Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 21

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Harry reflects on how very stupid this course of action is, as he walks along the graveyard wall. All cemeteries have walls. It's just a thing humans do, without knowing why, but there's still intent behind it. And while the intent of most walls is to keep things out, cemetery walls are meant to keep things in. Which may explain why the Nightmare was able to tear a hole in it and drag Charity inside. Conditions stand thus: There are hundreds of powerful ghosts in there. It's pouring down rain. Harry is still weak from having a bunch of his energy eaten. The creature he's going up against can tear holes in solid brick walls like it's not even a thing. And there's still no sign of Michael. But then Charity screams, so in Harry goes. 

Ghosts press in around him, so numerous, and so powerful with the barriers all wibbly, that they physically impede his progress. He pulls out his pentacle, wills light to it, and holds it up in front of him "like Diogenes's lamp". I had to look that up. Apparently Diogenes would carry a lamp during the day, and claimed when asked about it that he was looking for "a man". For reasons I don't fully understand, this is often rendered in English as "looking for an honest man", and considering the number of common misconceptions that are either uncritically reproduced or fictionally true in this series (e.g. "We only use 10% of our brains"), the "honest man" version seems more likely to have been intended here, though I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. There's also a statue of Diogenes in his birthplace of Sinop, Turkey, apparently well known since it's the main picture on the Wikipedia page about him, which portrays him with both the lamp and a dog, so there's a case to be made that this is foreshadowing for Harry's next visit here, in Dead Beat, when he has Mouse with him. 

The Light's dimmer than usual, and Harry wonders if that's a reflection of his weakened magic, or if the destructive, violent, sometimes chaotic use to which he's put over the past few years has weakened his faith in the principles of controlled power, used constructively, that the pentacle represents. 

He calls Charity's name, and she responds, although something cuts her off, giving him a better sense of her exact location in the giant graveyard. When he finds her, she's lying on a bier in a fake temple thing, with the Nightmare standing over her, one hand near her belly, the other near her throat. When Harry addresses it as "demon", it asks "Is that what I am?" and says it wasn't sure, another indicator that the "ghost of a demon" theory is inaccurate, although Harry's got enough distractions that it's pretty reasonable for him to miss it. As much fun as it's having tormenting Charity, the Nightmare's primary beef is with Harry, so it throws a fuego fireball at him. Harry blocks it with a shield spell, and thinks that he wouldn't have tried that kind of fire magic in torrential rain. Charity seizes the everyloving shit out of the moment and kicks the Nightmare in the chest with both feet. She sends it flying, but also knocks herself off the bier and falls badly. Harry tells her to run, and then uses his staff to pole vault? Over the bier? And kick the Nightmare in the face? Butcher is normally a very clear action writer, but I listened to this part three times and read it with my eyes twice, and I'm still only mostly sure I get what happened here. Harry lands on top of the Nightmare, and tries to scramble away, although I'm not sure if it was physically or magically, spins him around in the air, and throws him into a marble column. 

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Harry hits head first, naturally, so that's concussion number three. He makes a concerted effort to stand, and gets as far as sitting with his back against the column. That's more than anyone could reasonably have expected of him, but it's not anything like enough to save Charity and defeat the Nightmare. Lea appears out of nowhere, and observes that there's a lot of water around here, a lot of things flowing. This is actually pretty straightforward, but under the circumstances I think Harry can be forgiven for not getting the hint. She offers her help, if Harry will renew their bargain and come with her tonight, as soon as Charity's out of danger. She also tastes Harry's blood, because, y'know, Leanansidhe. Harry has basically two choices here. Take the deal, or sit there and hope Michael turns up and saves the day before the Nightmare finishes killing Harry and destroying Charity's mind. And given that Michael doesn't necessarily even know where they are, that second thing doesn't look like a good bet. So he agrees. Lea blocks most of his pain, restores his energy and clarity of thought, and tells him the answer is all around him. 

Harry confronts the Nightmare again, drawing its attention, although he's not really better equipped to fight it now than he was at the outset. It approaches at a casual walk, knowing that there's very little Harry can do about it. That is, until Michael appears behind him. Michael gives Harry a crucifix and tells him to get Charity, then engages the Nightmare, making a considerably better showing with his glowy magic sword than Harry did with his, uh, pole vaulting. 

Harry gets to Charity, and gives her the crucifix, but of course she's going into labor now, and can't walk, and even if he were in good condition, he wouldn't have been able to pick up and carry a heavily muscled, 6 foot tall pregnant woman. The Nightmare gets away from Michael and telekinetically picks up a headstone, preparing to squish Harry and Charity. Harry gets between Charity and the Big Rock, which isn't gonna do much to protect her, but it's a nice gesture. The Nightmare tells Michael to put down the sword, or it'll squish them. Harry says not to do it, that it will just kill them anyway. The Nightmare tells him to shut up. This is the real purpose of the scene where Michael threatened the grocery clerk, is to establish that Michael is thoroughly irrational where the safety of his family is concerned, so that it feels plausible when he misses this blazingly obvious indication that Harry has the right of it. He puts the sword down. Naturally, the Nightmare does carry right on trying to kill them. Charity brandishes the crucifix, hurting and startling it enough that it drops the headstone, and Harry finally makes sense of the hint about the water. 

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He tackles the Nightmare, and rolls with it downhill, right into one of the temporary streams created by
the downpour, where it dissolves, its energy dissipated by the running water. This was perhaps not as well foreshadowed as it could have been. The last reference to the use of running water was two books ago, in the fight with the toad demon, and that wasn't a ghost. Also? I'm having a little bit of a geography issue. Graceland cemetery is a real place. There's even a real grocery store a couple blocks away, although it's currently a Jewel-Osco, not a Walsham's. (As far as I can tell, there isn't a Walsham's grocery store). That Greek temple mausoleum is also real - it's called the Palmer Mausoleum, and that picture up there is a real picture of it, although in daylight and springtime, not an autumn night. And as you may notice, it's not up very much of a hill, and what's directly downhill from it is a pond. Going by google maps, it might technically be a small artificial lake. In any event, as far as I can tell, there's nowhere downhill from the Palmer Mausoleum for a temporary stream to form, and it's frustrating because this scene is otherwise so close to geographically accurate.This also feels like a missed opportunity, because falling into an artificial pond while physically wresting a ghost and coming up with gross algae water in his mouth is exactly Harry's energy at this point in the series.

Michael picks up Charity, Harry picks up the sword, and they make to get out of there. Unfortunately, Lea hasn't forgotten about Harry that quickly, and she intends to collect her due. Harry tries to argue with her, tries to negotiate for time to finish defeating the Nightmare. She's not having it. When one of her hellhounds attacks, Harry tries to defend himself with Amoracchius. Thing is, you uh, you can't use a sword powered by faith magic to get out of your promises. It turns in his hand, falls from his grasp. And Lea picks it up. Apparently, her game here wasn't really about getting an extra handle on Harry, which she didn't really need. It was about breaking the sword's protection, getting Harry to betray its purpose so she could take it. 

33 minute chapter and it still contrives to end on a cliffhanger. Next post might be another one of these, or it might be the Season 2 review post. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 20

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Displaying remarkable fortitude and a passable impression of good sense, Harry heads to Michael's house. We get our first look at his neighborhood, which Harry characterizes as "suburbanish" because Jim Butcher has apparently never heard of a residential neighborhood. Michael's house is, of course, the nicest, in good vibes if not in grandeur, ivory with burgundy trim and equipped with a literal white picket fence. 

Harry was expecting Michael to need a minute to get out of bed, but he was apparently asleep in the living room rocker, after taking on a late night feeding of one year old Hope (not named here) so Charity can get some sleep. So we know Michael is a good husband and an attentive father. He's also wearing a T-shirt that says John 3:16. For my readers who aren't up on their Bible, that's "For god so loved the world that he gave up his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." So, y'know, pin that one to the foreshadowing board. 

Harry lays out the situation, including and especially the part where the Nightmare is running around wearing his face. Michael asks how he knows Harry isn't the Nightmare, and Harry volunteers that he should probably stay outside anyway, to avoid incurring Charity's wrath, so Michael invites him in. Continuing to use that knightly noodle, Michael refuses to wake his family, reasoning that since the Nightmare is currently in a physical body, it's not in the nevernever, and can't get at people through their dreams. This is interesting for its establishment of Michael's intelligence, and his fluency with the supernatural, that despite having learned about the nevernever like, yesterday, he can work through the implications faster than Harry does.

Harry finds a note from Charity explaining that she had a sudden pregnancy craving for pizza and ice cream, and went to the store, so they gear up to go after her. Harry's worried that they're leaving the kids alone, but Michael's total lack of concern on this point is validated when Forthill miraculously turns up, having experienced minor car trouble just a block away. This is a regular enough occurrence that when he sees Michael and Harry with their coats on, he says "You need a babysitter again, don't you?" I think this is the first time we see Michael's divine providence effect in action, and it's a good choice to establish the scale and conditions. God won't just rescue Charity, but He'll create circumstances under which Michael can do it himself. He won't prevent Michael from getting arrested when he's out helping Harry, but He'll assist with saving Charity. Now that I think about it, this has some commonalities with the way that ghosts can only interact with their particular bailiwick. And that's interesting. I don't know if Jim Butcher has read Valdemar, but he's definitely read Wheel of Time, and Robert Jordan read Valdemar. And in Valdemar, if the Gods aren't literally just really leveled up ghosts, they certainly exist on the same continuum as ghosts. "God is actually an unimgainably powerful ghost" would certainly give the series some options, especially as we approach the Big Apocalyptic Trilogy. 

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There's only one grocery store nearby that's open this late, so that's where they go, and Charity's van is
parked right out front. Neither Charity nor the Nightmare is immediately in evidence, and when the Cashier hedges about whether she's seen them, there's actually a moment where Michael seems on the point of violence. Harry intervenes, and he goes to look for her himself just, absolutely open carrying a sword in the grocery store. 

Harry gives the cashier all the cash he has on hand (fifteen dollars) to tell him what she knows. Charity did come in, bought her pizza and ice cream, and went back to her car, failed to start it, and was intercepted by a man who looks just like Harry. They argued, but she walked off with him, in what Harry recognizes as the direction of Graceland cemetery. That's...not a good place to go right now, what with the border between worlds being squoodgey and Graceland being pretty damn haunted at the best of times. Nonetheless, Harry yells for Michael and goes back outside. He checks Charity's car - everything under the hood that can be torn out or torn apart pretty much is. He also sees, in the distance, what sure looks to be the Nightmare dragging Charity towards the cemetery by her hair. There's still no sign of Michael, so Harry goes after them alone. 

Bit of a short one after all this waiting, but I like that we're getting some more Michael characterization here. If all goes well, you'll actually get the next chapter within a week this time. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things! 

2023-2024 Eeveeyear Goals

I'm gonna level with you guys. This year? Did not go well. That was for reasons, and we will be discussing those reasons, but I need to start by expressing in no uncertain terms that I. Failed. I reached less than 50% on most of my goals, I failed to progress substantially on some of the most important tasks. By the end of the year, I had straight up given u on some of them, and that's genuinely unprecedented. 

There are two big things and a lot of little ones that contributed to the disaster. One of the big things was mostly my fault, the other mostly wasn't. There was some bad goal setting. That's the one that's on me. Some of what went wrong there is covered in my post from a few months ago titled Oops... in which I discuss how my goal for handwritten pages go away from me, and why my Unity goals weren't well structured in the first place (more on that below). I also set a couple of goals that either I didn't care about very much or weren't entirely under my control. Trying to build a wiki for my epic fantasy setting was a neat idea in theory, but both of the projects it serves are kind of back burnered right now, so I wasn't making any natural progress, and the whole thing was just stressful and tiring. I still want to cook more, but changes to my living and financial situation mean that trying new recipes would, at present, require spending money rather than making more innovative use of extant resources, and that there are substantially greater time constraints on when it's actually productive to cook. Astute readers will notice that goals requiring resources I may not always have, or with timing limitations not fully under my control, are not good goals. 

The other thing that happened was a grueling, miserable, socially fraught two month move. That part is not my fault. Our housemate kicked us out, and even if his reasons were coherent (they're weren't), he did it with basically no notice, expecting us to find a new place and finance and carry out the move in less than a month, and threatening us with legal action when it took longer. Like, I try not to bring up outside factors as though they're an excuse for not getting my work done, but this was a whole thing. With that out of the way, let's talk about what worked, and didn't work, about my goals for this year. 

One thing that went wrong with nearly everything was trying to learn Unity in the way I was trying to learn it. Those tutorials, while not necessarily ineffective, were pretty miserable a lot of the time, not least because of the condescending video lectures in the first unit on game controls, so I'd check my spreadsheet to see what I was working on next, see that it was an hour of Unity, and be possessed by a spirit of Don't Wanna that could stymie me for days. Since I try to work on the thing I'm most behind on first, this reduced my progress on literally everything, although it had a greater impact on other things that could only be done on the computer. I found a workaround for this over the summer, kind of, but there was no way to recover the time I'd already lost. The presence of tasks I didn't really want to do also exacerbated my existing irrational fear that I would somehow "run out" of things like "books read" and be left with only the difficult, onerous stuff.

I honestly don't remember where I got my target figure for new cars, but it was hilariously too high, and while working on it wasn't disruptively unpleasant it would have been prohibitively time consuming had I not just...stopped trying. 

Successes, Such As They Were

There are a few areas in which I did better, in relative terms, absolute terms, or both, and I think listing them may, if nothing else, illustrate how useless and soup-brained I was this year. I read 7 fewer books, but actually got a bit more than 1% closer to my goal than I did last year, thanks in no small part to the goal's having been reduced by last year's similarly catastrophic reading failure. I got more handwritten pages done, but that's largely down to catching how the way I counted it had slipped over the past few years. You can see that in how I only managed 16 blog posts this entire damn year. I uh, I sure did spend more time playing video games, and got something like commensurately more orbs. My big takeaway on this is that even though Orb of Creation is on the computer, I need to treat it like a mobile game, and not count it towards my progress on video games. I watched more television, more movies, more YouTube videos. Most telling, I think, is that I spend 88 more hours reading and 171 more hours writing, and accomplished less in every category to which these timers apply. Brain not good this year. 

First Year Goals

We discussed in the introduction most of what really went wrong with our newly introduced goals. For some fucking reason, I added 15 of the damn things: Wiki Read (mostly SCP), Wiki Words, Wiki Planned, Foods Made, New Foods Made, TV Rewatch, Webcomics, Podcasts, Sewing Time, Repairs, TCGO Time, TCGO Matches, New Cards, Short Fiction, Programming Time, Programming Skills, and Duolingo. For reasons described above, the cooking and wiki creation goals will be dropped for the coming year. Having a goal for reading SCP stuff actually worked pretty well, and put me on the way of some short fiction, so we'll be keeping that. I'm not yet 100% sure yet whether my goals for rewatching tv or listening to podcasts are working how I want, so we're giving them another year, with the standard adjustment to the targets and we'll see how it goes. They didn't interact with my sewing goals how I was hoping they would, because it turns out I can do enough sewing to keep it from becoming the thing I'm most behind on while playing TTRPGs. Webcomics, again, I don't feel like I know yet. I got enough of them on my RSS feed that it never really become a Thing. 

My big takeaway from short fiction is that reading fanfiction does outcompete other things if I track them together, so we're adding a separate goal for that. The TCGO goals did pretty much exactly what I wanted them to, making space for them in my year where they neither strictly waste time nor have room to take over my life. New cards was set too high, as I discussed above, but standard adjustments should take care of that for the coming year. Programming (recorded in the 2022-2023 year as "Unity") is something of a sticky spot. We're keeping the thing where time spent playing romhacks counts for time, and skills encompasses completing a discrete part of any programming tutorial. I was already feeling like Unity might not be my thing, before the company so thoroughly crossed the Trust Thermocline a few weeks ago, but I don't yet know for sure what I'm doing instead. Python feels like a solid option on the actual programming side, and I'm increasingly feeling like I should learn Java, but Godot might be worth trying out if it turns out I do need a game engine for something, and I haven't settled on learning resources for any of this yet. I'll try to keep you posted. 

As first year goals, my new targets for each of these, except the ones I'm dropping entirely, will be calculated by multiplying what I accomplished last year by 1.5. 

Adjusted Goals

This past year and the year before, I set my fiction writing goal manually, so to speak, at 50,000 and then 60,000 words, rather than using the standard formula. I feel like this was a good idea, and we're making it 60,000 again this year. It's also getting some friends. Books Read, Rereads, and Blog Posts are core, mission critical goals, and letting the targets go to low because of a few bad years would be disastrous. Something I noticed this year is that words of fiction written has a hard time getting much ahead of pages read (see: trying to write without reading is like trying to only exhale), so keeping a high fiction writing goal with a too-low book target would just be silly. So I'm making the book goal 110, rather than the 87 indicated by my usual goal adjustment process, and increasing my page count goal to match. Rereading is also very important for my writing, so I'm setting that to 78 (75+1d10, if you're wondering). I should have just let it be 89 in the second year, rather than trying to get cute with it. And I'm not leaving you guys with only 42 blog posts this year. I'm never gonna get the goal for that fall below 50, so this year it's gonna be 57 and we'll see how that goes. 

New Goals

Dropping like four things means that for the first time in Mint and Brambles history, we aren't increasing how many goals I have, but we're still adding new things. I need to listen to new music and sort it into playlists, that's important for keeping my brain in good shape, so we're adding that. Probably I'll mostly do it through spotify's Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists. I'm also adding a goal for little administrative bits like dealing with emails and organizing files on my computer because they will never get done otherwise, because it's as good a time as any to listen to podcasts etc, and as a kind of test run for adding a cleaning or organizing goal next year. For reasons previously discussed, we're adding a separate goal for fanfiction - this is important since I write fanfiction. 

I also added a goal for earning money. I'm not going to tell you what it is, and I'm not going to track it publicly, but I do want you to know about it. If this become the thing I'm most behind on, I will have to spend time trying to get more money, even if that means filling out surveys on Qmee. You don't want that. I don't want that. If you'd like to prevent it, please consider becoming a patron. 

Final Thoughts. 

That's...really what there is to say about this year. I' not gonna do last year's goal-by-goal breakdown because the same couple of things went wrong with everything, and there's no interesting discussion to have there. Except where otherwise specified, goals that were in their second or later year will be adjusted by multiplying the average of what I accomplished each year by 1.25. I'm exited to get started with something like a clean slate. Still hoping to get you a Dresden Files post by the end of this week. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!