phoenix64 | Reading

Whoops, I completely forgot to mention in my last post that there was a Friday the 13th tattoo related flash and I wrote an Iron Triangle triple drabble for it: As Evening Slowly Slides Into Night. Summary: An evening, like many others, for the Iron Triangle. (And their shared big bed.)

The Hurt/Comfort exchange has (finally) opened! Lots of fandoms to peruse here. Authors will be revealed on the 11th. I got great Guardian art and a fic for The First Shot and, as always, there's just a ton of amazing things in the collection.

Battleship hit its signup cap within 36 hours of opening so now it's just a random prompt period for a few more days until teams are assigned and then it actually starts on the 12th I think. If you want the chance of getting stuff created (fic, art or podfic) for you, prompting is open to anyone. As prompting is a bit complicated, a few different people have written up guides on how to do it: guide #1, guide #2, and guide #3. All are tumblr posts but I checked them in a private tab and they all work when not signed into tumblr. You might not get anything, but, then again, you might so feel free to peruse the tagset (also linked in all the tumblr posts) and see if there's some fandoms and a few freeform additional tags (500+ ranging from the most E rated things to very, very G) that catch your eye and consider throwing in a prompt or two (or 50, the max).

I've only done 11 prompts so far and haven't decided if I want to do more or not. I tend to keep mine pretty simple as I find my eyes glaze over at huge walls of tags so I pick 10-20 and leave it at that with a few comments in the prompt box along with my DNWs but everyone does it differently. If you want to prompt and have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

Well into the ramp up of this year's Battleship it randomly changed its rules to no longer accept crochet art. I'd already started planning a project to fulfill the 'battlesheep' additional tag and decided to finish it anyway. Behold the 'fearsome' (major use of airquotes there) Battlesheep!! (And I now make up 12.7% of AO3's entire crochet tag between my main and birthday bash account.)

I still haven't gotten any of the links from Pocket posted to any of my research link posts, I really need to start working on that. Ugh. So much to do, so little time.

Last but not least, a single

recthething fic rec (MDZS/Untamed):

Burn with the sun, die with the sun (series). Summary: A collection of works in which Wen Xu picks Wei Wuxian off Yiling's streets and makes him an integral part of the Wen Sect. (An interesting AU series where shortly after getting his sword WWX is sort of thrown out of the Jiang/Madam Yu sends him to Yiling and tells him he can't return until he's tamed the Burial Mounds but after saving Wen Xu's life there he is taken in by the Wen, currently 3 works, 21k total)

overthinkingit_feed

Posted by Matthew Wrather

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Jordan Stokes, Matthew Wrather and Pete Fenzel overthink “Only Murders in the Building” (spoiler-free), the latest entry in the beloved “Steve Martin plays an artist struggling to make an example of the thing you are watching” oeuvre. Riding the line between low-affect sadness and broad comic shtick, the new Three Amigos: Selena Gomez, Martin Short and the aforementioned Martin form a polygon of character dynamic. The overthinkers follow with ruler and protractor in hand to chart their angles.

But is this show about podcasting, or is “Murders” about the struggle of millennials and the younger to find places to live and belong in the Children of Men heckscape that is the American housing market? We trace Murders’ style and influences back to the 2006 New Yorker personal history column, “Moving On a Love Story” by Nora Ephron, where she describes the eccentric characters and underhanded dealings at a rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment building. And we purse who can, and cannot hang with Martin Short, with a bonus never-before-heard Hollywood true story.

Plus, a bonus delve into the phama-sexual phantasia of the Hulu commercial plan, as we overthink “Chapter 22: House of Frostfire,” a romantasy-themed commercial for the Nexplanon etonogestrel implant—coming to a “Murders” showing or doctors office waiting room near you. Reproductive health is important—more important, perhaps, than tightly knit chain mail, flower lore for offscreen coitus, or practical footwear in the foods.

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In spring of 2022, I tried out a kick scooter my husband randomly brought home, and loved it, which got me thinking about riding a bike. I needed something to do in the spring and summer, when ice skating is much less available. Back in 2020, I’d bought myself a little three-speed steel retro bike, with fenders and a Dynamo hub and a front rack, but I was too busy and stressed to re-learn how to ride a bike at that point.

So once I finally had the bandwidth, I took my bike out into the quiet parking lot of a closed doctor’s clinic on a Sunday, practiced mounting and dismounting (using a curb), and slowly got myself riding on quiet streets and getting my balance back. Riding a bike as a fat adult felt quite different than it had as an average-sized kid, and it took a while to get my muscle memory back. But with patience and letting myself go slow, it did come back. With a vengeance.

I started riding that granny bike everywhere, as fast as possible, on gravel trails and in the forest, and eventually for 50 km one summer’s day. Then I thought, “I’m gonna need a faster bike.”

All of this, from buying skates and taking lessons, to buying a bike and then needing a better bike, was all wildly intimidating as a somewhat shy person, but also as a fat person. Going into sports-focused stores does not feel comfortable as a fat person. I feel lucky that no one gave me a hard time, but they easily could have, and it would have been very discouraging.

I forced myself to go to a couple of bike shops and test ride some bikes…and then I fell in love, predictably, with the ugliest and most expensive bike possible: a Salsa Warbird with a carbon frame in millennial gray. I was immediately repulsed by the colour when they pulled it off the rack, but when I rode it, I found myself whispering sweet nothings to it, telling it how smooth it was, how fast it was, and how much I loved it, even though it was far too expensive for me. I went home and sulked for a week, and my husband told me to go back and buy the Warbird, so I did.

It was still ugly, and I still loved it more than I have ever loved an object before. It was and continues to be the most expensive thing I have ever owned. I rode it a bunch in the late summer and fall of 2023, culminating in an 85 km trip.

The following spring, I got hit by a car (thankfully it was a very slow, ridiculous crash and I was only a bit bruised), and had to replace a bunch of parts on my bike (which thankfully the driver’s insurance paid for), as well as the frame, which is now a beautiful, glossy black instead of gray. So now I’m even more in love with it, and that’s what I was riding this morning, yet another roller coaster in my life.

I did not think all this would happen when I decided to accept myself as a fat person and stop dieting in November 2000. I just wanted to experience peace in my body, stop caring so much about how I looked, stop experiencing the intense shame that I’d been taught to feel about my weight, and the guilt and confusion around food that came with it. I had no idea I was an athlete; I had no desire to become one. But somehow, learning to treat myself and my body with compassion allowed me to learn things about myself that had been hidden for years, decades.

As it turns out, I’m a small-time thrill-seeker, a diver, a skater, a cyclist. I’m still fat. Hills are hard, but I descend like a beast.

*I may or may not have ridden my bike 50 km to eat a Fat Bastard burrito in front of an out-of-business Jenny Craig.*

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thefatnutritionist_feed

Posted by Michelle

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In 2018, I discovered I had a craving for INTENSITY. This was very curious and strange to me, though again, looking back to my childhood, there were signs. I was a somewhat cautious kid, but I also had some small-time adrenaline junkie energy. I loved roller coasters, I had dreams of racing go karts, I loved going fast on my bike, jumping high on a trampoline, or diving into swimming holes.

I spent most of 2018 just considering my options, without doing anything in particular. I thought about a trampoline gym, go kart racing, bowling, aerial silks or acrobatics, taking drum lessons…there were so many possibilities of things I could do to experience excitement and intensity. I took a trip to a local amusement park, but was not able to fit on the most interesting rides. I rode what I could (honestly, it was just a single ride, far too tame for my tastes) and walked around the rest of the day, feeling sad and disappointed. Instead of blaming myself or feeling intense shame about my body, I took it as a sign of what I wanted and craved. And I clearly wanted to do something exciting. I thought about what could give me that experience outside of an amusement park.

A few months later, a couple of (rad fat) friends invited me swimming at an indoor pool (as is rad fat tradition), and I went. I waded and floated around for a bit, then ended up climbing up the ladder and diving from a diving platform roughly a million times, in line with a bunch of hyperactive little kids. That night, I went home and slept like a baby.

Diving reminded me that I could still physically do the things I used to love as a kid, even now as a fat, nearly 40-year old adult. I started to think about what else I used to do as a kid, and that’s when it occurred to me: I used to love skating. I was even kind of good at it. But that was Oregon in the 80s, and it was roller skating. I now live in Toronto, in the 21st century, where there is very little roller skating, but an absolute glut of ice skating. I’d always watched figure skating on TV. I decided then and there to buy a pair of ice skates, since it was December, and to attempt ice skating.

I got the skates and went to a little outdoor ice rink that was completely empty, on a weekday morning, and tentatively stepped onto the ice, gripping a nearby fence for dear life. I stood up. I did a little penguin march, still holding the fence. I did not fall (yet.) My blades slid forward about one inch on the ice. It was the greatest feeling I’d ever felt, and I knew I was home.

I started taking skating lessons, and started skating five times a week, purely for fun. It was just like being on a roller coaster, maybe better. It’s now six and-a-half years later, and I’m a decently good skater. A baby-beginner figure skater, but a figure skater nonetheless. I do little spins and tiny hops on two feet. More importantly, I have something that gets me outdoors on cold winter mornings and reminds me that there is more to life than just anxiety or work or the news. I get to have communion with the little animal inside of me that wants to have fun, at least a little bit, every day.

I’m usually the only fat person present, and I don’t care. I’ve had people make fun of me for that, and I don’t care. I have joy, and I am free.

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Posted by Mark Lee

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Mark Lee FINALLY convinced some other Overthinkers (Pete Fenzel and Jordan Stokes) to watch Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Now they’ve started a band and will surely have a meteoric rise to fame and a spectacular drug-infused crash, culminating in recovery and redemption.