Updates, and Second Blogiversary!

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They say time flies when you’re having fun. Recently, I guess I must have been having too much fun posting since I forgot my own blogiversary! After the dry spell of summer, it was nice to get a sudden surge of ideas. I missed the actual anniversary back in August, so I decided to combine my celebratory post with my regular Updates. Anyway, Illuminating the Fool’s Mirror has been around for two years now, and I’m so happy to still be musing with you!

These last few months, I may have had some fun, but overall 2021 has not been an easy year. So many people have suffered from extreme weather, social conflicts and upheavals, the pandemic, and more in addition to the usual personal trials and tragedies we can never foresee. During the heat dome (or the “2021 Western North America heat wave,” as Wikipedia calls it), I watched several bloggers simply disappear. Some later returned, but others remain silent. I can only hope their absence means they are focusing on new, better paths in life, but it’s hard not to worry. Many of you are still here, though. I know KS Blogs celebrated a first-year blogiversary this year, and Kally over at MiddleMe reached 6 years! It’s so exciting seeing people reaching important milestones! If you’d like to talk about your own blogiversary but didn’t get a chance to post about it this year, tell me and I’ll celebrate with you!

This year has been the first time I’ve had a bit of a theme emerge. Most of my topics have still been relatively freeform, but especially with Quarterly Bestiary, it’s been the year of the wee folk! It started with my post on the tomte, inspired by Tiege McCian’s request for something on the small humanoids that crop up in mythology around the world. Next came trolls, as requested by Mr. Ohh’s Sideways View, and finally the aos sí from Lotus Laura’s request for fairies. In addition, I had a couple posts on the origin of Tolkien’s Middle-earth Elves, and I’m hoping to cover one more elf-ish topic along with a spookier little creature for this month’s Quarterly Bestiary. As always, if you have beasties you’d like to see covered in future Quarterly Bestiary posts, let me know in comments here or on any post!

One of the main reasons I forgot to post about my blogiversary was because I was excited trying out a new type of post: reviews. In the past, I’ve held back from these quicker, more opinion-based posts because I thought they weren’t my niche. Then Tiege encouraged me to give the Dinotopia mini-series a piece of my mind, and I realized it wasn’t so far-fetched after all. I’m still figuring out my format for reviews, so if you have feedback, now is a great time to share. I got lots of positive responses to dividing my double Loki review into spoiler-free and spoiler sections, so I’m planning to continue that. Based on a comment on my first take on that mini-series, I’m also going to include a basic plot summary from now on. Do you have any other elements you’d like to see? Anything from the previous reviews you liked or didn’t like?

And what’s next? Well, probably more reviews, including a few about Monkey King-related media since I wasn’t able to fit in much commentary on that with my recent post on Sūn Wùkōng. I’ll still be doing plenty of regular article-size posts and other regular features, plus a few award or tag posts that I need to catch up on. Once I’m more caught up, I also want to look into a new option from WordPress I’ve heard about, managed hosting. It sounds like it could be useful for continuing to improve my site, but I’ll have to see.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you to all of you reading my posts. I’ve reached 200 followers this year, which is amazing, and I’m grateful to each and every one of you. Life has its ups and downs, but I always look forward to sharing new ideas and information with you, just as I enjoy reading your work and watching your blogs grow. Thank you for being here, for encouraging me on my blogging journey and for making the blogging community a better place!

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