Reagancomics (3 of 7): Glory Days
Oct. 23rd, 2025 10:06 am
(Boosted up from 5 installments--I found even more material than I was expecting to. Warning for suicidal ideation, serious drug-use discussion.)
At first, Reagan's portrayals in comics stuck close to the template of a generic "placeholder president," with only the occasional real-life touch to give his character some color. The most notable thing about his first comic-book appearance as president is that it stars, of all people, the "Dial 'H' for Hero" duo. The year is 1981, the comic is Adventure Comics #485.
( Kids these days, always on their phones. )
Check In: Day 23
Oct. 23rd, 2025 03:35 pmThursday vibes are...
great! (I wrote)
5 (50.0%)
cool! (I planned/outlined)
4 (40.0%)
nice (I daydreamed/bounced ideas with someone else)
2 (20.0%)
fine (I rested)
1 (10.0%)
I keep track of my writing...
with a planner/journal (digital or physical)
2 (20.0%)
a spreadsheet (my own or someone else's)
5 (50.0%)
by posting here!
0 (0.0%)
keeping track of my writing? Erm...
3 (30.0%)
Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 22nd, 2025 05:00 pmOnce again, nothing. I have had a migraine for 48 hours and counting. (It comes and goes, which is why I am typing this post now. But you can tell I have one, because I clearly don't understand narrative enough to be reading comics and/or am too tired to type much.)
What I'm Reading Now
Comics Wednesday!
( Fantastic Four #4, Ultimate Spider-Man #22, Ultimate Spider-Man Incursion #5, Ultimates #17 )
What I'm Reading Next
Hey, whoever it was who wanted me to review the sequel(s) to Fourth Wing and I said I wasn't going to do that because only the first book was on Kindle Unlimited and the library ebook waitlist was long and there was no way I was paying money for anything in this series?
Yeah, so books 2 and 3 are on Kindle Unlimited now, so at some point when I can stand to read lengthy original fiction books again (I do not know when this will be) I am willing to read and review terrible fantasy books because I love dragons too much for my own good. Clearly.
So this will probably not be the next thing, but it's on the list.
Check in: Day 22
Oct. 22nd, 2025 01:36 pmGeneral question: are you a planner or a pantser?
It's Wednesday and I am feeling...
Groovycakes and sparkly! (I wrote)
2 (50.0%)
Pretty good and satisfied (I edited)
0 (0.0%)
Contemplative and focused (I outlined/planned)
2 (50.0%)
OK and wistful (I rested)
0 (0.0%)
Trying one new recipe a week
Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:54 pmSince then we have made:
Ina Garten's Black Bean Soup, which is basically a mirepoix+bell peppers plus a bunch of black beans, Southwestern seasoning, and vegetable broth. It's similar to a couple of our favorite soup recipes and also to just the way I make black beans for burrito filling, but it's good.
RecipeTinEats' Country Harvest Root Vegetable Soup, which is very simple: a huge quantity of root vegetable chunks (she gives weight of each and we followed this pretty closely, but this style of recipe is easy to substitute of course) and some alliums sauteed with thyme and curry powder for seasoning and then cooked in water till soft, with cream added at the end, pureed with an immersion blender. This was delicious and we will definitely be having it regularly.
RecipeTinEats' Ultra Lazy Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake. I love pasta casserole and want to try more recipes where you don't have to pre-cook the pasta. The pasta came out great and this was delicious, but it's a little rich for me. It's a bit like oven-baked mac and cheese with broccoli in it. The vibes are very creamy and fatty and it just feels extremely heavy as a main dish.
Trying a white bean soup recipe this week. (I like to make soup once a week at least in the fall and winter.)
Recent Reading: Private Rites
Oct. 22nd, 2025 09:30 amVery sorry I can't give this one a higher rating (I gave it a 3.25 on StoryGraph), because I loved the last Armfield novel I read, Our Wives Under the Sea, and this book shares a lot of similarities with that one. Our Wives Under the Sea was a meditative, slow-paced exploration of an evolving grief which hit me quite hard, but Private Rites comes off, if I can be excused for phrasing it this way, like it's trying too hard. Private Rites obviously really wants the reader to think it's Deep and Thoughtful and Literary, and it shows this desire too clearly for it to work, for me.
What does succeed in Private Rites is the frustrating and heart-breaking portrayal of three estranged sisters struggling with the legacy of a complicated and toxic father. Isla, Irene, and Agnes are not particularly likeable people, and even they muse over whether this can be tied to their strange and un-childlike childhood, or if it's just natural to them. Armfield so captures the feeling of being trapped at a certain age around family, the notion that they are locked into their view of you at ten or thirteen or seventeen and never update that view to reflect who you are as an adult and how you may subconciously regress to fit that view around them. She also catches the frustrating feeling of knowing you are reacting irrationally to a sibling and not being able to stop yourself and how much emotional history undergirds these seemingly outsized responses.
The slow apocalypse happening in the background of the story feels like it ties in well with the emotional state of the three protagonists; a drowning of the world that takes place a little at a time over many years until things become unlivable.
However, as mentioned above, the book ultimately does not succeed to me at being engaging. It is incredibly introspective in a way that comes off as navel-gazing. The "City" portions of the chapters felt especially like Armfield begging us to find the novel artistic and creative, which was unnecessary, because there's plenty here to stand on its own.
The ending also felt like a complete non-sequitur. The seeds for it were sown throughout the book, but not prominently enough that I cared when it came about. Instead, I felt cheated out of an emotional denouement among the three sisters, which is cast off in a coup by this last-minute, poorly-explained plot point.
I also felt like Isla gets an unfair share of grief, and it wasn't clear why she among the three of them was singled out to be exclusively miserable.
Do love the queer representation here; Armfield continues to excel in that.
On the whole, there is a lot of good meat here and it approaches grief from a completely different angle from Our Wives Under the Sea so that it doesn't feel at all repetitive if you've read that one, but it also drags more and I found the ending unsatisfying.
Justice League Unlimited #12 When There Is A Chaotic Situation. The Devil Comes Out To Play
Oct. 22nd, 2025 11:18 amSpy X Family voice actor temporarily steps down
Oct. 21st, 2025 11:52 pm"This isn't permanent but when my voice comes back I can pop back in," Chambers said. "I'm currently in voice therapy to work on getting back to my normal range. But for now, Becky (and other baby voices) will be voice matched."
The announcement came hours before Season 3 of Spy X Family premiered on Crunchyroll.
Meanwhile, Chambers will still be providing her vocal talents to other characters in the show. Alongside voicing Becky Blackbell in Spy x Family, Chambers has also been in the English dubs of Solo Leveling, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, and several video games, including Pokemon Masters and Genshin Impact. - gamesradar
You can read more about it here:
Link
Fic: The Great Vent Event: A Tale for Which the World Is Not Yet Prepared
Oct. 21st, 2025 08:59 pmRating: T
Pairing: Josh/Oliver, obviously
Warnings: None
Summary: Josh takes it upon himself to go after Arianna Burnett. Oliver helps.
ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72891091
( The Great Vent Event )
Pushing in everywhere so aggressively and so inappropriately and breaking spellcheck
Oct. 21st, 2025 08:13 pmI'm not even doing it today, I'm just reminded because there's YET ANOTHER post going around about Firefox updating to integrate AI and the hidden switches in about:config you have to use if you want to turn it off. The same post talks about switching your default search engine. In one of these previous times years ago I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo, but DuckDuckGo has been pushing AI more over time and it's really annoying so I've been meaning to switch and -
- at the bottom of the post it said we should all switch to Qwant or udm=14, and so I looked up both of those. Qwant is a French search engine that is aggressively integrating AI, but they are big on not storing and selling your data at least, which would've been nice if not for the llm. udm=14 is a string you can append in Google search that gives you the "old" (pre-AI) style results. (There are other search engines - I found a link to The Search Engine Map, which shows all the ones which give English results - but I feel this experience is representative.)
I'm weighing whether I want to switch browsers. I'm definitely mad enough to, but I hate switching browsers...
Check In: Day 21
Oct. 21st, 2025 12:04 pmQuestion: What's one piece of writing advice that sounds wild/silly but actually works for you?
Tuesday and I are
...in good terms! (I wrote)
5 (55.6%)
...in friendly terms (I edited)
2 (22.2%)
...in acquaintance terms (I outlined/planned)
1 (11.1%)
...in rival terms (I daydreamed)
2 (22.2%)
...in full enemies terms (I rested/didn't write)
0 (0.0%)
Reagancomics (2 of 5): Pre-Inaugural
Oct. 20th, 2025 09:47 pm
Ronald Reagan's first appearance in comics doesn't foreshadow his political career at all. It shows him only as an actor--with plans to keep acting until he's old enough to play parts with his glasses on.
( He could've played Clint Eastwood's dad. )