Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire

This review is gonna be a little different than my usual. Basically random notes I made while reading, following this paragraph. Backpacking Through Bedlam is basically Alice’s homecoming book. She and Thomas and Sally get home and immediately have to go help Verity is New York. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t really have much to say other than my notes so… on to those.

I really do love the Aeslin mice. Probably because all the Prices love them, but still. I think they’re a weird critter — with the religion thing — but also very cute. They’re often the ones moving me to tears, all truth be told.

Aaand of course we’ve landed in that universe Sarah and Annie ended up in in Calculated Risks. Should be fun. And amusing that Alice thinks it’s super improbable before finding out that, yes, it was Sarah and Annie who landed the “masonry” there.

Don’t know if it’s my mood lately or just that I’m ridiculously attached tho these characters, but I’ve been tearing up every time something happily touching happens. Something as simple as Sally introducing herself as a Price, for example. Tears. Blegh. Love it and hate it. Sally has grown on me a lot like she’s grown on Alice. I was genuinely almost crying at the end of the book… which I will not spoil.

I’m so happy to have Istas back. I love her so, so much. Having her interact with Alice and Sally is just… chef’s kiss. Love it.

I am very pleased with how the Covenant stuff worked out, at least for now. I'm definitely anticipating blow-back, as this is, in fact, a war. But yeah... hope Sarah's not too messed up about what she had to do. Lord knows she didn't share all her thoughts on the matter with Alice.

The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went

I was not expecting a deeper look at the Aeslin, but I liked it, I think. Also, James is growing on me, given he’s not background here. I feel like Jane needs to get over herself and realize that her feelings are just hers, valid as those feelings are. I feel like she hasn’t really tried to understand Alice and probably never will. Aaand I love the Price family. They’re so accepting of the members they’ve adopted to the point it just brings me to happy tears… again. I'm also happy for a look, albeit a tiny one, of what Artie's like now he's been rebuilt by Sarah. Kind of hoping we get more on that and that it's not, like, super debilitating.

Favorite Lines

"Nothing gets better if you don't open your damn mouth. Okay?" - Mary Dunlavy

"We make monsters whenever we disagree about how a limited resource should be spent. It's so much easier to kill a person whose personhood you've stolen away." - Thomas Price

"People who have sense to recognize me for what I am aren't scared of me," she said. "They're terrified, as well they should be. I am nature's perfect killing machine."

     "Here I thought that was cats," said Ryan, in a tone that indicated a frequest joke, something with the edges of it worn smooth between them.

     Istas looked at him with polite blankness. "It is also cats. More than one thing can be perfect, it's not a competition."

In Other News

 

I have decided, given the length of the InCryptid series, I will not be doing a Series Overview... unless I change my mind sometime between now and... if I ever Do The Thing. Anyway, I'll be moving on to rereading/finishing the Mercy Thompson series by Particia Briggs.

Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld by Seanan McGuire

Yet another Incryptid book that has be in tears at the end. Spelunking Through Hell was a bit of an emotional roller coaster culminating in some very happy tears. I made the mistake of reading the fist few lines of the blurb for Backpacking Through Bedlam when it arrived at my apartment and, well, that made parts of this plot ridiculously easy to telegraph. Kind of akin to rereading, where you know who the mysterious, largely unnamed characters are going to be. Also made Sally not a surprise. This is why I don’t read blurbs after the first book if I can help it.

Spelunking Through Hell is a weirdly technical book, for all that dimension hopping is usually not met with technical descriptions in most of the fantasy I’ve encountered. It doesn’t exactly stray into the hard science-fiction aspects, but it is close. That, and the description we get of flensing… well, let’s just say I’m glad my brain’s been shielding me from the gorier mental images that could conjure up. Aside from the technical bits, I enjoyed getting to visit other worlds with other “cryptids,” the designs of which I’m also in love with. Ithaca is definitely my favorite of these worlds. So sue me, I love my Greek mythology and stuff based on it.

Interesting that the luck thing has to be explained again. I mean, not completely, since Alice (and the rest of the Price-Healy-Harrington-etc clan) have no idea that Frances Brown was the daughter of a Luck cryptid. But yay for the refresher as to luck being able to be stripped. Basically incorporating that into the pneuma stripping thing was a good call, I think. Made all that easier to digest.

The demise of Naga was hardcore. I won’t say more than that, but wow. I really find everything Naga did utterly despicable and the conversations around consent really important. After all, I really don’t think consent given under as much distress as Alice was clearly under in the first place should be taken as consent at all.

We haven’t really gotten a lot of Thomas Price as a character up until now. He did appear in a couple of the short stories available on Seanan McGuire’s website, so I did kind of have an idea of how we was as a person. I am glad to see his time in the dying dimension didn’t strip him of his ideals and such. Alice deserved to not have to go through that kind of heartbreak. Sally, to finally get back to her, was mostly delightful. I like her badass-ness and her protectiveness of Thomas. That last bit makes a lot of sense given how she was apparently the same way with James when they were kids. I’m looking forward to getting to know her more in Backpacking Through Bedlam.

I mentioned in the beginning that Spelunking Through Hell had me crying happy tears. This paragraph will contain spoilers because it was the epilogue that did it. The Aeslin Mice and Kevin having their little reunions was really what did it. I love the Mice and really missed them in the last couple of books. They weren’t super around for Sarah and since Alice didn’t have them this time… anyway, they were missed. Thomas’ reaction to them was basically mine, especially as soon as one of his clergy showed up. I hope the unaffiliated novice basically starts Sally’s clergy, since she’s definitely sticking around. And man, who wouldn’t be in tears watching a father and son reunite? I’m tearing up just writing about it. Just… ah! I was half expecting Spelunking Through Hell to end on a cliffhanger and boy am I glad it didn’t. So satisfying.

And Sweep Up the Wood: Uh, so… that was maudlin. And I guess it’s great to “see” Alice and Thomas’ first foray into their relationship. I uhm… have no other words.

Favorite Lines

"I like my torso. It's where I keep my lungs." - Alice Price-Healy

"We're basically swamps that decided to go for a walk one day and haven't figured out yet that it's ridiculous thing for a swamp to do." - Alice Price-Healy

"Sure, it had failed when Thomas tried to shoot me, but the first rule of gun safety is that no gun is unloaded unless you verify it for yourself. The second rule of gun safety is that it still isn't unloaded, because invisible bullets can happen to the best of us." - Alice Price-Healy

"Raising your daughter to think that her only value is in sitting pretty and pristine on a shelf somewhere doesn't get you a functional person, it gets you a monster in waiting." - Laura Campbell

"That's another way trauma works. For every bruise you can see, there's another spot where it's just all about the internal bleeding." - Alice Price-Healy

Eye Spy by Mercedes Lackey

The first half of Eye Spy is rather anthology-like, threaded together with Abi’s schooling and her run-ins with the Remps. The second half focuses on Abi’s “big adventure” in the wilds of an un-incorporated territory. The second half, I feel, is much better than the first half. There is a slight spoiler in the paragraph right before the “Continuity Error” section, just FYI.

I really like Abi as a character. She’s level headed and smart and apparently Asexual, so yay for representation. I quite like the way everyone’s treating her Gift. I even like the way Healer Sanje is planning to alter and train it. It’s fun to watch someone slowly learn about their Gift rather than just have it and have mastered it and/or master it quickly. Feels more realistic, especially if it’s a weaker Gift at first. Abi’s whole progression in this book is realistic, which is good.

Most of the characters introduced in Eye Spy are ancillary. The most important and recurring character is Princess Kat. I liked her. Abi’s school mates were largely just there to pad out that part of the story, I feel. Stev and Jicks were alright. I doubt we’ll see much more of Jicks, which is a shame because she was a fun, active character. Finally, the Masters that rounded out the Valdemar delegation were alright. Again, mostly there to pad out the story and give expertise where Abi could not.

On a separate note: Mag’s annoying accent is back and I still hate it. Along with the story of The Order of Sethor which I had hoped to never hear from again… only lasted for half a second, story-wise, but I’m still annoyed.

Aaand my favorite thing to gripe about: Magic. Because Abi is across the border out of Valdemar, we get another example of how Valdemar is dumb because of the lack of magic. Everyone outside of Valdemar seems to have magic and Valdemar only has mind-magic because… Vanyel, apparently. Still so very, very dumb. Especially if sections that have magic are thinking to incorporate themselves into Valdemar. All the Mages in those sections are going to go nuts once the vrondi start watching them, which is not a good thing. This story just hammers home how dumb Valdemar’s anti-magic thing actually is.

I find is ridiculous that Dudley Remp thinks he actually has a chance to take over whatever land he wants outside Valdemar. It doesn’t actually make any sense and is only a plot point due to his connection to Abi. That Abi thinks this makes sense… just no. This reveal just up and killed my enjoyment of this book. I really would have been completely fine with Karsites as the antagonists at the end.

The Continuity Error Section

Couple of mistakes I noticed right off: when describing how Amily was chosen by Rolan, Anily was referred to as Kat’s mother. A King Stefan is mentioned here when it should be Sedric.

I’m also very confused about Master Leandro and Tuck. In The Hills Have Spies Perry mentions that Master Leandro was the one who made Mags and Amily’s weapons-laden wedding clothes, making me think he’d been retconned to be Tuck. Now, Abi’s talking about a “mysterious craftsman” in Haven who can’t be anyone but Tuck. So apparently Master Leandro is just Master Jorthun’s Weapons Master. This is annoying and confusing.

Overall, I like Eye Spy. It might not have been as good as The Hills Have Spies but it wasn’t a disappointment, either. I’m looking forward to finishing off this trilogy.

Favorite Lines

"I like clever people. Dull ones irritate me, especially those who expect to be told what to do, and if they are not told, do nothing, even when something that needs doing is right in front of them." - Healer Sanje

"I've dealt with bureaucrats all of my life, my dear," Vance replied. "They're like a nervous horse. If you give them a chance to think, nine times out of ten they freeze, and the tenth time they balk. The only way to handle them is to rush them at and over the problem before they get a chance to get a good look at it." - Master Vance

Reviews Batch 7

A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
Originally Posted on GoodReads: July 10, 2018

A pretty good exploration of grief and, though I'm by no means an expert on the topic, autism. Like, this was the book that gave me at least some understanding of what autism is, even if the character in question is at the severe end of the spectrum and we still don't have any concrete evidence as to what's going on in autistic heads. But that's all I'm gonna say about that for fear of shoving my foot down my throat.

The only really problematic bit comes at the end, so from here on out is spoilers. 

Okay, so I completely understand that Darryl is a Wizard and a special "creature" in addition to being a Wizard. I completely buy the conceit that he can do things like shove his autism off on Kit and leave it behind in a magical construct. However, I personally think that using Wizardry (and Darryl's special snowflake-ness) as a cure for autism is problematic. It's wish fulfillment and I'm pretty much left thinking "That is not how that works and saying that's how that works is problematic." But, as I've said before, I'm by no means an expert or anything so discussing it further is beyond me. *shrug* This is just how I feel about it. [Okay, so I completely understand that Darryl is a Wizard and a special "creature" in addition to being a Wizard. I completely buy the conceit that he can do things like shove his autism off on Kit and leave it behind in a magical construct. However, I personally think that using Wizardry (and Darryl's special snowflake-ness) as a cure for autism is problematic. It's wish fulfillment and I'm pretty much left thinking "That is not how that works and saying that's how that works is problematic." But, as I've said before, I'm by no means an expert or anything so discussing it further is beyond me. *shrug* This is just how I feel about it. (hide spoiler)]

Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews
Originally Posted on GoodReads: July 10, 2021

It’s been a very long time since a book has legit made me cry. Like, actual tears with some hard-ish breathing. Magic Binds is awesome. I loved it. I can’t wait til Tuesday when Magic Triumphs arrives.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Originally Posted on GoodReads: July 18, 2017

Yup... that was definitely a book.

The beginning was alright, the middle meandered a lot, and the end very much reminded me of "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" from J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard. So, I guess I know where she got her inspiration for that one from?

Though I've seen a couple Dorian Gray movies, or I guess I should say, I've seen one and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which has Dorian in it... I wasn't expecting Dorian to be the one who "killed" his portrait. It also seemed to happen rather suddenly... or maybe I was just so tired when I was finishing it that my skimming made it seem to happen more suddenly than it did.

I don't have any deep thoughts about this book. I've been wanting to read it for a long time and now I have so yay, I guess?

The Hills Have Spies by Mercedes Lackey

The Hills Have Spies was definitely a better start to a series than Closer to Home. I feel like I’ll enjoy Family Spies much more than Herald Spy just based on The Hills Have Spies alone. I feel like Perry is a much more interesting protagonist than Mags, though we do get more of him here. I was also pleasantly surprised that the antagonist wasn’t a last minute thing. He actually had menace.

Master Leandro is the dude Tuck was apparently retconned to be, at least as far as the artificing of Mags and Amily’s wedding clothes… and mixed with whatever Weaponsmaster worked with Mags. I find this change very odd, given the books were published in the order I’m reading them. Someone really should have caught this and fixed it.

I find it interesting that Mags had an issue with Larral “choosing” Perry. Kyree might not be Companions, but Dallen’s right: they’re pretty darn close as far as lasting friendship. Considering what ends up happening, I’m a little more understanding, because there’s no way a Companion would have either dragged or allowed his Chosen to drag them into the situation Perry and Larral get themselves into. I also feel liked Perry choosing to go off on his own is a consequence of how he was raised. Mags and Amily essentially raised their kids to be little spies and therefore more apt to be sure of their decisions to run off on their own to do spy things. I’m happy that’s acknowledged, too. Perry and Larral still should consulted with Mags about the whole thing… but they didn’t, so joy.

The inclusion of dyheli is nice. Previously, they’ve been mentioned but not actually appeared in any of the books. I do kind of question why they were created at all, being one of the species Urtho did create. They’re basically telepathic deer… and still pretty much act like deer so… yeah. I feel like even the “trampling our enemies” thing wouldn’t even be all that effective, except against something like the slytha. Overall, the dyheli aren’t incredibly interesting as a sentient species. I like Roya, though, he’s an amusing character. I almost always like the snarky ones and he’s definitely snarky.

I am both surprised and not that Mags is still having flashbacks to his time in the mine. He’s nothing if not predictable that way.

I’m not sure how I feel about this “Master” person. His description kind of left me with an image of a taller version of the “Dobby Doctor” from the end of Season 3 of Doctor Who. He’s also a cannibal, so that’s… gross. And he’s cruel, to boot. He was somewhat menacing, though mostly just because his powers were so strong and he was really paranoid.

Oh, now we’re at liberty to just discuss vrondi. Could barely discuss magic in the last eight books and now we’re making plans involving vrondi. Because apparently Vanyel made it next to impossible to discuss magic inside Valdemar… which I still think is colossally stupid. Most, if not all, of Valdemar’s neighbors use magic and mage potential is still around in Valdemar. I’m still super frustrated by this. Especially since apparently Mags has special Valdemar-Heartstone privileges… like what? Why? That makes zero sense.

So I think the ending was alright. Guardian honestly reminds me of the earth spirits from the Foundation series. The amount of raw magical ability on display was amazing. I feel like Perry’s pretty well set up for the rest of the series and I’m looking forward to it. Just hope we don’t go back to focusing on Haven-centric stuff. That was boring.

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

Calculated Risks is basically one big bottle-episode character study. Definitely not a book to put down and pick up and put down and pick up — which I did for the most part. It is definitely a book and a story that works better in much larger chunks than I was reading it in. I recommend reading it when you have time to actually sit down and read it. All of that said, Calculated Risks was very good.

Poor, poor Sarah having to deal with the closest members of her family without them remembering her. I don’t know if I could have coped, but she manages arguably better than anyone could be asked to. Especially given that they all have to deal with the stress of an alternate universe and basically zombies at the same time. I also believe I said in my Imaginary Numbers review that I wasn’t really affected by the Sarah/Artie romance… Calculated Risks made me feel it in-absentia. Sarah’s heartbreak during the 24-hours or so during which Artie does not remember her is palpable.

Artie during this whole thing is a giant jerk and is called out several times for it. Given how much time he and Sarah apparently spent together throughout their lives, I do not blame him one bit. I’m sure having such patchwork memories to deal with was awful. I do like that he eventually came around and it is very helpful to remember that Calculated Risks takes place over 48-hours so it’s not like there was a lot of time to process.

I like James a bit more now. Getting the little bits of time with him near the end reminded me that he’s a research nerd and maybe doesn’t have much of an outward personality, which isn’t a bad thing. I also think his rapport with Annie is pretty awesome. They really do feel very much like James took to being a Price quite quickly. I’m sure being stuck in a camper with Annie and the gang helped with that, but I really felt his whole thing here… if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

Annie was her loveable self throughout. I am glad we basically got to see how well-rounded she is as a person from both inside and outside perspectives. Sarah was definitely right when she called Annie “the flexible one.” Annie will always be my fave of the Price “kids.”

Finally, Mark. Hmm, he’s alright for a fully adult cuckoo. I quite like somewhat acerbic heart-of-gold type characters. Like, we know he’s inherently selfish, but not entirely so that works. I also definitely think he did a bit of a whammy on Annie, James, and Artie to make them more comfy around him, even if it was unintentional and not really addressed. I feel like Mark would be a good ancillary character to have around after this.

The story itself was mostly a bottle-episode focused on Sarah. I didn’t really feel much dread until the giant spiders started appearing, which was over halfway through the book. Aaand I don’t like giant spiders, not even Greg. I tried very hard not to think about Greg or the mantids and focus myself on Sarah and the other humanoids. Speaking of, we finally learn why the Prices are luckier than normal humans! That was fun, even if I can’t remember the name of the species their luck comes from. We do learn a but more about cuckoo brain-ology though. Seeing them pretty much from tiny to fully instar-ed out helped with that.

I’m glad Sarah basically found a way to de-cuckoo the cuckoos… or at least the kiddos who “made it” to the Iowa thingy. Hopefully they make a point of going about de-cuckoo-ing any others they can. I’m interested to see how the species is going forward.

So yeah, Calculated Risks is very emotionally heavy and should be read (in my opinion) in as few sittings as possible for full enjoyment. Really let those emotions sink in a burrow, man.

Favorite Lines

"And then it was said and Stated, as it always shall be, Never Split the Party!" - Aeslin Mouse

"Dumbledore was a dick," - Sarah Zellaby

"Sarah is my cousin, because  say so, and I'm the terrifying one." - Antimony Price

"Is that the correct plural?" I asked. "I thought it was 'mantids.'"

     "I don't think the correct plural is appropriate for me to use around children" - Sarah Zellaby and James Smith

 

Singing the Comic-Con Blues by Seanan McGuire 

Novella Included in Calculated Risks

I’m not overly fond of nine-years-ago Annie. She might be a quippy smart-alec but she’s also just straight-up mean. Seriously, the amount of Verity hate in the entire thing is egregious. Needs character development.

This novella was kinda cute, but not really satisfying. I mean, I would have liked to get an actual resolution to the siren, rather than just the “let’s talk in a few hours.” Sarah was adorable. Artie was there, being nervous, but largely just there. Much shrugging. 

Favorite Lines

"I am what happens when nerds are allowed to marry and thus produce even more nerds, like nerdiness squared, like what happens when Seymour from Little Shop is allowed to hook up with Jordan from Real Genius. And if you got both those references, odds are good that you're a nerd, too, which would explain why you're following this road trip of the damned." - Antimony Price

"Why? Are we expecting a visit from the normal people for some reason? I thought I was done with them when Artie graduated and they stopped trying to strong-arm me onto the PTA." - Jane Harrington

How I Do Ovipets Projects

I just finished my first MarineAngemon project! It took me approximately 9 months, due to how I do my projects, which is honestly quite haphazard.

I figured I'd take this opportunity to explain my project process. This probably not going to make a whole lot of sense to anyone who doesn't play OviPets, but... oh well.

I want to start out by saying that I work full time and have very little mental space for a lot of craziness in games. Remembering combos is not in my wheelhouse. This is why I've settled on pretty much exclusively playing Pokemon and OviPets. Both allow me to drop and pick them up at any point with minimal memorization and allow me to play more-or-less in a vacuum. Keeping my sanity via their repetitive natures is fantastic. I love the low-maintenance nature of OviPets, so I developed a low-maintenance breeding style that will eventually get me the pets I want, even if it means my thousands of ideas sit on the back-burner and I don't make lots of credits selling them.

Visualizer

I first start with using the Visualizer in the Lab section to visualize my project. I have a ridiculously long project idea list that I've both written and spreadsheet-ed, so I use this to also tweak my original design. I either add mutations or tweak colors based on what I'm going for.

Starting work on Tyrannomon

Generation

I take my newly visualized design and plug the colors into the Generator. At this point, I'll usually generate at least 8 pets or each gender for a total of 16 pets. Usually 2 of each color lock. This may vary depending on the colors I'm trying to get. I find mixing the color locks gets me a better mix of colors to, well, mix and end up with what I want. 

I then name my pets and plop them into their tab. Unlike a lot of project breeders, I don't have a naming convention or anything. I usually just go through baby name lists I find online and name my pets that way. I don't think I'd ever remember the naming convention stuff anyway, so I just stick with what I've ended up putting in my tags.

Color Correction

I start of breeding my pets four in the morning and four in the evening, just for my own sanity. I usually don't have a lot of rhyme or reason to the way I end up doing it, just trying to get the colors of the offspring as close to what I originally wanted as possible. This process usually takes about a month, breeding twice a day, every day. Again, I try to get as close as possible to the colors I originally wanted, but I'm not SUPER picky about this because the colors tend to even themselves out over the course of the entire project. I'm not trying to make pures here, anyway. I managed to to that only once and I have, like, three pets total from that accidental pure line...

You can see the color variation I've got to work with here.

Traiting

After about a month of color correcting, I go on to trait my pets. I do 8 pets per trait and I don't worry about the genders. If, for some reason, I'm still working on a particular project in a year, I'll re-trait. But otherwise, I spend the credits to trait one set and then pretty much hoard credits between projects.

Breeding

So, this is where things really start to get haphazard. I breed almost completely at random. Say I have a project with 4 traits (Body, Ears, Head, Tail). I'll breed my four pets in the morning with a compatible pet from each trait section. So one will get a Body, one Ears, one Head, one Tail. At night, I go backward: start with Tail, then Head, then Ears, then Body. I do tend to skip a particular section if the pet I'm breeding already has the desired trait (showing or otherwise). The goal is to eventually have pets that at least carry every trait I want so their offspring have a greater chance of showing that trait in the future.

I also usually breed the first 4 pets that come up hungry at time of breeding. Since I'm feeding them, I might as well breed them. If there are no pets that come up hungry, I count down a certain number or rows depending on what day it is and feed/breed those 4 pets. This end up mixing colors and traits in a satisfactory manner, even if it does end up taking a really long time.

How the offspring comes out will be at the mercy of the algorithm. The rest of my breeding is pretty much at the mercy of the algorithm. If I get a traited pet, great. If I don't, also great. What I end up with is usually a pretty diverse breeding pool.

Organization

I mentioned in the Breeding section that I'll breed each pet with one from a trait section. That's how I order the pets in their tab. I use tags to tell me whether a pet is the color I want and then after that, how many traits a pet has. I will then organize my pets via their tags and later, when they're given or are born with traits, by their traits.

I use tags to keep track of which pet has which traits

 Whenever I feel like I have either too many pets or a good amount of pets of a certain tag-type, I will cull my tabs. First the not-correct-colors, followed by the non-traited pets, followed by the green tagged-non-trait pets, and so on and so forth until I eventually end up with the pets that have the most traits I want at the end to breed into the finished products. In addition to the tab culling, I do cull as I hatch the pets. So if I'm at the point where I only want pets with three traits and up visible, any pets who come out un-traited or with only one or two traits gets put up for adoption rather than sent to the tab for breeding. This is how I keep my pets at a good number for me to keep up with.

Finished Projects

So, now that I've finished my projects, what do I do with them? I send them to the tab that represents their project, of course. Digimon to the Digimon tab, Randos to the Misc Project tab, etc. I only keep 5 males and 5 females of each finished project. Again, I want to keep my pet numbers down.

My current tab configuration

I keep the finished projects separate from their breeding tabs so I will remember not to breed them and hopefully end up with actual breeding pairs I can use. This doesn't always happen, but 9 times out of ten, I end up with at least 2 breeding pairs... which I'm also not really picky about. So long as I have my pretty pets to look at, I'm happy.

Ending Comments

So yeah, that's it. That's how I do my OviPets projects.

I think I started doing it this way as a sort of compromise between what tutorials out there have you doing and what my brain could actually handle. Lord knows I would forget what my naming conventions were supposed to be... I can barely remember what was on a particular tag I just looked at.

Not to mention, this way is a lot cheaper than the way a lot of project breeders do it. There's less traiting, for one. That alone would cost hundreds, if not thousands of credits... I imagine, anyway. My way, I spend a set amount on generation and traiting and hoard the rest for later. I also have drastically fewer tabs to keep track of.