Rynling R&D

Oh! I forgot to mention:

The Comics Beat, which I now write for, just got its first ever Eisner Award nomination.

For my work at WWAC, I'm (technically) already an Eisner-winning comics writer, and now I (technically) might win it again. Nice!

Also, this past week there a huge social media crashout about Lee Lai's graphic novel Stone Fruit being mediocre and getting undue attention solely because of white guilt. Because my review of the book appears at the top of a Google search, I got a bunch of nasty mentions. I was busy disappearing into the woods, and I totally missed all of this. So much the better honestly.

Disappearing into the woods is great btw. Highly recommended.

I should probably say that my experience of internet-stalking people is limited to, like: How do I figure out who owns the abandoned funeral home on the street corner? And how do I contact them? Because you can't call the police in Philadelphia (true story) to report a noise violation, and the fire alarm that's been going off for 24 hours straight has been driving everyone on the block insane.

ETA: You may be thinking that, if the funeral home is abandoned, why didn't I just go inside and turn off the fire alarm myself. The answer is that I have seen horror movies, and I know how that story ends. Thanks for asking.

Also, when I worked at a public university, formal background checks were part of the portfolio of candidate information I was given as a member of various hiring committees. We did our best not to look at this information, but its inclusion was required by state law.

Regardless, despite my limited experience, my one piece of advice to anyone who wants to protect their privacy online is don't put your age on any social media profiles, especially not in the United States or Canada. Your age will link you to medical and educational records, and that's how they get you.

For the record, this is my position on spending $500 I don't have on a stupid gaming console I don't need:

In May 2023, I got so annoyed and frustrated by Tears of the Kingdom that I put down the Switch controller, walked out to my car, and immediately drove to Target to put a PlayStation 5 on a credit card. The only game I intended to play on the console was Bloodborne. And let me tell you. I sure did play several hundred hours of Bloodborne. It was fantastic. Two years later, I've had my fill of the game, and I don't really touch the PS5 anymore. Still, I have no regrets.

In conclusion, I hope everyone reading this is granted $500 to spend on an unnecessary purchase that gives you hundreds of hours of joy. May we all be financially comfortable and have access to things that make us happy.

A Beginner's Guide to Street Art
https://lu.ma/53ks8h33

Come learn the basics of how to do two street art methods: stickering and wheatpasting. We'll cover practical how-tos for creating and install stickers and wheatpastes and considerations for messaging within your work.

This hour-long class is free to watch on Zoom tonight (March 3) at 8pm Eastern. At 8pm I'm either outside writing (if it's warm) or sitting in the bath playing video games (if it's not), but I'll do my best to tune in. I'm too much of a coward to actually do street art,* but I'm curious about how it's done. The presenter, a professional science educator, is more of a writer than an artist, but I'm interested in her thoughts about how to combine words and images into an effective message.

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ETA: Yeah, I didn't make it. Idk man, I wake up early to write before I go to work, and by 8pm I'm in no mood for a Zoom call. During the daylight-savings months I can party until dawn, but I should probably stop kidding myself about how mentally and emotionally available I am after dark during the no-sunlight months.

I’m proud of what I accomplished this year:

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People like to say that “you create your own luck,” and I’m doing my best. Still, I hope some actual luck comes my way in 2025. Good luck to all of us in the new year. I hope we all make it.

Back in the 2010s, I used to say silly nonsense like "I should delete my account on Tumblr."

Unfortunately for many people, I will never leave Tumblr. This is why:

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If you don't want to look at the image above, I don't blame you. As an apology, please accept this photo of Lola the corgi in the snow.

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I can't think of anything that would fix me right now, but going to an art museum would help.

I want to get one of those oversized art museum gift store books filled with Renaissance paintings and then just sit in my car in an underground parking lot for an hour.

I saw (this post) on Tumblr...

stories of people suffering for a long time and then healing in their 30s or 40s or 60s or something are the most important thing in the world and thinking about them is like wrapping my heart in a warm sheet

...and damn if it didn't resonate with me. I wasn't "suffering" in my teens and twenties as much as I was "desperately poor," and it's only when I was around 27 or 28 that I actually managed to achieve enough financial stability not to have to spend every spare moment working garbage jobs for pitiful amounts of money. It was only once I had that freedom that I was able to write and draw and play video games.

Ten years later, I realize that you're not actually that old in your late twenties, but there were a lot of people on Tumblr who were surprisingly mean to me at the time. Some of it was the general antifandom nonsense in the water during the 2010s, but some of it was personal, like accusations that I specifically was a sad and gross person for being on Tumblr at thirty years old. And that's a shame. The expectation that "adults" will spend all their time working (or caring for children) is horrible and depressing; and also, there's so much joy and creative energy that comes with the stability and perspective and accumulated experiences that are gained with age.

If I had to guess, I think that's probably why I write so many stories about people finding the courage to start the second act of their lives. They're good stories, and we need more of them.

> I just feel like Shinzo Abe is watching a little too closely.

Come to think of it, I would absolutely write RPF of Ghost!Abe jacking off Ali Khamenei while he tries to get people to breed. Xi Jinping and Mike Pence can come too.

I'm joking, but only a little. This seems like it would be a fun story to write, and I hope the FBI agents assigned to my case would have the courtesy to leave kudos.

Anyway, here's a true story: I used to live in the beautiful Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington DC, and my apartment building was along the route that Mike Pence's motorcade took home to the vice presidential manor. My building was also right across the street from the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which is where a lot of foreign political leaders stay while on official diplomatic trips to DC. During the week when Xi Jinping was in residence at the Omni, I wrote a 10k-word RPF fic about Mike Pence making a clandestine visit. I never did anything with that extremely cursed piece of writing (obviously), but it should still be on a flashdrive somewhere. If anyone ever needs to blackmail me, though, there are probably better stories to use.

ETA: I don't mean to flex about my zipcode in DC btw. My apartment building was rent-controlled, government-assisted housing. Which is to say that all the trashy fanfic I wrote in the late 2010s was partially funded by Uncle Sam himself.

Dogs have four toes on each paw, and most dog breeds have a fifth “dewclaw” a bit higher on both of their front legs. This morning I noticed that, in addition to her dewclaw, Evie the puppy has a sixth toe between the two middle toes of her front right foot. The extra toe is perfectly formed and seems to be integrated into her muscular and skeletal structures, so this is more of a rare genetic mutation than true polydactyly.

Evie also has heterochromia. Her right eye is the normal dark brown of most small dog breeds, but her left eye is the super bright blue of an anime character.

On top of that, Evie’s claws alternate between black and white like a chessboard. Some dogs have clear claws, and some dogs have black claws, but the only example I can find of a dog having both is an old post on Reddit where only one of the dog’s claws is a different color.

I believe these three signs indicate that Evie is possessed by a demon.

Anyway, if you’re wondering why it took me so long to notice that the dog has a mutant toe, the answer is that she’s very fuzzy. There are probably all sorts of strange things hiding in Evie’s fur, but I’m content for her to keep the rest of her eldritch mysteries to herself.