KD^3C^3 - 20250427 He's going to have to amputate
I don't know how to be a sports fan.
I've been following the work of John Green, author, youtuber and well known fan of AFC Wimbledon, a fourth tier English football (soccer) club. John green cares deeply about AFC Wimbledon, even to the point of sponsoring the team along with Partners in Health. He talks passionately about the feeling of camaraderie he feels in supporting the club and the connectedness he feels with the other fans at matches. He often uses the phrase (and credits the original coiner, whose name escapes me right now) "of all the unimportant things, football is the most important." That seems like a big deal!
I've been watching Welcome to Wrexham, the ongoing documentary series about how Ryan Reynolds and his friend Rob bought the 5th tier welsh football club Werxham AFC. The show isn't about Rob and Ryan so much as it is about the club and the people who live near in the town it is named after and the history of ups and downs it has had. The voice of the fans, not as a cacophony, but as individuals, is present throughout the episodes I have seen. They care so deeply about this club and want the best things for it.
I'm not sure what the process entails to be come a fan like that. I'm not sure I have the dedication. I know the key thing is to pick a sport and a team and watch the sport and the team, and find other people who care about the sport and the team and talk to them about it. Most often I've found myself stumbling on the part where I watch the games themselves. I understand that sports can be exciting, in theory, but most of the time I can't get particularly engaged.
The closest I have find myself to being a fan of a sport is when the olympic winter games roll around and I get to watch some curling. Curling is a weird sport, but I find myself fascinated when I watch it. I get into the nuance of the game, and the strategy and I have opinions about the different versions of the game. When curling comes around I probably sound a lot like the rest of the sports sound to me when they talk about their favorite games. But my fandom is short lived. It usually begins and ends with the opening and closing ceremonies. I don't follow the players afterwards, or check out information on the professional curling leagues (do those even exist?) My attention wanes when the games are over.
I don't really have a conclusion here.
Hugo Watch
This will be a new and temporary section of the newsletter where I try to keep up with reading/watching all the Hugo finalist material. The Hugo Voter's Packet released this week and so I have a ton of new material to get through.
This week I voted for Best Professional Artist, which is one of the easier ballots to complete when the packet arrives. Each artist submits a collection of their eligible works and I look through them all and just feel out which ones resonate with me the most. This year, Micaela Alcaino's work resonated the most so it got the top spot on my ballot.
I watched The Wild Robot, up for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and while it worked really well for me in a moment to moment way, I don't think it'll stick around in my brain long term. The story of a service robot living among wild animals on an isolated island was almost exactly what I expected beat for beat, but it was executed at a very high level. Right now it sits below I Saw the TV Glow (which probably won't get knocked off the top spot, but there's always a chance) and above Furiosa, which are the only other two movies I've seen on the finalist list.
I've downloaded and started playing both Caves of Qud and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, up for best Game or Interactive work. These two games could not be further apart, although I am enjoying both. Caves of Qud is a roguelike rpg where each time you play you are dropped into a new procedurally-generated world full of stories and monsters that will kill you. It's been worked on for fifteen years, but was eligible this year because the 1.0 version released. It's the sort of game I have a long history of enjoying and my first few hours with it have been nice as I explore the systems and learn a lot through getting killed over an over again. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes on the other hand is a puzzle game wrapped up in a stylish noir inspired frame. You play as a woman who arrives at a mysterious hotel were nearly everything is a puzzle. The puzzles are typically based in strict logic, but the game gives you a bunch of locked doors and tells you to start figuring it out. There is very little hand holding, and I had to pull out some paper and a pen to keep notes, which is always an exciting development. There have only been a few games where I've had to do that, but thy are often very satisfying. This category's ballot doesn't really have a shape to it yet. I want to try some of the other games, and comparing these two is a really weird task.
Finally in the Fiction Categories, I read The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Best Novella) and started The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. The first was
a slightly allegorical tale about class and small rebellions, while the second is about a woman tasked with helping a British sailor plucked from the 1830s adjust to livoing life in the present day. I liked The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain, which felt complete as a work, whereas the other novella I've read (What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher) while not incomplete, took place in a larger world with the same characters. Chain might beat it out on my ballot, but only just barely.
I'm hoping to finish Ministry of time soon, and knock at least on of the other novellas out this week. Plus Dragon Age: Veilguard has finished downloading, so I can give that game a try too. See y'all next week!
I've been following the work of John Green, author, youtuber and well known fan of AFC Wimbledon, a fourth tier English football (soccer) club. John green cares deeply about AFC Wimbledon, even to the point of sponsoring the team along with Partners in Health. He talks passionately about the feeling of camaraderie he feels in supporting the club and the connectedness he feels with the other fans at matches. He often uses the phrase (and credits the original coiner, whose name escapes me right now) "of all the unimportant things, football is the most important." That seems like a big deal!
I've been watching Welcome to Wrexham, the ongoing documentary series about how Ryan Reynolds and his friend Rob bought the 5th tier welsh football club Werxham AFC. The show isn't about Rob and Ryan so much as it is about the club and the people who live near in the town it is named after and the history of ups and downs it has had. The voice of the fans, not as a cacophony, but as individuals, is present throughout the episodes I have seen. They care so deeply about this club and want the best things for it.
I'm not sure what the process entails to be come a fan like that. I'm not sure I have the dedication. I know the key thing is to pick a sport and a team and watch the sport and the team, and find other people who care about the sport and the team and talk to them about it. Most often I've found myself stumbling on the part where I watch the games themselves. I understand that sports can be exciting, in theory, but most of the time I can't get particularly engaged.
The closest I have find myself to being a fan of a sport is when the olympic winter games roll around and I get to watch some curling. Curling is a weird sport, but I find myself fascinated when I watch it. I get into the nuance of the game, and the strategy and I have opinions about the different versions of the game. When curling comes around I probably sound a lot like the rest of the sports sound to me when they talk about their favorite games. But my fandom is short lived. It usually begins and ends with the opening and closing ceremonies. I don't follow the players afterwards, or check out information on the professional curling leagues (do those even exist?) My attention wanes when the games are over.
I don't really have a conclusion here.
Hugo Watch
This will be a new and temporary section of the newsletter where I try to keep up with reading/watching all the Hugo finalist material. The Hugo Voter's Packet released this week and so I have a ton of new material to get through.
This week I voted for Best Professional Artist, which is one of the easier ballots to complete when the packet arrives. Each artist submits a collection of their eligible works and I look through them all and just feel out which ones resonate with me the most. This year, Micaela Alcaino's work resonated the most so it got the top spot on my ballot.
I watched The Wild Robot, up for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and while it worked really well for me in a moment to moment way, I don't think it'll stick around in my brain long term. The story of a service robot living among wild animals on an isolated island was almost exactly what I expected beat for beat, but it was executed at a very high level. Right now it sits below I Saw the TV Glow (which probably won't get knocked off the top spot, but there's always a chance) and above Furiosa, which are the only other two movies I've seen on the finalist list.
I've downloaded and started playing both Caves of Qud and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, up for best Game or Interactive work. These two games could not be further apart, although I am enjoying both. Caves of Qud is a roguelike rpg where each time you play you are dropped into a new procedurally-generated world full of stories and monsters that will kill you. It's been worked on for fifteen years, but was eligible this year because the 1.0 version released. It's the sort of game I have a long history of enjoying and my first few hours with it have been nice as I explore the systems and learn a lot through getting killed over an over again. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes on the other hand is a puzzle game wrapped up in a stylish noir inspired frame. You play as a woman who arrives at a mysterious hotel were nearly everything is a puzzle. The puzzles are typically based in strict logic, but the game gives you a bunch of locked doors and tells you to start figuring it out. There is very little hand holding, and I had to pull out some paper and a pen to keep notes, which is always an exciting development. There have only been a few games where I've had to do that, but thy are often very satisfying. This category's ballot doesn't really have a shape to it yet. I want to try some of the other games, and comparing these two is a really weird task.
Finally in the Fiction Categories, I read The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Best Novella) and started The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. The first was
a slightly allegorical tale about class and small rebellions, while the second is about a woman tasked with helping a British sailor plucked from the 1830s adjust to livoing life in the present day. I liked The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain, which felt complete as a work, whereas the other novella I've read (What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher) while not incomplete, took place in a larger world with the same characters. Chain might beat it out on my ballot, but only just barely.
I'm hoping to finish Ministry of time soon, and knock at least on of the other novellas out this week. Plus Dragon Age: Veilguard has finished downloading, so I can give that game a try too. See y'all next week!