learnedfoot

Yesterday evening, two gunmen opened fire on a large crowd attending Chanukah by the Sea in Sydney. So far sixteen people are dead, with reports saying there were so many more injured that police had to drive ambulances back to hospital so the paramedics could stay behind to keep treating more victims.

I just don’t have words. I don’t know what to say. Violence like this is almost unheard of in Australia; we have no community script, just raw horror and grief. My heart is with the thousands of people - families and ordinary civilians - who went to the beach for an evening of joy and worship and are now in mourning. I’m praying as well for Ahmed al Ahmed, a middle-aged bystander (a fruitseller, the rumours are saying, and not in any way combat trained) who took it on himself to save potentially countless lives by tackling and disarming one of the gunmen, and who’s now in hospital recovering from the gunshot wounds he sustained while doing so.

Please consider donating to an Australian Jewish charity today. US and UK friends, it’s worth noting that your currency just about doubles on exchange, so a small donation can make a much bigger difference over here.

Jewish Community Appeal

Jewish Council of Australia

Fandom: I'll make a separate post about my own year's writing later this month (once my last couple of exchange fics are revealed lol) but in general terms, this has been a really good fannish year for me! The Legacy of Vader comics have kicked my obsession with Star Wars back into overdrive (I still pinch myself every time I think about just how good to me they've been). I also found myself unexpectedly fannish about The Love Hypothesis, which turns out to have a thriving and quite active little fandom.

I only signed up to a handful of exchanges but received some truly gorgeous gifts - special mention has to go to ambiguityisnoonesfriend who 1) has never once written me a fic that wasn't an insta-fave but most especially 2) went and actually bought the relevant issues of the Kylo comic (which released barely before deadline) for the sole purpose of gifting me this perfect ficlet about my horrible new blorbo. Just opening the link again to copy it here has me grinning hard enough to hurt.

Books: This year I continued my streak of reading more fiction. According to my Goodreads tracking, I've read 29 new novels/novellas this year so far and will likely finish one or two more by the end of the year. (I don't track DNFs, rereads, books that are long-term in-progress reads, short stories, poems, or books that I've intentionally only read bits of.) I've also read some longform nonfiction, mostly Christian stuff, but for the purposes of this post I've only counted the fiction.

Trends of interest: most of my reading has been adult SFF, with minor forays into romance, mystery and horror. Virtually all of it has been by female authors, the sole exception being one single Stephen Graham Jones novel. This isn't an intentional project but an organic phase I seem to be going through in my interests - I'm just feeling far more drawn to women's voices at the moment. Most of this year's protagonists have been women, too, and all the romance has been M/F or F/F.

I'm not going to try and pick a favourite book of the year. I've read so much good stuff and am feeling very creatively nourished.

This has also been my year for audiobook adoption. I can still only really listen to books I've read before (or books that are really formulaic and easy to follow) because I tend to intermittently zone out, but pretty jigsaw puzzle + nice familiar audiobook has become one of my favourite ways to unwind on tired evenings.

Music: This year I managed to mostly quarantine the kids' music onto the Youtube Music app so that my Spotify stats actually mean something. (I need to get the fuck off Spotify and start buying my music again; I'm thinking of making it a project/resolution for next year.) That said, the stats haven't told me anything I didn't already know. I've had a fairly unadventurous year, listening mostly to the same few artists on repeat. Top three:

• The Night Eternal, especially their album Moonlit Cross
• Unto Others - I'm still hooked on Never, Neverland from last year
• Iron Maiden (I don't need to link you guys to Iron Maiden).

I've also been regularly listening to Bolt Thrower, 1914, Rotting Christ and Sisters of Mercy. I went through a short-lived fad for pop cello music and an AFI nostalgia phase; I also generally tend to spin up my old mid-2000s emo faves on the rare occasions I get drunk. They no longer bring me much artistic satisfaction but they are very, very nostalgic.

I'd like to pay a bit more attention to new releases next year, but we'll see. I've been enjoying my stint of comfort listening.

TV and movies: I've barely glanced at the telly all year, let alone made it to the movie theatre. IDK, nothing has interested me that much and I'd usually rather be reading. The only things I was excited for were Murderbot and season two of Andor, both of which ended up being disappointments - but more of the 'I've moved on and forgotten about them' than the resentful variety.

I did enjoy watching The Terror, though again, I haven't thought much about it since finishing the last episode.