor were they really within my control. There might be something in how much of this writing I did on my phone, rather than by hand, and depending on how this year goes, I might see about doing less drafting in my notebook and maybe even trying out drafting on the computer again. 

Nonfiction Word Count
I knew my initial goal here was arbitrary, but I didn't think it was set that low. Holy fuck. I have no idea how typical this year was, but if I'm usually writing almost 100k of nonfiction every year, that would certainly go some way towards explaining how little time I usually seem to have for fiction. We'll find out, I guess. As always, the new year's target is 150% of what I accomplished the previous year, without reference to the original goal. which in this case mean 147636 words. I suppose you can look forward to some long blog posts this year. 

Game Writing Word Count
This may was set a skosh low, as it turns out, relative to my other game development targets, although that may just be because TCCSS is in such an early stage of development, and it takes a lot more words to explain a basic mechanic than it does to explain a longsword. I feel pretty good about what I accomplished here, and I didn't have to go very far out of my way about it. 

Rereads
I did a lot of writing this year, and much of it on my phone (are you sensing a theme here?). That means less time playing phone games, and by extension fewer natural opportunities to listen to audiobooks. I've added two new goals about making things with my hands, and a few others that should be audiobook compatible, so I hope to do a little better this year. 

Blog Posts
Yeah, I didn't have a computer for a lot of this year, was a lot of this. Also the reread posts require a certain amount of mental space, a certain amount of flow, and with both of my housemates at home full time, that's harder to achieve than it might once have been. Pretty sure I was also having pen issues for a while there. We'll see what increased effort and working tech can accomplish in this area. 

Fanfic Chapters
Sort of the opposite problem from nonfiction. My starting goal was way the hell too high, even with nearly all my writing being fanfiction, 24 chapters was straight up never going to happen. I halved my goal, when I have never reduced one mid-year before this, and I still didn't manage it. The new goal should create some incentive to not just work on the one Wheel of Time fic, while still being like, physically possible. 

Pages Read
This is another one that was a real struggle. The last two years, I scaled it off the number of books I'm supposed to read, at an estimated 375 pages per book. I guess the books I read are shorter than I think they are, because this has never worked how it was supposed to. This year, it's set to 125% of my average from previous years, and we'll see if that doesn't work a little better. Also until about halfway through this year, I wasn't counting scientific papers I had to read for work towards pages read, which was silly of me, so they'll be counted going forward

Pages of Game Manuals Read
Agh. I'm just, I'm really slow at this. I already talked about why in the section on books read. I'm going to try tome little things to improve my speed on this, mostly having to do with text size and reading on the computer rather than my phone, but the only reason my final result was so high is that for the most part, game manuals are long, so I get this done in very large chunks, especially relative to the low target. 

Orbs
This went pretty well. I feel like I spent about as much time playing video games as I wanted to, although we'll get to that, and I made some real progress on my playthrough of Emeral Kaizo. 

Reading Time and Writing Time
This is the first year that I've actually been able to do the type of time tracking I've been trying to do since I started setting goals this way. I met about 2/3 of my reading and writing time goals, but somewhat more writing than reading. As it's important for a working writer to maintain a balance in these areas, though, so I averaged my progress, and set the new goal for both based on that, making the new targets 1066 hours each for reading and writing. 

Macro Elements
I hit 50% on this, but we're dropping it for the coming year. It doesn't make a lot of sense on a project that isn't yet very structured, and it's a disincentive to work on the "bigger" aspects of TCCSS, like the actual lists of symptoms, lifestyle restrictions, tricks, and superpowers. This might be more useful if I were focusing in the intensive homebrew involved in the San Francisco campaign, so that a completed macro-element would mean rewriting a subsystem, rather than creating one, but that's not where my head was at last year, and I don't expect it to be for the foreseeable. 

Game Elements
This one was work, and I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I wouldn't say it went badly. I was mostly poking at this because it was the things I was most behind on, not because I actually had an idea, but when I did have one, I often got three or four elements done at once, sometimes in less than an hour. Since I only hit 52% of the target, the new goal will be lower, nearer 150 than 200, which I thin better reflects the amount of time and energy I really have for it. 

Television
I wish I'd gotten a little more done here, but it went okay, and we finished watching Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, our lack of progress on which was one of the major reasons for introducing this goal in the first place. I was also watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9, but then they moved it from Netflix to Paramount Plus, for which I do note currently have a login. I started Legend of Korra instead, because that was next on my list. It's pretty bad. Watching TV is a little hard to multitask since it needs ears and at least 50% eyeballs, and either my whole phone or most of my computer. For this one, too, the new goal is a little lower this year. And I didn't end up skewing towards half-hours, so I don't have to add a time parameter.

Movies
This goal was set in the overoptimistic believe that it would become safer to go to move theaters, and therefore worthwhile to maintain an AMC A-List subscription, and without having checked the distance from my house to the nearest AMC. I don't watch a lot of movies at home. So I only managed about 45% of the goal, and have reduced it proportionately for this year. 

YouTube
I almost reached this goal, and probably could have done, if I hadn't spent the last two months scrambling to get my other goals over 50%. I took care of a big chunk of this early on by watching a lot of Overly Sarcastic, and maintained that lead through a combination of my RSS feed and videos I had to watch for work. For the same reasons, I'm already solidly ahead for this year, despite the new target being a bit over 500. 

Walking
I'm still not 100% sure what I'm doing with this one. I didn't reach my goal, which was based on the distance reward structure of Pokemon Go, but it was never the thing I was most behind on, and I did enough to raise the goal for the coming year. 

Tabletop Time
I probably did more of this than is reflected here - I didn't always remember to turn on the timer when I was actually playing, which accounted for much more of my progress here than time spent on design. I came very close to my goal without really trying, which is what we're hoping for with a time goal. 

Video Game Time
This one was much less effortless, partly because it's only tied to one activity, and partly because one catches more Pokemon in the early stages of a Pokemon game than later on, so that for much of the year I was actively working to stay caught up, or proportionately caught up, on time, and accumulating several orbs in the process. 

 

We have also gone and added no less than 16 new goals. Some of these are things I already was doing but want to do more of or track better, others are things I wasn't doing but intend to start. 

The first three of these are a combination of two unrelated objectives. I've been wanting to get back to reading through SCP for years now, but the format resists inclusion in any of my existing categories. They can't be counted as blog posts, because the SCP wiki can't be added to an RSS feed, but without word counts readily available, they can't contribute to pages read, and since they're expository, they can't be included in the newly added short fiction category. So I have created a category for wiki pages read. This might be a little excessive for a single text, but I also need to start working on a worldbuilding wiki for my epic fantasy novel, so I also need to read a bunch of Wikipedia articles, to get my head around the shape, size, and language. The other two goals are for that project, planning the articles, figuring out the section headings and subheadings and how long they should be, and actually doing some of the writing of those articles. 

I need to do more cooking, and to expand my repertoire. For the most part, things that do not use the stove or oven don't count, unless they include mixing or cutting up ingredients (e.g. salad, ice cream), so making rice or a bagel is not sufficient, but pasta, or cookies from premade dough, do count. This may be too gameable - we'll see. My goal is to cook in the neighborhood of three times a week, and try new recipes 2-3 times a month. 

Adding a goal for watching television did not actually cause my to attend to my sewing, so I've added a goal for sewing time, and another for completed repairs. This should also go well with the new passive media consumption goals. I need to rewatch TV the same way I need to reread books, so that's on the spreadsheet now, and podcasts are too long to treat as blog posts, so they have been given their own category. 

I like playing trading card games, mostly the Pokemon TCGO, and I literally never have time for it. I'd also like to branch out into Master Duel (Yu-Gi-Oh! online TCG) and maybe MTG Online, and maybe get back to playing Elder Scrolls Legends. To that end, we've added goals for time on TCGOs (I could count this as video games, but I don't want the two activities competing with each other), matched, and new cards. This last has been set deliberately high, as an incentive to experiment with other games. 

I need, also, to learn how to use Unity. Or, it doesn't have to be Unity, but I have programs I need to make, and Unity should meet my needs in this area, so that's what we're going with. They also have what appears to be a pretty well-structured tutorial system, which counts progress in XP, Skills, and Missions. Of these, I have chosen Skills as the basis for the goal, because it was the one the size of which I could most readily get my head around. I have added a time goal as well, essential as a control variable since I have no real idea how long to expect anything to take. 

I don't read enough fanfiction, and I want to catch up on and then keep up with the short fiction Seanan McGuire posts on Patreon, so we've added a goal for short stories. Fics over 50k words were already being counted as books. The Seanan McGuire stories have clear page counts that can be kept track of, and fanfiction page counts will be estimated by word count, at 500 words to the page.

Duolingo is another thing I just haven't been getting to, so we've set a fairly conservative goal for that, and then I added webcomics as well, mostly because I want to catch up on Order of the Stick, but also so they won't be dead space on the RSS feed. 

A few of these goals, the new ones, have had their lead significant digits randomized, because last year there were a few too many times that different tasks were tied or progress, and I don't like that. So I've tried to reduce the number of common factors. 

So our ridiculous 38 item list of goals for the year is as follows:

• Books Read - 90
• Blog Posts Read - 381
• Rereads - 61
• Short Fiction - 55
• Pages Read - 30731
• Game Manual Pages Read - 2258 
• Reading Time - 1066 Hours
  
• Handwritten Pages - 219
  
• Fiction Word Count - 60,000
• Nonfiction Word Count - 147,636
• Blog Posts - 53
• Fanfiction Chapters - 11
• Writing Time - 1066 Hours
• Game Elements - 156
• Game Writing Word Count - 9818
• Tabletop Game Time - 423 Hours
• Television Episodes - 174
• Television Rewatch - 81
• Movies - 17
• YouTube Videos - 509
• Podcasts - 68
• Orbs - 314
• Video Game Time 231 Hours
  
• Wiki Pages Read - 298
• Wiki Words Written - 10,079
• Wiki Articles Planned - 16
• Foods Made - 150
• New Foods Made - 30
• Repairs - 26
• Sewing Time - 117 Hours
• TCGO Matches - 277
• New Cards - 10,950
• TCGO Time - 104 hours
• Unity Skills - 113
• Unity Time - 236
• Duolingo - 290
• Webcomics - 270

So yeah, that's what we're gonna be doing this year. Watch this space for updates to the reading list pages and the progress bars on your right. Next Dresden Files post will be in the next week. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

 

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 8

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As it happens, the vampires aren't there to do violence, they're there to deliver an invitation. Bianca has earned elevation to Margravine. In between this and "wizardess" in the previous book, Jim Butcher should probably just stop trying to use gendered titles. Margrave is a title, military or hereditary, for a person assigned to maintain the defense of a border province. Marquis has a related etymology. Due to the remoteness of his position, a Margrave would have a fair amount of independent authority, including some ability to elevate his own vassals and grant them lands, which is referenced later in Bianca's newfound authority to turn new vampires. The implicit classification of Chicago as a remote borderland of this sort also has interesting worldbuilding implications. Does the Red Court just not have a presence in like, Wisconsin? Or Indiana? I'm fascinated, and it's never really followed up on. Anyway, a Margravine is not a female Margrave. (Yes, it was constructed thus in like, German, but please note that Margräfin is not actually the same word as Margravine, and that in Germany and Austria, the title was hereditary once granted, which we know for certain is not the case in the Red Court). A Margravine is a Margrave's wife, which we know is not Bianca's situation - she is presently unpartnered, and that last person with whom she was involved was Paula, who was human and thus ineligible for any such lofty position within a vampire court. It would have been easier and less weird to just say she's getting elevated to Margrave. La, words!

We get a reminder about vampire venom as Kyle and Kelly, in their matching tennis whites, draw closer to announce their nominally peaceable intentions. There's some back and fourth, which confuses the heck out of Susan, about whether this is Court business, Harry as a local representative of the White Council, and the fact that Kyle is an ordained Herald, afforded safe passage provided he doesn't start shit (and enjoined from doing so), while Kelly...isnt, that ends with Kyle approaching Harry alone to deliver the paper invitation, which is apparently important even though he already disclosed its contents. I don't think we encounter the term "ordained herald" anywhere else in the series, and I wonder if putting Kyle all in white is intended to be a Valdemar reference. Well, I'll keep an eye out for other possible references to Valdemar as we go forward, as well as Wheel of Time references. 

Once he's got the invitation, Harry uses his little wind spell to throw dust at Kelly and Kyle. While this messes up their hair and gets their pretty white clothes dirty, it's technically harmless and therefore not a violation of the Accords. It's a good illustration of the whole "there is not spirit of the law, only the letter" thing that's gonna be so important in a while. It was also fucking stupid. Like, at this point, antagonizing Bianca further probably won't make that much of a difference, but there's no need to go annoying a pair of strange vampires, who don't personally have a problem with him yet, and one of whom he can't legally attack, and at the very least, I feel like this kind of petty insult could have given Bianca leverage to pressure the White Council, which already doesn't like Harry, into making him go to the party, although of course that doesn't end up being an issue. 

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As soon as the vampires are out of sight, Harry almost falls over. He wasn't in great shape to begin with, on account of the ghost fight, and then he dealt with a scary thing and did more magic. So he's completely out of wherewithal, and Mister does not help by reappearing and slamming his 30lb self into Harry's legs. For the past two years, I have lived with a 19lb cat (no, she's not a Maine Coon, she's just big), and it's really given me a different level of appreciation for how stupid big 30lbs is on an animal that usually weights in the neighborhood of 10. That is a lot of cat. Anyway. 

Susan helps Harry get inside, and we get a description of his little basement apartment. I think this is the first time we're told that he decorates in textures, not colors, but I'd have to check. We also get a review of the whole no electricity, no heat, thing, although the usual obligatory cold shower joke is conspicuous in its absence here. I think we even got one in Turn Coat, when he's dating Anastasia. But not here. Not when Susan is taking his boots off for him and lighting the candles so he doesn't have to either stand up or use more magic. This is not as strong an argument or what works in their relationship as the scene in Fool Moon, but this reread is giving me a much better perspective on why even this relationship. Susan takes actions that make problems, and she's gearing up for the most problem-causing one of all (we'll discuss my thoughts on the Maggie thing when we get there), but I do get why they're together, at this point. 

Susan reads the invitation aloud, and is clearly gearing up to ask Harry to bring her along. Harry is not into this idea, and tries to head her off by telling her that he's not going, and even if he were, he wouldn't bring her, because it's unconscionably dangerous. This is pretty fair, honestly, although he could have been a skosh clearer. This situation is too dangerous for a fully trained wizard. That makes it way too dangerous for a human journalist. If he were going, it would be under duress, and it wouldn't make what he's up against any less lethal. Susan, it occurs to me, doesn't have a reat perspective here. She was present for at least some of the dangerous parts of Harry's last two cases, but his adversaries there were neither personal nor political. They needed Harry dead, but they had no reason to want him hurt, which meant that all Susan had to do was avoid antagonizing anyone or getting caught in the crossfire. She wasn't going to be a target in her own right. She's demonstrably able to do that, and I think part of what she's responding to here is that if she assumes this is a similar situation, it would, from where she's standing, be pretty unreasonable for Harry to assume she can't handle herself when she's already shown that she can. 

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She asks about the guarantee of safety, and Harry does his best to explain how very easy it would be for them to kill him anyway while keeping their actions in line with the Accords. He also points out that Bianca has a personal problem with him, although he doesn't say that she blames him for the death of her girlfriend, and would therefore almost certainly seize the opportunity to do something to his. Maybe he hasn't though of that yet. 

Harry's right, but he's also being patronizing as hell. Susan makes reference to publishing interviews with vampires, and he tells her she's been reading too much off the bestseller list. Not only is that dismissive, he's utterly ailing to consider that her readers are probably reading too much of the bestseller list, and that's why a literal interview with a literal vampire would do so much for her career. We know he reads her column, and reference is made to his thinking she's a good writer, but just at present it feels like he's not thinking of her job as a real thing. 

Susan points out that she doesn't make an obstacle of herself when Harry goes into danger because of his job, y'know, like he did tonight, and Harry... realizes she's right, inexplicably decides he has to try and prevent her going, and then tries to distract her by bringing up the White Council. Then he lies to her about what the White Council is. Funny thing about lying to people is that even when they don't consciously catch you at it (and Susan does, immediately), it often reduces your ability to tell them what to do. Honestly, I don't understand why his initial argument here isn't "Okay, yeah, you're a grownup, and you can take your own risks, but you can't go without me and I'm not going. It's a long step from letting you put yourself in danger if that's what you want, to putting myself in danger so you can get a story." This doesn't need to be about whether Susan understand what she's getting into - Harry understands the risks he would be taking, and he does not consent to them. And like, he does kind of try that eventually, but not until after he tries condescension, manipulation, and lying. 

In any event, she apologizes for pressuring him about this when he's exhausted and injured, and I'm genuinely not sure if she's being sincere, or if she's already decided to make a copy of the invitation. Harry prevents any further discussion by kissing her, and the proceed directly to having sex on the living room floor. Good thing he has so many soft rugs? 

I did it! Technically! Last blog post of the year. First post of next year will be analysis and new goals, and then we'll resume our regularly scheduled programming. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!

Banking the Fire

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Sometimes, you need to be in a particular emotional space in order to make the story go. Some writers, like me, pretty much always do this - you might never need it, or you might only need it once. There's a decent amount of advice already out there about how to get into the right emotional state, and a nontrivial amount about how to get back out, but today I want to talk about a secret, third thing. 

Sometimes, you need to preserve the continuity of that emotional state between writing sessions. And sometimes, the emotion you're writing from is not a functional or comfortable one. Holding on to the warm glow of hope against all odds for the weeks or months it takes to complete a short story or a few chapters of a novel might be difficult, but it isn't unsafe. Actively keeping yourself in a state of rage, terror, grief, or despair for the same length of time though? That's not just unpleasant, it's dangerous. Most times, you want to come out of it when you're not writing, but if the emotional throughline is too delicate with withstand the subtle differences when you try to recreate your original headspace, obviously that isn't going to work. And seriously, this bears repeating, you cannot spend months repeatedly reopening self-inflicted emotional wounds. You will damage yourself. That's where the technique I'm about to describe comes in. 

Locate where the emotion sits in your body. Usually, it's gonna be somewhere in your chest or abdomen, but if you sincerely feel like it's in your left kneecap, go with it. Now, picture that feeling, that center of emotional and somatic sensation, This may require you to stretch your brain a little if you've been writing from something in the space of sadness or fear and you're used to only "hot" emotions being fire. Sometimes it'll end up being a weird color, which is fine as long as you can get it to otherwise behave like regular fire. If absolutely necessary, you can let it give off cold instead of heat, but that's really not ideal for what we're gonna do with it. For me, it's more important to be able to feel what I'm doing than to "see" it, but you might be different. 

Okay, now you've got that clear in your head, give yourself a second to just experience it. Give it your full attention. Assure yourself of it's reality. Know how easily it can keep going as long as you continue to feed it. If the answer is "pretty small", "reasonable campfire", "it would fit in a fireplace", you can go ahead and skip the next step. If it's bigger than that, we're gonna need to get it a little smaller before we proceed. 

If you have not already done so, turn off your writing music. It's best to do this step without any music on, but if you do not vibe with that, go ahead and switch to something emotionally neutral or, failing that, something that's in the same emotional direction but less intense. Change position. If you can, go into another room. Or outside. We're trying to reduce the "fuel" our fire has. Once you've done what you can in that area, see what size it feels like now. Still pretty big? No worries. Take a proper full breath, from your diaphragm if you can. That one was just for practice, and because your breathing was probably not great while you were writing. Now, do it again, but this time, on the exhale, see/feel the fire getting smaller. Keep doing that until it's down to a manageable size. If your lips start feeling tingly, take a short break to breath kinda shallowly for a minute. But try to hold onto the visualization. 

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Once it's a size you can work with, start putting stuff around it. Move the coals together, and put something that holds heat and resists flame around the side.  I use dirt, but you can use rocks, if you'd rather. When you've got the first layer around it, start building up and in - you want it partly covered, so you can still see some of the coals, but there's no longer any visible flame. Put a couple extra chunks of wood on top of the coals. If you put your hand near it, you should still be able to feel the heat coming off the top, but only at close range. 

You can now go about your day normally, and not worry about preserving the headspace you need for your story. It's there, tidied away and protected so it can't spread and won't burn itself out. You should be able to check it whenever you like and feel it still smoldering, but you should also be able to do other things, and feel whatever portion of the full range of human emotion you usually have access to. Heck, you can sleep, and it will still be there when you wake up. 

When it's time to go back to writing, do whatever you normally do to start your process. Open to document, put on your music, all that. Maybe reread the last paragraph or so of what you wrote. Then go back to your little banked up fire, and take the dirt or rocks away, exposing the coals. Throw some dry grass or twigs on there, (that's why the music and rereading) and blow gently. It'll get back up to full strength in a couple minutes, and you'll have the emotional continuity you need for the story. 

If it's gonna be more than a day or two between writing sessions, you may want to uncover your fire and add more fuel like once a day. If people look at you funny, tell them you're meditating or something. I can at this point do the whole process under two minutes, but if you don't have a lot of practice, or aren't great at the whole visualization thing, it could conceivably take as much as 20 or 30 minutes to get the fire banked and as much as five to start it up again. Plan accordingly. 

I honestly couldn't tell you why it felt so important that I write this out, but it did, so I did. Hopefully it will prove useful. Hard at work on the next Dresden Files post - you'll get at least one more out of me before the end of the month. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 7

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Michael doing the talking didn't go as well as they hoped, and Our Heroes are now in jail, charged with disturbing the peace and about half a dozen other crimes that amount to "freaking everyone right the hell out". Harry, individually, is also looking at a solid handful of traffic violations, enough that he's worried about losing his license, although I don't think this possibility ever gets any real follow-up. Harry's feeling validly bitter and cranky about having fought the good fight, et cetera, no one even knowing the work they do exists, and now getting arrested for it. He's also anxious because, while they now have some idea what's getting the ghosts all worked up, they still don't know who's doing it, and they kinda need to figure that out before something even worse happens. 

Michael isn't worried about that, or feeling so resentful, and he points out to Harry that they saved about a dozen babies from the forces of darkness, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of "worth it". What he's worried about is how mad Charity is gonna be when she comes to bail them out. When Harry quotes his own "have faith, it'll work out" rhetoric back to him, he says he'll say a prayer to St. Jude. So that's two jokes he makes in this book. 

True to Michael's prediction, when Charity arrives, she is not happy. She's also like eight months pregnant, and that doesn't make her even a little bit less intimidating. Harry makes an effort to greet her politely, but she's not having it. She doesn't approve of Harry. She doesn't like Harry. And it's her assertion that he's bad for Michael, because only when the two of them team up does Michael come home covered in blood. (Or, y'know, get arrested). This is fascinating. I'd love to know whether she's right, for one thing, or whether she's just doing a confirmation bias. This option might require that she actually have another reason to dislike him, but it's possible that she just arbitrarily latched onto him because he's a size and shape she can theoretically control. If Harry is what's putting Michael in danger, all she has to do to keep him safe is keep Harry away from him, and that's far more achievable than keeping every danger in the entire supernatural world away. It's not exactly a productive way to think, but it's pretty normal. If she's right, and this only happens when Michael and Harry work together, I see three possibilities. It could be that jobs serious enough to need both of these two very powerful and capable people are on the extreme upper end of the dangerous situations Michael gets into, and are thus the ones where he ends up covered in blood. Since some of Michael's work without Harry includes fighting Denarians, this doesn't seem super likely, but it's possible. More provably, Michael's work takes him all over the world, and when he's not actually in Chicago, he takes the time to wash up, do laundry or change his clothes, and bandage his wounds before Charity has a chance to see him. So there's no correlation between Harry being involved and Michael getting covered in blood, but they only work together locally, so there is a correlation between Harry's involvement and Charity finding out about it, and naturally Michael isn't super inclined to say "actually, my job is always like this, you just don't see it." Or hell, maybe he did, and she just didn't internalize it. The third option, more likely, in my opinion, than the first, but less likely than the second, is that Harry's general lack of regard for his own safety, combined with Michael's unwillingness to let friends do stupid things alone, puts Michael into situations when he's working with Harry that he would otherwise be able to avoid. And if that's the case? Then Charity kind of has a point. No matter how important the work they're doing it, it's hardly unreasonable to resent someone whose low-key suicidality keeps getting your husband hurt. 

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Michael and Charity leave, and Harry stands there for a minute, thinking about "the married thing" and his own terrible relationship history, until Susan gets close enough for him to sense her presence, which is apparently a thing he can do. She asks about Michael's backstory, including Charity, and after insisting that it remain off the record, he fills her in on how Michael saved Charity from a dragon, and the basics of the whole "Knight of the Cross" situation, although at this point he's not entirely sure if they're real holy artifacts containing actual nails from the Cross, or just pieces of metal that Michael believe in real hard. 

Susan is a little annoyed that they won't be having their date tonight - Harry is tired and injured, and she gets that, but when pressed, says she wishes she were as important to Harry as his work is. Harry makes a couple attempts to say how much he cares about her, but nothing he says is sounding right, and he figures now is a pretty good time to tell her he loves her, but he physically can't make himself say the words. Everyone he's ever said them to has died. Which is honestly kinda fair. He came by this baggage honestly. Since talking isn't working out for him, he just kisses her and hopes she gets it. Then he lets her drive him home. 

Mister isn't there when they get back to Harry's place, and Harry's pretty concerned. Susan brushes it off, on the basis that cats pretty much keep their own hours, which is sorta valid, but also very much evidence that Susan isn't a cat owner. Cats get into a rhythm with their humans, and if the human notices a break in a known routine, it's often a sign that something is up. And indeed, a moment later, two vampires emerge from around the side of the building in a wave of spooky energy. Harry tells Susan to get her keys out so they can escape. 

Hope you're having a good time with these. We'll have somewhere between three and ten more of these before the end of the month, probably, and I've got a shorter non-Dresden post ready to go in a day or two. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 6

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Lea says the burning city reminds her of old times, and asks Harry if it reminds him as well. This is an allusion to the final confrontation with DuMorne, although I don't think a first-time reader would have the context on that. It might have come up in the brief discussion of Elaine with Inner Harry in the previous book, but I'd have to check. She tries to make it like she just stopped by to say hello and catch up, all the while having her hellhounds spread our to better bar their way. 

Michael asks her, very politely, to get out of their way, and she refuses sharply, although she's respectful enough, addressing him as "sir knight" while she explains that Harry belongs to her, by the terms of an agreement he made, meaning that Michael has no right, and little ability, to intervene on Harry's behalf. They don't really get into the mechanics of the whole "free will" thing until Small Favor, but this establishes the basic shape of it - the Swords, and the Knights who wield them, can't really help you out of something that's your own stupid fault. 

Lea tells Michael to leave, and sets about glamouring Harry to make him come away with her to the woods and waters wild. It's working pretty well, initially (although the astute reader might accurately assess that his stated inability to resist her "for more than a few seconds" means he's waiting for his moment), and once he's within touching distance, things get...distressingly erotic, given that she opened the conversation by asserting a familial relationship. I mean, consenting adults can do what they want, and it's not like their blood relatives, but she's literally mind-controlling him right now, so there's absolutely no consent happening here, and within that context, the whole "my son" thing just adds an extra layer of creepy. Occurs to me that this is foreshadowing for what happens to Harry later in this book, and further evidence of the influence of Robert Jordan's writing upon Jim Butcher's. 

Michael refuses to leave, asks Harry what he thinks he's doing, all that. Not leaving his friend behind. Lea asks if Harry will go with her, and he's all "I will go with you...when hell freezes over" and dumps the sack of ghost dust into her cleavage. Solid foreshadowing on this one, since we were told at the beginning of the previous chapter that it contains cold iron. We are also reminded of it in narration here, which I'm not at all sure was necessary, but I suppose it's better than giving inattentive readers the impression that fae in this setting react to depleted uranium. And react she does, breaking out in a painful-sounding red rash everywhere the dust touches her skin. This breaks her concentration, and the glamour along with it, giving Harry and Michael the chance to flee. Unsurprisingly, it also posses her off, and she starts gathering fire from the nearby burning buildings, preparing to blast them with it, yelling about how Harry belongs to her, about the promises he made, and the ones his mother made. I think this is our confirmation that Maggie is the one who made her Harry's godmother, although it wasn't like, a big mystery before. Godparents are generally chosen by ones parents, and since it's already been established that Maggie was a wizard and Malcolm was a vanilla mortal, there isn't really anyone else who could have arranged it. 

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Michael kills a couple of hellhounds who attack them on their way out which is a little awkward since they used to be, and might in some sense still be, people. This is, so far as I can recall, never addressed, even after it's established later in this same book that Lea is going to turn Harry into one of those things if she ever gets ahold of him. They get to the rift, and Harry pushes Michael through, but not in time to get through himself before Lea launches her attack, so he puts up his shield again and lets the force of her spell propel him back into the mortal world. This is sort of a very soft foreshadow of his trick with the shield bubble in White Knight, in much the same way that his hand injury in the previous chapter is for the one in Blood Rites. Those, interestingly, being the other two that are really focuses on vampires. I think there's similar foreshadowing for Changes later in this book too, but we can talk bout that more when we get there. 

The rest of the fire from Lea's attack turns back into ectoplasm as soon as the rift closes, leaving Harry temporarily slimy but basically intact. The babies are all awake and crying. Michael, while they're trying to clean up their injuries from splinters and hellhounds, expresses his surprise and disappointment that Harry lied to Lea, because they're "supposed to be the good guys". This is the only book where we get Judgey Michael, and I will not be at all sad to see him go. I feel like I might have said that in the discussion of a previous chapter? Also, does taking a while to finish a sentence really count as lying? Also also, like, I get that the Knights can't interfere with the exercise of free will, but is there really no flexibility there for minor children who had to way of comprehending what they were getting into? The books kinda dodge this with Molly by having Michael absent for so much of Proven Guilty. 

Naturally, someone called the cops, and they arrive after not too much of this most unpleasant conversation. Michael tells Harry that it will be okay, just let him do the talking...

Yeah we've really hit that school year slowdown now. I'll do what I can to keep posting regularly this month, and of course, you'll get the post about how we did with this year's goals, and what the coming year's are going to look like, sometime in very early October. (Preview: I probably am spreading myself to thin, but there's definitely more going on than that). Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 5

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The Nevernever has perceptibly different vibes from the real word, not quite a physical sensation, but  palpable all the same. The ghost dust, which was already heavier than it looked, starts to feel as though it weighs 30 or 40 lbs. Based on Harry's description of the ingredients, I think ghost dust is technically a potion. He describes depleted uranium as the "base ingredient" and says it also contains cold iron, basil, and dung, although from what we aren't told - Michael interrupts him, saying he doesn't want to know. 

Agatha Hagglethorn's demesne looks like her memories of Chicago, all made of wood, and wavering on the transition from gas lamps to the very earliest electric lights. The life forces of the infants are perceptible through the veil as glowing spots. Agatha herself, unfortunately, is not so readily apparent. Harry explains to Michael that he'd like a proper look at her, unimpeded by an active fight for survival, to see if he can figure out what's causing all the ghost activity. He's on the point of suggesting they split up to look for her when she explodes out of the sidewalk, sending splinters everywhere. I have no idea what she was doing down there, but it's a striking visual, especially since Agatha's recent injury is still reflected in her form here. Her arm is missing at the shoulder, not the wrist, and there's blood on her dress. She's screaming about her babies, hair undone, and generally both having and causing a bad time. 

Michael tries to attack her, and she blocks with her remaining arm, sending him flying. This is an excellent illustration of what Harry meant when he said she's be "stronger" on this side - it's not abstract. She as the physical power to bat them around light cat toys, and the metaphysical weight to overload Harry's shield, although the backlash from the latter at least slows her down a little, giving Michael and Harry both a chance to get back on their feet. It also bruises the shit out of Harry's hand, a foreshock, almost, of the various stranger things that will happen to it as the series progresses. 

Harry says he has good news and bad news, and Michael says "I've always been partial to the Good News". This, it cannot be overemphasized, is a joke, and it might be the only one he makes in the entire series. I feel like it gets overshadowed, because almost immediately after, Michael draws Harry's attention to the approaching sounds of Lea's hunt, and we get the "holy shit, heckhounds" thing. 

Michael offers to take on Agatha alone long enough to let Harry escape back through the rift. I don't know if he has his own way out of the Nevernever (unlikely, given later events), hasn't thought through the fact that he'd be stranding himself in the demesne of an angry ghost, or is really that eager to do the self-sacrifice thing. It's also possible, I suppose, that he Has Faith that God will provide him with a way out. Given who's around, that probably means Lea, and I'm genuinely curious how that would have gone. She doesn't have any preexisting beef with Michael, or the Knights, as far as I know, but she's likely to be pissed that he helped Harry escape her, and she's literally incapable of helping someone for free. She wants the sword, but there's a 0% chance of Michael trading it for something as insignificant as his own survival. I'm curious what he'd bargain her down to. Mab wants Molly, and Lea is still fully loyal to her at this point, but Michael is even less like to trade his kids than he is the sword. What might he be able to offer her? The elimination of some nasty critter that's making Lea's life difficult? Building a 100% iron-free house for a vassal of winter? Taking custody of a changeling child? Yeah, okay, I would read any of those short stories. But the eventuality does not come to pass, because Harry doesn't leave friends behind. 

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Michael engages Agatha, trying to buy Harry the time he needs to do his thing. Harry starts charging up his blasting rod, but she senses the energy building at the last second and physically tackles him just as he fires off the spell, causing the shot to go wild and set a couple buildings on fire. The ghost disarms him, bits his arm, and gets her hand on his throat. Michael once again saves Harry's butt, stabbing her through the back with his holy sword. In addition to killing(?) her and setting her on fire, this tears open the back of her shirt, revealing the twisting barbed wire of the torture spell. Harry immediately catches that this is what's been provoking the ghosts to violence all over the city, and that it means they're dealing with a person, not a monster or (super)natural phenomenon. I feel like this should also have tipped him off to the fact that they're dealing with a human, or something that thinks like one, and not, as he later supposes, the ghost of a demon. I don't think demons really know about barbed wire. If I remember correctly, there's some barbed wire in the portion of the Nevernever controlled by "evil Bob" in Ghost Story, but a) it's mostly aesthetic, not functional, b) Bob is half human, sort of, and c) Bob was made by (sort of) humans and has spent most of his existence in close proximity to them. But it's a small enough thing, and Dresden's reasons for the "ghost of a demon" notion may be stronger than I'm remembering at present. 

Agatha has been dealt with, and the "city" is on fire, which mean it's very much time to leave. Harry noticed a minute ago that he can no longer hear the hellhounds and hunting horns, but he doesn't really process what that means until about a second before Lea herself steps out of the smoke. She's the first one of the high sidhe described in the series, and I'm struck by the choice of the word "ageless" here, and by her addressing Harry as "my son", rather than "godson" or any of the other things she calls Harry throughout the series. I don't think I have a point here, except that "my son" is how, in Wheel of Time, the Amyrlin Seat addresses most men, unless she's annoyed with them, and that "ageless" is also the typical descriptor for Aes Sedai faces, and that's mildly amusing to me because, well, if you haven't already massively overthought the origins of the phrase "Aes Sedai", try reading the words "Aes Sidhe" out loud as though you don't know how they're pronounced. 

Gonna need to wait for the next episode to find out what Lea's gonna do, because the chapter ends here. As always, my workload has gone back up with the start of the school year, so I can't say with any certainly when the next chapter post will be, but I'm hoping for soon. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread- Grave Peril Chapter 4

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Flashback part 2! Harry takes the girl back into his office, where the lightbulb immediately burns out, and pulls out a chair for her. It actually takes Lydia a few seconds to realize what she's meant to do with it, which I think is meant to be an initial sign of how rough Lydia's life has been, how badly she's been treated, that no one has ever pulled out a chair for her. It's a creditable attempt at subtle characterization, but it doesn't land quite how it's meant - lots of non-shitty guys don't pull chairs out, and even people who've never had it done for them are familiar with the concept, so the effect mostly is to make it look Lydia isn't great at picking up social cues. And impression only reinforced a moment later when Harry says that if she wants his help, he's gonna need a few things from her, and she immediately switches to seduction mode, despite having no real indication that that's what's called for here. Guys? I think Lydia is neurodivergent. I mean, she has a seizure disorder, of course she's neurodivergent, but I think she might be on the autism spectrum or something. That would potentially account for why her emotions often come across a skosh performative, even when she's being sincere. 

Harry's turning down teenage girls game is on point. He rolls his eyes and lectures her about STIs. Considering that teaching baby practitioners is part of his job, he's probably had to do this a lot. He clarifies that he wants information, starting with he name. She very sensibly refuses to give it, but eventually agrees that he can call her Lydia. I mark this part of the interaction only because I have this vague recollection that at the end of this book, he acts like it's news that "Lydia" was never her real name. 

She says she needs a talisman to protect her from a hostile spirit, but still doesn't want to provide details, saying she can't tell Harry what kind of spirit, why it's after her, or even how she knows. That first thing seems kind of important. I don't think Harry's anti-ghost talisman would even work if she had, as Harry idly considers, attracted the wrath of an avenging angel. When Harry presses her, she asks if he knows what Cassandra's Tears is. For the reader's benefit, since Lydia clearly already knows, he explains aloud that it's a prophetic ability, characterized by seizures and visions of the future, accurate ones, but presented in terms that make them sound implausible, frequently misdiagnosed as epilepsy. 

Harry asks if she had a vision warning that there's a spirit after her, and she says no - she had three, which is unprecedented. Even major natural disasters have only gotten two, or at least...look, the only noteworth earthquake on record for Laos prior to like, years after this book was published, was a 4.9 in which "several people" were injured. It wasn't the deadliest or most intense earthquake that week. (2001 was a damn event, seismically speaking). I think it's possible she's referring to the 1988 Lancang-Gengma earthquakes, which were certainly felt in Laos (also Thailand, Vietnam...), I wouldn't really refer to them as "that earthquake in Laos", since that's not where most of the (respectable) number of casualties or (devastating) structural damage occurred - that was mostly in Yunnan Province, China, near the epicenters of the dual quake. Of course, it's also possible that Jim Butcher just made something up, although if so, Laos is...an odd choice. In any case, she has cause to take this very, very seriously. 

Harry is...acutely cognizant that Cassandra's Tears is virtually impossible to verify, and that it's been used to scam people before. And that he knows she can act, because of how quickly she transitioned in and out of sex mode when she thought that was what he wanted. He also, unfortunately, thinks that her willingness to pay in sex, and the fact that she's clearly done so before, further calls her honesty into question. So, y'know, that's gross and misogynistic. 

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The details of the vision are pretty vague. Fire, wind, dark things, her own impending death, and Harry  somehow at the center of it, uniquely situated to change the course of events. 

Harry dismisses her vision as "corny", privately decides that her emphasis on his importance to whatever's going on is evidence that she's trying to con him, and tells her she's overreacting. Lydia just...deflates, apologizes for wasting his time, and gets up to leave. This prompts Harry to realize that he's being an asshole, and give her the anti-ghost bracelet he's been using in his own recent adventures. He also gives her the rundown on when ghosts are most dangerous (sunset, midnight, just before dawn), and tells her that faith magic is the best defense, instructing her, if she's scared or in trouble, to go to St. Mary of the Angels and ask for Father Forthill, the first time either has been mentioned. 

As an aside, Lydia makes multiple references throughout this conversation to how "they" said Harry could help her, and I find it extremely strange that Harry doesn't make even a cursory effort to find out who "they" is, or even wonder about it internally. If he took her at face value, that would be understandable, but he suspects, especially after she leaves with the bracelet, that she might have been sent - specifically to get it away from him, and yet he never asks by whom. 

No sooner has Lydia left, than the antique radio (not previously established) turns on - Harry modified it so Bob can use it to reach him, and the spirit is calling in to report that someone stirred up Agatha Hagglethorn, and fill Harry in on the details. Harry almost physically runs into Michael outside his office. Harry is understandably surprised, and Michael says something about God arranging for him to be where he's needed, introducing the whole Divine Coincidence thing, but also that Harry's called him every night for a week, so he figured he's just show up and save Providence that trouble. 

And that brings us all the way back around, so we should be coming out of the flashback and picking up in the Nevernever in the next chapter, which I will be writing about in just a few days. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!